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Jughead joined the Serpents for lunch outside today, finding them bent over some kind of plans.
"Nice article your girlfriend's mom wrote," Sweetpea said as he approached.
The article had, not surprisingly, blamed most of Riverdale's unrest on the South Side, and the Serpents. "Yeah. I saw that. Dilton Doily said he was stabbed when a bunch of you guys jumped him?"
"Yeah, the idiot stabbed himself. With his own knife."
"And we didn't jump him. There was a fight: Bulldogs versus Serpents. And you see this?" Sweetpea pointed to a massive shiner over his eye. "Your boy Andrews gave it to me. Just before his girlfriend shot a gun into the air."
That was all news to Jughead. "What happened?"
"And, of course, Northsiders get off scot-free, while the rest of us are hauled in by the police."
"It's payback time."
"What are you guys talking about?" Jughead came closer, looking at the plans more carefully. "What is—what is that? Is that a pipe bomb?"
"Foley's cousin served in the Army, he's gonna build us something."
"We'll do it after hours, but it'll shut the Riverdale Register down once and for all."
Jughead couldn't believe what he was hearing. "You think blowing up a building is going to make things better?"
"Can't get any worse."
"Yeah, Sweetpea, it can." They stared at each other a moment before Jughead sighed in frustration. "Let me talk to Archie, let me figure this out. Okay?"
"Man, that's your answer for everything: talk and more talk! And we don't even know who you stand with. Us—or them."
There it was. The decision laid out before him, the one he had been hoping to avoid all this time. Who was he? His father's son, Archie's friend, Betty's boyfriend—or some strange mixture of the three who didn't truly belong anywhere?
Sweetpea leaned on the table, looking at Jughead intensely. "You can't be half a Serpent."
No. No, he supposed he couldn't. But could he be a whole Serpent? Or none at all? They seemed equally impossible choices.
At home, in his father's trailer, he stood staring at the jacket, torn between the various parts of himself. But—he owed his dad. And, more than that, he wanted to understand where his father had come from, who he had become, why he had been the leader of the Serpents. And how the Serpents and the North Side could be brought together to keep Riverdale from coming apart. He was uniquely qualified to do that. So he would try. He had to.
Deciding at last, he put the jacket on and went to the White Wyrm, where Sweetpea sneered at him. "I think this Northsider is lost."
"I'm not. I'm over being half a Serpent."
"Wow. You would do anything to protect your North Side buddies," Sweetpea said, pushing past him so that Jughead staggered backward.
"My father was a Serpent," Jughead reminded him. Reminded them all. "He led you. I want to stand with you guys." He looked around, seeing no response, just silence. But that was a response in itself, so he continued in the face of it. "Tall Boy was the one who gave me this jacket. It's finally time I start wearing it."
Tall Boy came toward him, his face set and impassive. "So. Now you want to be a Serpent, huh? Let's see if you survive the initiation first."
Jughead had no choice but to accept that. He had thrown down the gauntlet; they were accepting his challenge.
He woke in the middle of the night to find a room full of men in snake-head masks staring at him. "Your initiation begins now, with you assuming guardianship of the beast."
They left, and a small furry beast jumped up on his bed, licking him all over. This was the initiation? It could be worse, Jughead thought, rolling over and trying to go back to sleep. The dog kept licking him until he got up and fed it, and then he had to take it for a walk, and then—well, who knew what it wanted, so he stayed up petting it until it, and he, finally fell asleep.
Later that day, he sat in the trailer with Toni going over the list of laws he had to memorize in order to be part of the Serpents, but it was hard to keep them all straight, and in order, which appeared important.
"Come on, focus!" Toni said. "You need to take this seriously."
"I am, Toni. I swear to God, I am. It's just … first the Beast, now these laws …"
"Why the change of heart, anyway? Why go from conscientious objector to full-fledged member?"
"Because of something you said," he told her. "My dad was the only person that was keeping idiots like Sweetpea in line. Someone needs to step up … to keep an all-out war from erupting." She smiled at him, and he assured her, "I am taking this seriously, Toni."
They went back to studying, and that night, he stood in the White Wyrm while Tall Boy screamed the numbers at him and he screamed the laws back, finishing with the Sixth Law: "In unity, there is strength."
The assembled Serpents repeated that, all together. Tall Boy looked around at them, and then he looked at Jughead. "You know the laws. Now it's time for the next trial."
A bunch of Serpents stood up and revealed the glass cage on the pool table, and the rattlesnake coiled within it. A knife was in the cage, too, within striking distance.
"Retrieve the knife," Tall Boy told him.
"What?" Jughead looked at Toni, who nodded.
Well, there was nothing for it. He had no choice. Slowly, carefully, he reached in, drawing back when the snake moved its head. At last he thought he had a clear shot, and he made a grab for the knife, but in the same moment the snake lunged, its fangs sinking into his skin. Jughead held on to the knife, but only barely, withdrawing his hand and shrieking as he could imagine the venom already moving through his system, fumbling with the knife to try to open the cuts so he could suck the venom out.
Only then did he notice all the grinning faces, as they explained to him that the venom had been drawn out, and all he had was a pair of punctures that were going to scar up nicely.
Toni praised his performance later over a beer. "The important thing is you showed no fear, you grabbed the knife, and you remembered all the laws, which means you're almost a Serpent now, Juggy."
He looked at her, startled. Betty was the only one who called him that. Betty, who did not belong here in this bar, where there were snakes and beer and knives. Toni did, though. Was that what was happening here? Were he and Toni drawing closer together while he and Betty drifted apart? Toni was … sexy, and she got him in ways that no one else did. But Betty—he trusted Betty in a way that he had never trusted anyone. And she got him, too, in a whole different way than Toni's. He was a better person with Betty. Was he a better person with Toni? He didn't think so.
He met Betty at Pop's the next day. "Betty Cooper." She turned to see him there, and the smile lit her face like sunshine. "You are a sight for sore eyes. Thanks for coming to meet me."
She came to him, cupping his face in her hands. As he kissed her, Jughead remembered who he was. Not who the North Side expected him to be or who the South Side was afraid he was, but who he could really be if there was no Riverdale, no division, no expectations placed on him by others. It was like coming home.
"God, I've missed you. I've just … been feeling, I don't know—unmoored."
"Me, too."
"Just wanted to make sure you were still alive," he told her.
"What do you mean?"
"That expose that you published about your mom, that article …" He had thought her mom might banish her to the Sisters of Quiet Mercy, the way she had Polly.
"Oh. Um … that's a long story, but, yeah, it got pretty intense." Betty reached for the bandage on his wrist. "What happened to your hand?"
"I'm … dog-sitting. Do you remember Hot Dog, that mutt? Don't worry, he's got his shots."
They sat in silence. There was so much he wanted to tell her, but he didn't want to drag Betty into the mess with the Serpents. She didn't belong there, and he didn't want to have to bring the Serpents to this quiet place where it was just the two of them.
It felt as though there was something Betty wasn't saying, as well. There were dark circles under her eyes, and she looked—tired. Maybe a little scared. Wary, for certain, as though she was taking extra care with what she said.
"I wish we could just go," he said suddenly. "Just hop on the motorcycle and—just leave Riverdale. Go someplace where there's no North Side or South Side or … Serpents … Ghoulies …"
Betty had looked for a moment as though she was about to cry, but now she smiled a little. "No crazy moms, no Black Hoods. Like Romeo and Juliet, but we live happily ever after, instead."
He reached for her hands, holding them tightly. They couldn't go. Neither of them could. But it was nice to know they both wanted to.