Mine (a Riverdale fanfiction)

Twisted Attention

Betty had spent most of the night poring over the cipher the Black Hood had sent her—and in the moments when she wasn't caught up in that puzzle, she was frustrated that Jughead hadn't been available to talk all day. It would have been so much better if she could have talked it through with him, so much easier to focus if she had his logical mind helping her find the patterns.

Not to mention that she was still a little freaked out by the letter. She had chosen to take it as a challenge, to accept that if the Black Hood was doing what he was doing because of her speech, to combat the evils living in Riverdale, she had a mandate to track him down herself ... but it was unsettling to know she had set something like this in motion, and to think that he knew who she was and she didn't know who he was. He could be watching her; he could be passing her in the halls in school. He could be anywhere.

As soon as it was light enough, she showered and changed and took her envelope full of papers over to Jughead's, unable to sit still under the weight of her fear and excitement any longer.

It was clear she had woken him up—his hair was a mess, and his eyes were bleary. "Betty. What time is it?"

"7:15. I wanted to catch you before school." She kissed him, but he pulled away almost instantly.

"Sorry. I have morning breath. You want coffee or something?" he asked, shutting the door behind her.

"No. I'm actually on my way to the library. I asked Miss Prue to set aside all the books she has on cryptograms and ciphers. I thought it might help us crack the Black Hood's code. Which I'm hoping is something we can do together, Jug," she added.

He was getting milk from the fridge, pouring it out, barely paying attention to her at all. There was a long silence—or, at least, it felt long to Betty—after her request when he didn't move or respond to her at all. Finally, still not looking at her, he said, "Actually ... funnily enough, Toni, of all people, and I—we, uh, we started working on that yesterday at The Red and Black."

Toni. Of course. She should have known. So while he was ducking her calls, he was working with Toni on the cipher. Betty's cipher. And now he couldn't even look at her while he told her.

"I can show you what we've got so far, if you want," he said, sitting down with his bowl of cereal, his back still to Betty.

Betty hovered for a moment between walking out in a huff, pretending she didn't see what was happening, and doing something about it. She loved Jughead. He brought something out in her she had always been afraid to show; he made her feel safe, and seen, and loved. She wasn't giving that up this easily. "Toni," she said evenly. She sat down at the table where he had to look at her. "Because, let me guess: She loves serial killers."

"She does have an affinity for the darker side of things, yeah." His laugh was nervous. He knew what was happening as well as Betty did.

"Hm." She could attack, or she could evade, and evading seemed like the better choice at the moment. "In that case, why don't we all work on it together? You, me, Toni ... Kevin ..."

"Kevin?"

"Yeah. It'll be like a little ... code-breaking ... party. So fun!" She smacked him lightly on the arm. "You can host." Keeping a carefully calibrated smile on her face, she waited for his response. Which was, naturally, agreement, because anything else would have been too obvious.

Betty left with promises to bring the library books over after school that day. As she closed the door behind her, she hugged to herself the knowledge of the letter, and that the cipher had been sent to her. She didn't entirely like keeping secrets from Jughead ... but if he was drifting off toward some other girl, she was glad to have something that was just hers to hold on to. Even if that something was the twisted attention of a serial killer.