It's been months since Ponyboy has run track — it shows in the way that he can't outpace this car faster. Or maybe it's the fact that he doesn't know this place well, what with it being greaser territory. The alleyways, the houses, they aren't familiar and all it does is make Ponyboy panic, make him run faster.

Omega hunts are something that people talk about — alphas getting into cars, chasing omegas down the street until they're terrified or they're caught. To be caught meant that you were a goner; being beaten up was the better option if you were caught.

Right now, Ponyboy is running solely on blind terror, trying to figure out where to go, trying to figure out what to do besides just run. It's no real help, though as the houses are unfamiliar, the yards entirely too barren for cover, and the street a hazard.

He doesn't know how long he runs, he doesn't know how much he tries to get away, legs burning, chest coming after. All he knows is that whenever he thinks he's safe even for a moment, those lights come out, and then he's hitting the pavement or grass as quick as he can, unable to think more than a moment.

Even reading the street signs are harder than anticipated — this part of town is kept so poorly that most don't have functioning lights at night, and even though he hollers, it's a Friday night. Most people aren't home at this hour or are sound asleep.

Ponyboy doesn't know he's crying until he sees the hill. The hill that he'd walked away from the car, the park and the bubbling fountain that he had first fled from. He turns his head, trying to see where the car is — it's been gone for two streets, and he thinks to run to the left, to a patch of dark shadow.

It's his bad luck that the car roars from that direction. Worse luck that when he tries to turn right, his feet tangle up and he hits the pavement so hard that his teeth slice into his cheek, blood seeping into his mouth. For a moment he's left stunned, his ears ringing, body going stiff.

He can't run any more.

Terror overtakes him as the car ratches up the curb feet away from him. Ponyboy struggles to his feet, tries to get himself up in time, hearing the car doors, open, scents hitting the air — scents mingled with alcohol of all things.

All he can think is to get to somewhere where they can't get him. Even though his lungs are burning, even though his legs feel like jelly, he scrambles up the hill, panting in the cold air. Maybe he can grasp the monkey bars, maybe he can climb up —

His vision blurs. A body slams into him, and Ponyboy yells, tries to squirm away even as he hits the grass. The smell of alcohol, pungent aftershave, cologne overwhelms him. Ponyboy gags as he's forced up, forced to look into the face of the person who had once been his best friend. David grasps him from behind, a full foot taller than Ponyboy and probably thirty pounds heavier, all football muscle as he lifts Ponyboy up.

Johnny looks down at him, his eyes dark and glittering. "David, why don't we give the dirty omega a bath? Wash all that grease off of him?"

Ponyboy can feel his eyes grow huge in his face. He thrashes, jerks away. "No! Johnny – Johnny, no, let me go –!"

He's hoisted further up then, toes entirely leaving the ground. Johnny sneers at him, in a way that's all threat and no charm. "We get you clean, maybe you can finally be one of us again, huh? Finally be a real Soc."

Venom tinges every word out of his mouth and Ponyboy is using every ounce of his strength. The only purchase is realizing the jacket — the jacket that Dallas had so lovingly put on him hours ago, a lifetime ago – is still too big on him. A violent twist of his arms and he's slipping out of it. He doesn't want to leave it, yet it's his only avenue for a moment, hitting the ground hard enough to hurt his tailbone, struggling to get on his feet and run.

He only gets about three feet — tailbone aching, tears flowing down his cheeks — and then he's caught back again. "Help! Someone help me, please!"

It's a mistake to do that, to let out all the air. Sharp, cold water hits him as he shoved into the fountain, forced to look at Johnny's angry face, the glee on David and Bob's faces churning in the water above. Terror grips him, and Ponyboy hates the rush of cold in his nose, his mouth, struggling more and —

"That enough? You wanna behave?" He's yanked right out to Johnny's angry words, coughing and sputtering up water. His chest burns, he gags, and something worse hits his nostrils: the smell of sharp alcohol.

Humiliation floods Ponyboy; they're dumping it on him like it's antiseptic, jeering. "Maybe that'll clean him up better, huh?"

"Johnny please, Johnny, he's —"

He's shoved back in the water. He hadn't thought to take a breath. All Ponyboy thinks is that he's going to die here. He's going to die here, at his best friend's hands, all because he wanted to kiss a boy who he didn't deem right. All because he felt something, for someone, for the first time in months.

The next time he's hauled up, he can hardly sputter, hardly gag out water. His chest doesn't feel right, his head feels like fuzz. All he can see is Johnny's face, stark despite Bob and David and Randy crowding him. He can see something moving in the dark behind him —

– then he's back in the water. He hadn't thought to take a breath.

His vision begins to turn red and Ponyboy thinks, Please. Please, I don't wanna die.

Dallas is halfway to Buck's when an odd scent catches his nose, mixed with the faint sound of voices. That's an odd thing to hear at this time of night — most people were out at this time or at the bonfire. Hearing people around like this usually wasn't good news.

Sometimes, that meant that Tim Shepard was spoiling for a fight or one of the Brumly Boys was chasing skirts he shouldn't be and was fixing for a fight. Sometimes, that meant some drunk idiot was around and Dallas could easily roll them for their money, their belongings, enough to live off of for awhile, and burn off some of the energy he had.

He already walked the girl's home, had already gone near Sylvia's place just to see if she was there — and she wasn't, despite the fact he wanted to give her a piece of his mind.

So Dallas turns his head, the scents sharp. Most people here couldn't scent that far. Something about him — he didn't know what — made it that he had sharper senses than most, had a better chance of catching shit before others. This time, it leads him towards the park where the voices steadily are getting louder, distinctly male. The scents get sharper too: beta, mostly alpha, and the horrible stench of way, way too much alcohol and aftershave mixing with it.

That was always the tip off: certain greasers wore aftershave, yet it was never so sharp and never mixed with the sort of classy alcohol Dallas was picking up. That meant Socs.

Socs meant: someone was stirring up trouble.

It didn't take a genius to figure out what trouble that might be. Everyone had seen him kiss Ponyboy — seen him touch him, put him in his lap. They might be here to settle some imaginary score. Dallas grins at the thought; Socs didn't always put up a great fight, but more than one might make this night even better.

What he doesn't expect to find, when he sees the park, getting towards the hill before it is to see his own jacket crumpled in the grass, or the sharp scent of omega.

Ponyboy's scent.

Shock washes over Dallas. Ponyboy's lovely, nice scent, mixing with that?

The wind picks up and he hears Ponyboy's voice, "Someone help me, please!"

His heart beats too hard in his ears. Of all the possibilities he'd considered, Dallas hadn't thought about Socs turning on their own. Greasers wouldn't.

He doesn't think any further than that as cruel laughter reaches his ears. His hand just plunges into his pocket, grasping the switchblade there. it's a bigger one than what most greaser's had, sharper. Dallas keeps moving as quickly as he can, gaining speed in the night.

His sight is narrowed on one person, and one person alone: Johnny Cade and the obnoxious cologne he wears. He's the one pulling the strings, the one who's back is to Dallas' own. He's distracted by what he's doing, commanding them to dunk Ponyboy in the water over and over again.

When they raise Ponyboy out of the water again, Dallas — feet behind Johnny, his hand wrapped tightly around the handle of the switchblade — he can see a dazed look on Ponyboy's face. The Socs are looking down at him, all of them drunk, too distracted to watch for Dallas, one of them shaking him. "You clean yet?"

Ponyboy vomits up water. Johnny takes a step forward, his voice loud and clear. "Are you, Ponyboy? You clean enough for me to have you?"

Ponyboy's eyes flicker. Dallas thinks he's seen him, and he spits up water on Johnny's face. His eyes flutter.

Best friends. This was how Johnny Cade was treating a kid who was supposedly his best friend. The best friend who'd been nothing except sweet to Dallas, who had kissed him earlier that night, talked to him. The reek of alcohol hits his nostrils, and Dallas feels rage overtake him when he sees one of the Socs dunk the contents of a flask on Ponyboy's head, all of them laughing — laughing at someone who didn't deserve this, any of this.

Rational thought flees Dallas' head. That fuzzy static of fury seems to solidify into something worse, something purely instinctual at a base level of him that he has so rarely felt so viscerally. It's enough to make his fangs ache, making the rage something he can almost taste.

Dallas moves then, finally closing the space between him and Johnny. That awful aftershave, the cologne stings his nostrils. It doesn't affect his aim; not when he grasps Johnny by his short hair, plunging the switchblade into his neck. A shockwave ripples through everyone present, Johnny trying to reel up, gurling. The other boys yell in terror.

None of them get in his way as he twists, wrenches the switchblade. Not when he pulls it out and stabs it into the column of Johnny Cade's neck, over and over again. His vision turns into a red haze of fury, driving the blade in and out of Johnny over and over again until Dallas can only scent blood more than cologne or aftershave, can only feel blood washing over his hands.

All he feels is fury, all he can think is that best friend or not, this Soc wasn't going to live. He didn't deserve to live.

He stabs until Johnny Cade collapses beneath him, until he stops moving.

Only then does he pull the knife out of his neck. There's blood everywhere, and when he looks up, he can see the other Socs are fleeing into the night. Ponyboy sits in front of him, eyes wide, blood splattered all over his face, his hair, his shirt. He's soaking wet, chest heaving.

That instinctive feeling isn't concentrated on rage, now that Johnny is dead. Dallas can taste blood in the air itself as his feelings shift towards protection, towards reaching out to Ponyboy's still shaking, drenched form.

Ponyboy coughs, shivers, and when Dallas comes over to him, he runs a bloody hand through his hair, his skin utterly cold, his shoulders shaking. He helps Ponyboy lean over, as he vomits up more water, as he sobs, heaves.

The air grows colder around them. When Ponyboy gasps out his name, Dallas only responds with, "C'mon, kid."

Ponyboy doesn't protest. He looks up at Dallas with huge, fearful eyes, and Dallas strokes his cheek, leaning downward to kiss him.

He tastes blood. He's very sure that Ponyboy can taste blood, too.

Sunlight filters through Cherry's window. A groan leaves her; her limbs feel heavy, and she lifts her head up blearily. Her sparse room greets her: the Elvis poster hanging up on the wall, her schoolbooks on her desk, her clothes from last night in a bundle.

She turns her head to look at her clock: 8.15 AM. It sucks to have woken up this early on a weekend, but well. Most girls her age didn't have to work a job on the weekends to make sure that they had money so their mother wouldn't drink up their daddy's paycheck.

For once though, Cherry doesn't mind it. If she can get up, get dressed, go to work she can take her mind off of the dreams she'd had last night. The ones where she was walking home with Dallas, kissing him on her front porch. Where Ponyboy Curtis didn't exist, messing everything up for her.

Sadness wells up in her chest, tears threaten her eyes. And what was worse, she had to see them at the Dingo tonight.

God, she hoped she didn't have to watch them make out all night. She says a quiet prayer to God that she doesn't have to watch Ponyboy Curtis waltz around the Dingo with Dallas all day, touching each other, kissing each other, being like every other couple. She prays that they'll fizzle out, and she'll still, somehow, get Dallas.

For now though, she has to wipe her eyes and get up. She trudges to the bathroom, brushing her teeth, washing her face. Looking at how her skin was clear for once, and she still couldn't win over an omega with money.

She searches her face in the mirror as she hears her mother shuffle past saying, "G'morning, Sherri!"

"Morning, Mom. You're getting breakfast?" Cherry looks at herself, searches for the flaw Dallas clearly found in her that she couldn't find herself.

"Yeah, don't worry about it," her mother yawns out. "Just c'mon."

Cherry hears her flick on the television. She spends a few moments more searching her pinkened face in the mirror, looking at her tired eyes, at her form. What didn't she have? What kept making Dallas overlook her?

She sighs, decides against changing into her regular clothes. Her pajamas will do. Glumly, she shuffles out of the bathroom and down the hallway to the living room. The television is on a commercial, and she absentmindedly cranks it up when her mother puts the skillet on the stove.

Cherry hunts for her cigarettes. All she needs is one, just to calm her nerves a little. "Where'd you put my cigarettes?"

Her mother huffs. "You don't need that. They're on the corner of the table."

Cherry moves and the television switches from the commercial to a news report. "This morning, Tulsa has been rocked by an unprecedented event. At roughly 5.15am this morning, the body of Johnathan Cade Jr. was discovered in Crutchfield Park."

A shock runs through Cherry and she whips around, her eyes glued to the television. The newscaster there is solemn, made up in black and white. "He was declared dead at the scene by the coroner. The boy, aged sixteen, was found with a nearly severed head due to multiple stab wounds." Behind her, she can hear her mother gasp, Cherry grasping her cigarettes in a tight grip. "In addition, his friend, Ponyboy Curtis is also missing from the scene. He is currently believed to be the hostage of the suspect at large, Dallas Winston."

Cherry drops her cigarettes to the floor the same time her mother drops her coffee cup, shattering all over their kitchen floor. A feeling of numb shock spreads through her as the footage switches to Johnny Cade's body being hauled away in an ambulance, blood all over the cover. The newscaster continues, and all Cherry hears is a buzzing noise inside of her head, her hand shaking, knees going weak.

There's no way that Dallas is innocent. She knows Dallas Winston from top to bottom, knows exactly who he is even if she can't always understand.

It makes her sick, to look at the screen, to drop to the couch as the newscaster talks about dead body and missing and fugitive.

She doesn't know what to do as it all swirls in her mind except to think to herself that when she prayed, she hadn't thought any of this could come of it.

She can only hope that Dallas and Ponyboy will turn up together, and that maybe, maybe he can escape the electric chair.

thanks so much for reading! next week or so i'll be posting the next fic in this series, a direct follow up to this. if you want to read ahead, there are other parts for this series that were previously written. thanks so much to monstrology for helping edit this!