Too Bad to Die [The Outsiders fanfiction]

3. Run

When the kid's breath was blood, Dallas knew it was too late.

Gang violence grew in the streets of New York like mildew grew between the bricks of old, musty buildings. No amount of sealant could stop the mildew from spreading. No amount of laws or police to enforce them could stop boys from killing each other.

Still, there was something strangely horrifying about being thirteen years old and watching someone bleed out on concrete. It was like falling during a game of tag as a child. Thrill to terror as the skin of his knees was scraped away. Feeling sick as he stared at the dirty fabric, darker than it should have been.

This was not a game.

The kid was dying and doing nothing about it. He wasn't too much older than Dallas. Fifteen, sixteen.

Dallas was supposed to see a rival gang member. A victory.

He just saw a boy with blood coming out of his mouth. Not an opponent. Not some villain meant to be struck down. Just a kid like he was a kid.

It wasn't even Dallas who had hurt this boy. Murdered him, he thought, sickened, then brushed the thought from his mind. And he'd seen people killed before- time and time again, shots in the head and punches that hit a little too hard and switchblades buried to the hilt in a desperate, heaving chest. He'd been the one to find his mother with empty eyes in their (ironically named) living room.

They were all going to die someday.

But no dying person had ever looked at him, or spoken to him. It was different somehow; there was separation between seeing a death and knowing a death.

The boy's mouth moved. He looked like a fish out of water, gasping, flopping. Trying frantically to find a form of salvation. It looked like he was saying, help me. Red ran down his cheek. A mess of salty blood and salty tears. Go, fish. Find your ocean.

He died.

Dallas didn't even know his name.

One of his friends had killed this boy. Not friend.

Time to get away from the crime scene. He knew how to do this. Run, but don't look guilty. Run, before the police came and arrested him again. Run from a murder rap.

Just run.

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Dallas jumped on the next train to Tulsa. 

~guess who's going to be here in the next chapter~hint: he's smol and his name is johnnycake~