Sorry for taking sol ong to update everyone. thank you to all my reviewers. I promise I will thank you all personally next chapter. I'm a little flustered and just wanted to get this chapter posted for you guys as soon as possible

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN THE OUTSIDERS, S.E.HINTON HAS THAT WONDERFUL PRIVILAGE, I DO HOWEVER OWN THIS STORY, THE PLOT, AND EDEN.

CHAPTER #5

CAN'T ESCAPE THE PAST,

EDEN'S POV

I didn't really know where I was going at first. It was raining pretty hard and I could hardly see my hand in front of my face it was so dark. But when I finally stopped walking I looked up and saw I was in front of a half burnt house that looked close to ruins.

"I'm home." I whispered and went inisde.

PONYBOY'S POV

I refused to speak to anyone for the first week that Eden was gone. I wouldn't let anyone into her 'room' either. Darry had tried to go in to throw away all of her things but Soda stopped him. I was blocking the closet door and refused to move. I didn't even hear what they had said. I was so lost in my own mind. I can't tell you whats got me so hung up on her leaving. But it just got to me really bad.

"Pony, dinners ready." Soda knocked quietly on our bedroom door.

I didn't answer him. Me and Darry had recently gotten into a huge argument about Eden. I wanted to go look for her. Darry told me it was out of the question. Since then of coarse I hadn't eaten or spoken to anyone. I hadn't left my room even, I didn't care that I was missing school or that Darry was giving me a hard time. I kept to my room.

"Do it now!" I heard Soda's angry voice at the door.

He had just pushed Darry through the doorway into my room. Darry looked at the floor. Sighed heavily then looked up at me.

"You can go. You've got one week to find her. If there's no sign of her you give up, come home, and start going back to school. Now for the love of god if your gonna start tonight your gonna need energy so please come and eat some dinner." Darry said sternly.

I couldn't say anything. I just nodded my head in thanks and understanding. I ate some dinner, cleared my plates more like it. Then I hopped up and ran with Soda out of the house and down in the direction Eden had run off in last week. It was a long shot. But I figured, what do we have to lose?

THREE DAYS LATER

PONY'S POV

We still have had no luck. But Soda's being great about coming with me to find her.

"I dunno, maybe we should just give up." I sighed.

Soda glared at me for a minute then stalked off without another word. I followed after him. I was about to apologize when I saw he was talking to a homeless man.

"Her names Eden. She's about his hieght, really thin, long knee length black hair...and um...her eyes, well thier kinda hard to descirbe." Soda said.

"I know her. Your talking about the girl with the crazy moon eyes. I know about her. I don't reckon you go lookin' for her though. She's crazier then anything. And I heard she went and killed her parents." The man whispered while looking around wildly.

"Well we really need to know where she is. Could you tell us?" Soda asked.

"I suppose...But whats in it for me?" The man asked grufly.

"I'll give you fifty cents to let us know where she's at." I said without hesitation.

The man held his hand out. I gave him a quarter.

"You'll get the other half when you tell us where she is." I said sternly.

"Alright. There's an old house up on Windmill Road, it's half burnt up. I hear it's because she tried to burn it down. You can't miss it. Everyone else moved out of there years ago, houses all cleared out. It's the only one on the street." The man said.

I thanked him and gave him his other quarter, then me and Soda set out to find this place. Turns out Windmill Road was a good three miles away from the rest of the town. And the old man was right, it was the only house on the street and looked halfway burnt.

"Just looking at this place is giveing me the creeps." Soda said.

I knew what he was feeling. It felt like being in a horror film and your about to get killed because your dumb enough to go into the haunted old house on a dare. But I had to see if she was here.

"We have to see if she's here. I promise if she's not we'll stop looking for her right away." I said.

Soda nodded his head and we both walked up to the house an inside.

It smelt musty and charred. Half of the house on the inside was the same as the outside, burnt. You could see that it once was a very beautiful home. But now it lay in ruins. In the entrance there was a huge room with an old fireplace. A hallway that led to the kitchen, the celler, a closet, and a case of stairs.

We decided to split up and look around a bit.

"Ponyboy!" Soda called out in a quite panick stricken voice.

I walked over to see he had opened the closet. There was very little space in here, a moldy old blanket and...

"Are those...bloody fingernail marks?" I asked.

Sure enough they were. They started out real low to the ground, the lower ones looked so old, but the ones higher up were bigger and freasher.

"What the hell happened to her?" Soda gasped.

"I dunno. Lets get away from here. We'll check upstairs real quick alright? If she ain't here we're leaving." I said trying to keep my voice calm but failing.

We climbed the stair to see a nice spacious walkway that went in a square. There were four doors up here. Me and Soda discovered the first was an extemely dirty bathroom. The second looked like it should belong to a little girl, but was hardly ever touched. There were partially burnt porcelien faced dolls and an open closet with nothing but a single blue dress hanging from the inside, the bottom singed badly. The third was nothing but an empty room with a window, no furniture in here or anything, it looked as thought the fire hadn't even touched this room. There was only one door left.

"I got a bad feeling about that room." Soda said quietly.

"Well hang on a sec. I wanna see the second room again real quick I said.

But only a few steps towards the room and I heard Soda gasp loudly. I looked around to see him holding his hand to his mouth with a look of pure terror on his face. I ran over and shook him for a moment.

"Soda! Soda whats wrong?" I asked frantically.

But Soda just kept staring straight ahead of him. I looked where he was looking and saw why he had such a reaction. He had opened the last door, and inside the room had a bed, a dresser, was half burnt...and completely covered in blood. There were blood spalters everywhere, smeared handprints made of blood, and finally outlines of bodies. All in dried blood, and all over the room.

"Soda lets get out of here." I whispered.

I was about to pull him away completely when I heard something. A voice, singing faintly. I left Soda where he was and carefully walked into the room. Afraid for what was in there and what it might do to me. But when I was fully in the room I looked over towards the window to see a matted mess of black hair and tattered clothing leaning against the wall, scrathing at the wall with her fingernails, getting her hands covered in dired blood and some of her own fresh blood. And singing.

"mother father hear my prayer,
beat and bruise me no one stares,
kill the child locked downstairs,
not even now does god care." Sang the voice in a demented lullaby tune.

Suddenly she looked over at me slowly. I was getting scared. Eden looked so...so...

"Dead." Eden said quietly.

I just stared at her, was she reading my thoughts. No, that was just stupid to think.

"Whats dead?" I asked quietly managing to keep my voice steady.

"They're all dead. I killed them. In this room...with that knife." Eden said pointing lazily to a rusty old kitchen knife on the floor a few feet to the right of me.

"Eden, we wanna help you." I said.

Suddenly Eden started laughing in a crazed way.

"Help me? Help me? Ha! You can't help me, you dont want to help me! Your brother can't even stand to look at me! Look, he thinks i'm crazy, just looking at me makes him want to be sick." Eden said in such a crazed voice so unlike the one I knew.

"That's not true Eden. We wouldn't be here if we didn't want to help you." I said.

I looked back to Soda and realized I would be on my own for this. He still hadn't moved from his spot. He just stood there pale as a sheet and looking at the floor in the hallway. But I had to convince her to come home. It wasn't good for her to be here.

"Eden your not well." I said.

"Just get out. I don't want your help, I want what I deserve." Eden said in a hushed angry tone.

"What do you deserve?" I asked.

"To die. To sit in this room, remember what happened, and die." Eden said.

I went to say that it wasn't true, but then Eden suddenly looked as if she had just seen us there.

"Get out! You don't belong in here! Get out before you can never leave!" Eden spat out.

So we left. I wasn't going to make her angry, and I wasn't going to make Soda stay there. Halfway home Soda finally started speaking again.

"We have to get her out of there. I don't care how many times we have to go back. She can't stay there. She'll kill herself." Soda said determindly.

And so we did. Every other day we went back. At first Eden would just yell at us to leave, but then she'd stay quite until we left. We brought her food and a blanket to sleep under. Finally after the fourth day she started to talk to us again. And after a week she would laugh with us like normal. But she'd refuse to leave the house.

"You know Eden, you have an accent, I can tell. Where's it from?" Soda smiled.

"Brooklyn." Eden replied simply taking a drag off her cigarette.

"Now I know why you remind me of my buddy Dally. He's from New York too!" Soda laughed.

"Wait a minute. Did you just say Dally. As in Dallas Winston, Dally?" Eden asked with wide eyes.

Me and Soda nodded.

"Oh my gawd! I haven't seen blue eyes since I left New York two years ago." Eden laughed.

There was a small pause.

"Where is blue eyes anyway? How's he been?" Eden asked.

"Well, he's been alright. He's in the cooler right now though." I said.

"I knew it. Idiot can't go to long without me without getting himself into trouble." Eden smiled.

Suddenly I had an idea.

"Eden i'll make you a deal. You come back to our house...to live. And i'll take you to go see Dally." I said.

Eden stared at me for a minute.

"I have to think about it." Eden said.

We left that day around four o'clock in the afternoon. Things were starting to look up a little bit. I had my hopes that Eden would come home in a few days, and I keep my promise to her. I'd take her to go see Dally.

Later that night, just as we were getting ready to sit down to dinner, there was a knock at the front door. My brothers and me all looked at each other. Who the hell would knock on our door at this time of night. No one ever knocked on our door. Not unless it was a social worker, but it was too late for that, or the fuzz, but who could possibly be in trouble.

"Who is it?" Darry called out in front of the door.

"Me!" A voice called back.

"Who the hell is Me?" Darry asked loudly and opened the door.

"Obviously you are you, and I am me. Don't take much to figure that out superman." Eden replied sarcastically when the door was opened.

The was a long pause.

"What are you doing here?" Darry asked.

"Well if I wasn't fired, then if I remember correctly I have a job here." Eden said.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have been so rude about you wanting to keep your past a secret." Darry started.

"I say we forget that ever happened, and just go back to where we left off before the fight." Eden said.

Darry just nodded his head in agreement.

"Ok, now lets see...grilled cheese. No no no no no, this is not dinner. Give me five minutes and you'll have dinner." Eden said.

And just like that she was back. Things went back to normal, only now we knew her past. Most of it. There were still things we would ask and she would say.

"Ask me no questions and i'll tell you no lies."

And we left it alone. After what happened the last time we prodded we decided to let her tell us when she was ready. Things didn't go completely back to normal. I couldn't look her in the eye anymore, or even say a whole sentence to her. I hate to admit it, but I had a crush. But I didn't want to say anything. With Eden you never knew what her reaction would be. But finally one day I decided to tell her.

"Hey Eden, You doing anything today?" I asked calmly.

"He speaks." She said sarcastically making Soda and Steve laugh.

"Shut up you two!" She yelled at Steve and Soda. "No why?" She answered my question.

"I was gonna go into town today and wondered if maybe you wanted to come with, y'know get out of the house." I said nonchalantly.

She thought about it for a minute.
"Alright. Let me change my shirt really quick, these two knuckleheads thought it would be funny to spill coke all over me." She said glaring at Soda and Steve.

"Well it was." Steve laughed.

"Hahahaha...Shut up." Eden said and knocked thier heads together.

"This isn't to go see Dally is it?" She asked me quietly on her way to change.

"Yeah, but I figured we'd get some food first if that's okay with you." I said.

"She nodded and left for her 'room', by was this gonna be a wierd day.

OKAY, THANKIES TO ALL MY REVIEWERS ONCE AGAIN. I KNOW I LEFT YOU AT A CLIFFY, I AM SO HORRIBLE, OH, HOW MEAN . NO WORRIES. THE NEXT CHAPTER IS ALREADY IN THE OWRKINGS. YOU WON'T HAVE TO WAIT LONG AT ALL TO READ WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. SO KEEP THOSE REVIEWS COMING. I WON'T POST THE NEXT CHAPPY TILL I HAVE AT LEAST SIX REVIEWS FOR THIS CHAPPY . I'M SO MEAN.