Everything had gone the way it always had—until it didn’t.

Ponyboy had met Cherry. Darry still hit him. Johnny still killed a Soc. They still ran. The church still burned. But that was where the story started to splinter, breaking off into something no one expected.

When Johnny was rushed into the hospital, something cracked in Ponyboy. He couldn’t take it—Johnny, broken and bloody, Dally yelling at the nurses, the sharp smell of antiseptic mixing with smoke and panic. It was too much. So, while Dally stayed with Johnny, something in Ponyboy snapped, and he slipped out. He ran. Again.

This time, Dally didn’t keep it quiet. He grabbed a payphone and called the one person he never wanted to owe anything to—Darry.

So Darry and Sodapop took off in the truck, searching every highway, back road, and gas station they could find. Hours passed. The sky turned from smoke-gray to starless black. Darry was about to call it, his hands tight on the wheel, jaw clenched, when Sodapop sat up straight in the passenger seat and pointed.

There, just beyond the edge of their headlights, stood a lone figure.

A boy.

His hair was messy and uneven, bleach-burned and dirty. His face was smudged with ash, eyes shadowed but shining. He was wearing a leather jacket that looked too big on his frame—almost like Dally’s. The boy was still, staring at the road like he didn’t belong to it anymore.

Darry pulled the truck over. Neither he nor Sodapop spoke at first.

Because the kid standing there? He didn’t look like Ponyboy Curtis.

But somehow… it still was.