Mine (a Riverdale fanfiction)

Down This Dark Road

Toni came to Jughead's trailer that night, her face tense and worried.

"What's up?"

She was twisting her hands in the way Betty did sometimes. "Jughead, I, um ... I came to warn you, I guess. If you're having any second thoughts, now would be the time to back out. Because the final trial ... is on a whole other level."

"The Gauntlet, you mean?" He smiled, trying to make light of it, but seeing Toni look afraid made it hard to do. He gestured to Hot Dog, taking comfort in the dog's relative normalcy. "If it's anything like The Beast, I think I'll be fine. Whatever."

"No, Jughead, it's not whatever! You join us, you gotta be willing to die for us." She came toward him, and he could see in her face that she meant it, literally. "Because we will for you. And your North Side friends, your girlfriend ... You're gonna look up one day and they're all gonna be gone. Because that's what happens when you join a gang. The Serpents are no exception."

He felt the truth of what she was saying, felt Archie ... Betty ... slipping through his fingers already, flowing away from him like ice in a river. He wanted to argue with Toni, to tell her it wasn't true, but he couldn't. "Consider me warned. Thank you, Toni."

She moved past him, letting herself out with another word, leaving Jughead to wrestle with the decision. Or pretend he was. He had made the decision when he moved into this trailer, symbolically taking his dad's place. This was his home, these were his people. He would take the consequences.

*****

Betty sat on a bench, under a light, alone in the dark. Truly alone, the way the Black Hood wanted. She could feel the rawness of her skin where he had peeled her open, layer by layer. The cipher ... her speech ... the picture of her mother exposing her as a former Serpent and cutting Betty off from her parents ... now Veronica. The words she had hurled at her best friend still stung as if she had struck herself with them. She could only imagine how angry and hurt Veronica must be.

And now here she was. Waiting.

The cheery strains of "Lollipop" broke into the silence of the night. Betty didn't want to answer; she didn't want to go another step down this dark road with this unknown person who assured her that she knew the face under the hood. But she had to. Not just to save the next life, or the one after that—but because the Black Hood was right. There was something in her that knew him, that recognized him. The darkness in him called to the darkness in her.

Fighting back the tears, she answered the call. "I did it," she told him. "And now I want my question. What will make you stop?"

"You," he answered without hesitation. "As long as you continue showing me your devotion."

"I can't keep doing this."

"Sure you can. Jughead. The son of the Serpent."

Betty closed her eyes. Not Jughead. Anyone else, but not him. She needed him; he anchored her, kept her safe, kept the darkness inside her where it belonged. "No!"

"He's unworthy of your love. Cut him out of your life," the voice said, hard and insistent. "Or I will."

He would do it; she knew he would do it. But how could she do as he asked?

*****

Archie found her in the office of The Blue and Gold the next day, all filled with righteous indignation. Veronica's white knight. You had to admire how he never quit.

"What the hell was that last night? Betty?"

As the tears that hadn't stopped since last night's phone call continued to roll down her cheeks, Betty said, with a calm she was far from feeling, "I lied to you. When you asked me if the Black Hood called again. He did. And he told me to cut Veronica out of my life or he—" She broke off, unable to finish the sentence, but Archie understood. "And now he wants me to do the same with Jug."