Riverdale Renegades: Thirteen of Hearts

Window Crashers

I suck in a deep breath, crouched down behind a tipped over couch while the battle unfolds where dancing had just taken place. This is bad. This is bad. There's Shinzoitas and Dragons. People run, booking it out of here while many others remain. They look unafraid. Maybe they're not human, too? I might have to defend myself, so I whip out the mask I picked up yesterday. There's this neat little shop I discovered called "100 Costumes and More", I just to pick up my own. I stand up, standing tall with a new face on, a wolf's mask. Someone leaps over the couch, whirling around to land in a crouched poise. Their eyes land on me. Their jaw drops showing off these massive teeth. Scales ripple down their arms to their lengthening claws. This is one of those dragons- like Red. Then it dawns on me. They can sense what I am, this I'm sure. He rushes at me. I grab their shoulders. They throw me down. Claws rip at my shirt. Blood flings into the air. It spatters in little droplets across the floor for some distance. They land upon me. I kick them off me, surprising them too. The dragon-like man charges me. I swing my fist at them. He ducks and dodges with ease. My head is knocked back. A snarl rips from my chest, escaping my mouth through the short muzzle of my new wolf mask. The man's nose wrinkles, and a roar escaped his mouth, spitting seething rage at me. He moves left. He lunges straight. Then I'm falling. I'm slammed up against the nearest wall. I kick back and find his leg. Something sharp pricks my neck.

"You-," I start, when a scream escapes me. A strike rattles through my chest. My screaming fills my ears, mixing and blending with all the other yells and screams going on. Another hard thwack makes me go blurry. Blood spatters on the floor and the wall. Without warning, the man is knocked aside. I'm kicked aside again. I crawl to my knees, trying to pull myself away. She's following right behind me. Soap and Vanilla.

"Hey- ow!" I yelp. I'm thrown to the floor. Jeez, I'm just garbage to everyone. They all want to do is throw me on the floor! I struggle to look over my shoulder from the ground. She has blond hair neatly pulled back, and she smells like soap and vanilla. That scent, the hair- that bizarre pulsing is back in my head.

"Lilly," I gasp, hoping the name matches.

"It's Hellrazor," she seethes at me from behind a horned white mask with a wide mocking red grin spread across its face. She raises her curled fingers, showing off these long white claws. She makes a grab at me.

"Lilly please, it's me Derrick," I plead profusely.

"Derrick- you? You're one of them?" She gasps.

"I told you guys- I just moved to the city, I wasn't born like this. I'm not one of them," I plead with her, "So please-," I start when one of her claws digging in my back gets a little too close for comfort. Like an internal flick, a worm biting at you. The pain is indescribable. It is the most uncomfortable thing to feel my body suddenly drop in temperature as I writhe on the floor. For some reason it hurts more than that dragon bite, like there's something vulnerable there.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry Derrick- I'm so sorry!" She cries, loosening up enough for me to gasp and splutter for air.

"Where is she? Regina!" Someone roars from the other side of the room. I peer around the corner. The fighting briefly pauses as four people meet in the midst. "Regina, what's the meaning of this?" Demands a tall, wide shouldered guy with a blue mask covering half of his face. He has the development of an animal's muzzle, and long fangs exposed over his blackening lips curling into snarl. Regina, like the same shinzoita I encountered?

"Regina!"

"I'm right here, blue-dragon," the shinzoita, that same shinzoita from earlier appears out of the former chaos. She dawns one of those creepy clown masks, too. Its lips are painted bright red match the eyeshadow. A single black heart stamps the right side of her forehead.