Dallas Winston Has A Sister? (Outsiders Fanfic)

His Parents Almost Killed Him

Note to Readers: This story is a two-part one, which I've written a few of, but I hope you like it.  The second part of this one has something that I'm sure everyone wished would happen.

        I staggered through the door of the Curtis house, trying to carry the dead weight of an unconscious Johnny.  Everyone looked up, because I had made a lot of noise trying to get myself and Johnny through the door.

        "What happened?" Darry demanded immediately as he and Dally laid Johnny down on the couch.

        "It was his parents," I said quietly, glancing at a bloody beaten Johnny.

        He had so many cuts and bruises and so much blood covering his face that I barely recognized him.  His clothes were torn, and so much blood soaking through the rags that a lot of the fabric was shiny and dark with blood, appearing to have been dipped in reddish-black ink.  The sight of him nearly made me sick, and I was almost glad he was unconscious so he wouldn't have to deal with the pain.

        "What do you mean his parents?" Darry asked angrily, and Dally was leaning over Johnny, talking to him in a low voice and swearing up a storm about his parents.

        "I don't know.  Johnny said he had to go in his house to get something, so I was waiting outside for him.  Then there was a bunch of yelling and it sounded like a bunch of stuff was getting broken, like a lot more noise than usual that comes from his house.  I heard Johnny yelling, so I ran in there to see if he was all right, and he was huddled in the corner with his mom and dad pretty much attacking him, it looked like they gonna beat him to death.  I tried hauling them off of him and eventually I got Johnny out the door, but his parents are going to kill both of us the next time they see us," I explained, and for some reason it sounded like my voice was shaking.

        "Not if I kill them first," Dally growled, and he would have run out the door and to Johnny's house and murdered his parents right then if it hadn't been for Darry saying,

        "He's barely breathing.  We have to get him to a hospital immediately."

        Soda and Steve rushed for the phone to call 911 and Two-Bit said we just take him now in one of their cars.  Dally agreed with Two-Bit but Darry argued that he'd have a better chance in an ambulance, and Pony was looking on, not saying or doing anything but staring wide-eyed at Johnny.  I think he was in shock because he didn't even notice me when I tried to talking to him, telling him everything would be okay even though we all knew that was highly unlikely.

        When the ambulance came, Dally forced Pony to to go with him and Johnny, literally dragging Ponyboy out the door and into the ambulance, and the paramedics weren't going to let Dally and Pony go along until my brother threatened them with his blade.

        As the ambulance pulled away from the Curtis's, Darry, Two-Bit, Soda, Steve, and I watched the flashing lights become smaller and heard the sirens fade as it disappeared down the street. We all had the same sick feeling in our guts, growing larger and larger into a writhing knot in our stomachs as even the sirens were gone, taking Johnny with them.  We might never see him, alive and well, again.  Just that thought made me want to kill his parents.  They beat their own son, their own son, to death almost. They might have succeeded for all I knew.

        "I can't deal with this anymore," Darry said bitterly and headed in the house.  He picked up the phone and and spent the next hour calling a million different people.  None of the rest of us knew what he was doing, we sat in the living room almost entirely silent as worry consumed us.

        And guilt consumed me.  It was all my fault.  I never should have let him go in his house.  I should have gone in with him.  i should have gone in the minute the shouting started.  I should have killed his parents when I had the chance.

        I heard Darry slam down the receiver as he finally hung up the phone, he had been on it for more than an hour.  It had been more than an hour and we still hadn't heard from Dally or Pony about Johnny, but just as I though that, the phone rang again. 

        Darry's tone was grave rather than frustrated as it had been before, and then he came in the living room, a solemn look on his face.  We all looked at him expectantly, hoping for the best and dreading the worst.

        "His heart stopped," Darry said, merely stating a fact.

        The worst fact ever.

        But then he continued, "They used a defibrillator to start it again, and he woke up, but they knocked him out again for emergency surgery.  He's in ICU now," Darry said, "and the drugs haven't worn off yet.  They're monitoring his condition, they don't know if he'll make it or not."

        Well, he was alive.  He had died, but he was alive now, though he might not stay alive.  Things had looked up for a millisecond before crashing back down even lower than before.

        "He has to make it!" Two-Bit shouted, but none of us had to say anything more than that, he had already said what we all were thinking.

        "Can we go see him?" Soda asked after a moment of silence.

        "You guys can go, but I have to stay here," Darry said.

        "Why?" I asked, not sure why he wouldn't want to go see Johnny,

        "I talked to the state.  They're going to come over here and see if I'm fit to be Johnny's new guardian, because when he gets out of the hospital, he's not going back to live with his parents," Darry says, his voice full of conviction.