A/N: I'm really not too sure about this… I don't know whether I like it or not, but it's something I wrote on a whim. Let me know whether it's worth continuing or not, because I haven't got a clue.
Fic starts here:
Sarah Cunningham.
Sarah Cunningham.
My name is Sarah Cunningham.
My name is Sarah Cunningham.
The early hours of dawn saw the train leaving the stations of London. Perhaps its hour of departure was conducive to the lack of passengers aboard, but at any rate, the woman who uttered these words was hardly of the class expected to be seen aboard a train at any hour of the day, given its recent invention and consequently its novelty and expense. She sat by herself in an carriage, jumping at the slightest noise, peering anxiously out of the window as though in fear of being followed and whispering to herself. Her eyes were red from recent tears and lack of sleep and she was pale, withdrawn and tense. She played with the bonnet that rested on her lap and spoke to herself once more.
Sarah Cunningham.
The old man bit his trembling lip and stared at the young man once more. "You're lying," he whispered, seemly more to convince himself than his companion. "Say it's not true. It's a lie."
Morris Bolter shook his head. "It ain't a lie, Fagin."
Fagin paced the room with shaking feet, causing tremendous shadows from the candle to be projected upon the wall like some demonic beings that highlighted and made more terrible the half crazed nature of his physical presence. He shook his head.
"It's the truth! They offered her somewhere to hide and she accepted it. Took her damn time about it, though… Fagin?"
Cursing to himself, the old man put his hands to his head. He seized a key that hung on a nail upon am adjacent wall and used it to open a door in the corner. He exited, without so much as bothering to briefly terminate his livid mutterings in order to respond Bolter's statements.
The sudden knocking of a door downstairs distracted Bolter from his uncertainties. He rose from his position by the fireplace to open the door. A burly man with a sack stood behind it, who surveyed the room before speaking.
"Fagin here?"
"He's out of humour. Unsafe to speak to him right now, I'd reckon."
"Right. Well…" The man sighed and dumped the sack unceremoniously on the floor. "Be sure that he gets this. And if he doesn't, it's your neck. Understand?" His statements validated by the boy, Sikes left.
"Nance? You asleep?" Silence greeted Sikes as he entered his room. "Nance?" He approached his bed and drew back the curtain. The bed lay empty. Sikes turned to the door and realized her bonnet and shawl were missing, too. Swearing to himself, he left and began to retrace his path.
"Where is she?"
"Nancy?"
"No, Elizabeth bloody Fry! Of course I mean Nancy! Where the hell is she, Fagin?"
Fagin, having been coaxed out of his locked room through various threats and curses from Sikes, stared at the man with trembling lip and a dangerous glint in his eye. "Lost."
"What do you mean?"
"Just – just that. Bolter watched her. She left here… and gave up Monks to Brownlow and a lady. And… and she told them of Bill. The man she had spoken of before. She's betrayed us all and now she's run for it."
The silence that followed was unbearable. "That's not true!"
"It's true enough! She's gone, I promise you that!"
"Where? WHERE?"
"Bolter – he followed the carriage she was in as far as King's Cross."
"I'll – I've got to get out of here. If they know… I swear, I'll… she'll…. I'm going to get her back." He looked up at Fagin and he could see that Sikes meant that in both senses of the phrase. "Nobody will string me up. It's every man for himself…" And with that parting comment, he ran out of the building with an air that only the desperate possess.