IRIDESCENT
CHAPTER SEVEN
Savannah's hands were caked in mud, dirt clung to beneath her nails, and she felt like she couldn't breathe.
Not once had she turned back to see if he was following her, she couldn't risk the precious seconds that would take and kept hurling herself toward the trailer park. She wasn't far now, a few more minutes and she'd make it.
She was fine now, she was sure of it. He would definitely have caught up to her.
Jughead was shouting from inside the trailer, "This life that you wanted to protect me from? I'm proud of this. I'm proud of who I am. You can't take that away from me."
Savannah pushed the door of Jughead and FP's trailer open without knocking, and promptly dropped to the floor. The two men looked over suddenly to her intrusion, FP not getting the chance to reply to his son's emotional outburst.
She had looked better, anyone could admit. Her clothes were dirty and parts frayed from thorns in the woods that had snagged the fabric. She had cuts on her face and bare arms from sharp branches, and her hair resembled a nest for small birds.
"Oh my god." Jughead was by her side in a heartbeat. "Savannah? What happened?" He took her red face into his hands, not even waiting for her to catch her breath. "Was this Penny, if it was I swear to god -"
"No." Savannah panted, her palms sticky against the tiled floor. "No, it wasn't her."
FP moved over slowly, listening and watching as his son helped Savannah up from the floor.
"The black hood." She said, wincing as Jughead checked out a particularly nasty cut over her eyebrow. "He was trying to hang me, in the woods."
"How did you get away?" FP asked, looking the girl up and down. He didn't want to say it, but she was barely 110 pounds. He couldn't see her fighting off a strong man in the woods, especially if she were taken by surprise.
"Kyle." Savannah laughed bitterly, "He taught me self-defence. After our dad died and Kyle started working late, he wanted to make sure I would be okay in the house on my own at night."
She paused, pulling herself away from Jughead to look in a nearby mirror at the state of herself.
"I took him by surprise, I think." She admitted, pulling leaves from her hair. "If he'd known that I heard him coming, he definitely would have killed me."
Jughead bristled behind her, starting to pace around the small living room.
FP looked to his son and upon seeing his distress, offered the girl a warm shower to clean herself up and gather her wits. She'd left spare clothes from when she was staying there with Jughead, so she collected them up and headed toward the cramped bathroom.
Jughead heard the water turn on, turning to his father. "I don't know what to say to her."
His father was calm and took a seat on the couch, motioning for Jughead to do the same. "There's not much you can say, you couldn't have done anything."
"If I hadn't went after Penny, I could have been with her, I could have protected her."
"You can protect her now." FP said firmly, looking toward the door where Savannah was. "If what you're telling me is true, and Penny is gone, then you've got nothing else left to worry about - except her."
Jughead watched closely as Savannah closed the bathroom door and busied herself in the bedroom. He could see her attempting to brush out the knots in her hair, now dressed in a pair of leggings and one of his t-shirts.
"Yeah." He nodded, not taking his eyes off of her. "Yeah, you're right."
Savannah placed the hairbrush back into the small backpack she kept at the trailer and came back into the living room to join them. She sat next to Jughead on the couch and his arm immediately went around her waist. Her hands had stopped shaking, and she was visibly calmer.
"Thank you." She said to FP with a small smile. "I don't think I'll get the mud out of my clothes, and I'm pretty sure there's a colony of small insects living in my hair - but I feel much better".
FP laughed a little, and nodded back at her. He liked Savannah. Sure, she was a bit mouthy and way too confident for her own good, but she was good to his boy and had a kind heart.
"Would you mind giving me a ride home?" She asked, turning to look at Jughead. "Betty gave us a ride to Cheryl's, or I can call Kyle -"
"- no," Jughead interrupted, reaching over to the side table for his keys. "I'll take you, let's go." He stood, pulling her up with him as they went.
They didn't talk on the way to his motorbike, nor did they say anything as they pulled up to her house. Jughead silently followed her up the stairs to her room, and they lay on her bed listening to nothing.
Savannah could hear his heartbeat as she rested her head on his chest. She stared at the foot of the bed, absentmindedly running her thumb across his sweater.
Eventually, Jughead would leave - not until the morning though.
He returned home early in the morning to spend Christmas with his father. They didn't say much to each other throughout the night. Jughead had peppered a few kisses to the side of her head, but they both knew that Savannah wasn't ready to talk about what happened.
Truthfully, it made her think of her father's death.
That fateful night of the dance had changed their lives forever. The man she looked up to, her first love, her father, had pushed her down the stairs.
Savannah had staggered to her feet at the bottom, too disorientated from hitting her head off the hardwood floor to feel the pain in the back of her leg, where she'd been impaled by a smashed beer bottle.
Kyle had skidded into the room after hearing the commotion, moving to his sister's side and helping her to the living room. He pulled off his belt and busied himself with tying it around his sister's leg to help stop the bleeding. Then he moved back to the hallway.
"Mom!" Kyle had shouted up to her, staring in horror up at their mother who stood at the top of the stairs. "I'm taking her to the emergency room."
Kyle left Savannah for a moment, rushing through the house to look for the keys to their mother's car. She could hear various objects in the house being carelessly tossed around, and cabinet doors banging open and closed as Kyle searched.
Patricia had nodded, hearing her husband staggering around behind her, back into one of the other rooms. Her hands clutched the top of the staircase so tightly that her knuckles were white.
Enough was enough.
As her husband lumbered back to the top of the stairs, slurring about how he wasn't finished with their daughter yet, and was she hell leaving their house dressed like that.
Patricia stuck her foot out, only for a moment, and he tripped.
Savannah would always remember the resounding thud of their father hitting the ground. He'd barely made contact with any of the stairs, and landed head first with a sickening crunch.
His neck had snapped upon impact and he died immediately.
His daughter, even in her delirious state, managed to make it to his side for just a few seconds before she was joined by her brother. Her screams had rang out through the street, and everyone knew, that Frank Clarke was dead.
Savannah was sitting at the head of the table, watching as Kyle buzzed about her, a gravy boat in hand. He was tending to Cheryl first, who had joined them instead of spending Christmas with her family, pouring some over her roast potatoes.
"The turkey!" Kyle cried, setting down the gravy and bustling back into the kitchen to collect the slightly crisp bird from the oven.
Cheryl watched him warmly as he went, which was not missed by Savannah.
"Are you happy?" The brunette asked her, helping herself to some steamed carrots.
"Yes." Cheryl answered immediately, eyes flitting over to meet Savannah's. "I am. Kyle is..." She cut off, with no words to describe how fond she was of the boy.
Savannah simply smiled as Kyle came back into the room and started carving up the turkey.
They had already exchanged gifts. Savannah and Cheryl didn't get each other anything, the former had exclaimed that it defeated the whole point of secret Santa if they just got each other something anyway. Plus, Cheryl had been hers.
Kyle gave Savannah a boxset of 'The OC', which he knew was her favourite. She had gotten him a new battery for his laptop, because he'd left it on charge for too long and fried it. They were simple gifts, and they were both immensely grateful.
Cheryl gave Kyle a very fashionable and expensive pair of jeans, which he had immediately put on. He wasn't a fan of materialistic things, but would never dare say anything to his potential girlfriend about them.
After dinner, Savannah wanted to go outside and call Jughead, but she was too scared to step out the front door on her own. She would never admit it, but she was constantly peering out the windows, looking for the man in the mask that tried to kill her.
Instead, she headed back up to her bedroom and settled down on the squashy beanbag in the corner. Just as she unlocked her phone to call her boyfriend, she saw a name pop up on her phone.
Betty.
Savannah took a deep breath and it felt like the name blinked across the screen for minutes, or even hours. Her brain whirred as she debating answering the call.
In the end, she didn't, and let the call go to voicemail. Not that Betty left one.
Jughead returned to the house just after eight, greeting Kyle and Cheryl who were snuggled up watching a Christmas movie and drinking hot chocolate with marshmallows.
Kyle nodded toward the stairs, and Jughead made for them.
"Knock knock," He called out, peering round Savannah's bedroom door.
"Hey," Savannah smiled, no longer sitting on her beanbag, but now carefully balanced on the windowsill. She had been looking for the black hood again.
"You okay?" Jughead asked, not missing how she had been half-hanging out the open window. He knew what she had been doing.
"Yeah," She replied, calmly.
Jughead closed the door and manoeuvred into the room, making himself comfortable on the bed. He knew that the girl would close the window and join him. One of her favourite places to be was with him, head on his chest.
This time, though, she straddled him.
"What are you doing?" Jughead asked, alarmed, pushing himself up slightly to sit against the headboard as the girl settled atop his legs.
"Greeting my boyfriend." Savannah said, pulling her brown hair over her right shoulder and holding it there with her hand as she leaned down to kiss him.
"Savannah -" Jughead interjected, managing to push the girl back from him and onto the other side of the bed.
She huffed as she landed with a soft thump. "What is it?"
"Are we not going to talk about what happened in the woods?"
"I don't know what there is to say." Savannah said shortly, "A maniac tried to hang me, he failed, I'm alive."
Jughead bristled at how bluntly she had said it, 'a maniac tried to hang me'.
"Look." Savannah finally sighed, "I can't lie and say that it hasn't affected me, of course it has. I'm just not sure how yet."
She reached over to take Jughead's hands.
"What I do know, is that I want to spend time with my boyfriend, who I love."
It was the first time she had said it intentionally. Jughead had declared it before, in the trailer park after being found asleep with Betty, and never said it since. Mainly because she didn't say it back.
Savannah smiled softly at him, which he returned with a small laugh.
"You hear me, Jughead Jones?" She moved back over to him, retaking her original position on his legs. "The one thing I do know for sure after watching my life flash before my eyes, is that I love you."
Jughead's hands found their way to her hips, and he leaned forward to press brush his lips against hers, "I love you too."
He had sworn to himself that he would keep her close now. The black hood would not get a second chance to attack Savannah, not if he could help it. He'd returned home to see his father and collect his belongings.
Savannah hadn't noticed the large rucksack he dumped on the floor after coming back. He was spending the night, and every night after that until he knew for sure that she would be safe in her home.
Downstairs, they heard the front door slam shut and moments later, Kyle's car roared to life. He was taking Cheryl home.
"Kyle's away." Savannah murmured against Jughead's neck, "It's a little while to Thornhill."
Perhaps it wasn't quite the right time. Both teens had been through a lot on their own; Jughead with Penny Peabody and the Serpents, and Savannah with the Betty drama and the night spent in the woods running from the black hood.
Then again, Savannah thought, when would be the right time? Riverdale was determined to wreck havoc on all their lives, and it appeared that the town had no intention of letting up anytime soon.
The girl reached down to the hem of her shirt and slowly pulled it up and over her head, tossing it to the floor. She paused, gnawing on her bottom lip as she waited for her intentions to register in Jughead's mind.
It took him less time than she had expected, and slowly they gently and carefully undressed each other, until there were no more to remove and the dust settled in the silence.
"Are you sure?" Savannah asked, with her back now pressed against the mattress, and Jughead hovering over her. She knew he wanted this to be special.
He balanced his weight onto his left elbow and reached up to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. Jughead then pressed a kiss softly to Savannah's mouth, and nodded once.
Later, when they both lay next to each other, cuddled under the sheets, Savannah whispered, "Merry Christmas, Jug."
"Merry Christmas, Savannah."
