Helpline ((Jughead Jones)) 2

29

Cynthia POV

They let me out 2 days before Midge's funeral. It was delayed because I had begged her parents to let me attend. I did, after all, witness the Black Hood drive knife after knife into her chest after her broke my legs. Jughead had wheeled me next to Cheryl, and I wore the same black capes as the rest of the vixens. Getting changed was like a sketch from a comedy show, filled with Jughead lifting me while I tried not to wince in pain. Today he pulled the cape over my head back to front so I had the hood over my face when he stood in front of me. That was the first time either of us had smiled in weeks.

Cheryl sang. I had asked to do the harmonizing vocals with the rest of the Vixens. I felt like I had to. I knew the Klumps had questions for me, ones that I wasn't ready to answer, and so did Keller, but I knew I had to come and do this for her.

It was my idea to do 'You'll Never Walk Alone'. Archie was on his phone and that song came up, and I knew I had to do that one. Cheryl had come around Archie and Fred's house early, and set about doing my makeup and pulling my hair into a ponytail. I had moved into the Andrews household after I was released from the hospital. Apparently, while I was unconscious it had been decided that the wheelchair I was now bound to would moved around a lot more in a house than a trailer. So, of course, Jughead practically lived there as well.

The angel of death had once again come to Riverdale. Midge Klump's gruesome murder and Cynthia's vicious attack had gutted the entire town. And, in grief, brought us together.

Everyone was being questioned by Keller and he had asked me to come into the station. In fact, he had visited me in the hospital every day I was awake in case I 'had anything to share'. We went the night before the funeral and I can still remember every thought I had. Every movement for me hurt.

I had gotten used to the news that my back was injured and that walking would be agony. I understood why I had to wear a brace on my back for the next few weeks until the cartlidge started to bond back together. It was clear to me why I couldn't use my hands, because I had two knives speared right through them. But I still felt helpless and terrified he was about to come back and finish the job.

"Do you remember his voice? Did he say anything to you?" Keller asked me. Silence. People would think that I would be wanting to tell every detail I could remember of that night in order to catch the vigilante that had terrorised my classmates for months. But I couldn't.
"What about any obvious features?" Every time I closed my eyes I could see his eyes glaring down at mine. In each silence I could hear the words he spoke to me. 'I warned you'. 'This is your punishment'. 'No one will want you now'. They were like some demented soundtrack that kept replaying over and over and over and over again in my head.
"You need to cooperate with us Cynthia." Jughead stopped it. He was the only one that could stop everything. He stopped my rising panic just before I fell asleep. He woke up straight away when I couldn't sleep because I could hear him or see his figure in the corner like a phantom, as if J could sense my distress. And like a sixth sense to him, he knew when I was in pain and needed my medication, or just someone to hold.

"I need Jug." I whispered, looking down at my bandaged hands in my lap and wondering what the skin looked like now. Was it mangled and deformed? Was it angry and inflamed? Maybe there was some bruising. If I moved slowly, I could wiggle my fingers in the bandages.

Jug entered a minute later and knelt down to my level. It was strange at first being in a chair. Everyone looked down at you more so than I was used to. Children stared at you in the street no matter how hard they tried not to. Everything you could once do, could once see, suddenly became a foreign world.
"Baby?" His voice cut through any thoughts I was having. I often did that, let my thoughts run away from me. Jug always pulled me back before they ran me into any danger.
"Can we go home?" I muttered to him, trying to lean into him, but not getting far because pain shot up my spine causing me to sit back. He smiled at me, nodding, before moving behind me to push me out of the station and back to my new home.

After the funeral, Archie was pushing me through the snow covered graveyard, Jughead walking in line with me, and Betty and Veronica were walking beside Archie. I couldn't help thinking when Midge's casket was lowered, that it could have been me. The Vixens had vowed to punish the killer but I doubted that Keller would find him.

Our small group watched my sister stand by Mrs Klump as she slapped the Sheriff for his inability to protect anyone. The of course, our group walked away and went to Pop's. I hadn't been since the attack.

Pop Tate greeted me straight away, promising me a vanilla milkshake on the house, with extra chocolate sprinkles just for me. As much as I refused, I still got a milkshake I hadn't ordered on my table. I reached forward to grab it, then stopped short, looking at my hands. I couldn't pick it up. I tried to lean forward to the straw but my back twinged before I could move close. Letting out a sigh, I then saw the straw in front of my face. Jug was holding it for me. I smiled, slowly sipping my milkshake.

"I have a theory. It's a copycat killer." Jughead, although he was trying to keep me out of it, was trying to find different theories to explain the attack and the new Black Hood. His knew one was Chic. Betty tensed when Jughead said his name.
"He may be weird but he didn't know Midge." Betty defended, adding that she was the one that went to get Chic in the first place.
"It wasn't Chic, this man was bigger. Chic is thin and I don't think he's strong enough to injure me, kill Midge and nearly kill me." I spoke up. Jughead was particularly surprised that I had spoken about the incident. I hadn't said a word about it since I told Jug I saw the Black Hood murder Midge. This information seemed to settle Jughead down though.

The next theory was that Mr Svenson wasn't the real Black Hood. Our table seemed to go against Archie on this idea, but I agreed. And, when everyone had moved on to small conversations and Archie looked at me, I mouthed my agreement. He smiled at me. Archie and I had gotten closer now we knew we were half siblings. He was the big brother I needed after Jason and I was the sister he didn't know he wanted.

My first physiotherapy session came the next day.
"Want me to come with you?" Jug had asked when he dropped me at the door. I shook my head no, then told him this was something I needed to do on my own. He then left, knowing Archie was picking me up after this session because he had promised to help Betty.

My name was called and a nurse can up and wheeled me in. She was talking but I wasn't listening. Something about first times, and that it wasn't scary or painful, and that the therapist was really nice.

The first exercise was picking items up to use my hands, to see when it would hurt. I managed up to a cup of water before I could feel tears coming so I refused to do the next one. The moment he tried to get me to push the wheelchair myself was when I wished I hadn't sent Jughead away. I managed, but I knew that I wouldn't be able to sustain that for very long. If anything, this was proving all the things that I couldn't do, rather than helping me build up strength. Finally, he took my back brace off and got me to start moving my back a little.
"I think you should only wear the brace when you go to bed, and try to do the exercises every day." And that was it.

In that short time I had found that I still couldn't lift things, I couldn't move myself, and I couldn't really bend without wincing. The doctor had proved to me that this would be one long road to recovery.