Dealing with the Consequences

Chapter 1

DALLY

Destiny stood in front of me. She was dressed in hiking gear, and had a small duffle bag. The same size as mine, her hair was tied up out of her face, leaving some blonde stands covering her eye. She had a determined look on her face

"I'm going with you" she repeated. Like I didn't hear her, but I couldn't hide the shock from my face. She crossed her arms over her chest, waiting for me to agree with her.

"Is this…..is this some kind of sick joke?"

She rolled her eyes, like if she thought I was being silly. Or stupid, my guess was on the last choice. I put my back over my shoulder then glared at her,

"You're not coming Destiny I thought it made it clear to you, that I don't want anything to do with you anymore"

"Yeah, I know. I'm not deaf Dally but I can't stand those guys, and this is my one chance to get away. So I'm taking it, and if you leave without me or knock me out then I'm going to David and Hunter. I bet I have an idea of where you're going"

My glare could have burned a hole through metal. I knew chances are she was bluffing but at the same time I could just ditch her somewhere. I rolled my eyes then motioned for her to come; she picked up her bag then followed me like a puppy. It took every ounce of strength for me not to punch her out.

It was a crystal clear night. The moon was in full view and it was full, the tops of the trees were in sight, but from lower sightings it was like a black maze. Once you walked in there was no chance of getting out till morning, if you even survived till morning.

I knew that forest, a little too well for comforting. It was swarmed in snakes, and bats and all kind of other flesh wanting animals. Some of the bugs were attracted to flame, so when you lit a fire you better watch your back. Destiny stopped, but I didn't notice, I heard her cough. I turned around; she was almost 50ft behind me.

"Were you planning on stopping?"

"To be honest no. I don't want to stop until I'm at least five hours away from that shack. If you're going to keep stopping then that's not my problem. Keep up for get lost"

With that I turned on my heel and kept going straight. A few seconds later I heard Destiny's shoes slapping the pavement behind me. Then they fell into place with my steps, I rolled my eyes but kept my mouth shut, now she knew I wasn't going to take any pity breaks. We walked in silence for the rest of the walk. The sun started to rise, and the humidity was strong; it wasn't long before both of us were pealing our jackets off.

Soon we reached a small town, called "Beaver's Cave" I felt a small snicker grow on my face, it was a pretty stupid name in my opinion. We walked into a small store, nothing fancy it was small with a cooler full of pop and water, and some fishing gear. I saw Destiny eyeing the cooler. I motioned for her to do her thing. I walked over to the store owner.

"Why hello there son!" his accent was thick. I knew we were in the country now,

"Yeah….Hi, could you tell me the time?"

His green eyes flickered to another room. I caught Destiny grab two bottles of water and hide them in her bag. She moved quickly, by the time the store manager turned around she had already left.

"It's about ten after eleven, young man. Interested on going fishing?"

He was starting to annoy me, he was one of those happy 24/7 types. I shook my head then headed for the door.

"No sir, just needed the time"

I walked out with that. Destiny was already drinking some of her water; she was taking slow gulps, trying to save for later. I did the same thing

She pulled something out of her bag and handed it to me, it was a thick fish, and I caught a brief sighting of it when I walked into the store. It was under some mantel or something stupid.

"We can light a fire or something, cook it up"

I nodded hiding the awe on my face. Maybe having a tag a long wasn't so bad after all. Especially when Destiny was a thief like me. Slowly during the day we started to talk, nothing came up about our childhood, and that was dandy to me. We planned our next moves, and what we would do that night. We found an old camp sight, not too far from the tiny town, there were some people there. A lot of families with their kids, we wandered around, there were lots of tall trees with many branches.

We looked at each other, the same idea clicking into our brains. I grabbed the branch and slowly pulled myself up. The branch was steady, I saw Destiny take off, I had climbed most of the tree by the time she came back. She was holding a sleeping bag, before I could utter a word she tossed it up at me. Then started climbing, she stopped at the branch lower than me.

"You stole two sleeping bags?"

She sneered "well duh! Come on Dally, we're sleeping in trees, we need some form of comfort!"

I rolled my eyes, I let go of reality and let my mind take me somewhere else. Far from Destiny, and far from the socs. I found myself back in Tulsa, it was before Ponyboy was kidnapped, in fact, and here we were pretty young

Ponyboy looked like he was 12, or 13. That was around the time I showed up, I was at the Curtis house, I'd been here for a month and I was a part of the gang. Ponyboy had been eyeing me for days with a weird look. Finally one afternoon I yanked him aside, he didn't look scared at all.

"Okay kid, I don't understand what you've got a problem with but knock it off!"

He didn't flinch or bat an eye. That made me madder, people were always scared of me, and I knew the gang was having a hard time getting past it. Yet Ponyboy, the youngest one there didn't care. His voice was steady

"You betrayed me, you erased my memory, and you left me"

With that I bolted right up, almost falling off my tree. I forgot where I was for a second; I could hear Destiny's light snoring then I remembered. I had run away from the socs and Destiny came with me. I started thinking of my dream and sighed.

I didn't know if it was true or not, I knew the leaving and betraying part was true, but did I kill his memory? A nervous feeling crept into my gut; the socs had already knocked him up pretty badly by the time I came. God knew the head trauma was involved with that, I sure as hell didn't make anything better when I slammed his head against the wall.

Then the reality hit me, harder than I would have liked, I gave Ponyboy amnesia I bet he didn't remember the gang, what happened to him, or me. I gripped the tree; I erased everything the kid knew. That was a hard thing to swallow, and a hard thing to forget.