Shedding Our Skin {Jughead Jones}{Bughead}

Chapter Five

I hopped in the bed of the truck and it took off. It only took a few seconds for me to realize that we were headed to the Worm.

Donny and the other Serpent, called Sling, lead me up to the room we had our meeting in the night before.

In the middle of the room was about eight men, gathered around something. Donny cleared his throat, and they turned around. As soon was they saw me, they made a path to a box, which was what they were gathered around.

I approached it slowly, terrified of what I would find. I leaned over the box and tried to keep my cool. In it was a pale pink cardigan, covered in patches of mud, rips, and a few drops of what could not have been anything else but blood. I sunk to my knees and took the cardigan out of the box, holding it close to me. It still smelled like her.

In the box was a card, which read:

"Thought you might need this for the cold times ahead. All you need now is a fire to keep you warm. -C.W."

I stood up slowly, still holding the jacket, and turned around.

"What time is it?" I asked, my voice barely louder than a whisper. I had begun to shake.

"Uhm, it's 7:30." Joaquin said, fumbling with his phone.

"At 8:00, I want everyone here, and everyone quiet. I'll have some friends with me. I will have Betty Cooper home and safe by the end of this week."

At 8:00 sharp, I stood on the stage in front of the information board. In front of me was the entirety of the Serpents, as well as Hermione Lodge, Veronica, Kevin, Archie, Polly, and Cheryl Blossom, who was really only there to take care of Polly. I began by catching everyone up, from the time Betty left me to the box.

"I can only assume that C.W. stands for the Candle Wicks. Does anyone else have any information that could prove or disprove this assumption?" I was quite literally shaking with anger.

The entire room was silent. I took a deep breath.

"Look. I don't know how my father ran the Serpents. In fact, I'm not even sure why I'm allowed to stand up here and receive your attention. However, someone very important to me is missing and it is, in a way, my fault. So, I intend to fix this and bring her home safe. With that being said, it is in the best interest of everyone here to give me all of the information I need to do that."

One by one, people began to raise their hands, and one by one the clouds of mystery overlooking the tragic situation began to dissipate, to reveal partially light, partially a night's sky full of trouble and hopelessness.

For hours, we stood there, adding to our board, gathering even more information about our possible rivals and what they could have to do with Betty's disappearance.

After we were done, my friends and I studied the board in an uncomfortable, knowing silence. For every piece of information that pointed toward one of the gangs, there was a piece of information that opposed one of our key assumptions or raised a plethora of questions, some seemingly unquestionable.

"Well," Veronica said optimistically, "we knew more than we did, at least!"

"I'm sure if we take a step back and look at everything we know, we'll come up with something!" Polly tried to reassure us.

"There's just so much information here... where do we start? What do we do?" Archie asked.

"She would know what to do." I said bitterly, "If only there were some way to ask her!"

"Well there isn't." Cheryl snapped, "So how about you sorry bunch of pathetic outcasts just accept that you can't solve this one!"

We all stared at her in disbelief. A feeling of sickening disgust settled in my stomach. I stepped towards her, ready to throw every insult I knew at her, when Veronica spoke up.

"Maybe, there is a way Betty can help us."

We, in turn, focused our stares at her.

"You're insane." Kevin said with wide eyes, "You're all going insane."

"No, I'm serious!" Veronica reasoned, "We may not have her, but we do have this!"

She pulled a small book out of her bag.

"Veronica..." Polly whispered.

"Is that-?" Archie asked.

"Betty's diary." I finished.

"Mija..." Hermione said, "You shouldn't have that!"

"Betty asked me to take it and keep it safe if anything ever happened to her!" Veronica explained, "So, I will be the only one here reading it! Give me tonight to look over it, and I'll tell you guys what I know tomorrow. Sound good?"

We all knew better than to argue with Veronica, so we went with it. I walked everyone outside and saw to it that they all left safely. However, Veronica and Hermione came back after a moment.

"Jughead," she said, "I think you should come with me. I mean, you deserve to be the first to know if I find anything, and maybe you can help interpret if need be."

I nodded. I really didn't want to be alone tonight anyway.

The ride home was fairly silent, as no one really knew what to say. To of us had (hopefully temporarily) lost one of the people most important to us in the world.

We got to Veronica's apartment and went inside.

"Kids, I'll admit I'm very tired, I'm going to bed." Hermione told us.

Veronica hugged her and I thanked her for everything. We then went to Veronica's room to see what we could find in the closest thing we had to Betty's vast and brilliant mind.

A/N: Hey guys! Sorry I haven't posted in a while, I guess I've just gotten off track lol. Just wanted to say that the g key on my keyboard is broken so if there are any gs missing it's not because I don't know how to spell lol😂

~A.M.