{1} Tempest {Sweet Pea}

VII

"Mom?" Storm asked as she walked towards the door and found her mom standing there.

"Hi sweetheart. I just wanted to let you know that I'm just here, for the divorce papers." Her mom was saying as Storm picks up her stuff for school.

"I was thinking that you should come back to Chicago with me when I leave again." Her mother said and suddenly Storm got one of her fingers stuck into the door in her shock.

She cursed loudly as she wiped tears from her eyes and looks at her fingers which had blood on them now.

"I'm not going back with you to Chicago, Mom. I'm staying here, with Archie and Dad. With my real friends, not those kids of your friends that I was forced to hang with." She said.

"Oh come on, I thought you loved them!" Their mother insists and Storm shakes her head at her mother.

"I never loved any of them. Every day, Mom I wished to come back here. The last day I remember not wishing to go back, was the day we left."

She said as she walked out the door, and let it slam hard behind her. She'd shake her head to clear the tears away and she bandaged her fingers quickly.

She pulled out her phone and looked at it with shaking hands, as she types a couple of texts out.

Then, she decided to just call them.

"Hey Hurricane. What's up?" FP asked through the phone as she held it to her ear.

"How fast can you set up the gauntlet?" She asks as she walked towards the school.

"What's the sudden worry about it all? I thought you didn't mind if you had to wait a bit." FP questions from his end.

"Look FP, my mom wants to go back to Chicago, all right? And she wants to take me with her. I can't go now FP."

She whispers and he sighed heavily from his end of the line.

"Okay kid. I'll set it up for late tonight. Meet me, Sunnyside Trailer Park. Be forewarned, it will be me and the younger Serpents. You'll be around the same age as most of the other younger ones. Don't flinch try not to cry out." He said and she nods.

"What time?" She asked.

"Just after dark." He said and the line went dead from his end.

Storm walked towards school, where it was a huge explosion of balloons as well as many, homecoming posters, in every direction possible.

She tore one off of her locker and her call beeped with a call.

"FP?" She asked quietly, as she ran out of the school to the basketball courts a little too quickly but didn't have a real better choice in mind.

"If your mom wants to get you out of town, the best time to do the big gauntlet is directly after school. Do you have any responsibilities with the homecoming dance or anything like that at Riverdale High?" FP asks and Storm huffed out a sharp breath.

"I hate dancing FP. No I don't, so what's the plan?" She asked him as people were walking by and stopping to stare at the random girl with a phone in hand, who was practically whispering into it now.

"Directly after school is over. I can arrange it all real quick, Southside High gets out at the same time, that you all do. Directly after school, do you get me?" He asked.

"Yeah FP, I got you." Storm says and hung up quickly and she flipped the bird to the kids who had just been in the vicinity trying to eavesdrop.

After school, as promised, she was in a old t-shirt and jeans, just behind the trailer where FP lives.

"Can't believe that she actually showed up." One of the taller and younger Serpents said, and as she looked up at him, her fist clenched inside her pockets.

"You are never gonna understand how a girl, can be as tough as any guy if they choose to be." She said and he looked at her with a slight shrug.

"All right Serpents! You guys and girls all know the drill. Line up and let's do this!" FP called.

Joaquin was the one, who threw the first punch and Storm, she felt wind get knocked out of her.

A couple of the boys had brass knuckles, and by the time it was finally over, she was bruised and bloody, with a cut bleeding from her temple.

FP held out his hand for a shake and Storm took it, and shakes it quick and FP nodded at one of the Serpents, who brought over the jacket.

Storm took the jacket and slid it on and FP looks her directly in the eyes with a proud look on his face.

"You're one of us now, kid. No Serpent ever stands alone."

FP claps her on the shoulder gently and she smiles slightly at him, despite the fact that she had blood, bruises all over her now.

"You are not seriously going to the Homecoming Dance looking like that, are you?" He asked her after she had gotten a bit more cleaned up then she had been.

"For the last time ever saying this, I hope. FP, I don't dance. Ever." She says and spat blood quickly into a bucket, that she had been provided with.

"Well, I think it's real admirable that you can stand up with the guys like all of the other guys." A Serpent says, and Storm raised her eyebrows at the kid at the door.

"That's Sweet Pea. One of our newer Serpents. Also, one of our more tough kids around here." FP says and Sweet Pea held out his hand and she shook it quickly.

"Just call me Tempest." She says and they pulled their hands away and she nodded.

"Sweet Pea?" She asked and he rolled his eyes, but he nodded slightly at her and she looked down, to try and keep the laughter inside.