Jughead pushed me towards Toni, knowing that she would keep me safer than the raging Serpents and my erratic brother. He kissed my head, then took off with his dad to get Fangs help. She pushed me back towards Sunnyside Trailer Park, knowing the risks of the fighting that had broken out after the gunshot.
"T, you know I can't get up the steps to a trailer, right?" I called to her as she pushed me quickly down the street. I could hear her heavy breaths and I almost felt like stopping her and telling her to go on and I'd push myself, but I knew she wouldn't like that idea.
"Well, we'll figure that out when we get there." She stated, keeping up her fast pace.
Just as we reached the bridge that connected the South and North sides, we saw an army of painted faces coming towards us with various weapon creations. Cars were driving behind them with their lights on full, only illuminating the haunting figures as they got closer to us.
"Toni is that-" She cut me off, saying yeah, and then turning us around and beginning to run back the way we had come.
Suddenly, I felt the pushing on my chair go, followed by a scream. I turned the chair, seeing the Ghoulies grabbing Toni and forcing a cloth around her mouth and throwing her phone away from her. Then two men came up to me, there faces painted like skulls.
"Lady Serpent, right?" They greeted, bowing dramatically as I tried to wheel myself backwards as fast as I could. "Hey, where you going beautiful?" They called. The Ghoulie pair ran towards me, one holding my chair as the other tied a rough rope around my waist tightly so I had no choice but to stay in the chair.
"Where's your phone beautiful?" One asked, but I kept my mouth shut. He walked in front of me while the other pushed me back towards Toni and the large Ghoulie group.
"Ok, m'lady, this is how it will work, you tell us where your phone is, we'll get it out and look after it for you. If you don't, your little Serpent slave here will be thrown into the river." Toni had her hand bound and her feet, so I knew she would drown if she was thrown into the water. I spat out that my phone was in my back right pocket and the Ghoulie pushing me reached around to grab it out, taking slightly longer than he needed to. I kept my face blank and held my glare at the Ghoulie in front o me.
"Jughead is going to kill you." I hissed at the man in front of me as he was handed my phone.
"Oh, I'm counting on it." He grinned, then Toni and I were picked up, me in my wheelchair and put in the back of a truck as three more Ghoulies jumped in with us to keep us there.
When the truck stopped, Toni and I were taken out of the truck and put beside a fire, right across from the one Serpent bitch I couldn't stand, and wanted my blood. She smiled, shouting a greeting to us like the psychopath she is. She asked the Ghoulies for my phone, took it, and dialed a number. (I had given up my password in the truck after on started to push Toni over the side of it.)
"Sorry, Juggy, not your babe. It's your old gal pal." She said into the phone, looking directly at me. I began to squirm against the hold of a Ghoulie, knowing that she was talking to Jughead. "Oh, I heard. Riverdale burning to the ground. It's tragic. How about we meet up and talk about it? Your old hangout, by the docks?" She said into the phone. The Ghoulie that was holding my shoulder to keep me in place and had a hand over my mouth as I screamed into his hand was beginning to lose his grip. Each painful movement just encouraged me further to stop Jughead coming. It was a trap. "If you don't I'll start carving up your girlfriend's face. And her little Serpent buddy too." She started to move around the knife that she was holding, so I bit the hand of the Ghoulie holding me, causing him to let go.
"Tell her to go to hell, Jughead!" I demanded, and then the Ghoulie slapped me into silence. She then hung up.
When we saw him walk up to us, my heart stopped. The Ghoulie stood between Toni and I, Penny opposite. The first thing he asked was if we were ok. The first thing Toni and I thought was how stupid he had to be to come all this way thinking Penny was alone.
"Jughead, she's not alone." Toni said to him, as tears began to fill my eyes, terrified that I would have to watch my boyfriend severely injured.
One after the other, Ghoulie after Ghoulie came out from the woods and the small building, into the flickering light created by the small fire. All Jughead had was a small switch blade, that everyone there knew wouldn't be a match for the nailed bats that the Ghoulies had decided to craft.
The man standing between us threatened Jughead with a taser, slowly moving it closer to me. Then, like a heroin out of a comic, Cheryl came out of the woods with her archery set. We had loved archery as children, and Cheryl and I had excelled at the sport, both of us preferring the traditional hunting bows to any new, modern bow. She aimed at the Ghoulie holding the taser.
"I brought back up too. Like I said, we're taking Toni and Cynthia and we're leaving." He spoke evenly to Penny who look confused at the backup he had chosen.
"Take them then, but remember when all your Serpent friends are dead I tried giving you the chance." The Ghoulie put his taser down and came to untie us. When he untied me, he got extremely close to my face, choosing to plant a kiss on my cheek just as the ropes had fallen, so, I did what any respectable Serpent girl would do. I punched him in his face, causing him to lose his balance and fall over into the dirt. Toni wheeled me over to Jughead and she went to stand with Cheryl.
"Why do you keep coming back? What do you want?" Jughead asked over his shoulder as he leaned down to check on my, making sure they hadn't added to my list of injuries.
"The Southside. There's money to be made here in The Town With Pep. If you're not afraid of getting your hands dirty." Penny responded. Jughead replied about her partnership with the Ghoulies and her love for the drug business, after all, that's the only money that Penny would really understand and class as 'working for it'.
"Here's the offer I want you to take back to your dad and your tribe. The Serpents ship out tonight, or it's a showdown with the Ghoulies at Pickens Park at dawn." She stated, and Jughead, Toni, Cheryl and I quickly took our leave back to the Serpents.
While Jughead the rest of the Ghoulies were fighting over whether to fight or not, who was a coward and who wasn't and who everyone's fight was actually with, I stayed by my snake. I had asked Toni whether it had a name and apparently, no one had bonded with it to give it a name, so I knew it needed one. Knowing that the Serpents would be giving up the Wrym anytime soon, I thought that would make a fitting name. Wrym. As I sat beside his tank, he slithered up the side, as if saying hello, and greeting his friend.
"I got a call from the sheriff's office. Fangs is dead. We will mourn him, hell yeah we will. But first, we will honour him." The news that FP had just received was devastating for all of us, but I found it strange for the Sheriff's department to send that message, I assumed it would be the hospital that would make that call. After a vote, and a glare from Jughead, it was decided that the Serpents would fight the Ghoulies, an obvious suicide mission for all of them. But, as I and Cheryl weren't official members of the Serpents, our opinions didn't count.
Jughead lay with at night, his dad staying up in the kitchen. He laid with me until I was completely asleep, but I could feel him move out of the bed. I knew he had a plan or at least an idea that he wasn't going to share. But, after I told Fred that I was staying at Jughead's and after the events of the day so far, I chose to stay asleep, needing to let my aching body heal just a little bit.
I woke up again the door slamming shut. I didn't call for Jug, despite being utterly convinced that the Black Hood was watching me in the corner of the room, like I normally would as I heard a murmured voice, his voice. I knew no one else was in the trailer so I knew he was on the phone.
"I'll be there in half an hour." I heard his voice get nearer to the door, so I closed my eyes, pretending to be asleep again.
I felt the light enter the room, and heard his footsteps. His side of the bed sank and he leaned over, pressing his lips firmly to my head and lingering there, as if it would be his last kiss.
"I love you so much my princess. You are so strong. So brave. So perfect. And i'll never stop loving you." He whispered, pressing his head to mine, then he left the room and I heard the door to the trailer go.
I reached for my phone and called Toni.
"T, I think Jughead is going to do something stupid. I need you to come and get me."
We drove to the docks, and I called FP. After I called Betty, who said she'd bring Archie. When we arrived, FP's bike was there already and I knew he had already beat us there. Toni parked up and then helped me out of the car and into my chair. We then waited for FP to return.
I was shaking, terrified. My broken legs were throbbing as legs and arms shook. On the floor I saw a bit of material and I had Toni go and grab it. She gasped when she picked it up. Reluctantly, she handed it to me and I saw that it was Jughead's beanie. Holding back tears, I put the beanie on my head just before the arrival of Betty and a few of the other Serpents.
FP emerged from the misty woods, carrying someone. Cheryl started to turn me around, saying that I could come the hers for a sleepover, but I put the brakes on.
"Cheryl, who was FP holding?" Toni came over and whispered something to Cheryl, and I heard the cries of Betty behind me. Then, Sweet Pea came over, taking the chair from Cheryl and turning me around.
His shirt was ripped, his skin bloody and bruised. His face was nearly unrecognisable. FP was nearly in tears himself, but my face remained dry. I was angry. Angry that he would do this. Fuming that the Ghoulies and Penny would do this to him. When Sweet Pea pushed me over to FP, I saw why there was so much blood on his arm. His Serpent tattoo had be carved off by Penny Peabody. That was when I broke down in tears.