Beauty and the Beast-Newsies!

Chapter 2

With a conspiratorial nod to Jack, Connie ran off to hide, leaving Katherine with the handsome stranger.

"Why are we hiding?" Katherine said, trying to swing her legs out from under the bed, only to find that she couldn't move them without agonising pain.

"'Ere, let me get you." Jack removed the blanket from over her and lifted her effortlessly into his strong arms. "Da master's comin' dis way. If he finds you n' your sista, he'll probably kill ya before you've even set eyes on 'im."

"I can walk by myself!" Katherine wriggled in his grasp, ignoring the sharp pains that spiked up her thighs.

"Nah, ya can't. Ya took da brunt of the wolves when dey attacked you n' ya sister-fair play-but it comes wid a price. Ya won't be able t' walk for a while. Dose' scratches are pretty deep, Davey reckons he saw through to da bone." He took her into the next room and practically posted her through a tunnel. A few boys on the other side of the tunnel lifted her and sat her carefully on another bed.

"Hate to break it to ya, but you're not gonna be runnin' back home any time soon." Jack clambered out of the tunnel in the wall, cursing about it being too small.

When his words finally sunk in, Katherine felt a pang in her chest. "Home... I've got to get home... I've got to get home!" She stood, despite the painful protesting of her body. Jack just swept her off her feet and into his arms again.

"Hey, I don't know what your problem is, but you ain't goin' nowhere."

"I've got to-" She wriggled. "-home!" The tears were pricking at her eyes.

"Hey! Hey..." Jack hushed his voice. "I don't know why you'se is upset, but I'se gotta go. Da master's on inspection. I'll be back in a minute, but I'se gotta leave you n' ya sista' 'ere. You'll be okay. S'okay."

Without thinking, Jack kissed her hair and then dashed off back the way he came, leaving Connie and Katherine in the boys secret hideout.

"You're thinking about home?" Connie whispered, once the boys were out of sight and earshot. Katherine just nodded. "I've been thinking about them for ages. They're stuck in my head."

It finally struck Katherine that Connie had lived 3 days without her, dealing with all these things that Katherine was only feeling now. "Have you told anyone?" Katherine's voice was even quieter than her sister's.

From the corner of her eye, she noticed Connie's hair flapping as she shook her head. "I don't know what to say to them. I think they're dead, Kathy. I don't think they made it out." Never in the seven years that Connie had been alive, had Katherine seen her look so scared. Even with the wolves, Connie had seemed to be holding herself together, just as Katherine had tried to. Connie looked scared and that somehow made her seem older. Her usually warm, rounded cheeks were pale and sullen. Katherine saw the connection. Lucille.

Lucille had been Katherine's older sister until Katherine was seven, then the eldest Pulitzer child, a spitting image of their mother, had caught polio as it circled around the town again. Lucille was the reason Katherine and Joseph had drifted so far apart. Lucille was the reason their mother had fallen into insanity. But Connie was what killed their mother.

Constance Pulitzer née Plumber had her first child at age 18, Lucille, named after her aunt. For 6 years after Lucille's birth, Constance questioned whether she'd ever be able to bare a child again. And then young Jospeh came along and Constance was smiling once more. Katherine and the twins, Georgia and Rebecca, were born in the two years that followed, then Michael was born. Constance fell into another spell of depression after she tried and tried for another baby, but what finally broke her was when her eldest daughter didn't live long enough to see her 15th birthday. At age 36, Constance Pulitzer passed away in childbirth, and her husband deemed it fitting to name the blue eyed baby girl after her.

Connie looked exactly as her mother had for most of the time Katherine had known her scared, uncertain and worrisome. Katherine needed to pull herself together, for Connie.

"I can't tell you that they're alive. I can't tell you that everyone made it out, Conn, and I want too. I want them safe just as much as you do. But right now, I can't leave here, I can't keep you safe. If these boys are offering us a safe place to stay, then we need to trust them and stay here. I know it's hard. But I've got you." Katherine patted the space beside her, gesturing for Connie to come and sit beside her.

They held each other close, both of them worried and scared and lost. Jack came dashing back through.

"Sorry t' interrupt this..." he thought of what to call it. "Sisterly bonding, but da boys want to formerly meet da girl de'se been lookin' after fo' 3 days."

"The... Master's gone?" Connie questioned.

Jack nodded sincerely. "He's gone huntin'. You'se safe."