“I killed him, Betty. It was the Scorpions, but I’m the one who let Johnny come with us.” Four or five of them had jumped him, and when the smoke had cleared after the midnight rumble on the playground, he had found Johnny lying on the ground, dead. The police were supposed to be investigating Leo’s people to find out who did it, but Danny knew better than to think they cared. As soon as Johnny had started associating with the T-Birds, he had been branded as trash, a juvenile delinquent, just like him. According to the cops, they didn’t deserve justice.

His jaw set and he looked away, standing from the steps and shakily raising a cigarette to his mouth, lighting it and taking a long drag. “I can’t let them get away with this.” He knew what he had to do, even though he didn’t want to do it. He couldn’t watch any more of his friends die over a stupid turf war.

         The kid had been a little too sweet to ever really don a T-Birds jacket, and if she had been aware of that, then Danny must have been, too. Too sweet, and too young, and now he was dead. And for Rizzo, that all there was to it. He had tagged along, gotten caught, gotten beat, and now he was dead, and the cops weren’t going to bother doing much, because what was one more dead hood rat? That was all they were to the cops, the moment they wandered one toe over the line between status quo and everything else the world had on offer. Crooks and criminals and hoodlums and harlots, the lot of them. And now one of them was dead.

And maybe she understood the way guilt could weigh on a person better than the other guys- she was, after all, Catholic, and guilt was a way of life for her. Once a week confession did little to assuage her ever-present sense of wrongdoing, and if such petty nonsense as being too loose with her favors could eat at her the way it did, the death of a young man who looked up to him had to be dragging Danny down completely, simply the mechanics of guilt. But it hadn’t been his fault that Johnny had idolized Zuko. It hadn’t been his fault that the kid had tagged along- he wanted to be big and tough like the others. And letting himself get devoured by his guilt wasn’t going to bring Johnny back for Danny. But she couldn’t exactly tell him that. He wasn’t ready to hear it.

For once everything seemed normal again, right until that moment. She couldn’t stand to hear him talk like that. Even though the war had its effects on Danny she blamed herself. Besides, this was the first time they had been truly alone in a long time. “Daniel, don’t talk like that.”

Just the sight of Danny Zuko was enough to make her wanna gag. In fact, she couldn’t believe it had taken this goddamn long to realize the obvious course of action. Without so much as a hey, she pulled him aside, the feel of his arm under her hand sending another wave of revolt through her bones.

       “We gotta talk.”