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Johnny was never that big on helping people. He wouldn’t say he goes out of his way to torment people, but, well sometimes Dally’s schemes are really funny. That being said, Johnny Cade was not planning on saving those kids. After Dally’s lecture, he was ready to get in the passenger seat and commandeer the radio with a nice cigarette.
He should’ve known that if any of them would have gone back for those kids it’d be Ponyboy. So, Johnny followed. Not to save the kids, but to save Ponyboy. But then Pony handed him that first kid and, well, Johnny’s always wanted to be a hero, okay. When he started saving those kids it was like something ignited inside of him. He suddenly saw himself as the kind of hero that only appears in comics and story books.
When he takes a second to catch his breath after getting all the kids out, he smiles at Pony. The church is a thousand degrees, he’s hot as all get out, but this is the most Johnny’s ever felt alive. When he gets older, he’s going to be a firefighter. There’s not many fires in Tulsa, at least not on his side of the tracks, but Johnny’s fairly sure they do other things than just fighting fires. They save people too and, not to toot his own horn, but Johnny thinks he’s pretty good at this saving people business.
He turns to Ponyboy with a grin on his face to tell him his new career path when he hears a faint voice. It’s in that split second when he turns his head, that something knocks the wind out of him. It’s heavy enough that Johnny waits a second for it to remove itself, thinking it must be a kid they missed. Four seconds pass before he realizes it can’t possibly be a kid. That’s when he feels the burning.
Johnny knows he’s on fire. He must be because it’s hot and his back is killing him. He’s always had bad back pain, courtesy of sleeping in the lot or on Two-Bit’s old couch, but this pain is something he’s never felt before. It feels like when Two-Bit’s younger sister jumps on him in the mornings to wake him up but this time she refuses to get off. If he could focus better, he might even say that he could feel the fabric of his t-shirt and the denim of his jacket fusing into his skin.
Focus, Johnny, you can’t die here. When you’re on fire you’re meant to stop, drop and roll, right? He can’t really do that though can he; he can barely move as it is. Johnny takes a shallow breath and attempts to crawl from whatever’s pinned him down, but as soon as does he collapses in sheer agony.
He can wait here, he thinks to himself, closing his eyes. His chest aches and he can’t catch his breath and suddenly Johnny’s taken back to a few weeks ago when Bob and his friends jumped him. Everything hurts just like then and at this moment there’s nothing Johnny wants more than to go home.
His eyes start to water and Johnny’s honestly not sure if it’s from the smoke and the heat or if he’s crying, but in one last effort for help he screams. He screams for everybody, Dally, Ponyboy, Steve, Two-Bit, Ace, and Darry too. He’s not too sure any of them actually heard him, he doesn’t have the energy let alone the air to scream too loudly.
For one blissful moment, he feels a chill and then his breath evens out.