Chapter Eighteen:


I used to love running.

The feel of the wind whipping at my hair, the adrenaline pumping through my blood, the way my leg muscles would burn by the time I came to a stop. Ponyboy has always been the track star in the family, but Darry and I aren't too shabby, either. Darry had to be able to run because of football, but me, I just liked the feel of it all.

But that was a long time ago.

Now my chest was aching, so tight it felt it might explode, and my legs felt like they were on fire. I didn't slow down, though, because that wasn't an option.

Not anymore.

We rounded the corner of the lot with Ponyboy in the lead just as Dally came bursting in from the other direction. My ears were ringing with the shrill wailing of sirens, and my heart leapt in my throat as two police cars pulled in behind Dally, closing in on both sides.

"No," I breathed, pushing myself even harder. "Oh God."

The cops jumped out of their cars, the slam of their doors echoing through the crisp night air as they drew their guns. Dally had skidded to a halt under the street lamp, and I watched in horror as he pulled a dark object from the waistband of his jeans.

His gun, I realized with dread. Oh, Dally, don't! They don't know it's not loaded!

"No!" Darry shouted, his voice thick and hoarse.

Dally raised the gun and I bit back a sob, cursing him for ever being born. How could he do this to us?

"Don't shoot," Soda hollered desperately, but of course they already were.

The funny thing about gunshots is that people always tell you they sound like a car backfiring, but they don't. Each one sounds like a nail being driven into someone's coffin, sharp and cruel and merciless. The police, they weren't the bad guys here, they thought that Dally was going to shoot them.

So they continued to shower him with molten bullets, and I felt each and every one of them like a stab through the heart as the impact jerked Dally around violently.

"It ain't loaded!" Ponyboy shrieked, bordering on the edge of hysteria. Dally stumbled, staggering back to his feet again, defiant, and it got him two more to the chest.

"He's just a kid," Two-Bit cried, his voice breaking.

Dally crumpled under the street lamp, crimson blood beginning to pool around him, a small smirk on his bloodstained lips and a cold, triumphant look in his lifeless eyes.

He was dead before he even hit the ground.

"No," Steve gasped out, stumbling forward with a sob, and Soda caught him by the shoulders, holding him up as tears ran down his face.

"Easy, buddy, easy," Soda choked out. "There's nothing we can do now."

Had there ever been? Could we have tried harder, done something more, to prevent this? Or had Dally, like so many other young hoods, been doomed from the start? Life had been unkind to them from the start, they didn't know anything else. Maybe Dally would have ended up like this sooner or later, no matter what we, or anyone else, tried to do for him.

Suddenly I had to see him, just for a moment, so I rushed forward before anyone could stop me, falling to my knees beside Dally's body. The cops were coming towards us, asking us to back away, but I didn't care, I had to do this.

With a trembling hand, I reached out and touched the side of Dally's face. It was cool and clammy, and his blood trickled onto my fingers as I gently brushed his hair out of his face. I couldn't help but stare at his cold, icy blue eyes, and I wondered what he might have been like if circumstances had been different, if he'd been given a better life. Would he have ever bothered with school? Would he have gotten serious about the rodeo or would he have gone on to find a different career? Would he have ever fallen in love, settled down? Would he have ever changed? Could he have changed?

No one would ever know now, and that was the saddest part of all.

In less than half an hour, we'd lost Johnny and Dallas both. It didn't seem right, and it sure didn't seem fair.

But they were dead just the same.

I felt Darry's hand on my shoulder, trying to pull me away, but I couldn't tear my eyes off of Dally's lifeless body. His face was so pale, and there was so much blood... the ground was soaked with it.

Strangely enough, I didn't feel sick. I'd always thought that I would feel ill if I ever saw that much blood, but I didn't.

I didn't really feel anything, except empty.

Dallas was dead.

It wasn't right, he didn't deserve this. This was the boy who had taken care of himself all his life, who turned hard and cold because that was what the world demanded of him. The same boy who just days ago went into a burning church to rescue a bunch of little kids.

How were the papers going to remember him? Odd that I should be worrying about that now, with him lying dead in front of me, but I did. Dally wouldn't be remembered as a hero who saved a bunch of kids from burning to death, he would be remembered as a hood who was better off dead. One less criminal on the streets, they would say, the world is better off without him.

But we wouldn't be better off. As hard and bitter, and sometimes even downright mean, as Dally could be, he'd been one of us. There had always been something dangerous and dark buried deep inside of Dallas Winston, but there had been something gentle, too, something almost vulnerable.

He could have been a good man, if things had been different.

"Lizzie," Darry hissed, his fingers digging into my shoulders so hard I was sure I'd have bruises in the morning. "Lizzie, come on back to the rest of us, okay, princess?"

I barely registered what he was saying, but I let him tug me away from Dally, my eyes still glued to his bloody form as the cops moved forward with a tarp to cover him up.

"Look away, darlin'," Darry whispered, guiding me by the shoulders. "Just look away."

Finally, as the tarp fell across Dally's face, I did, and looked instead at the others, still feeling oddly detached, as if none of this was real.

Steve was on his knees, one arm holding his side, with his face buried in Soda's shoulder. My brother had his arms wrapped around him, his head bowed as his shoulders shook with silent sobs. Dimly, I realized that Dally had been right back at the hospital, they would work things out somehow, but I was too dazed to pay them much attention at the moment.

Two-Bit was sitting on the ground, his head hung, crying softly. Darry moved away from me to squeeze his shoulder, and Two-Bit looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes before choking on a sob and looking down again.

As for Darry, well, my big brother had tears in his eyes, and the faraway part of my brain, the part that wasn't hazy and blurry, knew that was never a good sign. If Darry broke down, then we'd all fall apart, it was that simple.

A soft groan from behind me somehow made it through the fogginess in my brain, and I turned to see Ponyboy swaying on his feet, his face pale and his eyes rolling up in the back of his head. "Glory," Two-Bit cried, following my gaze. "Look at the kid!"

Ponyboy's knees buckled under him and he collapsed towards the ground, but Darry managed to catch him just before his head hit the pavement. "Ponyboy?" he cried frantically. "Pony, wake up!"

"What's wrong with him?" Soda asked worriedly, a scared look in his eyes.

"He's feverish," Darry replied, touching Pony's forehead. "He's sick, we need to get him to the hospital."

"The cops," Steve rasped, staggering up to his feet. "They can get us an ambulance."

Without waiting for a reply, he hurried off, presumably to talk to the police, but I couldn't take my eyes off of Ponyboy's pale face. "Is he gonna be okay?" I whispered, my voice quivering.

"I hope so, princess," Darry replied after a long moment. "I hope so."

I blinked back the tears stinging my eyes, swallowing hard. A moment later I felt Steve come up behind me, touching my shoulder gently, and I whirled around to bury my face in his chest, hugging him tightly.

I think he was surprised for a moment, since so far I'd been the only one who hadn't cried, but he brought his arm down around my waist, drawing me close. "It'll be okay," he said hoarsely.

And it if wasn't? If Ponyboy was taken from us, too?

What then?