Collateral Damage ▻ Riverdale [1]

3.9

THE SECOND TIME AROUND
CHAPTER NINE

  Queenie sat with Sweet Pea, Fangs, Mandy and Toni at a lunch table in cafeteria along with some other Serpents their age, watching the video Archie Andrews posted on youtube the day before. Archie had made a group called the Red Circle alongside some of the Riverdale Bulldogs. It was supposed to a vendetta group against the Black Hood. Queenie just thought it was plain old dumb.

Queenie thought to herself, "Wonder why Archie and Jughead are such good friends, they both make the dumbass decisions."

As they watched the video, Queenie shared a glance with Mandy, who was sitting to the left of her while Sweet Pea was sitting to the right of her. Mandy seemed to be amused by the video, everyone else did, too. Queenie had mixed feelings about the video.

Jughead was walking just entering the cafeteria after getting off the phone with Betty when he found Queenie and her friends all watching on a small laptop that had duct tape all over it to keep it together.

Queenie and Sweet Pea seemed to be in the middle of the group while Fangs sat next to Sweet Pea and Mandy and Toni sat near Queenie. The whole group had their eyes locked on the screen, watching the video in amusement.

Jughead stopped walking and stood in front of the lunch table, "Hey, I guess we're not watching funny cat videos." Jughead spoke up in a joking way.

Queenie leaned forward in her seat and pressed the space bar on the laptop, pausing the video before she and her friends looked up. They were all quiet for a moment before Sweet Pea finally turned the computer around so Jughead could take a look, "Check this out. Some sick in the head Northsider just posted this crazy as video. And we were just talking." Sweet Pea informed them.

Jughead frowned when he saw who the person in the video was. It was Archie. He quickly looked over at Queenie, only to find that she didn't give a crap, "About what?" Jughead asked them out of curiosity, causing Queenie to smirk.

She got up from her seat and sat on the opposite side of Fangs, "Fogarty over here wants to earn his Serpent stripes," She began to explain as she lightly patted him on the back, "I say, bring us the head of that damn Northsider and you're in."

Fangs smiled, "I'm done with that." He gladly agreed with the idea.

Sweet Pea laughed as he began to bang his fist on the table, "Guys--No!" Jughead began to argue.

Sweet Pea stopped banging on the table and stared up at Jughead, "What, Jones?" Sweet Pea questioned him and Queenie let out a sigh, knowing already that Jughead was going to try and stop them from causing any trouble. But Queenie knew her brother, he wasn't that good of a peacekeeper at times, he would end up choosing Archie over the Serpents, which would lead him into trouble with the Southside.

"Alright, Queenie and I know this guy. He's a milquetoast, a football player, he's kind of a lame target is all I'm saying." Jughead began to explain and Queenie rolled her eyes at how he added her name into this all, "You wanna prove something? Why don't you go after the Black Hood?"

Sweet Pea laughed slightly at this, "And why would we do that?" He asked him, "The Black Hood's targeting Northsiders, who do nothing but blame Southsiders for everything wrong with this town and we're sick of it. The Black Hood's doing our work for us, he's a hero."

Jughead looked over at Queenie, who was staying quiet. Jughead knew he would regret it later, but he needed Queenie on his side, "Queenie, you lost your best friend because of this. Polly left town because of the Black Hood. And if we're getting technical, you're part Northsider because of your babies. You're unwed and pregnant with Jason Blossom's babies--" Before Jughead could finish his rant, the glare Queenie was giving him told him to shut up or he would regret it for the rest of his life.

"Screw you, Jug." She told him before she got up from her seat at the table and walked off.

Sweet Pea instantly stood up from the table once seeing her walk off. He sent Jughead a glare before he chased after Queenie.

Jughead stood there for a moment, regretting what he had just said, "You're a dumbass, you know that?" Mandy spoke up suddenly, causing Jughead to look at her, "Don't you think she's thought that same thing? She's agonizing about it for days now."

Outside of Southside High, Sweet Pea ended up finding Queenie sitting on the steps, "You okay?" He asked as he took a seat next to her.

Queenie slowly turned her head to look at him. She slowly nodded her head in response, "Yeah, I'm fine," She replied and Sweet Pea didn't believe her much, "Before you ask me again, I'm serious, I'm totally fine."

"How did you know I was going to-" Sweet Pea began to asked and Queenie smiled at him.

"I just did. You always do that, which usually ends with me yelling at you." She told him before she rested her head on his shoulder. Sweet Pea wrapped his arms around her as they both sat there in comfortable silence.

_______

Later on that night, Queenie exited a botega on the Southside of town along with Sweet Pea and Fangs. They were laughing at a joke had Fangs had told when Queenie turned her head to see some guy tagging Southside Serpent turf with spray paint, "What the hell?" She muttered quietly, catching the attention of both Fangs and Sweet Pea, "Hey!" She shouted out loudly and Queenie could have the person who looked back at her was Archie freakin' Andrews, "What the hell are you doing?"

"Back off, Queenie, I'm not here for you, any of you," The person replied and Queenie knew then and there it was Archie.

"Oh, yeah? Then, who's this message for, huh?" Sweet Pea retorted as he roughly grabbed Archie by the arm, pulling him back to stop him from spraying painting anymore.

The three Southside Teenagers to look long look at the wall to see that Archie had spray painted a giant red circle, "Aw, hell," Sweet Pea laughed as he and Queenie turned to face Archie once more, "Don't tell me this is for the Black Hood. You believe this guy?" Sweet Pea questioned and Fangs scoffed loudly, glaring at the redhead.

"And people say we're the troublemakers," Queenie remarked, clearly unamused by Archie's plan to tag Southside turf.

Archie seemed to have the same reaction to Queenie trying to stop him so he stayed quiet. Archie placed his spray paint can back into his backpack before he tried to walk past the group. Before he could, Fangs and Sweet Pea lightly pushed him back as Queenie stood in front of him."Woah, Woah, Woah, where do you think you're going, Arch? Northside's that way." She told him pointing in the opposite direction that Archie was trying to go, "This is Southside Serpent territory. You can't come in here and tag our turf. So why don't you get your ginger ass back to the Northside before somebody gets hurt? And I have a really strong inkling that 'somebody' will be you." Queenie told him in a threatening tone.

Archie took a daring step toward Queenie, but she showed no fear towards him, "Get out of my way, Queenie, or someone will get hurt." Archie argued back, speaking in a low tone.

Sweet Pea seemed become defensive when he heard Archie threaten her. He moved Queenie out of the way before he dug his hand into his jacket pocket, "You just made a big mistake," Sweet Pea told him, laughing humorlessly as he flicked open his pocket knife.

Archie stayed quiet and didn't seem to be phased by Sweet Pea's pocket knife. He glanced down at it before he went into his backpack and pulled out a gun. Archie lifted the gun up and pointed it at Sweet Pea's face, causing the whole group to become shocked.

"Who made mistake?" Archie asked, causing Sweet Pea to back up.

When seeing the being pointed at Sweet Pea, Queenie began to have flashbacks of when she tied to a chair beside Jason, unable to move as Clifford Blossom pointed a gun at Jason. Once back into reality, Sweet Pea was shaking her shoulders, "Queenie! Let's go! We have to go!"

Queenie didn't even realize she had closed her eyes until she suddenly opened. Sweet Pea grabbed her by the hand and they started to run away.