He stared at her with wide eyes, the hammer still clutched between his fingers. Behind her, Leah could hear the heavy breathing of her father and voices from the nearby officers. If they were caught, Ezra would be the one arrested for the crimes and not Leah. He might have tried to turn her in, but she doubted the officers would think a young girl had anything to do with the murders.

Ezra had been right in his way of thinking because it was shared throughout the city. Women weren't capable of murder. They were all wrong, but it might help her alibi. She just needed to delay them moving for a little while longer.

"Leah?" her father said, his voice barely above a whisper. She could hear the shock in his voice, the tinge of hurt in his tone. "What are you doing out here?"

She turned to face him, almost laughing at the trembling mess of a man she had once looked up to. "I thought it was obvious."

"No." He shook his head. "No, no, no. This wasn't you, this couldn't have been."

"Why ever not? Because I'm female? Because I'm not smart enough to get away with something like this?"

"You wouldn't do this! I know you, Leah. I know what you're capable of."

"You don't know anything about me! These days, you are hardly around often enough to notice me slipping from the house in the dead of night. It took you days to notice the injury to my hand. If you knew me, you would never have treated your workers like that. Worked them to the bone to match your quota, paid them pennies for the hard work they did whilst you pocketed the profit!"

She lunged for him; her nails raking down the side of his face. A pair of arms grabbed her around the waist and pulled her backwards. Ezra clung to her as she thrashed around to try to escape his grasp, but he just squeezed her tighter. Mr Manston said something, but Leah couldn't hear a word of it against the blood rushing through her ears.

Ezra lifted her off the ground and carried her across the uneven flooring and towards the factory gates. His grip never wavered as he carried her into the factory, following Mr Manston up the stairs to his office, which was plunged into darkness. Leah continued to struggle her way from Ezra's grip as her father lit a candle with shaking hands.

After a few seconds, Ezra released her. She turned and glared at him; her cap having fallen from her head and her hair spilling over her shoulder. Leah knew she must have looked crazy, but she didn't care. They had ruined her plan.

They had no right.

"All those men, that was you?" Ezra said.

"Of course not." Leah rolled her eyes. "I'm just a woman, remember? I'm hardly capable of committing such a crime. You said so yourself."

Mr Manston pressed his fingertips against his forehead, amazed at the sight of his daughter's actions. Blood trickled down the scratch marks on his cheek and Leah felt a smug satisfaction wash over her. At least she had hurt him. "You were going to kill me. Your own father."

"You stopped being my father the moment you began to mistreat your workers. Innocent workers just trying to make money to live off of and you use them to line your own pockets. You do not deserve the job you have." Leah spat on the ground at his feet.

"And all those other men? Some of them had children!"

She laughed. "They didn't care about their children! Matthew Cusak had children and spent his evenings in the brothel! Robert Lucas employed his own children as chimney sweeps and left them alone whilst he went to the public house every evening. They were scum and didn't deserve the air they breathed."

"What about me?" Mr Manston asked, his voice cracking. "Do you see me the same way?"

Leah looked at her father. There were tears in his eyes, grief stretched across his face as though he were mourning the girl he thought she was. She had stopped being that girl months before. His pathetic whining wasn't going to change how she felt towards him. He could have avoided it all by treating his employees right or letting her live in ignorance by not taking her to the factory that day.

This had all been his own doing, and he deserved to pay for that. Although she had spent months believing him to be one of the good men, it had taken just a few minutes for that illusion to come crashing down around her. Mr Manston was no better than the other men. He too was not worth the air he breathed and needed to be removed from the city before he could do any more.

Behind her, Ezra cleared his throat. Leah turned to look at him, surprised to see the tears running down his cheeks. She bit back a smile, pleased to have finally shut him up. After several weeks of listening to his theories, laughing at them at night, and knowing how stupid they were, she had finally won against him. He wasn't as smart as he thought he was.

"Would you have killed my father, too? He owns part of this factory. He knew what was happening."

"Eventually. It is the right thing to do. You will see soon enough."

"How can any of this be right, Leah?" Mr Manston said. She turned back to him, watching as he threw his hands up in the air. "This is murder! It's a hangable offence, especially murder on a scale like this. What did you think would happen if they caught you?"

"They weren't going to catch me! I'm too smart for that. Even David Hutchinson didn't see me and he looked right at me and tried to fight me. This is what the city needs, what the people need! It had to be done."

"No, it didn't!" Mr Manston slammed the palm of his hand onto the desk. "None of this needed to happen! You could have left well enough alone."

"Are you going to turn me in?"

He ran his hands over his face, smearing the blood from the scratches across his cheeks. "I don't know, Leah."

She smiled. Leah knew her father would never turn her in. He didn't have the guts to do such a thing. She was his only child, the apple of his eye and the person he loved most in the world, even more so than his own wife. It would tear him apart to turn her in and see her face the hangman's noose at Newgate. He wouldn't let that happen, and she wasn't going to let him.

Silence descended over them, and Leah embraced it. Her father was in two minds, she knew that. Did he turn his own daughter over to the hangman, or leave her be and risk her killing more men? Risk her coming after him for a second time? She decided to make that decision for him. It was easier for her to make.

Leah turned to Ezra, who hadn't moved from behind her. Despite her hammer having been lost outside, she still knew how to take a man down. She raised her knee and hit him in the groin, watching him drop to the floor, groaning like a wounded animal. Before he could get up and before Mr Manston could move, Leah darted for the door.

"Leah!" her father called, "don't do this!"

It was too late.

She hurled herself down the stairs and out the front door, grateful that the gates had yet to be locked. Once outside, she melted back into the comforting shadows and alleyways of the city, weaving through them as fast as she could. Leah had one place in mind, one place where she knew she might be safe or could escape the city without being seen again.

Leah reached the Inn where she had killed Gregory Jacobs. The Inn was still open, people staggering from the doors and noises emerging from within. She stepped inside, fighting to catch her breath. Few people stopped to look at her. They were too busy with their own business to notice the young girl in trousers with her hair a mess.

Her eyes searched the crowd, looking for the girl she had seen the other night. It didn't take her long to find her walking through the crowd with a tray balancing on the palm of her hand. She waited until the tray had been cleared before approaching, slipping through the crowd.

"Do you remember me?" Leah asked, her voice low.

The girl nodded. "I saw you through the door on the night Mr Jacobs died."

"Can I trust you?"

She nodded again.

"I need to get out of the city to hide somewhere. Can you help me?"

"Yes. Come with me."

The girl placed her tray down and led Leah towards the bag of the Inn and down a flight of stairs. A few of the girls looked at her as she passed, but they said nothing. She was taken to a small room just off from the kitchen, which had a mattress on the floor in the far corner. It wasn't much, but it would do.

"I know people who can move you," she said, "but it will have to be tomorrow."

"That's fine. Thank you."

She smiled. "It is me who should be thanking you. You helped us all with what you did. I shall bring you something to eat and a change of clothes."

Leah nodded and stepped into the room, watching the girl close the door behind her, plunging her into darkness. She sat on the mattress, flattening her legs against the ground.

The speed at which the girl agreed to help told her all she needed to know about what she had been doing.

It had been for the right cause, no matter what her father said.

~~~

First Published - February 16th, 2023