"This nightmare will be over soon," Hiram swears to Veronica before he and Hermione get in a car with Andre. They're going to church, then to the airport to meet with the top dogs of the coup in New York. To negotiate.
Hiram sets a hand on his daughter's shoulder and shuts his eyes to silently pray over her just before they leave. She can't blame him: his own parents were deeply involved in the church, and he was practically half raised by the nuns in the local chapel. He fully intended to become a priest until he met Hermione; he confesses every other Friday and keeps a Saint Christopher medal tucked inside his suit jacket. In his outward life he's deadly dangerous, but his heart and soul are that of the most serious of altar boys, and the fact that he didn't ship Veronica off to some convent this week is probably a testament to the mercy of God, as far as she's concerned.
Finally they leave. She feels trapped and anxious in the Pembrooke by herself, a ghost haunting its empty rooms. She tries to sketch out some clothing designs for a few minutes, but finally she gives up and stops tormenting herself - the blank paper like a sweeping accusation from the person she used to be in New York, all the things she said she was going to do and didn't. For a second she's back at Park Avenue on the night her father was arrested, every careful plan for her future scattered like hayseed in a dry wind.
Still - Riverdale has been better for her than she ever imagined possible, all things considered. Archie makes her feel like all the mistakes she's made are okay, like all the things she hates about herself - her callousness, her inability to fix her family's morality, the way her mind jumps immediately to judgement; like the mean thing to say is always on the tip of her tongue, and she has to swallow that poison down so often she thinks she may actually choke on it - are redeemable. Like maybe one day she can actually be a good person. When she's with him, she feels like she can push all her anger, fear, and guilt into a tiny room, turn off the lights, and close the door.
His proposition that they cut their losses and just go after graduation makes sense to her. Even before he said it, she remembers thinking how strange it was that she and Archie were headed to the same University as every other high schooler in the state - how pedestrian, as if the two of them should be headed for pastures way greener than keg parties and freshman seminars on the history of Western civilization. They should be haunting cafés in New York or playing open mics in California, speeding down clear expanses of highway in the middle of the country, with no particular destination in mind.
The idea that she may be killed and never get a chance to do all those things - become good, explore the world - makes her feel like she's shriveling up on the inside. She stares at the wall and decides she needs to get out of this apartment now. So she pulls the keys to her father's second car from the hook by the door.
The roads are pretty empty at this hour, the darkened silhouettes of maple trees studding the landscape and the red glow of scattered tail lights. The windshield fogs up a bit, and she swipes at it with the flat of her palm as she pulls into Pop's. When she gets out, she watches a plane flying overhead, blinking lights, larger than life, all of that coming and going and her just exactly where she's been for the last six months.
Inside she orders fries without event and stares around at the diner, restless. She drinks water by the counter. She pulls out her phone and sees that it's dead, slides it back into her bag - her whole life a holding pattern, some variation on sorry, try again later.
Finally she goes back to the car and mentally curses herself for forgetting to lock the door as she gets in. Veronica shivers. Sitting here alone in the car isn't really her brightest move, and she shifts, out of sorts and aching. She doubts anyone would try something in the parking lot of the most popular diner in town, but she peers around anyway. Nothing but a handful of parked cars. Still, her skin prickles like someone is watching her. She locks the doors.
At the other end of the lot, headlights suddenly blare and a van's engine growls to life, and instead of moving toward the exit, it turns into the row of cars where Veronica is parked. It gets closer and closer, and her hands shake as she grabs her bag and digs deep down to find the keys.
No go. The van stops just a few spaces away from her and she gasps for breath as she reaches for the overhead light and pushes the switch. Nothing. In desperation, she overturns her bag on the passenger seat and rifles through her papers and wallet and whatever the hell else she's got in there until her fingers finally connect with cool metal. She fumbles with the keys, trying to push them into the ignition.
Success on the third try. The car roars to life.
When she looks up, the van is gone.
By the time she gets home, her breathing is almost back to normal. If her father's investors are trying to send her into cardiac arrest, they're well on their way. All she wants to do is call Betty for some tea and sympathy - minus the tea - but considering she's made her best friend intentionally oblivious to the target on her back, that conversation is a nonstarter. The minute she gets into the apartment, she hears her dad's voice boom, "Veronica, get in here! Now!"
Great. She makes her way toward the kitchen, past the multitude of black and white family portraits - her mother's work all up and down the wall. When Veronica was a little girl she used to let her take pictures with her heavy 35mm, showed her how to develop them in the darkroom she'd had set up in their powder room on Park Avenue. She remembers feeling so nervous to mess up around her mother that her hands would shake as she tried to hold the camera, a whole roll of blurry, focusless shots.
In the kitchen, her mother is glaring down at her vodka and tonic and avoiding Veronica's eyes. Hiram's stormy gaze, on the other hand, has no problem latching onto hers. "How is it that I have to find out from Archie Andrews that my own daughter isn't picking up her phone, isn't in the apartment, and hasn't told anyone what she's doing, which, apparently includes stealing the car and going out alone, forcing us to race home from church and miss the flight that's supposed to take us to critical negotiations, just to ensure she isn't dead -"
Veronica interrupts. "I was afraid to be here alone," she says, "and I didn't want to make things worse by calling you."
"Veronica." His voice rises suddenly, and she thinks of Moses on Mount Sinai, the voice of God and the burning bush. "Worse would be having something happen to you. How can your mother and I protect you if we don't know what's going on?"
Hermione's hand trembles as she takes a big sip of her drink. "You wanted us to take the investors seriously. That's what we're trying to do, and now you pull something like this. Did anything strange happen while you were out?" she demands.
"No," she lies. Her stomach clenches and she leans against the counter for support.
Hiram pinches the bridge of his nose. "We live in a sick society, Veronica. If anything happens, you tell us immediately, even if you don't think it matters. Understood?"
"Yes," she says, even as she wonders how keeping anyone safe is possible.
"Check the security alarm and the locks every time you enter the house. Be careful when you leave. Always lock the doors and windows."
"Daddy, I know all that." She tries not to sound impatient, even as guilt works its way through her about forgetting to lock the car at Pop's.
"Text me every day when you get to school, when you're leaving, and when you get home, so I know you're okay. Are we clear?"
"Crystal."
"I don't know what's going on with you, Veronica, but I'm telling you right now, you need to put a stop to it before you get killed. You're on very thin ice here. Now call Archie. He's out there looking for you."
"What?" Veronica's stomach drops, but before she has time to go ballistic, the doorbell is ringing incessantly, and she races to open it, her father attached to her heels. Archie comes bursting in, looking worn and wound.
"My God, Ronnie," he breathes, and then he's got his arms around her, holding her tight. His shirt is warm and soft against her cheek. She feels herself calm down as soon as he touches her, lets herself sink into it, his mouth at her temple.
Hiram allows them to go to her room; "Maybe he can talk some sense into you."
She shuts the door behind her and looks at her bed but can't bring herself to sit down. Her whole body is shaking and he runs his palm up and down her arm - she feels tense from the tips of her ears all the way down to her ankles.
"Something happened while you were out, right?" Archie asks, looking at her with concern, and with that lingering hint of panic he had when he got here.
She's surprised he's noticed, actually, that he's tuned-in enough to be able to tell. She's not used to that kind of attention. She's a little disbelieving, as if there's some invisible string keeping she and Archie tethered to each other, and it's tightening, a slipknot hooked around her wrist.
She shakes her head. "No," she bluffs, eyes a little wide, "I'm fine." Then she says, "Archie-" and opens her mouth to tell him the truth, but when her answer comes, it's from somewhere deep inside her, a place she didn't even know existed, some small hidden place that wouldn't even show up on a map. "I think I need to leave Riverdale by myself."
Um.
"What?" For a second he looks totally and completely baffled, like she's speaking a language he's never heard before, staring at her like he's been blindsided. And why wouldn't he be? Fifteen seconds ago she said she was fine.
As soon as it's out of her mouth though she knows it's true, like whatever she's trying to do here, trying to outrun death, isn't working. Like she's been trying to force a key inside a lock that doesn't fit. "I'm sitting here waiting for them to kill me."
"Veronica, that's not going to happen," Archie says, his voice rising just a little. He pushes his hand through his hair in frustration, and she notices it's gotten slightly longer. It occurs to her, not for the first time, that things change whether you're around to notice them or not.
Veronica is pacing now, thinking about how the investors tried to kill her friends. You don't understand, she wants to tell him. It's so much bigger than just a threat on her life. It's all of them. It was Betty and Jughead just a couple days ago. But how could he understand, really? She's never bothered to explain, and even now, she keeps her feelings clutched close.
The worst part is, she can see it. She can see herself doing all the right things, answering Archie's calls and locking the front door and keeping her guard up until her parents do the wrong thing and their investors kill him as another warning. Make it look like an accident. Make her entire world crumble to ashes right in front of her. She can see it all laid out, neat and small and suffocating, and it makes her want to scream like nothing else she has ever experienced.
"There's no other solution," she manages, voice shaking. God, already she's thinking there's an outside chance she's the stupidest person alive. "My parents met the people who sent the box. They're investors in Lodge Industries. They made Betty and Jughead crash."
Archie looks at her for a moment like she's wrecked him. A tiny part of her hopes he'll walk away, forget she ever existed, because at least then he'll be safe. For a minute he's silent, but then he just says, "Tell me what happened tonight."
She closes her eyes hard. Finally, she's done playing Lone Ranger. She fills him in on what happened at Pop's and watches as his eyebrows shoot up so fast she thinks they might be in danger of springing off his head entirely.
He cards his fingers through his hair again. "Why didn't you answer my calls, Veronica?"
"My phone died," she says crisply. "And I didn't know you were coming over." She stares up at the ceiling and now it's his turn to pace. She tracks his orbit out of the corner of her eye, back and forth.
"Have you thought about finishing this semester from home?" he asks. "Where you'll be safe? Or at least until this is over? Because running off on your own is the opposite of the right solution."
"Archie, the thought of spending all my time in this tomb of a house while everyone else is at school or work is more horrifying than dealing with my assassins."
"Damn it, Veronica," Archie says, suddenly explosive. He looks like he's possibly considering breaking something.
She pushes back her tears and her voice shakes. "I won't spend my life locked up, figuratively or literally. I won't do it. Period." She wipes at her nose with a forearm.
He swallows hard, a vein pulsing in his neck. He looks at a spot above her head. "You should have answered the phone."
"I told you, my phone-"
"Do you know how scared I was?" Archie's jaw is quivering, and he suddenly looks dangerously close to tears. "Are you deliberately trying to get yourself killed?"
Oh.
Veronica's stomach drops.
He swallows a bit like she's defeated him, and all at once she's surprised by how it doesn't feel like a victory at all. But before she has a chance to comfort him or apologize, he's brushing past her and leaving, so fast, like maybe she's on fire and she's just too stupid to notice and save herself.
She tries to keep her reaction as neutral as humanly possible and feels certain she's made things so much worse. She has a midterm in English tomorrow. Before she started at Riverdale High, she imagined the class would be full of lively, sophisticated conversation about the great writers of the last few generations; instead the lecture is delivered by a fleshy middle-aged teacher who's not so much boring as he is blatantly bored. He always eyes Veronica with vague pity through an owly pair of glasses and periodically administers multiple choice quizzes she's fairly certain he's printing off the internet. "You are my penance for a misspent life," he'd announced on the first day of school, before assigning A Raisin in the Sun and two books by John Updike and pretty much washing his hands of his students completely.
Veronica hears Archie slam his car door shut on the street down below, hears the truck engine roar to life and listens to him drive away. She grabs a textbook and sits down to study, if only to distract herself from the tears pooling in her eyes.
Archie doesn't believe in gut feelings - doesn't believe that mysterious, universal forces conspire to thrum through his body and alert him to dangers that have not yet formed. It's bullshit. That's what he believes.
So when he wakes up and his chest is in knots of tension and anxiety, he tries not to think about it too much. But what happens at school that day makes him rethink his opinion about gut feelings for the rest of his life.
It's a pipe bomb. It goes off in the student lounge, where Veronica is standing still and calm, the first of her friends to arrive. Betty and Jughead are coming back today. There are a few other people around, but none that she knows.
When it happens, it happens quickly. Instantly. No time to scream, or see her life flash before her eyes, or anything she might imagine happening in a scenario like this. All she sees is shrapnel hurtling toward her like the angel of death on speed. Her line of vision hurtling down toward the floor.
Then the sounds. Metal splintering into a thousand pieces. Invisible force knocking into her chest. Her head slamming against something solid. Hard.
Finally, a shuddering stop. So dizzy. Everything around her swims. Distortion. She lets her heavy head rest against the ground and closes her eyes.