Legends [1] ▻ Sweet Pea

37

 

Izzy walked over to the group of four in Jughead and FP's trailer and placed a bottle of beer in front of Hiram before sitting in between Jughead and FP.

  Veronica sat on a chair to Jughead's right while Hiram sat on the couch across from the three Serpents.

  "Thank you for agreeing to sit down and discuss the misunderstanding." Hiram told them calmly.

    "There's no—" Jughead began, but Izzy cut him off.

"There's no misunderstanding here, Hiram. Tall Boy said you paid his sorry ass to decapitate the Pickens Statue." Izzy explained calmly.

"An excuse to turn up the heat on the Serpents." Jughead added in.

  "You got a lot of nervous people scared they're gonna lose their homes." FP told Hiram who only agreed.

   "I heard about that. And thought it had nothing whatsoever to do with me, I've spoken to Mayor McCoy. And as a gesture of goodwill to the Southside community, I'd like to settle any back rent you or your neighbors owe the town."

  "What? So you can buy their trailers just like you did to Pop's Diner. I don't think so." Izzy muttered under her breath, causing only Jughead and FP to hear.

  Jughead covered him mouth to stop himself from letting out a laugh. It was honestly so true, yet no one would believe it.

   "And what do you want in return?" Jughead questioned.

"Peace in the land." He replied and Izzy let out a 'hmm' the same time that FP did, not quite believing his full-of-crap excuse.

  FP sighed as he stood up and shook his hand quickly before Hiram let go and waited to shake Izzy's hand, seeing as she was the official Queen of the Southside in a Northsider or even Hiram Lodge's eyes. If a decision was being made that involved the Serpent it was mandatory for her to be there just as much as it was for FP to be there.

"It's a deal." Izzy told him as she slowly shook the man's hand even thought the three Serpent weren't actually going through with this deal. Izzy knew that Hiram was definitely going to add another thing to their deal. She had felt it in her gut and boy, was she right.

"There is one thing," Hiram spoke up as he was still shaking Izzy's hand, "Mayor McCoy told me you have some kind of expose you're working on, Jughead. So in exchange for my generous offer, I'd appreciate if you'd just keep my name out of it. Sound fair?"

Jughead scoffed as he looked down for a moment before staring back up at the two Lodges, "That sounds a lot like a bribe. Don't you think, Izzy?"

  Jughead looked over at Izzy who nodded in agreement, "I think so too, Jug," She replied before looking over at Hiram, "No deal." She stated sternly and FP quietly laughed.

"See you in the funny pages, Hiram. She's the boss and she says no." FP looked over at Hiram with a smile as he wrapped an around both kids' shoulder.

Izzy gave Hiram a small sly smirk as he looked at her shocked. This whole time, he thought he would be able to have to the Southside Serpents wrapped around his little finger with FP leading the gang, but he was wrong.

Izzy was the big person on top. Just like Hermione was with their family, Izzy was the same way, but more lethal and powerful. She was the Queen and would soon become the sole leader of the Serpents sooner or later after FP retired from his position.

•••••

Izzy sighed as she walked into the kitchen beside Betty, "Dad was here. He was pissed off and asking a lot of questions." Betty explained to her mother.

"Oh, my god."

"Yeah, but don't worry, he won't be back." Betty replied before Izzy began to speak up.

"Alice, I hate to admit it, but we're in over our heads here. That man's car was parked outside our house for two days and we didn't even know it." Izzy added in and Alice gasped.

"What?" She questioned.

"Don't worry, Jughead and I took care of it." Betty replied.

"You told Jughead? Izzy didn't even tell Sweet Pea!" Alice asked Betty nervously.

"Yes, She did and it was the right thing to do," Izzy defended Betty, "I keep thinking about about that damn body and who might come looking for it. And how many loose ends are out there that we're not even thinking about. We need help, Alice."

"We can't go to the police, Izzy. You know that better than anyone. We can't. I'm sorry, but we just can't."

Izzy stood quiet for a moment before looking up at Alice, "I'm not talking about that police." Izzy answered as she looked over at the door.

Only a few moments after, the three made their way to the Jones' trailer
on the Southside of town.

"FP, I—"

"Save it, Alice. Jughead just told me, all of it. I'm not gonna let the four of you make the same mistake I made with Jason Blossom. Come on in."

••••••

Izzy stood in the giant rectangle shaped hole that FP and her were digging in the wood. She took a deep breath as she shoveled yet another giant pile of dirt and tossed it to the side. The two took a deep break before sliding that plastic tarp that had the body lying on it into the grave with the body still on it.

Izzy stepped out of the dug hole and let FP pour the contents of the filled with sodium hydroxide onto the body before they began to fill the hole back up with soil.

FP sighed in frustration, "Are you going to talk about it?" FP questioned and Izzy looked at him confused.

"Talk about what?" She replied to his question with another question.

"You know what I'm talking about," FP sighed, "Jughead told me that Betty said that Chic did it, but I don't need confirmation from any of them to know that you did this. The man has a stab wound that was clearly from a pocket knife. Your pocket knife. You've been silent this whole time and you can't seem to look directly at the body."

"Every time I look at it, I get flashbacks: His open eyes, the blood, everything. I'm strong for grievance and dealing with pain, but I killed him.
I killed this man," Izzy told him and FP looked over at her sympathetically, "I'm a killer."

"You're not a killer, Izzy. It was self defense, he tried to kill Alice and Chic, you were protecting them."

Izzy nodded in agreement, even though she still thought of herself as a killer. She was one. No matter how many time people said it was self defense, it didn't hide the fact that she had taken someone's life.