a purposeful past | s.s

Chapter Eighteen

Domino was having a pretty bad day, all things considered.

There may or may not have been something deeper beneath her damp mood, but since she'd woken up, she'd discovered a crick in her neck, probably reopened the stab wound after having tripped, ran into a tree—don't ask—and missed her lunch.

All in all, she felt miserable.

At present, she was walking by herself on some road, hoping to find a sign of some sort that told her the day would turn out to be alright. So far she hadn't had any luck.

As time went on, she found herself near Newsies Square, a bit further than she'd expected to wander. She continued her trek, not knowing exactly what her destination would be. She spotted the weasel and Lane's brothers—she supposed they were working there again, as Specs had explained that, sadly, the pair had previously been part of the job, but anyway—and swiftly changed directions.

From her very brief encounters with the brothers, she'd quickly gathered that they were practically never a pleasure to interact with. Fortunately for her, Specs has always offered to buy her papes before they went selling together so she wouldn't have to.

Her gaze landed upon a lone tree in the area. She headed over, finding that every tree she came in contact with reminded her of Specs and the way they'd been reunited. She was about to shake the thought from her head and turn away, when she spotted on the ground a lone shoe, laces untied and everything.

She chuckled and reached down for the shoe, examining it, when suddenly she froze.

The shoelace.

She knew those laces.

An image sparked in her mind. A pair of shoes, one with the typical white lace, and the other; a thin, longer, wire-like one. The shoes she'd worn as a child.

But this was not her shoe.

She was brought back to when she'd gotten stabbed, to whenever she and Specs were talking about how she was too quick to put herself into danger. How sometimes you lost more than you gained.

"What'd ya lose?"

"Me shoe."

He had said that, to him, the one shoe carried luck. And if one of those laces belonged to Domino, who else's shoe could it be?

She decided there was only one way to find out.

Upon arriving at the lodging house, she dug through anything of hers she could find, or even anything she'd been near, but to no avail.

"C'mon," she growled, shuffling through the bag she'd brought back from Flushing. "Where is it?"

"Lose something?"

She turned back to see a girl, her head tilted curiously. "Kinda, yeah. Who are you again?"

"Katherine." The girl stuck her hand out—never had Domino been so glad that someone wasn't a spit-shaking newsie—and shook hers. "We haven't officially met. I'm Pulitzer's daughter."

"Oh." Domino let that sink in for a moment. "Jack's goil?"

"That I am." Katherine stared at her a while longer. "You're Domino, aren't you?"

Domino snorted, looking down at her typical black and white coloured outfit. "Yeah, what gave it away?"

The girl smiled. "I'm surprised you're still here. Not that it's a bad thing, but isn't your home in Flushing?"

"Yeah, well." Domino placed a hand on her bag. "Dere's a lot 'a stuff dat needs ta be dealt wit before I really go back. I didn't expect ta stay as long as I have, so dat's why I jus grabbed dis bag when I went ta go bring back Laces-" she stopped suddenly. "Laces!"