Sirens blared, piercing my ears and drowning out the noise from the movie. The fence that ran along the sides of the lot were illuminated with red and blue lights.

I craned my neck and looked at the road beside the drive-in. Three police cars zipped by, followed by an ambulance. I turned to look at Cherry, who was watching the road intently.

"What's happening?" she asked, and I shrugged.

"It could be someone thinking they're a badass or somethin'." That got Cherry to laugh a little. "Some kinda wanna-be-hood."

Suddenly a picture of a hood crumbling underneath a street light flashed across my mind. I could help but cringe as I mentally heard Dally's body thud against the pavement and the blasts of gunfire through the air.

Another memory played as soon as Dally's memory ended. It was Tim glaring at me coldly, his wolfish grin fading.

Dally and Tim were practically the same person, and Dallas died that night because he was angry with the world. Tim was clearly bothered by something - he was cheerful and laughing only moments before it seemed like he suddenly wanted to tear my throat out.

The chances of Tim being in the same situation as Dallas were very slim, but I couldn't help but worry.

I slowly looked over at Cherry.

"I have a feeling that it might be Tim," I told her. She sighed, shaking her head slightly as if Tim being in trouble was expected - Of course, it was expected for Tim to be in somesort of problem, but her disbelief still made me frown.

Then I turned the key, and Cherry looked at me as if I had lost my mind.

"What are you doing?"

"Tim's practically family," I told her. "If he's in trouble, then I need to help him.

I felt like I didn't really believe that Tim was family when I said it. He didn't like me, and to be honest, I wasn't too fond of Tim, either. He only tolerated me because I was a greaser, like him, and because I was Darry's little brother - Everybody knew that - and that was as far as our relationship went. We weren't even friends. We were only two juvenile delinquents who were destined for nothing more than pumping gas and breaking glass. Society chose that life for us.

Tim wasn't too important to me. He practically ruined my date when he began eyeing Cherry, and now he could ruin it again, because I'm deciding to chase his tail on a hunch. I should be enjoying being with Cherry instead of hunting him down.

Steve's voice echoed in my head. We're family. We're always there for each other.

What Steve had told me that night was nothing new. I knew that I needed to be there for my family, whether that family was Ponyboy and Darry or the gang. But I don't think that I understood that it meant more than just taking care of friends.

It didn't matter if I liked Tim or not. Pony and Darry couldn't stand each other sometimes, but still they would do anything for each other. Tim may not be as close to me as Steve or Two-Bit are, but he is still considered a part of my family, and if he was in trouble, then it was my responsibility to help him.

"Okay," Cherry said. She sounded a little disheartened, I imagine that chasing after a boy that she didn't even like wasn't Cherry's idea of an ideal date.

"Look," I said, "I know you don't wanna go huntin' him down, but I gotta be sure that Tim's alright. He's a friend, and I gotta know."

Cherry nodded, and I frowned again,

"I'm sorry. Really. I'll make up for this, I promise."
That seemed to make her feel a bit better, so I began to back out of the drive-in to follow the ear-splitting sirens down the road.

We had followed the police cars until they stopped in a neighborhood on the west side. The street was alive with noise, light, and movement.

There was an old paint-chipped car parked on the curb. I recognized it from nights out, filled with booze and girls. It's was Steve's car, and I couldn't see Steve anywhere. A sudden page of fear spread through me, and I gulped. If Steve was hurt. . .

I took another look around, and I saw Steve standing outside of the line of police tape that was strung around lamp posts. A man in a blue uniform stood in front of him, and a girl to his left. I hadn't seen her before, but I could assume it was Kristy. She was pretty, like Steve said. Her light hair was drug back into a quick knot, and bangs dusted the tips of her eyebrows. She looked a bit worried - Maybe even scared.

There was a blanket wrapped around her shoulders - Steve had one, too, but he'd discarded it on the sidewalk. I'd heard that when someone witnessed something horrible, an ambulance would give you a blanket for shock. What would have happened that could have shocked them?

People were shuffling about frantically, talking, interrogating the crowd that had accumulated around the blindingly yellow tape that naturally instructed them to stay out, running back and forth. I could see a man and a woman crying in each other's arms, clinging tightly to each other as if their lives depended on it.

Among the constant moving within the tape's borders, a bed was being wheeled towards the ambulance, and beneath the blanket draped over it was something bulky and large. It looked suspiciously like a human body. I gulped, growing uneasy about being there with every passing second.

I looked over at Cherry, who didn't look any more comfortable than I felt. Her shoulders were tensed, and she was biting at her lip apprehensively. Cherry was looking at the two people weeping.

"Those are the Cardens," Cherry pointed out to me. "The parents of this kid named Devon. . . . Randy's friends with him. He'd usually be there with Randy when I was around him."

"Why're they cryin'?" I asked, trying to look through my windshield, over the heads of the still growing crowd.

"I don't know."

I was finally able to see through a space that hadn't been occupied by a person yet, and what I saw made my gut feel like it exploded, as it someone had made me swallow a firecracker had it went off. I saw exactly who had brought me here. It was Tim.

He was struggling with a cop, steel chains wrapped around his wrists. I opened my truck door to get out as soon as the cop opened the police car door to push him in.

"Hey!" I shouted, pushing my way through the crowd. "The hell's goin' on?" I doubted that Cherry would follow me under the tape when I bent down to get past it. I doubted she even followed me out of the car. It didn't matter, though. I wanted to know what was going on, even though a small voice in the back of my head told me that I wasn't going to get any answers.

"You can't be here," a police man said. I looked at him, and recognized him for picking me and Two-Bit up for walking around on our hands in town, apparently "disturbing the peace" because we were having fun. I didn't hold any sort of hate for the man, but the reminder still made me continue trudging towards the police car where Tim was putting up one hell of a fight to stay out of the car. "Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to leave!" I heard the police man call from behind me, but I ignored him.

Tim saw me approaching, and his struggling lost a bit of it's previous effort. With the lack of resistance, the cop was able to shove Tim into the car, and I began to speed up.

I reached the car as the door shut, and the cop looked me over before saying, "You can't be here," as if it were some sort of line memorized from a book.

"Why the hell are you arresting my friend?"

"I'm asking you to leave," he said, clearly becoming more and more irritated with me not complying.

"Not till you tell me what's goin' on!"

"You'll find out soon enough." The police man grasped my sleeve, wrapping the fabric around his hand as if he were going to drag me out. "Now leave before I have to use force."

"No," I hissed, trying to jerk my arm away, but the man had begun to drag me back towards the yellow border that separated the scene from the curious spectators. I tried my best to remain my ground, but my feet kept slipping under me, and he was able to pull me away a few inches before I successfully got my arm away from him.

I looked over at Tim, who was watching me and the cop struggle with a scowl on his face, and then felt a sharp pain hit my head and heard a loud clunk break through the air. My cheek met the pavement, and not even a second later I was unconscious.