Jack was panicking, to put things mildly. The previous night, everything seemed to be going well. He gave a speech that everyone seemed to like, he got personal approval from Spot Conlon, Katherine had told him the idea about the Children's Crusade, Katherine had kissed him. So yeah, he thought everything was going pretty well.

But then he walked into Newsies Square the next morning to tell the boys what Katherine had told him and come up with a plan, only to discover that both Davey and Les were absent. He visually searched the crowd once, then once more, and he didn't see them. And they weren't usually to hard to pick out in a crowd of newsboys.

"Hey, Race." He out called to one of the first boys he saw. "You seen Davey anywhere, or Les?"

Race scanned the crowd, then shook his head. "Maybe they's late?"

"Nah they wouldn't be today, not if they could help it..."

Jack stood there for a moment, lost in thought. He didn't trust himself to come up with a good plan without Davey, not even if he had Katherine to help him. The strike was Davey's idea, after all. He was about to tell Race that he was going to go looking for the Jacobs' brothers, but stopped short when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Katherine coming towards him with a strange look on her face.

"Hey, Kath, what's going on?"

She glanced at Race, and Jack could tell that whatever she had to say was private. He turned towards the other boy. "Can you give us a minute?"

Race looked like he wanted to protest, but he took another look at Katherine's face and nodded, disappearing into the crowd of newsboys. Jack looked back at Katherine with raised eyebrows.

Katherine sighed. "You can say what you want to about my father, but he always means what he says."

Jack didn't like sound of that, considering the conversation he'd had with her father the day prior. "What'd he do?"

"Davey and Les are in the Refuge, he told me himself."

"What?"

"You didn't take his deal, which was the right thing to do, but he made good on his word. My guess is, the longer the strike goes on, he's going to let Snyder come up with reasons to get more boys locked up."

Jack let out a noise of frustration, but quickly quieted himself, not wanting to cause any of the boys to panic. "That bastard... no offense." He was having trouble remembering that he was talking to that bastard's daughter.

Katherine let out a dry laugh. "Trust me, I agree with you on that." 

He ran a hand through his hair. "Listen, I think I'm gonna head over to the Refuge, make sure that's where they are, figure things out. Can you -" 

"I'm going with you."

Jack almost laughed at that. "No you ain't. It's too dangerous, you could get caught."

"So could you." Katherine pointed out. "And based on what I've heard, I'm certain they'd be much more interested in arresting you than they would me." 

He couldn't come up with an argument for that. "Fair point." 

"Of course it is."

"Right." He sighed. "I'll tell Race what's going on and ask him to tell the boys, there's no way they won't figure out something's up. Then we can get going."