of the rest with a pick of the pocket and a nimble getaway.
Sometimes they’d be caught, and Cutter would take the beating meant for them both. Those were often their most profitable weeks, as he could use the pitiable bruises and abrasions to solicit more charity.
This kept them fed until they’d passed their first decade and were no longer young and wretched enough to pity. People began to solicit them rather than offer them kindness, and eventually Cutter learned to answer the beatings he received with violence of his own.
Because he lacked the brawn of other boys, he relied on reflexes more advanced than most, and he’d mastered a slingshot as well as his sleight of hand, earning him the moniker, “Deadeye.”
It was that name the streetwalkers of Whitechapel squawked as he tumbled into the common room with Dorian, loping toward the front entrance.
“Bugger me at both ends, you ladies ever seen an angel and a devil so ‘andsome?” A girl they ironically called “Dark Sally,” jabbed at one of her friends, who gathered at the long-planked table nursing sharp beer and waiting for darkness so they might ply their trade.
Cutter knew instantly he was the angel, as Dorian’s wealth of shiny, black hair and sharp, satirical features made the comparison bloody obvious.
“I don’t see no ladies here.” The older plump prostitute named Bess gave an overloud bark of laughter before peering over at the boys. “I’ve swived plenty of devils in my day, but I’d bonk an angel with pretty eyes like that for free.” She reached out an almost masculine hand to Cutter. “Come over here, darling, and let’s see what you’re packing.”
Cutter didn’t raise his eyes from the floorboards as his cheeks burned. “Any you seen Caro?”
“Look! Someone who still blushes in this shitehole,” crowed yet another woman. “I’ll bet you a pence he’s a virgin.”
“Caroline, you seen her or not?” he asked again.
Bosoms bounced as shrugs passed around the table, though it was Dark Sally who spoke. “She took up with an old watchmaker last I heard.” She turned to Bess. “Remember the one, had an orange to share and it weren’t even Christmas.”
“I’d do right sick things for an orange,” muttered a girl he didn’t recognize. “Little bitch swiped him up before anyone got the chance at him.”
“Careful, you,” Bess threw a soiled handkerchief across the table. “That little bitch is his sister.”
“I like virgins,” sighed a thin, waspish woman around her sip of beer. “They ‘aven’t learnt to be cruel yet, and it’s over quick enough. Right grateful they are.” She sized Cutter up with a look that made him squirm.
“At that age, they’ll pay you for another go in five minutes!” said Bess.
“And, what they lack in skill they make up for in eagerness,” added another.
Dark Sally’s eyes turned from kind to malevolent as she speared the boys with a hatred they weren’t yet old enough to understand or to have earned. “Don’t no man ‘round here bother with skill,” she sneered. “They’ll grow to be no different.”
A roar of laughter followed the lads out into the yard as they escaped the loud and bawdy women only to be swallowed by the crowded din of the streets.
A bitter autumn wind reached icy fingers through their threadbare clothes, and Cutter snapped the collar of his jacket higher, though it did little good. He rubbed at the back of his neck, and again at the empty ache in his chest.
Something was fucking wrong. Off. Missing.
“Fleas at you again?” Dorian ribbed.
“No, I just…” Cutter could think of nothing to describe what he was experiencing. “I’m cold is all.”
“Where’s the coat you got from the Ladies’ Aid Society this spring?” Dorian asked, shoving his hands into his pockets. “That jacket you’ve on wouldn’t warm a fleeced sheep.”
“The sleeves barely came past me elbows anymore,” he answered, giving his newly elongated limbs a wry stretch. “Besides, Caroline’s was swiped from a doss house while back, so I gave it her.”
Dorian nodded.
A tepid humiliation lodged next to the demon dogging Cutter, and he glanced over at Dorian to suss his friend’s thoughts. “Caro’s not like them whores in there,” he rushed to explain. “She’s just…well she won’t let me spend me rifleman money on a room while it’s still above freezing, so she does what she’s got to.”
“I know.” Dorian gave a sober nod, his shoulders hunching forward a little more. “She wants out as bad as we do.”
“Maybe worse.”
“We’ve almost enough, Cutter.” A thread of steel hardened his