Remember Me | A Steve Randle Fanfiction

Chapter 36 | Gut Feeling

🌻Juliana's POV🌻

A few days later, and things were going great. Steve and I were doing better than ever, and we had no more arguments. But not everything was perfect. Johnny was showing up less and less, which was odd for him. He always showed up, but we haven't seen him for maybe a week now. Dally wanted to look for him. In all honesty, we all did, but Dally did more than anyone. I found it kind of odd considering he had never been this frantic, not in front of me anyway, but I never asked about it. I've learned not to ask Dally about his personal biz after he flipped Soda over the coffee table for asking why he's so attached to Johnny. Darry smacked Dally upside the head, and Johnny gave him a look. I think Johnny's look affected Dally more because the second he laid eyes on Johnny, he apologized to Soda. Dally never apologizes to anyone for anything, but when Johnny looks at him a certain way, he says he's sorry real quick.

Anyway, we were all sitting around the house, praying to God that Johnny would show up. It was already five in the afternoon. He would always show up with Dally, but as it was the past week, Dally showed up every day without Johnny.

"You think he's okay?" Soda asked as he paced around the room.

"Hell if I know," Dally practically yelled, "He snuck off one night and never came back. I swear to God if his parents got ahold of him-"

"You will do nothing," I finished for him. "You're not getting thrown in the cooler for murder. 'Cause if you do, I'll murder you for thinking that shit's gonna fly around here. Well, listen up, Dallas Tucker Winston. You better sit your ass down and breathe. I'll go find Johnny while you just stay here, 'cause at least I won't murder someone." The boys looked at me, shocked. I guess they never expected me to talk to Dally like that. To my surprise, he actually listened to me. He sat down on the floor and pouted like a three-year-old. None of the others tried to stop me as I left the house, and drove off towards Johnny's. I had my gun with me and the gang knew it, but they all knew I wasn't actually gonna shoot Johnny's parents. I was just gonna beat the all-living hell out of them.

I pulled up in front of the house and heard yelling and glass breaking. I stomped up to the house and threw the front door open. Johnny was nowhere in sight, but there were drops of blood everywhere. I knew he was here. "Where's Johnny?" my voice boomed. They looked at me like I was crazy. They thought I wasn't gonna hurt them. I gripped the pistol in my waistband and repeated my question. "Where. Is. Johnny."

"Who the hell are you?" the drunk woman asked me, slurring her words.

"That ain't gonna matter as long as you cooperate. Tell me where the hell the kid is." The woman started swinging at me, but I knocked her out real quick as I slugged her with the grip of my pistol. It was a hard hit. The man tried to charge at me but I kicked him hard in the stomach, pushing him back a little, and whacked him in the head with a nearby chair, knowing just a hit with my pistol wouldn't knock him down. I ran towards a door that looked like it would be a bedroom and went in. As I thought, there lay Johnny, bloody and bruised, with a black eye and what looked like a broken wrist. It was real swollen. He had gashes all over his body, and a couple on his face. He had a big knot in his head, near his eyebrow. He looked so pitiful I wanted to cry. "Johnnycake," I said softly. He quickly raised his head in fear and scooted back on his bed away from the door. "Hey, it's okay, it's just me. I'm getting you out of here." I walked towards the bed. He recognized my voice, and jumped up, hugging me as tightly as he could without hurting his wrist. He started sobbing, blood going down with his tears. "It's okay, baby. You're safe now. They won't hurt you no more, alright?"

"O-Okay." Johnny choked out. I hated seeing him like this. I ended up taking him to the hospital first so we could get his wrist situated and stitch up his larger gashes. I explained what happened to the nurses, and I guess they ended up calling the cops because the nurse told me that Johnny wouldn't have to worry about it anymore. I was glad, though. The only thing left was that they'd have to put Johnny in someone's custody. I lied about my age and said I was eighteen, so I was able to take him back once he was fixed up.

"Dally was about to kill your parents," I told him as we were turning into the street. "I stopped him before he could even try to get out of the house, though. I didn't want him getting arrested for murder."

"Thanks, Juliana. I'd probably lose it if he got thrown in the cooler again," he said. I decided to ask him what was going on between him and Dal.

"What's up with you two? He's been more attached to you lately." I could see Johnny blush, and that finalized my assumptions in my head. "Are y'all...?"

"Maybe..." Johnny mumbled. I grinned and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Awwww! I knew it I knew it I knew it! I knew he had a crush on you, and I knew you had a crush on him. The way you two look at each other makes it so obvious!" Johnny's blush just got worse, but he grinned from ear to ear. We got to the house before we could continue the topic. I told him we would just continue this later, and we went inside. The gang stared at Johnny in pity and Dally shot up and pulled Johnny into a tight hug. The look on the gang's faces showed that they figured they were together. "Johnny's parents have been taken care of. Nurses called the cops and I'm pretty sure they're being arrested." We could hear faint police sirens, and I instantly knew that was the cops getting Johnny's parents.

"Now we need to find someone to legally take him into custody, or else they're gonna be put in a boys' home." Soda said. Dally's head raised faster than Johnny's did when I walked in his room.

"I'll have Buck do it. My old man's back in town so I'm staying at Buck's until I know he's gone." Honestly I hoped Darry would, because I don't know about Johnny staying at Buck's with Dal, with all those parties going on and all those drunk people in there. That's what I wanted Johnny away from. I started to have a bad feeling about it.