"Darry, Hurry up." My littlest brother half whined. He had a cigarette dangling from his mouth. I wondered briefly how the hell Johnny and Curly had gotten a hold of bikes but they did.

I brushed Pony off. "Johnny, adjust that chain or it will come off. Let me get the chair off Soda's old bike it's probably better than that one anyways." I let Pony's bike drop to the ground. I got the chain off, and switched to Johnny's before going back to Pony's bike.

"How come you ain't at work?" Pony asked. I frowned. "You're working the late shift again!"

I nodded. "Here kiddo where you going?"

"You know that place where that building never went up. They have dirt piles."

Ramping, I see. "Okay be back when the street lights come on. Got it"

"Yeah" He hopped on his bike.

"Don't come back too banged up please."

Dally let out a weird laugh. "Now tell him not to get dirty and not be a kid."

"Okay thanks." Pony

"Ponyboy Michel put the cigarette out when you ride. My god kid you ought to have a helmet on."

"You know he heard you right." Dally smirked as Pony and Johnny rode off; Pony ignoring me.

"Yeah, he's been spending too much time around you."

"Someone needs to be a good influence on the kid."

I glared at Dallas. I had wrapped his ribs last night when he came home. He and Tim had gotten into a fight. I rolled my eyes. "I think I wrapped those ribs a little too tight."

"What ever, I'm taking their bed."

Well I had time to kill before work might as well catch up on what's happening in the world today. I screwed that idea for the Steelers game. I was interputed during an interception with a knock. I glanced outside of the shade to see a nice van. "Shit" I murmured to myself. Soda had spent the night at Two-Bits last night and Pony just took off and I had a banged up greaser in the boys room sleeping. This defiantly wasn't a good time to visit from the State. "Coming"

I swung open the door. "Hi" I said to a raven haired lady. She had a frantic look on her face. I remembered that look my Mom wore it when Soda forgot to call after he went horseback riding. She wasn't from the state. She was wearing a skirt and a sweatshirt. It was a little cold at nights as fall approached. "Can I help you?"

"Is Ponyboy home?" She asked.

I raised my eyebrow. "Who are you?"

"I'm sorry, I'm Ryan Jacobs Mother, are you parents home?"

I never heard of Ryan Jacobs. "Ma'am my parents are dead. If Ponyboy did something wrong I'm his guardian."

"Ryan didn't come home yesterday. He and Pony worked on a project at the library downtown."

I got the urge to tell her no, that the snot nosed little brat left the library to play baseball when the project was half done. That kid was a little socs I knew his brother from my high school days and I hated him too. I couldn't help sympathize with her. I shook my head. "Ryan left the library before Pony did."

"Pony was the last one to see him. Is he home, I just want to ask him a couple of questions?"

"He went biking with a couple of friends; I'm sorry." She looked near to tears. I opened the door a little wider. "You can come in. I'll sit Pony down and talk to him the second he gets home. I'll call you let me get some paper." I left her standing in the living room. "Here write it down. Did you call the police?"

"Yes" Here this is a picture of him. "If you could just show it to people."

My gut felt like it had a brick inside of me. "Yes, ma'am."

"Tell Pony thank you. Ryan has trouble in science; he always talked about how Pony was just so smart."

I nodded suddenly I wanted to find this kid more than ever I wanted my brothers home. I watched her disappear. I looked at the picture of the kid. It was one of those school pictures. He had black hair with buzz hair cut and nice clothes.

"Hi Darry!" Soda came bouncing in cheerful as usual.

"Hi buddy, could you and you're brother possibly stay in tonight?"

Soda looked at me funny. "Yeah the guys are coming over to play a game of poker."

I glanced at the picture in hand. "Okay"

"Sodapop, come out here for a minute."

Soda walked out of the bathroom shirtless. "What"

"Pony tell you anything about Ryan Jacobs?"

"Just that he left Pony to do some project."

I smiled. "Alright"

I went to work before Pony got back. I couldn't let the ladies face slip out of my mind. This was Tulsa bad things didn't happen here bad things happened in places like Detroit, New York, L.A. not country ridden Tulsa. I turned the radio up so I would stay awake. I wanted a hot shower.

I could hear the commotion from inside the house. "What the hell is going on?"

Dally shrugged. "I'm not taking part you can beat them not me."

I looked down on the ground to see spots of red. "What's on the carpet?" I screamed coming into the kitchen. Steve had an open bottle of what looked like to be Brandy or something.

"Blood." Soda moved from the counter. "We didn't have any disinfectant"

"So you through you could use liquor what are you trying to do kill him?"

"Stinging is going to be better than infection." Steve muttered.

"Steve, back away from my brother before I through you same with the rest of you."

The trouped passed I smacked them all in the back of the head except Johnny. "You take a seat" I briefly heard Steve mutter something along the lines of Pony needing to toughen up. "Steve, when you were thirteen you cried after skinning you damn knee. It doesn't look like Pony's shed a tear." I heard the roaring of laughter and Two-Bit had enough to say to make Steve tackle him.

I sighed as I soaped down a rag. "What'd you do?" I asked Pony he scraped up his back pretty good and the side of his face.

"Fell on rocks."

I rolled my eyes. "Ponyboy, you aren't supposed to ride you're bike on rocks. I shook my head."

"It's fun." He mumbled.

"Yeah, scraping half your skin, real fun."

"Not like you never fell off your bike before." I smiled, he was right. I'm sure I was stupid and made the same mistake he did. It was time like this that really reminded me that Pony was still just a kid. I wiped down his face and back. I wanted nothing more that to go back to my childhood days.

"Did you get you're homework finished?"

"Yes"

"Johnny you can join the others. I just needed to make sure he didn't make up a total lie." Pony went to hop down off the counter. I stopped him. "We need to talk."

"I won't ride on rocks any more. We were having a contest to see who could jump the furthest and"

I held my hand up to stop him. "That's a different conversation." I said sternly.

"What'd I do?" He questioned.

"A lot of things just look at me in the eyes." I waited until his eye caught mine. "Pony, Ryan didn't go home, before he left the library, did he say anything to you about where he was going?"

"To play baseball."

"Where and with who?"

"Friends I guess and I don't know?"

"Ponyboy listen to me this is serious, try to remember and to think."

He shook his head. "Darry honest, he said he was tired of working on the project and that he was going to place baseball and he'd give me a couple of bucks to finish myself."

I didn't know about the money part. "I wasn't really good friends with him, he picked me when we drew names out of a hat for partners."

"Alright kiddo, I believe you." I wanted to hug him or something but I had the chills. I doubted he'd even let me hug him in front of the gang.

"Is he going to be okay?" Pony asked me like I had the answers to the worlds unknown.

"I don't know." He put his head down starring at his shoes. "You can go in the living room now."

"I don't want to." He leaned over to peer at the gang, and then sighed.

"Come on, we'll go lay down in my room." I helped him off the counter. "Soda, keep it quite."

I stretched out on my bed, so much for that hot shower. I guess I'd wait until tomorrow. "Crawl over here." I patted the bed beside me. He crawled next to me.

I faded off to sleep the next thing I knew I had two cops standing on my bed.

"I'm sorry to disturb you. I have to ask a couple of questions to the boy?"

"This about Ryan?" I asked.

"Yes it is. We had a child a few weeks ago turn up missing two days later she was dead. The killer was still never caught. We just need some answers."

"Son, I need you to tell me the truth okay?" The cop was talking to Pony like he was a little kid. "Where did Ryan go before he left the library?"

"To play baseball, that's all I know, he didn't tell me where or who with." Pony answered.

"Where you and Ryan close?" He asked.

Pony shook his head. "No, I barely talked to him."

"Would Ryan have reason to run away?"

"I wouldn't know."

"Thank you." The showed themselves out. There was a killer in Tulsa. My heart for sure was going to come out of my chest.

"I don't like this?" Pony looked up to me.

"I don't either, baby. I don't either."

A/N so this is the beginning of a new story. I can't decide if I want to write Sunny in it or not. I know it'd be a little weird since I originally wrote him after the book and this is pre book but I'm rather fond of him, and it seems as if others are too but what do you guys think? I may write him in next chapter as coming from a trip or something.