Unholy

17

My eyes flutter open and I don't immediately recognize my surroundings until the boy walks by.  Sweet Pea notices that I have woken and passes me the water from before, which I happily drink.

"How did you sleep?" He asks.

"Good. I was tired." I admit.

"I figured. Listen, the meeting starts in a few minutes. Here's some of my sweats to put on. You can't put on anything tight right now or anything that will irritate it so I figured this would be the best option right now." He tosses me the pants and I start undoing the button of my jeans.

"Woah, at least let me get out first." He sighs, turning around.

"It's nothing you haven't seen, felt, or tasted before," I mutter. He chooses to ignore my statement and busies himself by tossing the ruined jeans in the trash. "At this rate, you'll have to buy me a new outfit by the end of the week." I laugh.

"What?"

"Well, there was that shirt and the underwear and now the jeans." 

"Two of the three were because you can't manage to keep your ass out of trouble." He sasses.

"You haven't complained yet." I counter.

"What am  I supposed to do? Sign Reggie's bubble wrap petition?" He asks and I laugh.

"When did he even tell you about that?" I ask.

"I have him in a class. The other students thought they were going crazy when they saw us talking at a rather peaceful rate." 

"I can imagine since you pulled a knife on him a few weeks ago." I point out.

"Hey, he deserved it. He had brass knuckles. Fucked up my pretty face." I laugh at this.

"You're still pretty, Sweet Pea. Don't worry." He smiles at my words.

"Thanks. You are too." He replies.

"Uhm... so that meeting?" I ask.

"Yeah. Right. Come on. We can get good seats." He leads me out the door, watching to make sure I make it down the steps ok. When we arrive, a spot is saved for me on the bed of someone's truck with Cheryl and Toni. Sweet Pea leans on it next to me.

"You can sit if you want," I whisper to him.

"You're the one who's cripple." He cracks back.

"I'm guessing you guys are wondering why I called a midnight meeting?" Jug asks and a lot of the guys shout 'yeah's. I haven't seen a lot of these guys before. They are older. "This is Heather! She is an honorary Serpent, and if she would like, I'd like to open up the idea of making it official." 

"What about the initiation?" A gruff voice asks.

"I'm glad you asked. She won't be doing the dance because I feel and several of you have witnessed her go through a lot of the initiations us guys go through. For one, she has proved she will follow through with the laws by standing by the serpents and fighting with them. She has taken care of us and proudly claimed us on many occasions. Secondly, she has retrieved the knife from a snake. She successfully got Sweet Pea's knife from him, right Pea?" Jug asks and Sweet Pea nods. "Finally, the last of the initiation is the beating. She has been attacked by Ghoulies, kidnapped, shot at, and stabbed by Penny Peabody herself. She has the bruises, cuts, and scars to prove it. The only thing she hasn't done is take care of The Beast, which she can do at a later date if she accepts." 

"As an honorary serpent already, we must take care of her, too. Her parents have been imprisoned, or will be." Fangs adds and Kevin nods.

"RIght, which leads me to my next thing. Several of us have been angry with her the past couple days, and I'd like her to explain herself before we go forward with the final words." Jughead opens the floor to me and I hop down from the truck to stand with Jug in front of the serpents.