Disclaimer: So here it is, for all you lawyers out there I'm not S.E.Hinton. There, I said it. Happy? I just own Matt and any other characters I may bring in here at one point or another.

A/N: Nate wasn't at the house when the fire occurred. Therefore he had his own car and had been out doing his own thing.

On with the story….

Chapter Three
Out of Control

It was not long before we had our targets in our grasp. Randy and the others had grabbed one and were attempting to drown him in the fountain, while Bob and I were working on the other one. I realized that it was the same guy we had beat up before. The white scar from Bob's rings contrasted greatly with his dark, swarthy skin. Bob noticed it too. "You'd think," he said to me, "that this kid would learn to stay out of the streets."

Then I heard the boy faintly whisper, "Perhaps it's you that needs to learn the lesson." Deftly, the boy drew a switchblade out of his back pocket and opened the blade. Before Bob could do anything, he jabbed it into Bob's stomach.

The boy looked surprised at what he had done and slowly backed away from Bob's still body, which was oozing dark blood and staining the ground. We ran.

Mom and Dad's funeral was the next day. Nate had taken us to the department store and had bought us suits and all that stuff. It was hard, but as the caskets were lowered into the ground, I kept my promise to Dad. I didn't cry.

Nate spent the next week trying to get custody over me. Eventually, he won, having just come of age, and since it was just two of us, it wasn't as hard as it could have been. Nate told me to be thankful that I wasn't a girl.

One day after I came home from school, Nate told me he had a surprise.

"I found us a house," he said, grinning. After Mom and Dad died we had been staying at a motel, and I was glad to be finally getting out of there. We took Nate's truck and headed towards our new home. It wasn't long before I realized where we were headin'. We were on the East side of town.

Nate stopped in front of an old, small, battered looking house. "This is it." He said, hopping out.

I shook my head. "No, it's not," I said.

"What do you mean?" asked Nate.

"In case you haven't noticed," I said, practically yelling. "this is the East side. This is where the greasers live. I'm not gonna live here."

Nate glared at me. "Yeah you are. Listen Matt, we don't have the money to live like we used to. The funeral and hospital bills took up most of the insurance money we got, and it would have cost too much to rebuild our house, and I had to sell the lot it was on to clear the mortgage. So this is the only place we have left, and you had better get used to it."

I sat down on the curb. There was no way this could be happening.

"And another thing," Nate continued. "You are not a greaser, no matter what anyone says. I don't want you anywhere near those bums, savvy?" Nate was probably hoping we wouldn't be mistaken for greasers even if we did have to live among them.

I nodded, though I really didn't care.

School the next day had been really weird. It seemed as though the gang had been avoiding me. I hadn't seen them all day. Even at lunch, there seemed to have been no room for me at the table.

As I walked home, I was glad to see them walk beside me. But I would soon find out that things would never be the same. All at once, they jumped on me, pounding me like a hammer would a nail, and I knew no more. I blacked out.

- - - - -

Okay, so what didja think? Matt will meet the gang in the next chapter for those of you who were wondering. A big thankie to the reviewers, who make my story so worth while…

Darkdestiny2000- Thanks. Yeah, at times death does seem unfair. But it shapes our lives and our destinies and helps us turn into who we are going to become. And in a way, death is a kind of relief, I mean, who would want to be stuck on earth forever. It would just be too painful to have to live to see all the tragedies.

DallyJacklover- I'm glad you like it. I got tired of reading the same old, same old, so I decided to give this a try. I had never read one like this and I thought it was pretty original, so I decided to post and see what people thought.

Steves-girl- yeah, poor Matty. He doesn't seem to have control over anything anymore. But who really does? But hopefully, the greasers will help him get through

Hahukum Konn- Yeah, its terrible how nasty people can be to each other. You don't really believe it until it happens to you. I had a friend once who dumped my gang in order to be popular and stuff. She was a poet as well, but she gave up her gift too.

My best friend goes to public school, unlike me, and she brings me stories about the rich/poor popular/un conflict. It just goes to show how terrible things can get over social status. But its like Ponyboy said. SOMEWHERE there has to be just people. We just don't happen to live in that world.

Thanks for reading. Rate and review please if you want me to continue.

Bookworm

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