Redemption [Sweet Pea x OC]

Chapter 2

I spent the morning in the office, signing papers and waiting for my schedule. Apparently they had to get my records from my last school before they'd put me in any classes, so the lunch bell was about to ring by the time I left the office. I'd been texting Toni all morning and shoved my way through the crowded hall to where we'd planned to meet up.

"It's about time," Toni said with a grin. "I was beginning to think you weren't really in the office."

I laughed. "I was beginning to think I wasn't ever going to get out of there. I've never had to sign so many forms just to attend school," I said, following Toni to the cafeteria.

"At least stay for lunch," she begged. "You can meet the others." I agreed, following her through the double doors. "We sit over here, and the Ghouhlies stay over there," Toni said nodding her head in the direction of the other gang.

"Shit, the Ghoulies are here too?" I muttered, taking a seat at the table. Apparently I wasn't quiet enough though, going by Toni's face. "I've had a run-in or two with them."

I turned towards the others at the table, some too interested in their food to notice the new face. "Did you guys hear the rumor that Baby Girl is back?" someone asked further down the table. I gave my head a quick shake, warning Toni not to say anything. I wanted to see where this was going to go.

"Yeah, I heard she was at the Wyrm last night," someone added.

"I don't believe it," someone argued. "If she was really back, there'd have been some announcement or a party just like any other time someone gets back in town."

"I can promise you, she was there," Toni interrupted. "I was one of the first to welcome her back." She gave me a wink as the boys resumed their arguments which turned into various versions of my initiation and how old I was at the time.

Feeling eyes on me, I looked at the pair of brown eyes directly across the table. Even seated, I could tell he was tall, but then again, I was barely over five feet tall so almost everyone is taller than me. He looked down at his food when our eyes met, but I could feel him watching me again after I turned back to those exchanging stories.

I stood as the bell rang, signaling the end of lunch. "Well, as entertaining as that all was, you should really get your stories straight," I announced. "Starting with the fact that I was 8." With that, I turned and made my way out of the cafeteria, turning back just before I reached the doors to see Toni laughing and a dozen shocked expressions around her. And one set of brown eyes watching me, a smirk on their owner's face.

I dropped my backpack off in my room before making my way to Sunnyside Trailer Park. I hadn't seen Jughead at lunch, which was strange. He was a Serpent, right? Not just by blood, but there's no reason he wouldn't have already gone through the initiation by now.

No one answered when I knocked at the trailer, and I'd learned last night that the drive-in had been shut down. Either he was somewhere else at lunch, or he was still holding onto his Northside friends, and I really didn't want to go to wandering around that side of town.

I considered stopping by Andrews Construction and asking Mr Andrews if he knew where I could find Jughead, but again, Northside. And that was assuming Jughead and Archie were still friends. They'd been close when we were still kids, and on occasion my parents would often dump me with the Jones family, which often led to Jughead leading Jellybean and I to meet Archie and his neighbor Betty. I usually ended up causing some sort of chaos and either getting myself or all of us in trouble. No, Northside was not the place for me. I made my way instead to the Wyrm, a place I knew I was welcome.

I spent the next few hours catching up with some Serpents I hadn't seen the night before. "Damn, Baby Girl," Brandon said as I won yet another round of Pool. "How'd you get so good at this?"