Falling Short (A Sprace Fanfiction)

My Grand Plan---Katherine/Race

"Ok, so do you think that's be okay? Do you want me to write more?" I'm staring at Jack, who's reading the missing persons article for Race that should be in the paper they would sell tomorrow.

"This is great, Kath!" He passes it to Davey and he pulls me in.

But something seems off.

He's ice cold and shaking.

It's the summertime and its boiling in the Lodging House  so why on earth is he shivering and trembling so badly?

I decide to take initiative. "Spot, could you help them decide who's staying here to watch over things? The rest are coming with us to search for Race. We won't rest until we find him."

I pull Jack aside. "We should talk." I say.

He immediately goes into boyfriend mode. "Ace, are you okay?" He's still shaking a little. "You know that you can-"

"I'm fine but I know for a fact you aren't. You're doing that wrist thing again."

Jack tends to scratch his wrist nowadays when he's nervous. He looks down and dropped his hands. He is silent, slightly tilting his head back and forth.

"Jack, please tell me what's going on?"

He sighs. "I'm real scared, Kath." He starts blinking back tears threatening to spill out. I lead him outside. He sinks down, back against the wall and rests his face in his hands. I sit next to him, resting my arm around his shoulders.

"It's okay Jack. Let it out."

He didn't hesitate.

Jack is very emotional person. He is able to feel empathy for almost anyone, especially for someone like one of his newsies or me. I know how close the boys were with Race. I'm close with Racetrack. I miss his laugh and smile and witty comments. Jack, God, and my father are always number one in my eyes but I was close enough to Race that I could talk very openly with him. I can talk to almost anyone unless they are a complete idiot.

I know and work with a lot of complete idiots.

And before you get to asking, Darcy, just because you know things doesn't mean you use your head.

But Race is a smart and caring and an amazing human being. He reminds me of a broken pale porcelain doll, delicate, fragile, and almost at his breaking point. He did not deserve to have been treated the way he did. Nobody on the earth does.

I focus my thoughts back to Jack. "Do you feel a bit better now?" I ask.

He nods. "Yeah." I smile.

He gets up and I hold both his hands. He's got this weird look on his face, like something's on his mind. "Are you sure?"

What he whispered caught me off guard.

"What if he's dead, Kath?" I look up at Jack. I slowly process what he said, and a sinking feeling formed in my stomach as I realized he might be right. No newsie we'd asked had seen him in the last 48 hours.

My grows a little softer. "I really hope he isn't."

Race's POV:

Number one: I really want a corona

Number two: I never thought I would see Scar again after he was kicked out.

But here I am, kneeling before him, scared out of my mind. He laughs.

He knows I'm afraid.

And he likes it.

Scar circles me. "You're here for a very special reason. I've been planning this for a long time. And you are the key."

"Please let me go." I'm resorting to begging now because there isn't anything else I can do to save me from what may be coming.

"I'm afraid I can't do that just yet. You see, I need you to get Brooklyn."

I do a double-take. "Brooklyn?"

"Yes. You see, I was planning on taking Manhattan over instead after the only family I ever had kicked me out."

"You beat me and the others up everyday!"

He wheeled around, hands linked around my throat, his grip growing tighter and tighter by the second.

"What did I say about letting me finish?"

I can't breathe. I wanna kick him in the spot and hightail it out but I'm too scared to move.

He just held me there. I tried prying his hands off my throat but I can't.

I started seeing black spots when he finally dropped me on the ground, gasping for air.

"As I was saying, I was going to storm the Lodging House of Manhattan, but I decided on something bigger. Brooklyn. Now, I have nothing against the Conlon boy but Brooklyn? Brooklyn, in a way, controls all you newsies."

He had a point. During the strike, the other newsies let Brooklyn make the decision and would then just follow in their footsteps. Brooklyn was the motherlode. If Brooklyn didn't come to the rally where Jack became "fluent in bullshit," (or at least that's how Esther saw it,) we may have droooed the strike altogether. No Brooklyn? No Rally. No other newsies would be standing with us. Jack sure didn't want us to get slaughtered like last time or Esther to end up in The Refuge for a third time. She was lucky she made it out the second time. If Oscar wouldn't gave been there that night, she would have been in there a lot longer. Brooklyn is more important when it comes to our decision making than any of us want to admit.

I snap back into reality and stare into the cold sea green eyes of my captor.

"If you want Brooklyn, why did you take me?"

"You, my friend, are bait. Once he notices you are missing, he's sure to come to looking for you, right? Once we find him, we'll bring him here to do business. It's the life of a worthless gay, that's you, or improving the lives of the newsies all over New York and changing Brooklyn as you know it for the better. The choice is obvious!"

In that moment, I did something I haven't done in a very long time.

I prayed.

So.

Sorry I haven't updated this sooner! School is crazy, cheer is crazy, and I had got my phone taken away again. But I'm back for good!

Hope you liked this chapter!

FYI: I have decided to post a new art book this weekend or next week! And this one will take requests! I already have first one and I'm currently working on it.

But yeah! Expect an update soon!!