I don't own anyone except Cinnamon, and I most certainly do not own the plot. In fact, I don't even own some of the dialogue.

Chapter 4

I woke up at 1:45 to pee. All the lights were still on in the living room. Soda was stretched out on the sofa, sound asleep, but Darry was sitting in the arm chair, looking worried.

"What's wrong?" I yawned.

"Pony's still out," Darry answered. "Cinnamon, where were they going? Who were those girls?"

I started to answer when I heard the creak of the front stairs. Ponyboy crept in, chewing nervously on his fingernails, and Darry exploded.

"Where the heck have you been? Do you know what time it is?" Darry hollered. "Well, it's two in the morning, kiddo. Another hour and I would have had the police out after you. Where were you, Ponyboy?" He was screaming now. "Where in the almighty universe were you?"

Soda stirred on the couch. I wasn't surprised Darry woke him. Hell, they could probably hear him in Oklahoma City.

"I … I went to sleep in the lot," Pony stammered.

No one else but Pony could fall asleep in the lot. He was probably watching the stars. Darry kept yelling, the usual stuff he hollers when he's mad, about orphanages and Pony's lack of common sense. With me, it was usually orphanages and my bad attitude. Apparently, I had sense but no ambition.

I looked at Soda worriedly. Pony was practically cowering and I could see tears in his eyes.

"Darry, come on, you can yell at him in the morning," I said.

"You shut up and mind your business, Cinnamon Marie," he snarled with such anger I backed up a step into Soda.

"Darry --" Soda began, and Darry turned on him.

"You keep your trap shut!" he yelled. "I'm sick and tired of hearing you stick up for him!"

For a few seconds we were all shouting at once, then Ponyboy screamed, "Don't you holler at him!" Darry wheeled around and slapped him so hard it knocked him against the door.

The room went quiet. It was like someone flipped a switch. Then Ponyboy scrambled to his feet and out into the night as Darry screamed after him, "Pony! I didn't mean to!"

I pulled away from Soda and ran into my room. I couldn't believe it. No one hit anyone in our house, ever. My parents never even hit us. My mind reeled with some of the stupid things we'd done as little kids – including Soda pushing me off the porch roof because we thought I could fly. Even when we probably deserved it, no one ever laid a hand on any of us. Who the hell does Darry think he is?

I pulled on my jeans and threw the first thing I could find over my nightshirt, which was an old gray sweater of Darry's that Mom had knit for him when he was still in school. I shoved my feet in my boots and ran back down the hall.

"You ain't going anywhere," Darry said. "I'll go."

"He'll run from you," Soda said. Darry looked stunned. I headed for the door.

"Come back here," Darry scolded.

"What, you gonna hit me too, you bastard?" I spat at him. I was down the porch steps and gone before he could answer.

I went to the vacant lot, sure Pony would be there. It was empty, save for a pile of newspapers that made me wonder if Johnny'd been sleeping out. I went by Johnny's and Two-Bit's, but the houses were dark. I even went by the Dingo, though it was closed, and checked behind the trash barrels in the back. Nothing.

Dammit. Dammit, Pony, where are you?

I was heading back to the house, thinking I'd ask Soda to take the car and help me look. I didn't intend to talk to Darry ever again. Suddenly, in the quiet of the middle of the night, I heard a thin scream coming from the park. It sounded like Johnny.

I ran the block to the playground and when I came down the path my breath froze. Johnny was lying on the ground, a bit away from the fountain. And there were four or five Socs at the fountain, dunking something in the water.

The something came clawing up for air, and I saw a flash of wet auburn hair.

All thought, reason and sense went out of my head, and I ran faster than I ever ran in my life and hit the Soc with his hands on Ponyboy as hard as I could. He shoved me off and stumbled forward into the water. One of the other ones picked me off the ground and threw me into the roundabout. I saw stars. The wind was knocked out of me and for a long, agonizing moment, I couldn't breathe.

Couldn't breathe.

Pony couldn't breathe.

I gasped in a big lungful of air, but there was a hand at my mouth. I bit down as hard as I could and was rewarded with a slap in the face.

"Son of a bitch!"

I screamed. I screamed for Darry and Soda, the police, the gang, Jesus, Mary and Joseph – for anyone.

"Shut her up!"

"They're drowning my brother!" I screeched. "Help, someone, they're drowning my brother!"

The Soc pulled me off the roundabout and tumbled us both to the ground, pinning me under him. He must have outweighed me by 50 pounds. "Oh, I like 'em feisty," he said, and pulled at my collar so hard he ripped through both my sweater and my nightshirt. His hand went all the way down to my breasts, groping at my bra. I didn't usually sleep in one but I was so small-chested I sometimes forgot I had one on..I was thanking God for my forgetfulness tonight.

Somewhere behind me, I could hear splashing. I kept screaming, but now I was hollering Ponyboy's name, pleading with them to stop.

"Come on, baby, we'll have some fun," the guy said in my ear. His breath smelled of beer. His hands were all over me, trying to undo my jeans, trying to touch me as I tried to wriggle away.

Then, without warning, he let me go. I could feel, rather than see, the Socs running away, and I looked around for the police. Someone must have come, I thought. But there was no one, just Johnny hauling Ponyboy out of the fountain, and I stumbled over to help. He dumped Pony in my lap and slid down to the ground, like all of a sudden he couldn't bear his own weight.

"Pony? Pony, honey, wake up, talk to me," I pleaded, lightly tapping his cheeks. He was freezing cold and soaking wet, but I could see his chest rising and falling so I knew he was breathing, thank God. "Johnny? Run up to the house and get Sodapop, okay? And bring blankets, as many as you can find."

"I killed that boy," he said.

"What?" I looked over at him. Next to him, lying in a pool of spreading blood, was one of the Socs, Bob, I think his name was. Johnny was clutching his switchblade, which was dark to the hilt. He looked green. "What did you say?"

Pony started to cough. His eyes fluttered open and met mine. He was staring at my chest and I realized my torn sweater was wide open. I pinched it closed with one hand, stroking Pony's face with the other. "Shh, Pony, it's okay, you're okay," I said. I could hear my voice getting high and hysterical and I took a deep breath. "Can you sit up? It's okay."

"I killed him," Johnny said again. Pony rolled off my lap and threw up, then sat up, leaning heavily against me. I put my arms around him, staring straight ahead at nothing at all. I couldn't tell if the shaking was from me or from him.

"You really killed him, huh, Johnny?" Pony whimpered.

"Yeah. I had to." Johnny's voice was trembling. They were drowning you, Pony. They might have killed you. They had a blade. And one of them was trying to take Cinnamon's clothes off."

"What are we going to do?" Pony said, his voice thin and panicked. "They put people in the electric chair for killing people!"

I tightened my grip on him. I could feel him starting to cry. "Stop it. Stop it, no one's going to the electric chair." I looked at Johnny. "Are you sure he's dead?"

"Glory, Cinny, look at all the blood," he whispered.

I let go of Pony and crawled over to Bob. I put my hand in front of his mouth and concentrated on feeling some breath, no matter how faint. But there was nothing.

"Jesus, Johnny," I mumbled. "Jesus."

Johnny looked around wildly. "We gotta get out of here," he said. "Run away. We'll need money. And maybe a gun. And a plan."

"No, no, no!" I shouted. "No, we're going back to our house, we'll call the police, explain what happened --"

Johnny snorted. "Oh, yeah, they'll believe us. They'll believe that all-American boy over there not only tried to drown Ponyboy, but beat me up a couple of months ago, too. Sure. Those Socs'll all cover for each other and buy their fancy lawyers and you two'll be in the reformatory and I'll be waitin' for the chair." He shook his head. "No. You go on home if you want to. I'm goin' to see Dally. He'll know how to get us out of here."

Pony and I followed Johnny over to Buck Merril's, a tall shady cowboy who'd gotten Dally a job at the Slash J rodeo. Pony and I were forbidden to go anywhere near his place. Mostly, we followed Johnny because we didn't want him to be alone.

He pounded on the door and Buck opened it. Smoke and the smell of whiskey and cheap perfume wafted out with him. "Whatta ya want?"

"We need to see Dally," Johnny said.

"He's busy."

Ponyboy stepped forward. "Tell him it's Pony and Johnny. And Cinnamon. He'll come."

And he did, a minute later, shirtless and barefoot and looking like we'd woken him up.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he demanded.

"Johnny killed a Soc," Pony said. Dally stared at us as Johnny poured out the story, then pulled us inside.

"Jesus Christ," he mumbled. "Go on, go right upstairs, this is no place for you – especially you," he said, pointing at me. He squinted. "Who ripped your sweater? Hold it closed, Cinny, people can see. Ponyboy, are you wet? Jesus Christ."

We followed Dallas up the stairs. He got Ponyboy a dry shirt and threw a button-up at me before leaving us there, mumbling under his breath. Pony and Johnny turned around while I got rid of my ruined nightshirt and pulled the ripped sweater back over Dally's flannel.

Dally came back and handed Johnny $50 and a gun, giving him terse instructions about a train to Windrixville and a church we could hide in.

My head was spinning. This was all happening way too fast. "This is a bad idea," I said desperately. "We should go home, tell Darry. He'll know what to do. They were tryin' to kill Ponyboy, we can tell them …"

Pony looked stonily at me and said the only word that could upset me more: "Orphanage."

He was right. The only reason Pony and I got to stay with Darry is if we behaved ourselves. And what about Sodapop? Soda was still a minor, too, and he'd be sent away, right along with me and Ponyboy, because this mess would surely prove that Darry wasn't a fit guardian. We might not see them again. Ever again, or at least until Pony was 18. I thought about not seeing Soda for four years and I really started to cry.

"Cinnamon, get a grip on yourself, come on, now," Dally said roughly. He shoved a handkerchief into my hand. "We ain't got time for this. Y'all gotta go and catch that freight."

"Dally," I said, "tell Soda …"

"I ain't telling nobody nothing," he interrupted. He walked us to the door and turned out the porch light before letting us out.

"Be careful. Lay low. I'll come up when I can." He reached out a hand to ruffle Johnny's hair. "Go. Go now."

We ran into the night, toward the train station, me in the middle, holding both Johnny and Ponyboy's hands.