One Moment

Aftershock of Disaster

The next time I woke up, it was once again to banging on our bedroom door. I groaned quietly and rolled towards the wall, surprised when I hit something warm. I pealed open one eye enough to see that Dally was still sound asleep, which surprised me. He normally slept late, but was never still asleep when I woke up; but considering the night he had, I shouldn't have been that surprised over it.
The banging came again, only louder, and Dally stirred in his sleep.
"Open the door, this is the police." This woke him up instantly, and we shared a quick glance just before the door was kicked open. I pulled the blanket up over my head, using it as a useless shield against the 4 guys that had just entered in police uniforms.
"Ever heard of privacy, guys?" I heard Dally sneer as I curled up small and pretend to be trying to sleep.
"We have a warrant for the arrest of Mia Baker and Dallas Winston." I knew the voice; it was one of the guys who had, had the unfortunate position to have been the night guard at the county jail seemingly whenever I got sent in.
"On what charges?" I asked as I poked my head out from under the blanket. "All we've done in the past... 12 hours, is sleep. Which you have so kindly interrupted." The cop scowled at me.
"The charges are for murder, not something to be taken so lightly. Now get out of that bed and pull something on in 3 minutes or we'll drag you out in whatever you're in." They all stepped out and I pushed the blanket back, shivering against the chill of the day.
"This is insane." I said, knowing they were listening through the door. "Murder? I mean, I know we've made some enemies, but none that are bad enough to kill." Dally smirked as he pulled on his jeans from the day before that he'd tossed into the corner. I grabbed a top and my own jeans from yesterday and pulled them on as quickly as I could. The fuzz could be really annoying, and amusing to piss off, but in the end; I was sure that when he said 3 minutes, he meant 3 minutes.
"OK, let's move it!" The door opened just as I was finishing jumping into my jeans and pulling my sweater off the back of a chair shoved in a corner of the room.
One of the cops, probably a rookie from the looks of him, came over and shoved me up against the wall. After slapping on handcuffs, and checking to make sure I didn't have anything sharp hidden anywhere on me, he pulled me away from the wall by my elbow and hailed me down the stairs. Another rookie cop followed behind us with Dally, who wasn't causing any problems besides cussing at the guy.
I had barely enough time to stuff my feet into my boots enough to wear them before I was being shoved out the door and towards a cop car. They had two of them, so they clearly figured that putting Dally and I in the same backseat was a bad idea. I smirked, knowing fully well that it was a bad idea. The year before, two rookie cops- on their own for the first time- decided that they wouldn't wait for backup to come when they arrests us. They put us both in one car. It was funny for us, but I was pretty sure I heard their boss yelling at them to wait for backup to come with another car next time they arrested us for anything.
I was shove into the back of the car, and I shifted around trying to find a comfortable spot, even with my hands cuffed behind my back.
"You could've put them in the front." I said as we started down the street in the direction of the county jail. "Not like I can cause that much trouble back here." Jeff, who was driving a little faster then the speed limit, snorted.
"Only cause Dallas ain't back there with ya, now shut up." I was too tired to fight, so I leaned back against the seat and waited out the drive to the station.

"I'm only gonna ask one more time," Jeff said. "Why'd you kill that kid?" My head rolled to the side, tired of being asked the same question over and over again.
"I just told ya for about the tenth time." I snapped. "I didn't kill him. I don't know who he is, I didn't have anything against him. How many times am I gonna have to say it?"
"Until your story matches Winston's." Jeff said as he stopped his pacing and dropped down in the chair across the cold metal table from me. "He admitted to killing the kid cause he was from the richer side of town." I raised my eyebrow at him.
"Look who you're trying to pull that story over on. I know Dallas a lot better then you do. Even if he did kill the kid, he wouldn't admit that he did. Against what everyone seems to think in this dump, we are not dumb. Unlike some other people in here." I smirked as his face started to turn red. He slammed his fists down on the table, causing me to move away slightly, and then he stood up. He walked out the door and slammed it shut forcefully behind himself. I smirked. There was nothing more amusing then getting under his skin.
The door opened again, and Jeff came back with another one of the senior officers, the two of them dragging Dally between them. I narrowed my eyes as they dumped him in the chair across from me. I watched as they cuffed him to the seat like I already was.
Dally's eyes were on fire, and I would have asked what was wrong, except for the fact that I knew that look; someone was going to get it, and it would even be me if I opened my mouth.
"Now lets see who's going to squeal first." Jeff said. He slapped Dallas across the face, and I made to jump out of my seat, only to be held down by the chains attaching me to the chair. "Why'd you kill the kid?" Dallas snapped his teeth at Jeff's hand when he put it too close to his face.
"We didn't do it!" He growled. "I'm not saying it again!" Jeff walked over to me, and I blanked my face as the back of his hand came down on the side of my face. I felt the sting, but didn't make a sound.
"Come on you two." He said and leaned his hands against the table, switching his gaze between us. "The two of you know everything that happens on your side of two. If you didn't do it, who did?" I didn't say a word. I looked at Dally, and he caught my gaze in the corner of his eye. Jeff sneered when we didn't talk, and took out his gun. I couldn't help the way my eyes widened as he held the barrel in his hand.
Next thing I felt was the handle of it going across my already stinging face. I let out a short shriek as it hit, and the edge cut through the skin.
"You filthy, motherf-" Dally started swearing, but stopped before he even got on a roll.
"I hit her again if you don't start talking." I heard Jeff say, and I looked up from where I'd been watching the blood drip down my face and onto my jeans. Dally and I met gazes and I shook my head just enough for him to know that he couldn't say anything. I couldn't read anything in his face; not anger, not frustration. Just cold hard hatred for people who'd never give us a break in life.
"Texas." Dally suddenly said. "They took off for Texas as far as I know." I nearly laughed out loud. Of course he'd say Texas; we'd been planning a trip to Texas for years, but had yet to actually get there.
"Texas?" Jeff asked, and I felt his eyes on me. I slowly looked up, keeping my face as blank as possible. "That true, Baker?" I sighed like we'd been found out.
"Yea." I mumbled. I looked at Dally, who I could tell was pleased with himself for the quick lie. Now it was my turn to keep it realistic, and keep them from putting targets on Ponyboy and Johnny. "We heard it from someone at a party last night." I'd already had to do the whole 'where we're you at such and such a time on such and such a date.' I had kept it to the smallest details that would keep me away from the park, but I'd be able to add in parts if I needed to expand the story. "Don't know who it was, but he said that some kids killed some other kids in the park. I don't know where he found out about Texas, but I think he said that they knew a guy down by the tracks that could get them out of the state without being caught."
"Any idea who these kids are? How many? Who this guy is that told you all this?" Jeff didn't sound like he believed me, but he didn't have much else to go on besides what we were saying.
I shook my head, and then stopped, acting like I was thinking hard about something.
"I heard there was about 4 kids, no idea who they'd be, the guy didn't give much of a description of them. I don't know the guy either, he just came up to us at the bar and started telling us all this stuff about some dead kid in the park." Jeff nodded. I don't think he fully believed the story, but for now, it was a he had. Plus if it was true, and he didn't act on it, he was letting two killers run free.
The word hit me in the chest like a punch, and for a moment I forgot how to breathe. Pony and Johnny weren't killers; yet that was what they were to the police, even if they didn't know who they were.
"Call all Texas departments and tell them to keep their eyes open for anyone coming into the state who even remotely looks like a killer. I'm gonna go see if I can find anyone else that might have seen what happened." Jeff said, then looked at us. "Get Brian to throw these two in holding cells for the night." He walked to the door, followed by the other guy. The door closed, and silence filed the small interrogation room.
"You OK, Mia?" I looked at Dally, who was eyeing me over, like he expected farther injuries then what I had.
"Fine." I said as the two rookies from before walked into the room and uncuffed us from the chairs and dragged us down to the area with the overnight holding cells. I laughed at their rookie mistake of putting us in the same one.
"Those two are worse then the other two were, Dal." I said as I dropped down on the rotting cot. There was no way I was going to sleep on this thing, I barely wanted to sit on it, but it looked better then the floor. It'd been a while since I'd spent time in an overnight cell.
"Sure are." Dallas said as he sat down beside me. We leaned back against the wall and I closed my eyes. It felt like days since I'd last slept, but it'd only been a few hours. It wasn't even supper time yet from the look of the light that filtered meekly through the small window above our heads. "How's your face?" I gingerly touched it and pulled back to see dried and fresh blood on my finger tips.
"I've had worse." I grinned at him, which turned into a grimace when it stretched at my cheek. "But it ain't so nice." Dally cussed under his breath as he searched around for something to hold against the cut. I let my head fall against the wall again, and was just closing my eyes when I heard the rip of fabric. I looked at Dally to see that he'd take off his shirt and proceeded to rip some of it off.
"Dally! That was one of your few good shirts!" I said, but clamped my mouth shut when he glared at me.
"Shut up. I need to clean it with something or it could get infected. Remember some of those guys in New York?" I nodded. A dirty cut was highly likely to get infected, and then it was worse to clean then it was before.
"But you don't have anything to disinfect it with." I said as he ripped another shred off his shirt. He folded some up and shoved it in my hand before forcing me to press it against my face. He looked around before looking out the cell bars. I followed his gaze and saw some kid who was clearly drunk sitting in the cell across from us.
"Hey man." Dallas walked up to the bars and started talking to the guy. I rolled my eyes, since his attention span was clearly at the zero mark.
The drunk guy looked up from the floor and took a minute to focus on Dally's face, when he did, he grinned.
"Heyy, Dallas man. What're you doin' in here? Didn't ya just get out?"
"You know me man, trouble follows me wherever I go. You get booked in by those rookie guys." The guy nodded.
"Yeah, they so stupid. They forgot to take the drink with them." He held up a bottle of some kind of alcohol that didn't look to have much left in it.
"Think I could have the rest of that stuff, man." Dally asked. The guy was so drunk that he nodded. I'd never ask Dally for the rest of his drink no matter how drunk he got; he was possessive over his alcohol.
The guy slowly raised from the cot he'd been sitting on and somehow managed to get over to the cell bars without falling over. He held the bottle out through the bars, but it was just out of Dally's reach. He cursed.
"You're gonna have to toss it, Reilly." He said, and it was then that I could recognize the guy's face; though it looked pretty roughed up from the last time I saw him. Cody Reilly ran with the River Kings gang; he was the leaders right hand guy the last time I had any connection to them, but that was a while ago.
"Got it! Thanks man. That's great." I looked up to see that Dally had managed to catch the bottle without spilling any.
"Whatever man, just don't let Jeff catch ya with it." He turned to go back to the cot, but only made it about 3 steps before he collapsed on the floor.
"That guy was always an idiot." Dally said as he took some more of his shirt and ripped at it. He sat down beside me, the bottle on the floor at his feet. "OK doll, bit this." My eyes widened as I pushed myself away from him, still holding the fabric to my head.
"I'll stick with this for now, thanks." I said. I knew the pain of alcohol on a cut, and I didn't feel like passing out in a holding cell because of one little cut.
"I don't really care what you'll stick with." Dally snapped. "Pull that away from your head, and bit this while I clean that cut... I don't mean next week, Mia. Move it!"
"Fine!" I snapped back and pulled away the piece of cloth I'd been holding to my head. The dried blood had come off, and it was a dark reddish brown, while the fresher blood was a dark crimson color. I dropped it to the floor and took the scrap of cloth out of Dally's hand and bit it. It wasn't as good as a towel was when it came to these problems, but I managed to fold it up enough that it would muffle the sound if I screamed... When I screamed.
"Ready?" Dally asked as I clamped my eyes shut and nodded my head. I took a deep breath before he pressed the alcohol soaked piece of cloth to my cheek.
The burn was so intense that I couldn't find it in me to scream, instead I felt my eyes roll to the back of my head and I started to sway. I felt Dally's free arm go around my shoulders so he could pull me against him as he wiped at the cut.
"You're such a drama queen, Mia." He muttered when he was done. I pulled the cloth from my mouth and looked at him for a moment. His eyes had dark circles starting under them, and he looked so tired.
"I can only guess where it comes from." I said sarcastically as he ripped at his shirt again and handed me another strip to press against the cut. It was still bleeding pretty bad as I curled up on the cot, my head resting on Dally's shoulder. It was quiet for a moment until I couldn't take it anymore.
"What are we going to do, Dally? They're bound to figure out its Ponyboy and Johnny eventually." Dally sighed and leaned his head back against the wall, closing his eyes.
"We'll deal with it when it comes up. Now shut up and go to sleep." I felt so tired, but it felt strange to be trying to go to sleep before supper. "I'll wake you up when they bring around that slop they call food." He said, almost like he was reading my mind. I nodded and before I knew it, I was dozing off to sleep.

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