Shedding Our Skin {Jughead Jones}{Bughead}

Chapter Nineteen

My eyes opened slowly, and the light burned my eyes and gave me a splitting headache. My entire body hurt.

I struggled to sit up, and discovered I was in the waiting room at the hospital. The only other person in the room was Joaquin.

"How long was I out?" My voice was weak and my throat burned.

He took a packet of headache medicine out of his pocket and handed it to me with a water bottle.

"About twenty-three hours. Donny woke up about thirty minutes ago, but they haven't said we can see him yet.

Everyone's gone home or to the Worm. Your little run in with Pug yesterday had everyone on edge."

"Sorry about that." I said, rubbing my eyes.

"If it wasn't you, it'd be someone else. Dude, you were hammered!" He said.

"Yeah, I drank some of my dad's whiskey." I admitted.

"Bad habit. What's that about?" He asked.

"I don't know. I just started thinking about everything and it just happened."

"Kevin said Betty's torn up." He told me. "And you obviously are too. Why do you talk to each other?"

"I plan on seeing her, I just don't want to pull her into this mess." I explained, "She could get hurt."

"Something tells me she could take care of herself but it's your love life man." Replied Joaquin.

I was about to reply when a doctor walked in.

"Mr. Jones, your father is ready for visitors." He said, "I'll take you to his room."

Joaquin and I followed the doctor to Donny's room.

"I'll be back shortly to check on him."

"Hey Donny." I said gently, "How you feeling?"

"Like a million bucks." He said with a weak smile. "Come here, kid."

I smiled and bent down to the old man.

Without warning, he slapped me in the face.

"Ow!" I shouted, staggering backwards and holding my head.

"Who do you think you are? The great Jughead Jones, who does what he wants a drive drunk?! Do you even have any idea how many people you put in danger? Or were you to drunk to remember?" He said as loud as he could. His heart rate monitor began to speed up.

"You need to calm down." I said gently.

"You don't need to tell me what to do." He snapped. "I'm disappointed in you, Jug. I know you're better than this."

I looked at the ground. I thought back to Donny's story about his wife and daughters. Suddenly, drinking didn't seem like such a good idea anymore.

"I'm sorry, Donny."

"I'll bet you are. Now come here, really." He said, holding his arms out.

The old man and I hugged, and I felt a new sensation: Like I finally had a father.

I jumped back as Joaquin's phone began to ring.

"Yeah?" He said. I could hear someone speaking frantically on the other end of the phone. Joaquin's eyes grew wide and his jaw dropped.

With the person on the other end of the line still talking, he hung up the phone.

"He was telling the truth." He whispered disbelievingly.

"What? What are you talking about?" I asked.

"What happened?" Donny asked.

"Pug organized a drive by shooting and it just happened." He said.

"Go, Jughead, I'll be fine." Donny said.

Joaquin and I left and tried not to in down the hospital corridors.

We hopped in Donny's truck and sped toward the Southside. I grabbed a pistol out of the center console, and Joaquin grabbed his from the waistband of his pants.

As I sped through Riverdale, I found the person I was looking for faster than I expected.

Pug was walking down the sidewalk as if he hadn't just orchestrated a shooting. His smug face showed no emotion, just idle existence.

I pulled the truck over and jumped out, screaming.

"Hey! How dare you? How dare you?"

I pushed him to the ground then took out my gun, but his was already drawn and pointing at me.

I heard a shop door open behind me. With my eyes trained on the sick, twisted excuse for a human being in front of me, I shouted.

"Go back inside!"

Pug smiled, his teeth showing. His smile turned into a snarl.

"What do I have to lose?" He asked, pulling the trigger.

The bullet ripped through the flesh in my stomach, and warm blood oozed out of the wound onto the concrete.

As my vision began to go black, I pulled the trigger once, then again, and then repeatedly until I was firing an empty gun. I didn't even see if I hit Pug.

I just wanted to say I tried before I fell back and hit the sidewalk.

The last thing I heard was a shrill, familiar scream behind me.

"Betty." I tried to choke out before I lost consciousness.