Chapter 15: Unsafely

An aroma flew through Danny's nose the next morning. He sat up off of the cot and recognized the smell of waffles. They were burnt a little. He got up and found out that his head and stomach had eased a little. He ran his head through his hair and walked on towards the kitchen. Meagan was slapping a burnt piece of waffle on Maria's plate and Tony was throwing more batter in the waffle iron. He noticed Danny when he walked in.

"Want some breakfast?"

"Only if you let me cook it," remarked Danny.

"Let me finish this one. Then I'll let you cook one."

Danny went and sat down at the table.

"What time did Grandma leave?" asked Tony closing the iron.

"Around 8:00," replied Meagan. "Did you two have a nice night? I came in and saw y'all had traded places."

"Yeah. I woke up and let Maria have the couch."

Maria was quiet that morning. Most likely because of last night. Danny knew what was up. She almost found herself falling in love again last night. And frankly, he almost did too.

It had seemed like a long day. Both lost teenagers were excited about being picked up that day. To pass time by, they watched Tony, Meagan and their paintball team play a little. But finally, they got a phone call from Ponyboy.

"Hey, Danny!" yelled Meagan with her hand on the phone.

"Yeah!"

"Your uncle's on the phone!"

He got up instantly and rushed for the kitchen phone.

"Hello?"

"Hey Danny. Okay so far?"

"Yeah. How long til' you guys get here?"

"We're almost there. And we're in a hurry."

He detected a little worry in his uncle's voice and became concerned.

"What's wrong? What's the hurry?"

"I'll tell you later. Just meet us outside by that hotel in ten minutes."

"Okay-"

Danny didn't have the chance to get another word out of his mouth because the dial tone interrupted him. He seriously wanted to know what was going on. He walked into the room and told Maria his uncle's message. He turned to Tony and Meagan.

"Hey. Before we go, I wanta say thanks for letting us stay here."

"It's no problem."

"We felt sorry for you."

Danny shook his head while smiling at Tony's comment. Maria said her goodbyes and they walked out towards the hotel. After a while, a familiar vehicle showed up. Their faces lit up when Soda and Ponyboy got out of the car. They ran over and exchanged hugs. That did make Maria feel a little awkward. When she was going out with Danny, they had mentioned that she was like family, but they weren't going out anymore. They entered the car and drove off quickly. Danny then popped the question.

"Okay. First off, where's dad? And secondly, what are we rushing for?"

Pony sighed and Soda answered him.

"That guy with the scar. He was at the same jail as your dad, and they had a long running feud. He was sent down here with…"

"Matt?" asked Maria.

Soda turned around to the two.

"H-how did you two know?"

"We saw Matt days ago," said Danny. "He teamed up with the scar guy and was planning to nab me. They were gonna kill me and my dad."

"Well we didn't know about the nabbing part," said Ponyboy, keeping his eyes on the road. "But we do know that we caught those two a while back. They went looking for you and now Darry and Trix are looking for them."

"Well we gotta find them!" yelled Danny.

"We gotta get you two in a safe place first," said Soda. "Then we-"

Sodapop was cut off by Ponyboy's swerving of the car. He just avoided a car that almost hit them. Danny and Maria looked in the back mirror to see the car swerving to a stop.

"He's trying to ram us!" yelled Maria and Danny.

Pony checked the rear-view mirror and saw the car coming. He instantly pulled to the side of the road trying to dodge the car. The car drove right past them again. Danny saw this as his chance. They were after him and he was going to lead them away.

He jolted out of the car ignoring the calling of his name. He wanted to find his dad or Darry at least. He heard a car revving up and knew it was either Ponyboy or Sodapop. He looked back and was surprised to see Maria chasing after him. Did she want romance back? Danny shook it out of his head. It was a bad time to be thinking about that.

He slowed down in front of a building and Maria caught up with him. He then asked,

"What'd you follow me for?"

"Danny. He'd be after me too. Remember, I heard him say that he burned down Two-Bit's bar."

Danny had a hunch that she was just trying to make an excuse, but didn't bother asking. Especially because he saw a familiar figure behind her.

"Dad!"

Trix was running towards the two.

"Are you two okay?" he asked when he reached them.

"We're fine. Look!"

Danny pointed behind Trix and saw the man with the scar approaching the three. Trix readied himself and commanded,

"Get in this building right here. I have some business to conduct."

They heard the force in his voice and obeyed. Danny thought it would be wise to go the second floor so he told Maria to follow him. As they were climbing the stairs, they heard a window break but neither bothered to find out what caused the shattering. They reached the second floor. It was filled with gas barrels and other items. They decided to relax.

"Do you think your dad can take that guy?" asked Maria.

"I think so. He seemed pretty big, but my dad's a nice fighter."

They were interrupted by the door swinging open. Maria screamed and Danny was half-surprised to see who it was. Matt was in their presence once again.

"Ready for round two?" asked Matt in a sinister voice.

"Get back Maria."

She scooted back slowly towards the wall. As scared as she had ever been in her life. The two approached each other and Danny made the first swing. Matt wasn't fallen from the blow and made a swing back. They grabbed each other and started wrestling for a while; Danny broke loose and gave another swing. They kept trading blows and occasionally making misses and trying to trip each other. Finally, Matt gave a hard blow to Danny's stomach. Half of the wind was knocked out of him and Matt grabbed his hair. Danny could feel the hair almost being wrenched out of his skull as Matt swung him around and let go after a swing. Danny slid back towards the king-size window on the wall. Matt took a giant leap and was coming for Danny in mid-air. But the young Curtis took advantage of this and used his foot to block his opponent and pushed him upward to knock him over his body. Matt went flying and shattered through the window.

Danny sat up quickly. He didn't mean to do that. He got onto his feet and made his way towards the shattered hole. He looked to see that Matt had landed hard in a giant pit of water in the back of the building. What made the situation better was that the police were there and were pulling the teenager out of the water. He was going to get arrested now. Danny could help but smile.

"Danny! Maria!"

Maria showed up beside him looking through the window. They could faintly hear people's voices.

"The building's on fire."

Danny understood what they were saying and looked at Maria. She was looking back with wide eyes. They both turned to see fire in the open door. It was heading towards them and the gasoline.

"We gotta jump! Okay!" yelled Danny to Maria. She nodded slightly and looked out the window.

"Okay," started Danny. "On the count of three. 1-2-3!"

They instantly jumped out of the window. As they were mid-air, they could feel the heat from the fire almost touching their ears. The wind from their falling cooled them as they hit the water below them. Danny found himself swimming around underwater. Maria was doing the same. They grabbed each other's hand and swam above the H2O. The police were there in a heartbeat to help the teenagers out of the water.

The police got the teens over towards the ambulance and gave them blankets. They later on explained that Danny was proven innocent. When the guy with the scar admitted to burning Two-Bit's bar, it was caught on tape at the station. Danny and Maria could see both Matt and the Scar Guy being put back into the squad cars. When the police left the two alone, Danny wanted to ask a question. It was either now or never.

"Um. Maria?"

"Hm."

"Well. Now that we fully understand…each other. Do you think that…we could get back together?"

It was reminiscent to when Danny first asked her out. It felt like the whole word was focusing on them.

"Danny. I'm sorry…"

His heart dropped. He knew what was coming.

"But I need time. It's too soon. And well…"

"It's okay. I understand," broke in Danny.

"You do?"

"Yeah."

"Sorry."

"Don't worry. I'll be fine."

Maria's parent showed up then, and she went to go see them. Trix was behind the two the entire time.

"You gonna be okay?" he asked while sitting next to his son. There was a scratch on his chin from the fight with Scar.

"Yeah. I think it's time to move on."

Trix smirked.

"I think you're starting to grow a little more."

At that moment, Cathy's car came riding up. Both she and Kasie got out of the vehicle. They instantly went towards Danny to see if he was all right. After Cathy went to her husband, Kasie asked,

"Are you and Maria still not going out?"

"Nah. We just need a little time. I'll be fine."

"Well," started off Kasie. "I have a little news that involves us."

Both men turned around to her. Wondering what news could affect all three of them.

"Trix..Danny," she introduced. "I'm pregnant."

Yeah. This is it. Dang. This took up five pages of Word. Anyway, I wanted to go ahead and finish this story. I've been flushed with ideas. And I'm especially excited about one that's been in my head ever since last Friday. Well, next up is the sequel to Rebellious & Bitter. But after that, I'm going to do a remake of the Outsiders, sort of. I'm going to write it with a 2005 twist as well as a couple of twists of my own. It will have the same plot as the book, but will have a couple of changes and additions to throw in originality. Okay. Catch you later.

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