Abby was filling up the kiddie pool. Fangs drag Hot Dog over. "Thanks for the help." He put the dog in the pool and held him while Abby hosed him down. Being the newest member, it was Fang's job to take care of Hot Dog.
"No problem." She put some dog shampoo into her hand and scrubbed it all over him. Hot Dog was panting from Fangs taking him for a jog because if he didn't Hot Dog would be wiggling around and playing tug-a-war with the hose. She washed the shampoo out of his hair. Fangs grabbed a towel and picked up Hot Dog to wrap him up in the towel.
Abby let out a scream when she was pushed into the pool. "Swee Pea!" She glares at her boyfriend.
"Oh come on, you're wearing a swimsuit. You have to get wet." He snickers. She was wearing a sunflower flounce bikini top with high waisted yellow bottoms.
"I'm sure that won't be the last time you say that to her." Fangs laugh as he dries off Hot Dog.
"Fangs!" She turned to glare at him. Hot Dog wiggles out of Fang's grip to run at her. "NO NO NO!" He jumped on top of her to lick her face.
"Every time." She uses all her strength to push the dog off her and stand up.
"You should be happy, Hot Dog normally try to bite new people." Sweet Pea helps her get out of the pool. He hands her a towel. Hot Dog had a habit of jumping all over her and keeping her attention while he was around her.
"I'm grateful to not get bitten." She dries herself off. Hot Dog grabbed her towel to tug on it. "If you keep being naughty I'm not giving you the treat I brought." At the word treat, he drops the towel and sits down. "Oh, now you want to be a gentleman." She rolled her eyes.
"You can't blame the guy for getting excited and wanting to jump you. I can hardly control myself." He winks.
"Me too." Fangs nods.
"Man, no more flirting for you." Sweet Pea glares. Fangs laugh and put his hands up in the air.
Abby walks over to her purse with Hog Dog following her. She grabs the chicken jerky bag and takes a treat out. "Sit, Shake." She watched as he did the two commands she taught him. "Here." She got the treat snatch out of her hand.
"Did I tell you, we got our test scores back?" Sweet Pea asked.
"What did you get?" She looks at him.
"I got the second-highest score in the class after Toni." He cheers.
"That's amazing, babe." She gave him a kiss. Hot Dog barks and squeeze between them to push them apart.
"Okay, we have got to solve this problem." Sweet Pea stared down at the dog.
"Hey, I got the third-highest score. I want a treat." Fangs snickers at the glare his friend was giving him.
"Here." Sweet Pea picks up the dog treat bag and throws it at him.
"Is this real jerky?" He stares at the bag.
"Yeah, it just doesn't have any flavoring, so it's safe for dogs to eat," Abby explains.
He tasted one. "Oh, it's plain. How can you eat this?" He looked down at Hot Dog that was sitting at his feet.
"Just because you're named after a dog, doesn't mean you have to eat like one." Sweets shook his head.
"Are you really named after a dog?" Abby tilts her head.
"The dog saved my mom's life as a kid." He grumbles.
"That's kind of sweet." She shrugs.
"No, it's not, it's insane. But, then again that's why she's in the looney bin." Fangs share new information through a joke.
"Yeah, who knows if that dog was real or imaginary." Sweets laughed. Abby realized that she didn't know why they weren't living with their parents. "I'm getting hungry, I'll take you to Ricky's Pizzeria." He nods to Abby.
"Hurray!" She ran to put her jean shorts on. She took her flip flops off and put her converses on.
"No one said you had to put pants on." He slaps her ass.
"Bring me back a few slices." Fangs pull Hot Dog into their trailer.
They rode on his bike to the pizzeria. They ordered meat lovers and sat down. "So..." She bites her bottom lip trying to think about how to word her question.
"So..." He copies.
"Can I ask about your parents?" She sips her water.
"You just did." She gave him a pointed look. "My dad was killed by some Northsider, who said he was scared of the scary gang member that was loading his car with groceries. A few hard months later, my mom killed herself. Since then I've been living with assistance from the Serpents."
"I'm sorry." She grabbed his hand. "How old were you?"
"Eleven. I lived by myself for a year until Fang's mom got sent away." He explains.
"That's so horrible." She understood his anger. She thought that his grudge was about the harsh poverty line and how the North looked down on the South. But, now she knew it was so much deeper than that.
"Get that look off your face." He pinches her cheek. "You don't need to be getting Northside guilty over it. It happened and it made me stronger."
They leaned back from each other when a waiter came to put down a large pizza and breadsticks. "Thank you," Abby smiles at the worker before he leaves.
"Do you have plans for Halloween?" He asked.
"No, normally Tomoko, Trev, and I go to the Drive-In for a horror marathon." She figures they go to someone's house to do it this year.
"Well, we hold a trick or treating event at Sunnyside for the kids on the Southside because the neighborhood is not safe for them to do it normally. There's games, food, and goodie bags at every trailer. It made Halloween my favorite holiday as a kid. I was wondering if you wanted to see it this year." He offers.
"Yeah, I love to go. I love to help." She smiled.
"Fangs and I could use the help. Last year, our game of tic tac toe with bullets and dead bugs didn't go over well." He grimaced remembering the talk he got from FP about it.
"What?" Her jaw drops.
"It's Halloween. It's supposed to be gross and violent." He defends their choice.
"Thank the pumpkin king that I'm here this year." She grabbed a pizza slice.
"What is this?" Fred and Hermoine came out of the office trailer to see Archie, Jughead, Kevin, Abby, and some of the bulldog. They had tools in their hands.
"Your new crew, reporting for duty." Archie looks back at his friends. After hearing about his dad losing his crew to Clifford Blossom and how the business was going to go under if he didn't get a new crew soon, he gathered up his own crew.
"I appreciate it, I do, but isn't there something more important you need to be doing? Like going to school, playing football?" He felt bad having the kids work when they should be focused on being kids.
"We can work after practice and on weekends. Until you find a new crew. Help keep things on schedule. Come on, Dad. I worked for you the whole summer. Abby can help in the office. And these guys…" He knew they weren't experienced, but they were willing to help.
"We're bruiser studs, Mr. Andrews. At least some of us are." Moose playfully nods to Jughead.
"Come on. Desperate times, Fred, huh?" Hermoine turns to Fred.
Fred sighs, "All right. Here we go." The guys follow him to get started clearing up the rubble. Abby walks into the trailer with Hermoine to make calls to see if they could get any workers.
Fred was looking over some paperwork when the guys came back into the trailer. "Hey, guys, you were a life-saver today. I appreciate it. Hard hats go in the bin, and there are sodas in the fridge."
"Crap! Hey, guys, I forgot my phone." Moose walks back outside. Loud noises and electric sounds were coming from outside.
Everyone ran out to see Moose getting beat up by some guys. When they saw the crew coming they jumped into a truck and drove off. "Moose, are you okay?" Abby kneels by him.
Moose groan trying to get up. "Stay down. We'll get you some help." Fred put his hand on the teen's shoulder to keep him down.
"Who did this to you, Moose?" Jug asked.
"No clue. But they said, as long as we keep working, they're gonna keep coming back." Moose told Fred. Fred went into the office to call the police.
After looking him over and Moose telling her that nothing was broken, she allowed him to get up. "I'll get you an ice pack." Abby got up to grab it from the freezer in the trailer. She came back outside with her dad when they heard the police sirens.
"Here ya go, Lumberjack." She hands Moose the ice pack.
"Thanks, Lil Red." He puts it on his head.
Keller got out of the patrol car, "What the hell happened?"
"Moose caught a couple of guys working over my equipment with a crowbar and then they got the drop on him." Fred pointed at the teen.
"Who were they, vandals?" He asked.
"Cliff Blossom has made it abundantly clear he would love nothing more than to see this whole project go belly-up," Fred explained to the man.
"I doubt that Blossom's gonna hire some thugs to bust up your site and beat up some teenagers." Keller pushes that off the table without even considering it making Abby roll her eyes.
"Maybe it wasn't him. I mean, this is Serpent territory, right? Maybe it was them. Pissed that they had to leave because of this project." Archie butted in.
"Serpents?" Kevin squints.
"Yeah." Archie nods.
"When I worked at the drive-in, the Serpents never bugged me." Jug didn't think his dad would allow that.
"You're also the leader's son, but it's not them." Abby walked over to the group. "I called the Whyte Wyrm because I knew that a lot of them got put out of work when the Drive-In closed or are looking for work in general. I was able to schedule a lot of interviews for tomorrow, Serpents and Southsiders."
"We can't rule out any possibilities. Did you see any snake tattoos, anything on their jackets?" Keller turns to Moose.
"It happened pretty fast." Moose couldn't get a good look at their faces.
"Alright, I'll talk to Blossoms, but I mean I don't think we'll get anywhere unless we can ID these guys." Keller let them know this was hopeless.
"That is such bull. If this was Clifford Blossom asking for help, you would say yes." Archie snaps. Kevin looks hurt that he would think that about his dad.
"Or if it was Kevin, you would be on a manhunt right now?" Abby crossed her arms over her chest.
"Archie. Abigail." He warns his kids.
"What, Dad? It's true." Archie didn't see why his dad was stopping them.
"It's also not helping." He told them.
"Hey Abby, getting any better?" Joaquin walks over to the pool table that she and Fangs were playing on.
"I have graduated from horrible to decent." She smiled, getting a loud mocking cheer from Sweet Pea.
"Can I have the table after? I want to show preppy how it's done?" He pointed behind him.
That's when she noticed Kevin, Archie, and Moose behind him.
"You can have it now, I'm close to losing anyway." She had five more balls while Fangs only had two. She walks towards her brother. "What are you doing?" She whispers to him.
"You know that Sheriff Keller isn't going to help us, so we have to help ourselves." He told her.
"I told you that it wasn't them." She hissed.
"Really, because the way I see it you made that call, and then Moose got attacked." Archie didn't think it was a coincidence.
"So what, you're going to pressure Moose into naming someone. He didn't get a good look at them. He couldn't give a description." She looks over at the big football player.
"No, if he doesn't see him, then we'll leave." Archie nods to the door.
"And, what then?" She puts her hands on her hips.
"I don't know, we'll come back another day." He shrugs.
"Next time, don't wear your letterman jacket, you look like a walking target." She shook her head as she went back to the pool table.
"What's up?" Sweet Pea asked.
"He still thinks it was a Serpent that attacked Moose last night." She drank her soda wishing it was something stronger.
"Asshole." He scoffs.
"Pay up." Joaquin held his hand out to Kevin.
"I'm gonna get this back, right?" Kevin hands him the money.
"You wish, Preppy." He smirks, leaning his face in close getting Kevin fluttered.
"That was fast then my loss." Abby looks down at the table that only had solid balls on it.
"Again, because I was going easy on you." Sweet Pea swings his arm over her shoulders.
"Oh, God!" Kevin dropped his pool stick on the table and hurried after Archie, who was making his way over to Mustang, a nasty serpent.
"Stay here." Sweet Pea nods to Abby and goes over with Joaquin, Moose, and Fangs.
"I hope he doesn't get beat up too bad," Abby says to Toni as she watches in horror.
"Hey." Archie roughly turns the Serpent around by his shoulder.
"What? You got a death wish?" Mustang growls.
"Archie, back off," Joaquin warns.
"What the hell is this?" He looked over Archie's shoulder to the person he knew.
"You like beating up teenagers?" Archie asked.
"This isn't the first time one of you Bulldogs has come in here, looking to cause trouble." He shoves Archie before grabbing him to throw him on a pool table.
"Hey! That's enough, Mustang. Let 'em go." FP walks down the stairs. He let go of Archie and walked away. "I'll take care of this." FP made the three Northside males get out of the bar.
"Archie, he always has good intentions but he got such a dumbass way of going about everything." Abby shook her head.
"Don't let him ruin the night." Sweet Pea pulls her over to the dartboard.