One day tell our story
Of how we made something
We made something of ourselves

•

Everyone's afraid to say it. So, let me be the first. There is a serial killer amongst us. Terror was sweeping into the bedrock of Riverdale. A town hall meeting had been set by Mayor McCoy. People were afraid to walk the streets alone, especially as dusk approached. Shops closed early, locks were added to doors. Suspicions between the North and South side deepened, fanned into flames by Alice Cooper. As everyone wondered what danger lurked in the dark, when we would hear from the Black Hood next, and how far into darkness would Archie go on his quest to avenge his father and to stop the Black Hood?

Amethyst walked through the door of her and her brother's cabin at six in the morning. She locked the door behind her and began to walk down towards her room when the lights suddenly turned on.

Amethyst froze from her spot in the hallway, before turning around to see her brother by the light switch.

"Where were you?" Demarcus asked.

Amethyst frowned. "With Jughead."

"Yeah, but where?" he pressed.

"At the library getting books, and then to FP's trailer to read them," Amethyst said slowly. "Why?"

"And you didn't bother to answer my calls? My text messages?" Demarcus said, his arms crossed against his chest.

"My phone was flat," she replied.

"Then borrow Jughead's! Or just come back here to let me know that you're okay," Demarcus told her.

"You know I'm always safe and well aware when I'm out on my own, even with Jughead," Amethyst told him, frowning as she walked further into the room so she wasn't tempted to run back into her room. "What's gotten into you?"

"Amethyst, there is a serial killer on the loose," Demarcus said, stating the obvious.

"And he's targeting sinners," Amethyst replied. "I haven't done anything wrong."

"You're an atheist," Demarcus said. "That might be a sin in his books."

"But I'm not outwardly an atheist," Amethyst replied. "I don't go around handing flyers out to people or waving a sign around telling everyone my religious beliefs."

"You're bisexual."

Amethyst frowned. "And that's a sin?"

"To some people, yeah, it is," he said.

"But that just about puts a target on a quarter of people at Riverdale," Amethyst said.

"And then-and then mom," Demarcus said, shaking his head. "She had me when she was still a teenager. God only knows if he believes she passed down her sin to me, or even you."

"Demarcus, I'm fine," Amethyst said with a small roll of her eyes. "I haven't been notified that someone's been following me or stalking me, and no ones been sending me death threats."

"That doesn't stop me from worrying about you," He pestered.

"I'll be fine," Amethyst smiled. "Whatever I'm doing and wherever I go, I'll be safe."

"How are you not afraid? Because I'm absolutely terrified!" He exclaimed, throwing his hands up. "I'm absolutely terrified that you're going to walk out that door and never return, cause some psychopath decides to shoot you in the head. And it doesn't help with the fact that you don't reply to my calls or messages. I'm fucking terrified that I'll never see you again, because you're honestly the only person in this world that I care about," Demarcus shook his head as he brought his hands up to his face and rubbed it. "I just don't want to lose you like we lost mom."

Amethyst sighed as she walked over to him, wrapping her arms around his midsection in a hug. "And you won't," she assured. "I'll be around for years to come. I won't go anywhere, Marcus, alright?

"Okay," Demarcus nodded, before Amethyst pulled away. He then reached into his jackets pocket and pulled out a can. "Can you just take this with you? Just in case."

Amethyst rose an eyebrow. "Pepper spray? Really?"

"It just puts me at ease knowing you have this," he replied.

Amethyst sighed. "Fine. I'll take it." She took the can out of his hands. "And I also bought locks for the doors and windows, just so we can be extra safe, considering the Black Hood guy broke into Grundy's house through a window."

"I was going to get these today anyway, so you just saved me a trip," Demarcus said.

Amethyst smiled. "You're welcome."

•

Amethyst had arrived at school a little earlier than Jughead. Jughead had to stop by the library again, and Demarcus was more than happy to take her to school so that she wouldn't be late.

She quietly walked through security and towards her locker, that happened to be opposite to the Ghoulies' locker. They didn't seem to pay her any mind as Amethyst threw her bag in and proceeded to grab her books.

The locker besides Amethyst's suddenly shut and someone began to lean on it to face Amethyst. Amethyst looked to her left, only to see the Serpent that constantly stared at her. She huffed as she turned back around.

"What? No 'hey' or anything?" He asked, acting offended. When Amethyst didn't respond, he sighed. "Look, princess, either you talk to me like a normal human being, or I'll constantly pester you until you do so."

Amethyst didn't say anything, before muttering a small, "Hi."

"So you can speak!" The guy smiled. "I was contemplating with myself whether you were a mute or not, but then I remembered you snapping at Sweet Pea the other day."

"That's lovely," Amethyst sarcastically said. "Now, if you don't mind, I need to get my books and get going."

"Class doesn't start for another twenty minutes," he smirked. "That means your twenty minutes will be spent talking to me."

Amethyst huffed, trying to place her books and laptop on her left arm, considering her right hand was still badly bruised. "Woah, what happened to your hand?" He asked, noticing the tape wrapped around it several times. But that didn't fully cover the purple bruising.

"Nothing," Amethyst replied.

"If you don't tell me, I'll just start asking around," he said, looking around the hallway. "Maybe the Ghoulies beside you, who keep on glancing at you."

Amethyst tilted her head back and, sure enough, the Ghoulies were staring at her. She sighed as she faced her locker again. "I punched one of them in the nose."

"Ouch," he said, before looking at them. "And I can tell which one too."

Amethyst looked back at one of the larger Ghoulies, whose nose was taped up. "Did I break it?" she asked.

"I think you did," he nodded.

Amethyst nervously but her lip before turning back to her locker. "Here, let me help."

"No, I'm alright. Please don't-"

But he still grabbed her books and laptop and took it out of her locker, before placing it on her left arm. "See what a little help can do?"

Amethyst huffed before locking her locker and stalking off.

"Wait up!" He said as he hurried up to her and then stepped into line. "What's your name?"

"You already know my name," Amethyst replied.

"I know I know your name," he said. "I just want you to say it."

Amethyst shook her head. "Amethyst."

"Okay, then, Amethyst," he said. "My name's Pork Chop." Amethyst gave him an unamused look. He chuckled. "Fine, Fine. It's Louis, but friends call me Lou or Ajax, considering my middle name is Jaxon."

"You're nicknamed after a detergent?" She slowly asked.

"More like the guy from Deadpool," he said.

"Who named himself after a detergent," she said.

"Okay, Fine, Amethyst, I named myself after a dish washing liquid," he said. "Happy?"

"Very," Amethyst replied.

As they rounded the corner to the cafeteria, Louis noticed what Amethyst was wearing. "Thrasher? Do you even skate?"

"You don't know my life," Amethyst replied.

"I don't," he said. "But I'm intrigued. Want to go to get ice cream some time so I can find it more about your life?"

"I have a boyfriend," Amethyst told him.

"Oh, right, Jughead, isn't it?" He said. "I had a feeling you two were a thing, although Sweet Pea said he wasn't sure and Toni didn't say anything."

"Toni knows," Amethyst told him, before they entered the Serpent's area of the cafeteria.

"Meth, hey," Toni smiled at Amethyst as Amethyst sat down beside her.

"I thought you weren't going to call me that," Amethyst said.

"It's catchy," Toni shrugged.

"Meth?" Sweet Pea chuckled. "That's your nickname? Meth?"

"Says you, Sweet Pea," Amethyst countered.

Sweet Pea frowned. "What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing, pumpkin," Amethyst replied, earning a laugh from everyone sitting at the table.

"Hey, what's this?" Toni asked, pressing onto a video on her laptop.

The Serpent's began to crowd around her as Amethyst texted Jughead to ask where he was, knowing class started soon.

"This is a message for the coward calling himself the Black Hood," a familiar voice came from the laptop. Amethyst frowned as she looked at the laptop sitting in front of Toni, a familiar red head on the screen surrounded by shirtless guys with red masks on. "You think you can attack us from the shadows, but Riverdale is a lot stronger than you. And we're not afraid."

Amethyst gaped at the screen as she watched Archie talk on. "See, there's only one of you, but we are a legion," he said.

"I feel like I'm watching something off Pornhub," one of the Serpent's jokes, causing the others to laugh.

"Okay, that's disgusting," Toni told him.

"We're called the Red Circle, and we're coming for you," he continued as one of the shirtless guys at the front, clearly Reggie, cracked his knuckles. "We will find you. We will hunt you. And we will end you."

Some of the Serpent's began to chuckle as the clip finished, joking about it to each other. "How many views does this have?" Amethyst asked Toni.

"Hard to say," she said. "The original copy has been deleted, but people have been constantly posting this all around social media."

"Guess we're not watching funny cat videos," Jughead said as he walked up to the table.

"Check this out," Sweet Pea said, playing the video from half way through and turning the laptop around for Jughead to watch. "Some sick-in-the-head Northsider posted a crazy ass video, and we were just talking."

"About what?" Jughead asked.

"Fogarty wants to earn his Serpent stripes," Sweet Pea said, smacking the guy sitting beside him on the back. "I say if he brings the head of that Northsider, you're in."

"I'm down with that," Fogarty replied with a smirk.

Sweet Pea chuckled as he began to bang the table. "Sweet lord," Amethyst mumbled, running her hand over her face.

"What, Meth?" Sweet Pea asked.

"Hey, only I get to call her that," Toni told him. "It's, like, our thing. Isn't it, Meth?"

"Whatever, Tons," Amethyst replied. "And, like, this guy went to Riverdale High with Jug and I."

"He's a milquetoast. He's a football player," Jughead told them. "He's just a lame target is all I'm saying."

Toni lightly narrowed her eyes at Jughead, not quite believing him.

"You want to prove something?" Jughead asked Fogarty. "Why don't you go after the Black Hood?"

Sweet Pea scoffed. "Why would we do that? The Black Hood is targeting Northsiders, who do nothing but blame the Southside for everything that is wrong with this town. We're sick of it. Black Hood's doing our work for us," he looked back up at Jughead. "He's a hero."

"He's gone after four people in the last few weeks. They all just happened to be on the Northside," Amethyst told Sweet Pea. "No one knows who the Black Hood is, so what's to say he won't cross the tracks and shoot or kill someone from the Southside?" Amethyst pointed her finger on the table. "No one knows who this guy is. That's the problem. Is he some crazy from the next town over? Is he a Northsider? Is he a Southsider? Nobody knows."

The Serpent's were silent for a few moments. "You have a point," Toni said. "We don't know who he is, but from all of the evidence and the people he has attacked, we can just assume that the Black Hood is from the Southside who has a grudge against the North Side," she said. "It may just be an assumption, but that's all it is at the moment. A theory."

"Yeah, a pretty accurate theory," Sweet Pea said.

"Who knows," Louis spoke up. "The Killer may even be someone we know."

•
archie gave me a headache last episode like oml boy, concentrate on school. you're sixteen. you shouldn't be buying guns and starting wars with people who are much bigger than you.