Flatline ((Jughead Jones)) 3

8

I thought that I would have been fine that night. I hadn't been that bad in a while, and I could usually control the screaming, but that night I couldn't. I closed my eyes and I just saw him, the Black Hood, stood holding Jughead by his hair, a knife in his free hand. I had been screaming, begging him to take me but he had just laughed. Jug didn't stand a chance and in my nightmare, nothing I did would move my feet, I just couldn't get to him.

The moment I had woken up, the bunker was dark and I was screaming. I couldn't feel Jug near me and I began to panic. I thought I saw him, my demon, standing in the corner, as if he had climbed down the ladders to get to me, and I had just screamed louder. I heard someone calling my name but I kept screaming, they weren't real. Someone grabbed my arms and I began to push and kick them away. I knew I'd be using my crutches once my attacker had been vanquished, this intense fighting wouldn't be doing my recovery any favours.
"Cynthia, it's me!"

My fighting stilled as I heard his voice. My eyes opened and I didn't see the Black Hood back, trying to kill me; I saw Archie, looking at me in worry. He pulled me to him when he realised that I was seeing him now, that I wasn't trapped in my nightmare anymore, that I knew he was my brother.
"Archie?" I whispered to him, holding onto his jumper that he had put on and pulling myself to him. He rubbed my back, saying that I was safe now.

I pulled back suddenly once the tears had stopped and my heart rate was somewhat back to normal. I looked down to see his blood stained top and I knew he had opened up his stitches.
"You need to be resting." I ordered, moving to pick up my stitching kit again as Archie lay on his bed. He took off his jumper and looked down to the bandage I had applied last night. It was no longer plain white, but now almost entirely red.
"I wasn't going to let my sister lie there screaming." He replied. Although he shouldn't have moved, I was glad he had stopped my nightmare. It seemed that I would be taking one step forward only to take three steps backwards in the space of a few hours. It had been a long time ago, now, and most people in the town were starting to forget the serial killer of last year, focusing on the new issue at hand.

A little later, after having gotten no sleep but ordering Archie to rest, I changed the wet towel on his forehead. He was still far too hot, and a new towel would at least help with that a little, but with the limited resources we had, what he really needed was a hospital.

I was grateful I had Archie. Jason was gone, and Archie partly filled the void that my father had created. Instead of only having Cheryl, I had a new brother as well, and even though we had known we were family a few months, I knew it was like we had always known. We looked after each other, just like siblings did. And even though he would never be Jay- Jay, I didn't want him to be. I had the privilege of having two brothers, when some people don't even get one. I just had to enjoy it.

Jughead then ran into the bunker, looking rather disheveled. Sweat was evident on his forehead, and terror painted his eyes with emotion. His eyes themselves were frantically scanning around the room, at every hanging figure and every hand drawn gargoyle, before they finally landed on me and seemed to focus. I immediately stood up, walking towards him and taking his hand in mine.
"I saw him." I immediately knew who he was talking about, despite many people in Riverdale that the sentence could apply to. Jughead still announced who he had seen, but something about his scattered appearance, and with everything going on, and Archie's mark, it was clear he was talking about the Gargoyle King.

"Really?" I had no idea how long Jughead had been gone for, but clearly it hadn't been long, which meant my nightmare hadn't lasted as long as I thought it had, and I couldn't have been asleep for more than a few minutes.
"Yeah. As I was walking home, I followed him into a clearing. Thia, there are others. There's like, ten of them." He told me, and it made me think back to something Kevin had tried to whisper to Betty. The thing about Kevin was that he couldn't whisper to save his life, not even when he was younger. You could almost hear him from across the classroom. "They looked like his disciples. Like they were worshipping the king. They had these masks, like they were a gang. A gang of Gargoyles."
"I heard Kevin mention something about a new gang forming earlier, I didn't think they would be Gargoyles. Should we go after them?" I asked, Jughead saying that we shouldn't push our luck. That much was very true. We had already rolled the dice going to get Hotdog back, and I didn't really think that our luck would hold out twice so soon.

"Who are they?" I asked him, and Jughead shrugged in response. Archie was the next one who answered. Joaquin had been in the jail with Archie, and from the sounds of it, he was the one had stabbed Archie. We both moved nearer to him as he took off the now warm towel from his head, and turned his body slightly to talk to us. "Joaquin told Kevin about a new gang and then he ran into the woods." He confirmed to Jug what I had told him about a new gang, and now we had a source that lead back to the detention centre once again, just like Warden Norton.
"We know Warden Norton is playing G&G, J, and Joaquin was doing his dirty work." I told him.
"It's just another piece of damning evidence that Warden Norton could be our gargoyle King." Jughead replied, and that was the end of that conversation for that night. The only problem was that as much as Jughead thought Warden Norton was the king, and I agreed that the evidence did seem to point that way, but something in the back of my mind said that there was much more to the story. And if the other two mysteries were anything to go off, then this one wouldn't be solved so easily. When would there be a mystery in Riverdale that was solved within a few days?

In the morning, I went back to my house and my dad was sitting in the living room, and it looked like he had been that way since the news got out about Archie. I felt bad for him, worried for his sanity. The police probably have already searched the house and the grounds and it would have only caused the man more panic.

Instead of disappearing upstairs, I went to sit beside him, and at first no one spoke. It was clear that he expected me to be involved and I was trying to decide whether or not explain to him what had happened. How his daughter had actually spent the night playing the forbidden game of the town in a secret bunker that belonged to the boy who killed himself because of the aforementioned game. All while her brother was off reenacting the Great Escape or Prison Break or the Shawshank Redemption, or more likely all three rolled into one. During which time multiple other friends were off being accomplaces in a crime and helping her brother escape and outrun the authorities. We pulled all of this off spectacularly, but for some reason, I doubted dad would take it like that.

"He's safe, Dad." I settled on that. That was all he needed to know, and it was probably all he could handle knowing. If Archie was able to come back we could explain everything then, without having to make our own father aware of criminal activity.
"I told them you were at Jughead's, they were going to search there in the morning, so you have every alibi possible." He answered. I knew that was his way of thanking me, thanking all of us for getting his son out of prison, and out of the terrible place. Instead of replying, I pulled the man into a hug, holding him tightly as he did me, and I knew I could trust my dad to keep our secret. He knew it was us that got Archie out, and he was fully aware we knew exactly where he was, but he wasn't about to tell a soul.
"I'll go make breakfast." I announced, knowing he hadn't eaten and a classic fry up was exactly what he needed to lift his spirits slightly.

"Archie is a murderer." Was the opening line from Sheriff Minetta when he walked into our history class that Monday morning. He stood, along with the mayor, at the front of the class, and everyone that was involved was sitting in front of him, not that he knew. It was clear that he wasn't doing this talk to everyone in the school, and that he thought the culprit or the escape team sat in front of him.

His eyes kept wandering to certain people. Veronica. Betty. Jughead. Me. He clearly knew who Archie's friends were and was playing on focusing his investigation on them rather than anyone else. I, however, knew that each of us had a strong alibi, so his leads would be dead ends, whether he liked it or not.

"We know he didn't escape alone. Hiding a convict or withholding information from the law is a felony offense." The Sheriff practically shouted. Now, more than ever, I wished that it was Sheriff Keller standing in front of us. It felt like we were all being scolded rather than coaxed into revealing information. Minetta clearly thought intimidation was going to work, however we had all dealt with much worse than him. "So, whoever's aided and abetted Archie Andrews is just as much of a criminal as he is."

He finished his sentence stood in front of Reggie, who answered that he was busy all day. Clearly the Sheriff didn't like what he had apparently been doing, then moved to the farm girl who of course used the platform to promote her teen farmies group, before he moved onto Josie. Out of all of us, good girl Josie was the most likely to crack, her stuttering through an answer only drew Minetta's attention closer to all of us.

"I'll be looking into all of your alibis. And if I find out later that someone in here was involved, well, you can say goodbye to this school, your hopes and dreams." The Sheriff then leaned over Josie, his hands on her desk as he stared her down, daring her to crack under the pressure. He kept talking, but I was watching Josie. Her eyes were no longer focusing on the man staring her down, but moving higher and higher into the back of her skull as her body then began to convulse. She was leaning back into her chair and Minetta clearly didn't notice or care about the welfare of the students in front of him.

I stood immediately and Cheryl had clearly spotted as well as shouted for the Sheriff to back off. We got either side of Josie as she convulsed, the seizure taking control. When her body pushed forward, I put my hand between her forehead and the desk so she could avoid injury. It wasn't until her body went limp that any of the adults in the room started to react properly. Typical adults.

I chose to stay with Josie as we waited for the ambulance. Jughead and Betty went to investigate their theory of Warden Norton being the Gargoyle King, but I felt that was a dead end. When Jughead texted me saying that the warden was dead, consumed by the realm of Eldervair, and spat out by the game with blue lips, meant that we were back to no suspects. The next message I received was that Warden Norton was the RROTC instructor the same year as the Midnight Club began. Yet again, the adults thought it would be better to hide things#. Why people in this town couldn't just be honest was above me.My reply was simple. 'Our parents need to start talking.'