8 Days, 8 Letters; Spot Conlon

The Fall of the Kings

Songs: The Night We Met by Lord Huron

A/N: Hey everyone! I hope you've had a fantastic week! Here's the next chapter of 8 Days, 8 Letters. I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Flashback: March 1895

Jaime's POV

I woke up at sunrise and got ready for the day. I had gotten used to this after doing it for a few years already. It was nice to have the bathroom to myself and mostly not have to worry about anyone walking in.

I put on some hand me downs I got from Mac after I grew out of some of my old clothes. I wore a faded light blue top with some black and white plaid slacks. I braided my hair and put on my newsie cap.

Ace and Mac bought both me and Spot one a couple weeks after we became newsies to as Ace put it "officially welcome us as Brookies". I laughed at the memory. I liked it when someone used my word to refer to us. I found it reassuring that they liked me.

I walked down the creaky stairs. Dust flew danced in the air. We really need to clean this place. The guy in charge of the lodge house didn't take good care of the place, so it was up to us to make sure it didn't fall apart. At least he didn't remember to make us pay rent half the time.

I stepped out onto the dock while the boys got ready. I was shocked to see Ace on the dock. Usually it was just me and sometimes Spot.

"Hey Ace," I said.

He turned away from the sunrise to face me.

"Hiya Books," he smiled.

We sat there and talked about the books we had exchanged. I had lent him Pride and Prejudice and he had lent me The String of Pearls. Medda had bought them for us knowing we both liked reading. Ace didn't often have the time to read, but since we had met we had constantly read and talked together for hours. Often getting books just to exchange them later as we had been doing now. Most of the time we would exchange books that were completely different.

This time was no different, I had lent him a dramatic romance book about a head strong girl who didn't want to get married and ends up falling in love anyways; he had lent me a horror story about a barber named Sweeney Todd who would kill his clients to avenge his wife and child after being wrongfully thrown in jail, while giving the corpses to a women so she could make meat pies for her restaurant. It was dark, yet very good.

We were so invested in our conversation that we didn't even notice the loud Brookies joining us on the docks.

"Hey bookworms," Mac called. "We gotta get our papes."

"Yeah, yeah," Ace laughed, putting his arm around my shoulder. "We're coming, we're coming."

I laughed and soon we began walking. Ace and I continued our conversation while he helped Mac keep the guys in check, especially Spot. When you're "King of the Brookies", you learn to multitask.

It was no different than any other day. We got our papes, sold them, and bummed around Brooklyn.

Mac, Spot, Ace, and I had split from the Brookies who had also split up from the main group. As we were walking, we heard a commotion. We headed towards the chaos and saw a bunch of the Queens guys beating on a few of our younger newsies.

We rushed towards them, attempting to pull them apart. One of the Queens' kids hit me on the side of my head. I flew into the wall of the alleyway before cluttering to the ground. That's gonna leave a mark.

I groaned in pain once I hit the ground. I tried getting up but I couldn't. I was in and out of consciousness. I could barely hear anything due to the deafening ringing in my ears.