A/N: And we're back! Thank you if you've been waiting. If you haven't, I should point out this is a sequel to 'The Only Kind' and it would make sense to read that first, because I'm picking up right where we left it. :) I do not own The Outsiders.

The Saturday of the rumble.

I flew out of the bathroom, barely clutching a towel around me, grabbing the phone at arm's length. My heart sank when I heard Sylvia's voice. Stupid. Every time. I was stupid to think it would be Steve. He was never much for calling, even before this. Shit, I wish he'd call.

I thought she was just babbling about Dallas, but I started paying attention when I heard her say Johnny's name.

"Wait. Go back, what?" I sat on the bottom stair.

"Christ, Evie, I can only tell ya what I heard. Dally found 'em. Johnny and Soda's kid brother. They're in the hospital. They were in a fire."

"What?" I couldn't begin to imagine what had happened. "Are they okay?"

"I dunno. I heard Johnny's bad. I'mma head over there, see Dal, if I can." She paused. "You wanna come with me?" She sounded unsure, maybe nervous. Not like her.

"I got work, Sylvia."

"Yeah, okay." She recovered, became her brash self again. "Listen, what d'ya wanna do about the rumble tonight?"

What did I want to do? Stop it. Make sure Steve and Soda and Two-Bit and every single one of them didn't have to go up against the kind of people who'd started all this, the kind of lousy, arrogant fuckers who thought they owned this town and had the right to hurt kids like Ponyboy and Johnny. Socs who might hurt Steve.

She continued. "I figure The Dingo would be the best place to hear. We could go together."

And as much as I didn't want it to happen, I needed to know the outcome more. I needed to know how bad he got hurt. Besides, I'd spent three nights crying in my room. I needed to get back some connection to Steve.

"Yeah. I'll be home by six." I arranged to meet her. I wasn't going to front up at The Dingo on my own and it wasn't as if I had a huge choice of companions any more. I could put up with her while I waited for news.

xXx

We weren't the only girls waiting. As I looked around the diner, I saw several groups nervously chatting or glancing at the clock, looking in their compacts, checking hair and lipstick that didn't need checking.

I suspected we were the only ones not waiting for specific boys. Although possibly Sylvia was hoping to benefit from whatever post-fight adrenaline Dallas needed to work out. When I'd pointed out he was still in the hospital – and he hadn't let her see him – she just smiled and said, "Ain't no way Dally'll miss this rumble."

So maybe he would be needing some nursing, or loving, or whatever these girls were all waiting to provide for their guys. I had no hope, despite Sylvia's assertion, that Steve would come looking for me. No hope at all.

"You'll see," she'd told me, with an air of superiority. "Soon as they get done congratulating each other, they start wantin' to show off in other ways. Randle'll be beggin' to get into bed with ya!"

I didn't bother to argue with her. But I knew Steve wouldn't be begging me for anything. He hated me, he looked like he hated me. I tried not to think about that. I just wanted to know that he was okay. That got me to thinking about who else would be there tonight.

"Did you know your brother runs with the Shepard gang?" I asked out of idle curiosity.

Sylvia snorted. "Trey? Yeah, I know. Buzz was not happy. He hates Shepard's guts. But Trey likes a fight, he'll do good tonight."

We ordered Cokes we didn't really want. Ran down the other girls' threads, out of their earshot. Ignored any catty looks that came our way. There were plenty. Sylvia was never popular with any girl who had a boyfriend. They feared her 'man magnet' reputation. Plus news travels pretty fast in our neighborhood. I was sure they knew we'd both been dumped, making me single and a liability too. Probably, they even knew about Sandy, who was conspicuous by her absence from our table.

I knew one or two of the other girls by name. But after I'd dropped out, it was too easy to lose touch with people. I didn't belong to any of the groups they kept themselves in. I'd spent the summer with the Curtis gang - not that they called themselves that, they weren't as arrogant as Tim 'the world revolves around me' Shepard. But Steve and Soda and Dallas, that's who people around here would associate me with now, regardless of the fact I'd been cut loose.

Hadn't always been that way, though, and as a couple of cars pulled into the lot, I nudged Sylvia. She shrugged dismissively.

"Brumly."

"News." I corrected her, sliding out of the booth. I pulled Sylvia with me and elbowed through the crowd of kids in the doorway, towards the blue T-Bird. The rain was easing off, but the Brumly guys were covered in mud. More mud than blood, I was pleased to see.

"Hey, Barratt. You okay?" I smiled as he turned around, surprised.

"Evie? Hey, sweetie. I'm all good. Never better, in fact." He had a split lip and a deep scratch gouged across his forehead, but it looked like it was done bleeding. I was aware of Sylvia checking him out. I smiled to myself, even she would have a tough time snagging him.

"What happened?" I handed Barratt the Coke I hadn't drunk. He took a long swig, spilling a little as it hurt his lip. The other guys who'd climbed out of his car had chicks swarming over them. It wouldn't do his rep any harm to have me pay him a little attention.

"Kicked their Socy asses." He grinned, wiping his chin. "Fuckin' weasels ran like the cowards they are."

The air of celebration should have told us that. Kids were running from car to car, passing on scraps of information, whooping and hollering.

"Anyone hurt bad?"

He shrugged, looking over at the other Brumly boys. "Mason hadda be taught a lesson, but we're okay."

"Was Dallas there?" Sylvia blurted, unable to contain herself any longer. Barratt nodded.

"Winston? Yeah. I saw him."

Sylvia gave me one of her 'told you so' looks. I ignored her.

"What about the others? Did you see the Curtis boys? They okay?" I just couldn't bring myself to ask directly about Steve.

"Everyone was walking, sweetie, far as I could see. Nobody got hurt that bad." Barratt looked amused. "Who you hangin' out for news of, huh?"

"We should go to Buck's." Sylvia interrupted before I could answer. "I betcha they end up there."

Barratt drained the Coke. "Need a ride?" He was such a nice guy. I shook my head.

"I ain't going." I turned to Sylvia. "I just wanted news, y'know that. I'mma head home."

She looked thoughtful. "Yeah, maybe you're right. He'll know he can find me at home." The news that we'd won seemed to have fired Sylvia up. She was acting like it was a done deal, that Dallas was definitely coming back to her. She was also shooting me meaningful looks, darting her eyes at Barratt.

"What?" I frowned at her.

She dragged me a few paces away. "You got history with this guy? You got a perfect opportunity right there. Get him to drive you around a little, or at least hang here, rub Randle's nose in it."

I shook my head. Not that Barratt wouldn't do it. He'd probably think it was a gas. But I just didn't think it would work on Steve. Sylvia rolled her eyes, she obviously considered me a hopeless case.

But I did at least hug Barratt when I said goodbye. Not for one second because I thought it would get back to Steve, but because he'd been in a fight like all the other boys and I thought he could do with it. He winced a little, so I told him to get some ice on his ribs real soon.

He smiled at me. "There's gonna be a reshow of The Hustler, next week or so, over at The Circle. You wanna go?"

xXx

I was groggy with too little sleep after staying up drinking coffee all night. I knew Steve wouldn't call me. I knew that. But I was still worried about him, wondering if he'd been hurt, or rather, how badly. No matter what Barratt had said, no matter that we'd won, that the Socs had run, it was still a fight and Steve wouldn't have come out completely unscathed.

I spent some time remembering how he'd been after the fight with Ricky. That was the worst I'd seen him injured. He'd been so out of it, on those painkillers, he might as well have had flowers in his hair, and still he'd been trying to get in my underwear. I missed him so bad.

I tried to forget the look on his face the last time I'd seen him.

I sat up, drinking coffee after coffee, in case he called.

When I fell into bed just after four in the morning, I didn't even undress properly.

Sarah stopped midsentence when she burst into my room, staring at me.

"Evie, your friend's...have you been to bed at all?" she said. She was in her robe. It was light out but I couldn't work out what time it was. Sarah motioned for me to hurry and follow her. "Your friend's here. You'd better come."

"Sandy?" I wasn't thinking straight. Or maybe she'd always be my immediate reaction when someone said the word 'friend', possibly for the rest of my life.

"No, not Sandy." She clicked her tongue at me, impatiently. "The bottle blonde, Sandy's friend. Evie, move it!"

I stumbled down the stairs. As soon as I saw her, I knew why Sarah was rattled.

Sylvia was sitting on the edge of one the kitchen chairs, turned away from the table, hunched over, shivering. She looked up at me, her expression ghastly, her face drained of colour. I walked over to her in slow motion. Whatever it was, it wasn't good.

"Sylvia?" I didn't want to know, I was sure of that.

"Dallas."

If I hadn't known his name, I might not have caught the whisper for what it was. I was aware of Sarah pouring coffee, putting a mug within Sylvia's reach. She didn't notice. I crouched down in front of her, took her hand. "What about Dallas?"

She was looking right at me, but I wasn't sure she was seeing me. "Dallas is dead."

"At the rumble? They killed him?" I was confused.

"No. No." She shook her head. "After. They shot him. They...shot him."

I glanced at Sarah, her eyes were wide.

"Sylvia? What the hell happened? The Socs ran, we won, for Chrissakes, we heard that. Barratt, everyone last night, said that...What d'ya mean 'they shot him'? The Socs jumped him after the rumble?" I couldn't begin to work out what had happened.

Sylvia started taking great gulps of air, like she'd forgotten how to breathe. "Not the Socs." She shook her head. "The cops shot him. They shot Dally. After the rumble..." It came tumbling out of her, once she started. "After the rumble...he had a heater, y'know, but he wouldn'ta used it, he was just...After Johnny died, he went crazy, he held up a store. They shot him, the cops shot Dally..."

I sat down hard on the kitchen floor. It was like I had no bones holding me up.

"Johnny died...?" I repeated. My voice sounded far away. She was looking through me again.

Sarah moved slowly towards me. She pulled me up off the floor and sat me in a chair. She hugged me as she did it, but I was past noticing.

"What about the other guys?" I couldn't begin to understand how this had happened, I could only think of them together.

They would have been together.

Hadn't they been together?

What about Steve? I wanted to scream.

Sylvia didn't speak. I looked at Sarah, panicking, unable to process anything properly.

Sarah poured a lot of sugar into the coffee and placed Sylvia's hands around the cup. She came to a little, and drank some. I waved away the one Sarah offered me.

"Sylvia? What about all the other boys? Is anyone else hurt?" Sarah's voice was steady and firm.

Sylvia shook her head. "I don't think so. Dally...Dally wouldn'ta used it, they didn't need to...They didn't need to do that."

"Who told you?" A cold chill went down my spine. How did she know? She'd been home, like me, hadn't she? Sylvia's eyes slid away from mine. I repeated the question sharply.

"Jack. He called me. He was...there..."

I stood up so fast I knocked the chair over, backing up in horror, away from Sylvia, until I hit the wall and I couldn't escape any further. Sarah looked shocked at my reaction, at whatever I was showing on my face.

"He was there? What d'ya mean, 'he was there'? Jesus Christ, Sylvia, you don't mean he shot Dallas?" I had no idea how I'd been able to put that into words. For once, I was glad my mouth had done it before my brain thought about it. The cop - her cop - the one she'd been two-timing Dallas with...

Sylvia started crying. Great sobs wrenched out of her as she hugged herself into a tiny ball. "He wouldn't tell me, he wouldn't say, he just said Dallas got shot. But he was there. Oh God. Oh God, he was there..."

Sarah was looking at me like every cell in her body was waving a sign saying, 'What the hell?' I realized I was going to vomit and I ran to the bathroom.

"Evie, honey, it's okay. You're okay." Sarah ran a wash cloth under the cold water and wiped my face as I sat on the edge of the tub, shivering. She put her arm around me.

"I can't believe it...I mean...I can't believe it." I could not get my head around it, it was too big, it wasn't something that made any sense. Sarah just nodded and held me tight. After a few minutes she asked me why Sylvia was in our kitchen.

I thought about the guys, who would have sided with Dallas, the way Steve had sided with Soda. I thought about Sylvia, a girl hated by all the other girls, for her ability to click her fingers and attract their boyfriends. I thought about Sandy, gone from both our lives.

"She ain't got no place else to go," I said, to myself as much as to Sarah.

I washed my mouth out, splashed water on my face. Then I went back into the kitchen, pulled up a chair and put my arms around Sylvia while she cried.

xXx

I was tired. I was more tired than I'd ever been in my life. Sylvia had eventually cried herself to sleep on Sarah's bed. It was more than we could do between us to get her up the stairs, in the state she was in, and we wanted her out of the way before Ma got up.

Sarah made toast and cocoa, like she used to when I was little and I was sick or scared. I hated storms when I was a kid and she would sit up with me half the night, feeding me soggy toast and reading me stories. I'd forgotten about that.

There was no storybook in the world that would help now. I gagged on the toast.

Sarah came up to my room and sat next to me on the bed.

"I called Tony."

I didn't respond. What did he have to do with anything? Her engagement ring winked at me, reproachfully.

"He asked around. There was a boy shot by the cops last night."

"For Christ's sake, you think she made that up? For the hell of it?"

"He was her boyfriend, was he? This 'Dallas Winston'?" Sarah was being so calm, I wanted to shake her. "Because Tony says he was in the newspaper with the two who ran away, Darry's brother and the one who died."

My lips formed Johnny's name but no sound came out.

"God, Evie." Sarah rubbed her face. "I thought it was bad enough last week, when we found out why they ran away. Did you hang around with this Dallas character too?"

Yeah, and I used to be scared of him. But he turned out to be okay. He took me on a scam he had going with illegal booze, that's how I knew where Tim Shepard hangs out with his gang. Dallas fought and stole and, oh, he was in the cooler all summer.

I didn't say any of that. I just told her I hadn't seen him recently. Lies were second nature to me now.

"Evie. You need different friends."

I laughed bitterly. "Well, that's been taken care of, ain't it? Remember? My best friend's halfway across the country, my boyfriend dumped me and two people I know...I knew..." I'd thought I was more angry than upset, but I couldn't finish the sentence, couldn't do more than sit there as the tears started and I sobbed.

Sarah put her arm around me. This time I told her the truth. The only truth that mattered.

"I want Steve."

Okay, so who's still in? Did I leave it too late to update?

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