A/N : Thanx so much to all those that reviewed! Here's the next chapter...
Chapter 7 - Mi Chico Latino
"I can't believe those guys that did that to Wallace" Veronica shook her head as she stood with Logan outside the boys locker room, waiting for their newest acquaintance.
At Veronica's insistence, Logan had leant Wallace his gym kit, which wasn't much of a problem for the young Mr Echolls who never attended the class anyway and therefore had no use for the clothes.
"He had to do something to make the Bikers so mad" Logan told her, leaning back against the wall and looking suitably bored, "Even that Weevil guy doesn't tape you to a flagpole without some kind of reason"
"Yeah well, someone needs to teach him that there's never a reason for that kind of thing" Veronica snapped angrily and Logan looked at her with a stunned expression.
"Geez, Veronica, you're turning into a real protector of the people lately" he smirked, as he realised just how true it was.
She'd probably saved Lilly's life, plus she'd been there for him in a big way the past couple of days, and now the new kid was in her debt.
"Hey" said new kid emerged from the locker room smiling nervously, "Thanks again for everything" he said sincerely to the both of them.
"It's okay" the blonde smiled back, "Nobody deserves to be treated that way"
"That's not what the guys with the leather jackets and the motorcycles seem to think" Wallace sighed.
"Don't sweat it, man" Logan shrugged, "They're probably just messing with you because you're the new kid. Call it a right of passage"
"I would, 'cept school ain't the first place I saw them" he admitted as the three headed down the hallway together, "I work at the Sac-n-Pac" he explained, "Two of those biker guys came in last night took a bunch of beers and threw a dollar bill at me. I pushed the silent alarm so the Sheriff came, but by then the whole gang had shown up" he told the story, feeling queasy just thinking about it, "Sheriff asked me if the guys paid for the beer. I don't wanna say I was scared or nothin' but..."
"But, you were scared?" Logan filled in with a smirk that Veronica wiped off with a simple stern look. Her friend made emotion as if to zip his mouth closed, and Wallace continued his story.
"So the Sheriff asks me if the biker dudes are telling the truth about paying me" he sighed, "And I said yeah, and that I pressed the emergency button by accident"
"So what's the problem?" Veronica checked.
"The Sheriff had his deputy take the surveillance tape" Wallace explained, as they headed out the doors and back into the quad, "Those guys are still in trouble cos of me, and I'm pretty much the most unpopular guy in school on my first day" he sighed.
"Hanging out with us isn't gonna help you, man" Logan told him, slapping him on the back, "In fact, your popularity might actually dip below zero"
"Well, I'm not gonna argue with that" said a voice behind them, and all three of them turned to see Weevil and his friends standing there.
Veronica backed up a step, and felt herself bump into Logan. Right now she was glad he was there, not just her and the new kid, Wallace.
"Well look who it is" Logan smiled, "Y'know be sure to thank your grandma for the great job she did on the silverware last week. She really is a great little worker" he told Weevil who practically shot daggers from his eyes at the head biker. Everybody knew that his grandmother worked as a cleaning lady for a couple of the rich families in town, but most had the sense not to make jokes about it.
"Yeah, well, she ain't working for you no more" Weevil told the rich boy in a none too friendly manner, "I don't want her around perverts and attempted murderers, y'know what I'm sayin'?" he sneered.
"Really?" Logan replied, forcing a smile over gritted teeth, "That's funny cos she doesn't seem to mind sharing a house with you" he answered back smartly and Weevil held back his friend, Felix, who was ready to pound the Echolls boy for his comment.
"Leave it, man, he ain't worth it" the head biker sneered.
Veronica glanced between her friend and the bikers whom up to now she'd had little or no dealings with. She would've liked to have kept it that way but it seemed impossible. Logan had incurred their wrath by association with his father who had attacked Lilly, and Wallace was not going to be the bikers favourite person at all right now.
"We should go" she said turning away, but Weevil's shouting rooted her to the spot and made her turn back.
"Hey, blondie" he called, "I ain't done with you and your boys yet" he told her, "Y'know it was cute you playin' hero for the kid here, but it wasn't a smart move"
"Why?" Veronica challenged, though honestly she was shaking like crazy on the inside, she was not about to show this guy her fear, "You gonna tape me to the flagpole next? Cos that'd really make you look manly, attacking a girl"
"Hey, chill, sweetheart" Weevil chuckled, holding his hands up in mock surrender against her angry tirade.
Logan's expression looked like thunder.
"She is not your sweetheart" he pointed out with an angry tone as Wallace tried to disappear behind the two of them.
"Yeah, well, she ain't yours either" the biker told him, "In fact, you seem to be havin' a little trouble holdin' on to your women, Echolls" he grinned, "Lilly had to be screwin' around with other guys, just to keep from gettin' bored" he taunted Logan who grew more and more angry, "Tell me somethin', does she always scream that loud, or should I just take it as a special compliment?"
That was the last straw for Logan who lunged at Weevil, ready to do some serious damage. Wallace was grateful to have apparently been forgotten, but Veronica was less impressed by the fight that might ensue. Throwing herself into the middle of it all she yelled for the pair to stop it, only to be grabbed at by Weevil's head lackey.
"Get off me, asshole" she yelled with uncharacteristic abandon, but he held on fast, laughing at her struggles to get away, "You asked for it" she muttered as she brought an elbow back into his ribs, simultaneously stamping on his foot. As his grip loosened, she twisted around, slamming her hand into his nose and her knee into his groin.
Weevil and Logan let go of each other, turning and staring in shock at Felix cowering on ground, almost in tears, and Veronica standing over him, barely even dishevelled for her troubles.
"Damn, girl" Weevil looked suitably impressed, as did Wallace, and especially Logan, as two of the biker gang helped Felix up from the ground.
"Geez, Veronica, way to lay down the law" Lilly laughed as she suddenly appeared on the scene silencing the lackeys for a few minutes it seemed, "I guess you learned that from your Dad, huh?"
"How you doin', Lilly?" Weevil checked, a little self-consciously which he wasn't used to, but then he really had fancied himself in love with this chick.
Sure, the sex was fun and all, but his feelings for her ran deeper, not that she'd wanted to hear it any time he'd told her. His friends barely knew he'd been seeing her, and now here she was facing him in front of practically the whole school.
"I'm good, as always" she rolled her eyes, "Better than your friend here, that's for sure. Way to go, girlfriend" she said, turning to Veronica who didn't meet her eyes, "Anyway, I so didn't expect to see you guys hanging out together" she continued, gesturing between Weevil and Logan who eyed each other with contempt once again.
"We're thinking of starting a club" the rich boy told her sarcastically, "Y'know like 'Hi, my name's Logan and I also got screwed over by Lilly, the bitch, Kane'" he said, hand raised as if mimicking an AA meeting.
"Yo, cool it man, okay?" Weevil warned just as soon as the word 'bitch' left his enemies lips.
"Whatever" Lilly waved away the comments from either guy, not really caring what anybody said about her anyway.
"Hey, er, should we go?" Wallace asked Veronica, not quite softly enough as Weevil heard him and answered in place of the blonde.
"No, you stay there, shorty" he told the new boy, "I ain't done with you or your friend Buffy here"
"Oh please" Lilly rolled her eyes a second time as she put herself in front of Weevil and pressed her body close to his, "You're not going to do anything to Veronica, or her little friend"
"He got two of my boys picked up by the Sheriff" he explained to her, "And she messed with my plans to fix it" he said, pointing first at Wallace then Veronica.
"God, do you always have to come off so Colombian Drug Lord or whatever?" she sighed, "Just, let me fix it, okay? I'll make sure 'your boys' don't go down, and maybe throw in some other kind of... incentive" she said, the look in her eye making her meaning so very obvious, "But you leave Veronica and her little friend alone, got it?"
"Yo, Weevil" Felix got his attention, "You ain't gonna get beat down by a woman right man?"
"You mean like you just were?" he smirked at his friend, "For once in your life do somethin' sensible Felix, and shut your fat mouth, comprendez?"
"So" Lilly got his attention back on her, "Do we have a deal?"
"This is making me want to vomit" Logan declared, tunring to leave but not actually leaving til he'd heard Veronica's fate.
"You get my boys off the hook" Weevil nodded, "and these freaks stay the hell out of my way" he said, casting an eye over Wallace, Veronica, and Logan, "and yeah, I guess we got a deal" he conceded, knowing Lilly was worth the decision that would be so unpopular with his gang.
Lilly was pretty much his world, and he loved her like he didn't know he could love anybody. Of course as far as the world at large was concerned, they were in it for nothing more than the sex and the thrill of getting one over on their disapproving families, mostly hers. Only the two of them knew better.
The bikers muttered obscenities at being duped out of a rumble, as the three unlikely friends who would be their targets, turned and walked away. If Lilly was hoping to impress them by getting them out of danger, she certainly hadn't. Though Veronica and Wallace in particular were grateful not to find themselves in a fight situation, they were less thrilled by the way it had gone down.
Logan looked so hurt by Lilly's behaviour with Weevil, it almost broke Veronica's heart to look at him, at least until he caught her staring and forced a bright smile that was so well practised it almost looked completely genuine.
"Gotta say, I'm not sorry that's all fixed, and without me gettin' hit too" Wallace smiled, "For a minute there I thought it was gonna turn into a scene from The Outsiders"
"Be cool, Sodapop" Veronica joked, "They wouldn't do anything in school anyway, and now" she said, glancing back at Weevil who was still staring at her as Lilly hung off him, "Now I guess they won't bother you at all"
"They shouldn't bother any of us, right?" he asked, not liking the fact that nobody answered him, that neither Veronica or Logan would even look at him. He'd just made friends with the two least popular people in school, it seemed, and whilst he wasn't thrilled about it, at least he had two friends, that was one more than he'd expected today.
"Look, you don't have to hang with us if you're worried about getting a 'reputation'" Logan told him, with appropriate air quotes, "We're just fine on our own" he said, the edge to his voice mostly because he'd been enjoying alone time with Veronica, only to have that pleasure snatched away all too soon by the new kid.
"It's cool, man" Wallace shrugged, "It's just, I heard all these stories about you guys today" he said carefully, "Leaves me wonderin' which parts are rumours and which parts are true"
"I guess we should tell you what really happened, y'know, if we're going to be friends or whatever" Veronica said, sharing a look with Logan who looked decidedly unimpressed, still when the blonde started to tell the tale of what had occurred he didn't protest. It was good to have any kind of friends right now, even the unpopular new kid, and the peppy Sheriff's daughter.
To Be Continued...