[In The Way Of] Life and Death • Sweet Pea [1]

Death Proof

"Riverdale's best and brightest, huh?" Alice crossed her arms while she stared disapprovingly at me and the others she had called in who had gone to Nick St. Clair's regretful party the other night.

"Alice, thank you for hosting." Mayor McCoy sat with her right leg crossed over her left and her hands folded into her lap.

If I had to describe this scene it would be.. embarrassing. More than embarrassing. Not only were we called in for some intervention for using Jingle-Jangle, but our parents were called in too. I was avoiding my father's angry eyes that were glaring into my soul. I had known that as soon as we walked out this room I would be grounded for life.

"When I heard what happened at Nick's party, I decided that we should come together to deal with this motley crew of liars, dope-fiends, and fornicators." Alice shook her head at us while we stood guiltily, not able to defend ourselves because what we did was flat out wrong. "Except for my Betty who was smart enough to leave the party before it descended into a bacchanalian free for all-"

"Now wait just a minute," My dad stepped in making me throw my head back in embarrassment, "I'm more than certain that my daughter was pressured by your children," He blamed, pointing to the parents around the room,"to be so reckless. Bird would never do something like this."

"We're talking about the same girl who made front page on the newspaper for going head to head with a gang." Reggie's mom commented unapprovingly making me wish like never before that I was invisible.

"I, for one, would like to know who brought the Jingle-Jangle to the party." Hermione chimed in, steering the conversation away from me making me eternally grateful.

Eyes were traveling the room, seeing who would be the tattle tale of the group. Reggie had proudly taken pride for being the source of the drug but we all knew that we could never bag on him. Especially with the mayor and sheriff in the room. It was an unspoken rule per se.

Reggie began to slowly raise his hand much to his mother's disfavor.

"All Reggie needs to tell us is how he acquired it." Hiram spoke smoothly. I then knew that he could make anyone do anything in his favor with his charm. It must've been a Lodge thing.

"Some gang member who deals on the Southside." He confessed quietly making Hiram sigh before turning to Mayor McCoy.

"Once again, Mayor, the Southside is the source of all our problems." He confronted making me confused as to why the Southside was his target. He was right, of course, except I didn't know how it benefited him personally to pit our problems against them.

"Was it a Serpent at Southside high-" Fred began to question Reggie until Archie cut him off,

"What does it matter? Not all Serpents are drug dealers."

Mayor McCoy stood up from her seat making everyone's attention divert over to her, knowing her final decision would be what matters most. "I think I've heard enough." She began, "From this moment on, bringing the Southside under control is my number one priority as mayor. If it means razing it to the ground or arresting every single Serpent in sight, starting at that high school, so be it." She spoke sternly yet determined making me anxious for what the future holds.

...

"This isn't an alliance with the Ghoulies, this is a hostile takeover." Jughead ranted angrily, to say the least, after he had discovered 'Tall Boy', his apparent leader of the Serpents, was in the process of making deals with their rival gang. To be completely honest, I was lost in the details of the situation but pieced some things together to get a basic idea of what was happening.