Sweetwater Redemption

Chapter 4: Witches Of The Hill

It didn't take long for Toni to realize that Fangs was right. The woods were empty.

With FP by her side, they walked quickly and quietly through the silent trees. It would be a bit of a walk but Toni desperately wanted her bike back. They had an errand to run, and unlike with Cheryl, they couldn't blur their way through town.

This errand however, took them outside of Riverdale's borders. Cheryl couldn't follow, leaving them to their own devices.

While FP had to walk just as she did, he showed no signs of tiring. In fact, his hands were back to his normal shade, and the blackened veins that crawled up his neck were gone as well.

"You look better."

"I feel better."

"So Cheryl managed to feed you then?" Toni asked.

"Yeah" He replied with his head hung "She did."

"Was it hard...to bite the first time, on purpose I mean?"

FP slowed his pace until he stopped altogether, providing Toni's legs some much needed rest.

"I didn't bite anyone. She brought it to me in a glass. I guess she thought my first feeding shouldn't be too traumatizing."

"Well..." Toni said, unsure how to respond. "I'm glad you ate and that you feel better."

FP didn't respond. Instead, he looked up to the trees, appearing to concentrate deeply.

Even Toni's ears know the woods were empty, but it looked like FP was trying to confirm her assumption. Fangs and Cheryl already confirmed it, but if FP needed a distraction from their conversation, then so be it.

"You hear anything?" She asked quietly.

"Not even a turtle fart."

Toni laughed, despite the suffocating silence.

"I don't know what that means, but I'm gonna assume that means you don't hear anything either."

"Right you are, Toni."

Their laughter died down the further they went, and once they were close enough for Toni to see the enticing metal gleam of her bike, FP spoke again.

"I'm grateful to Cheryl, but this is a big adjustment. I thought vampires get turned and they just know how to do this stuff, but it's actually pretty hard. I'm not good at it, and it makes me nervous to go to a new town full of new people."

Toni felt for him and understood his apprehension. More than that, she felt the echoes of her own struggles.

"You don't know how to be a vampire, and I don't know how to be...a witch. We just have to figure it out a step at a time. That's how we both figured out how to get through life as humans, now we have it do it all over again as something else entirely."

FP swung a leg over his bike and sat with a satisfied sigh.

"You were always too smart for Riverdale, you know?"

"Oh, don't get it twisted." Toni said, climbing onto her own bike. "There's not a city on the planet that can handle me."

FP laughed and started his bike, with Toni following suit.

"Let's ride!" He shouted into the empty woods.

Toni lifted her feet as her bike roared to life, letting it guide her.

They dodged trees and raised roots until they skidded onto asphalt, returning to society. The road they were on led them to the edge of Riverdale, and then past it.