Disclaimer: S.E. Hinton owns The Outsiders. I am making no profit from this story.

Chapter 1

They say that sometimes your past comes rushing back to you in a memory just before you die. Other times, it creeps up and eats at you like a mold until you wake up one day and realize that the only thing left of who you used to be is a rotting shell. And still other times, your past keeps sucking you back into itself like a twister trying to find its path.

For me, though, it was different. My past showed up on a dark street corner one block short of catching the last bus out of Oklahoma City. And it was just like gettin' hit by a freight train.

"Go," whispered a harsh voice from the shadow of the alley.

I waved an impatient hand at the voice. Christ almighty, you'd think I never did this before. This was exactly why I was the one out on the street and not in the alley waiting – leave it up to one of those jugheads and we'd lose all our prospects. You couldn't go tearing out there too quick. You had to be patient. You couldn't give them a whole bunch of time to think things over, no more than a quarter block for sure, otherwise they'd get wary and think to go get more help.

I watched the guy approach like he was pretending he knew where he was going. Great. Wouldn't be much to take from him. I told them he wasn't a good mark. Anybody who knew better than to drift through the streets like they'd just got dropped off by a spaceship was more'n likely from a place not too much different from ours, nice clothes or not. But the three of them were after blood and booze, and to hell with what the little kid thought.

I sighed. What're you going to do, right? At least the guy was vulnerable, and he probably had at least a little cash on him. He'd missed the last bus out of town, and now he was scrambling to find a place to stay for the night. Didn't look to be scrambling on the outside, but I understood what was going on inside. He knew what kind of place he was in.

He walked with his back straight and tall, and I was finding myself more and more thankful that I was only the decoy. His silhouette showed a sturdy frame held together by nothing but muscle. A boxer, maybe, or a blacksmith. I remembered the guy who used to shoe Gramp's workhorses – arms like the limbs of an ancient oak.

He was passing under the streetlight now, and then back into the darkness that hid me from his view. A few more steps, a few more steps . . .

"Help," I cried, and shot out onto the middle of the sidewalk. "I need help!"

The guy stopped in his tracks, startled but cautious.

Don't give him time to think. I took a second to glance around me, as if I hadn't a clue who else besides me was on the street, and allowed my gaze to lock on him. "We need help! My friend, he's hurt."

The guy took a quick look around, but he knew as well as I did there wasn't nobody else around except for five blocks behind him, where the bus station was all but cleared out. I raced up to him and was suddenly wildly glad that I looked more like I was twelve and alone than fourteen and a threat. Not too many people haul off and hit a scared kid without a good reason. "Please, mister, my friend is hurt." I swallowed like I was trying not to cry. "Some guys . . . they come outta nowhere . . ."

"Alright, relax. Show me."

I led him into the alley, so dark you couldn't even make out that the smell was coming from the dumpster at the far end. "Here. He's back here."

The guy slowed down, but I took hold of his forearm and tugged him onward. "Wait," he said, "I can't see a –"

They were all over him then like fire ants on a heifer. Despite how many times I'd done this before, I winced with every grunt as they started beating him to the ground.

Only, he wasn't on the ground yet. This was taking longer than it usually did, I realized. I backed farther into the alley where I could see them silhouetted against the faint light coming in from the street. He wasn't going down easy, that was for sure.

Sampson let out a squeal and a curse. "Blade! He's got a blade." And then, coward that he was, Sampson took off running out of the alley like a kicked rabbit. I gritted my teeth. Avery would take care of him later.

"Back off."

My attention went back to the guy we were jumping, who now looked to be jumping us. Shit. We didn't screw up this bad all that often. See what happens next time I tell them to wait for a different one, the impatient bastards.

Speaking of, Avery and Bill were backing up real slow, away from the knife that guy was waving at them. He knew how to use it, too, I could see that. The two of them looked real quick at each other, and as soon as they did I knew what was happening – it wasn't worth it. Abort mission. The guy probably don't have much, anyway. Jesus Christ, they couldn't have just listened to me from the start?

Avery and Bill took off running out of the alley before the guy could get a good enough look at them to take it to the police.

I held my breath and took a step backwards, because it just then occurred to me that Oak-Tree Knife-Man was standing between me and the only way out of the alley. Just go, just take your knife and get on your way before –

He turned around and looked right at me. Or at least, it felt like he was looking right at me. "I know you're still in here," he said in this sweet, gentle, I-want-to-slice-you-up kind of way. "I can wait all night, kid. My next bus don't come till morning."

I took another step backwards and tripped over something that sent me sprawling. By the time I'd landed hard on my backend, the guy had sprung on me like a cat on a mouse. And I had about as much of a chance of getting away from him, but that don't mean I didn't try.

By the time we'd scuffled our way back toward the front of the alley my nose was bleeding and I felt like I'd gotten hit by a truck. Okay, so maybe scuffled isn't the right word, because that would imply that I was making some sort of impact on him. It was more like I was some poor little girl's rag doll getting tossed around by her big brother.

Now I ain't dumb, and I sure as hell like to think I'm not a coward, but right about then it seemed like the smart thing to do would be to dig for the guy's sympathetic side. Everybody's got one. Mostly. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry, please, I'm sorry. Don't hit me no more. I'm sorry!"

He didn't loosen his grip. "I'll bet you are. You can tell the fuzz all about it right after they put your lying little thieving ass behind bars."

"No!" God, I would have taken a good beating over the cops any day. I'd managed to keep away from them long enough. Didn't need some do-gooder knife man screwing things up for me. "No, not the cops." We were out on the sidewalk by then. He was holding my right arm in his left hand, and the front of my shirt was balled up in his right fist nice and high and tight so I couldn't slither out of it. "Not the cops. Just beat the shit out of me and be done with it."

And then he stopped under the streetlight he'd dragged me to and looked down at me, and that freight train I was talkin' about earlier came barreling through. All at once, I was eight years old, and my oldest cousin was dropping shells into my daddy's old shotgun and telling me to lay down low so's not to scare away the ducks. The breath I tried to take stopped halfway in, just in time for my heart to start racing like a greyhound, and then all at once my lungs emptied themselves out in one quick gasp. I blinked. "Darry?"