[In The Way Of] Life and Death • Sweet Pea [1]

Nighthawks

I jogged quickly through the hallways, almost tripping over my own feet, occasionally bumping shoulders and mumbling a quick 'sorry' before I found who I was searching for.

"Betty!" I called when I finally saw her infamous blonde ponytail. I then saw that she was with Archie as well. She turned so she was facing me and furrowed her eyebrows holding my arms as she talked me down, "Slow down." She shook her head as I nodded, taking her advice and catching my breath. "What's going on?" She asked, glancing between me and Archie.

"Some Serpents vandalized Pop's. They wrote Death Diner all across his shop. He's really shaken up about it." I informed them while I still caught my breath.

"How do you know it was a Serpent?" Betty asked innocently making me roll my eyes that the girl was so oblivious to the world around her.

"Betty, come on." I scoffed as if the situation were as clear as day, "Vandalizing? 'Death Diner'? It has Serpent written all over it." I explained.

Archie frowned as he sank deep into thought before elaborating, "Maybe Bird is right."

Betty quickly turned to face him, "Archie, no." She shook her head thinking it was a wild idea that it could have possibly been them.

"Betty, my dad hired some Serpents to do construction for him. He let them go because of personal cause and some may have kept a grudge and put a hit on him. And now Pop's? It all makes sense." He connected the dots as I nodded. There wasn't any other explanation and this one had too many coincidences for it to not be them.

"But if the man in the black hood was a Serpent, what would they have against Grundy?" She asked and crossed her arms making me and Archie exchange confused glances.

"Grundy?" I repeated her words in confusion.

"What does Grundy have to do with this?" Archie asked in the same confused manor as I did.

"You guys didn't hear?" Betty questioned making the both of us shake our heads no, not having a clue of what she was talking about. "Grundy was killed last night and Keller suspects it was the same man who shot your dad, Arch." Her face turned soft when she mentioned the sensitive topic of Fred's near-death-experience.

"There's no way Pop is going to be able to keep his doors open for more than a week. And to be honest, guys, I don't know if I even want to go back there myself." Archie stated sadly with a sigh as he ran his hand through his bright red hair.

I took in a shaky breath and bit my lip nervously before shaking my head rapidly. "No." I mumbled.

"No?" Archie repeated, raising his eyebrow in unsureness.

"No." I repeated more sternly, standing up straighter. "There's no way we're gonna let some psychopath with a gun ruin our place. And we're sure as hell not gonna let the Serpents try to run the Northside. We have to do something! Right?" I raised my eyebrow, afraid I was the only one seeing what was happening right in front of our eyes.

"Right." Archie nodded almost immediately before turning to Betty who looked concerned. Her breathing hitched for a moment before she blinked a couple times as if she were snapped out of a trance. "Right." She repeated before nodding slowly.

...

"Are you guys crazy or do you have a death wish?" Veronica said in a hushed dramatic tone of shock and disbelief making me roll my eyes as her, Betty, and I did our stretches during practice. "Standing up to a killer? Going after the Serpents? You guys are knocking on trouble's door." She shook her head, bending down to touch her toes.

"Look, we're not going after them. We're just launching our own investigation. We need justice, V. And I'll be damned if I see these criminals manipulating our town and for what? To prove a point?" I scoffed as Betty glanced at me worriedly, Veronica unapprovingly. "Do they really hate the Northside that bad?"