Just a little bit of suspense...
Betty's eyes met Chuck's for a split second before she was turned and ran. One of her feet skidded in the mud but she managed to correct herself. She could hear shouting behind her and her heart thudded in her chest. She pulled the knife out of her pocket, ripping off the leather case and letting it fall to the ground. As she ran past Chuck's motorcycle, she slowed down just enough to stab the knife into the back tyre and then kept right on going. She knew she didn't get the knife in very far, but hopefully it was enough to put a hole in the tyre and prevent him from following her on his bike. Her phone was still ringing in her pocket, and she attempted to pull it out of her pocket, but from the way she was running, with the contents of her pockets bouncing, she didn't want to risk pulling it out and then dropping it by accident.
Betty reached her car and she was glad that she hadn't locked in. She got in, breathing heavily, and that was the moment that the rain decided to start falling again, heavy once more. She slapped her hand across the lock of her door, so thankful for central locking, and fumbled in her pocket for the keys. Moose's wallet fell out first and then she managed to grasp the keys. She was fiddling with them, trying to find the car key when there was a loud crash.
"Fuck!" Betty squeaked out as her head jerked up. Chuck had slammed his hands down on the hood of her car and was staring at her wide eyes.
"Get the fuck out of the car, Betty!" He shouted at her. She wasn't sure at what point her hands started shaking, but it somehow spread through her limbs and to her whole body. She caught a glimpse of Clifford approaching through her side window. Chuck began moving around the car, and she managed to shove the key into the ignition and twist it around violently. She threw the car into gear just as Chuck attempted to rip open the door by the handle. She released the hand brake as Chuck realized that the doors were locked and he was about to start pounding on the window when her car jerked forward. She was so panicked she nearly stalled the car—something she hadn't done since she was sixteen—but then she was shifting into second gear and speeding down the hill from Thornhill and she was putting distance between her and them.
She couldn't help but keep checking in her rear view mirror as she drove down the hill, and her eyes were fixed on the mirror for too long at one point that she nearly slid off the driveway and into the perfectly trimmed hedges. She managed to get herself righted again and she forced herself to keep her eyes forward, because she needed to stay on the road.
When Betty reached the end of the driveway, she twisted the steering wheel to the left, heading toward the town. One of her hands slipped of the wheel and flipped on the wipers, having them skid over the windscreen. She was still breathing heavily as she skidded onto the road, and she swore under her breath as she tried to get control over her car again. She managed to get it going straight again, hissing under her breath at the horrible road maintenance. She pressed her foot down harder on the accelerator, even though she was already going fast enough in this rain to make her feel sick. Betty glanced in the rear view mirror again and then whimpered under her breath as she saw a car rip out of the driveway she had just come from. She could only just make out it's shape in the rain that was pouring down and she looked forward again, hoping to catch a glimpse of another car on the road.
But it seemed as though everyone else was choosing to stay safe and off the roads, given the weather.
Betty's phone began ringing again and she reached into her pocket, gripping her phone and pulling it out with one hand still on the wheel. She held the phone in front of her and saw Jughead's face on the screen. She let out a sigh of relief and she swiped her finger over the screen to answer the phone, putting it to her ear.
"Jughead?!" Betty cried out.
"Why didn't you tell me that Polly was in labour?" Jughead sounded excited, completely the opposite of Betty. "I would have come with you! I would have—"
"Jughead, wait—"
"I'll come, okay? Vee just told me, so I'm heading out now to come to the hospital—"
"Jughead!" Betty's voice sounded desperate and high pitched, and obviously it alerted Jughead that something was wrong because he stopped talking. "It's Chuck! You know how you said that it was a Serpent who was behind it all? It's Chuck!"
"What?" Jughead's voice had dropped, low and cold.
"It's Chuck!" Betty cried out, taking a corner at far above the recommended speed limit and wincing as she skidded over the centre line and into the other lane. She jerked her car back into her lane and looked in the rear view mirror again, seeing the other car keeping up with her, despite the bad weather conditions.
"Betty," Jughead said sternly. "Where are you? Are you okay?
"No! I went to Thornhill because Cheryl couldn't get in contact with Jason and she thought that he might be up there and when I got there I didn't see his car, but I saw a motorbike, and so I went around to the sheds and I saw Chuck talking to Mr Blossom and I looked in his bike and I found Moose's wallet and the ring that he was going to propose to Midge with and—"
"Betty!" Jughead interrupted her ramblings. "Can you get back here to the clubhouse?"
"No!" She was practically wailing. "I turned the opposite way when I got down the driveway!" In hindsight, she should have turned back the way that she had come, but she had just been trying to think about getting to other people and so she had naturally taken the road toward Riverdale township, hoping that there would be someone else on the road.
"It's okay—Betty?" Jughead's words were tense but it was obvious that he was trying to calm her down. "Betty, breathe, it's okay."
"They're behind me, Jug!" Betty snapped. "I can see them getting closer behind me."
"Alright, tell me where you are," Jughead said and she could hear him pulling away from the phone for a split second and calling out for Archie and his dad. Betty tried to explain where she was, giving the name of the road and how far along she was. Her eyes kept flicking over to the rear view mirror, where the car behind her was getting closer. She could see that both Clifford and Chuck were in the car, with Chuck behind the wheel.
"Shit—they're getting closer, Jug!"
"It's okay," Jughead was moving, she could hear the talking of people as he went by them. "It's okay, it's alright. Drive safe and don't stop. You hear me?! Don't stop and don't get off the phone. Put me on speaker and focus on the road, but I want you to stay on the phone okay?"
"Okay," Betty said shakily, pulling the phone away from her ear and jabbing her finger on the speaker button before dropping the phone onto the passenger seat.
"We're coming for you, okay, Betty? We're coming for you," Jughead was saying, his voice slightly tinny through the speaker of her phone. Betty didn't know what to reply so she stayed quiet, attempting to keep her breathing even. She was coming up to a side road which lead down to where she knew that there were a couple of houses, but it was a dead end road, and what exactly was she going to do? Choose one of the driveways of those houses where someone may or may not be home and go up to it? If the house was empty, she was going to be stuck up a narrow driveway with a car coming up close behind her.
A car with people in it who apparently had to qualms killing someone that they had considered a close friend—one of their biker brothers, which was meant to be a bond closer than family—wouldn't hesitate.
She didn't doubt that they would have any second questions about killing her.
Betty kept on going, a voice at the back of her head telling her that she should probably put her seat belt on, but that would required her to only have one hand on the steering wheel while the other reached behind her, and it had been hard enough with her phone in one hand, given how strong the wind was blowing and how heavy the rain was coming down, she didn't know if she could navigate a seat belt.
"Drive carefully, Betty!" Jughead shouted again through the phone. "I'm giving my phone to Mary. Don't hang up!" If he was giving the phone to Mary, that meant that he was still had the club house. Betty almost whimpered, given how far away that meant he was.
It was probably only about fifteen minutes, but that felt like hours right now.
Betty took another turn in the road and then her mouth dropped as she realized that the car had gotten even closer behind her. She could hear Mary talking to her through the phone that was on the passenger seat, but the voice was muffled, it sounded far away, and she could barely make out the words over the rain and the wind, and then there was the loud, pounding sound of her heartbeat that was thundering in her ears.
Betty tried to speed up, but she was already going fast and she was worried that she was going to spin out on the wet and windy road, and when she looked in her rear view mirror again wide panicked eyes, the car was directly behind her.
Chuck was staring at her car, and it felt as though he was meeting her eyes in the rear view mirror as he gritted his teeth together and seemed to go even faster.
Betty let out a scream as the car rammed into the back of hers. It jolted her car forward and Betty lurched forward in her seat, ribs pressing up painfully against the curve of her steering wheel. She could hear Mary on her phone, but she couldn't comprehend any words right now, she was too scared. Her car swerved across the road and she almost locked the tyres as she tried to get control over the car again.
Then they smashed into the back of her car again and again, and Betty's head was pounding and her neck was aching from how she was being jerked forward.
It was the fourth time that they smacked into the right side of the car and sent her vehicle spinning across the road. Betty squealed as she tried to correct her car, but she was already careening toward the ditch on the other side of her road. The nose of her car went soaring over the edge and smashed into the ditch, Betty's body whipping forward, her forehead smacking hard against her steering wheel.
Let me know what you think x