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When his father came home, Jughead was waiting for him with a takeout bag from Pop's. "Hey, Dad."
"What's all this?"
"This is a celebratory dinner." His father shot him a suspicious look. "Penny didn't show up for your pick-up, did she?"
"No." FP came slowly toward him. "No, she didn't. Why, do you know something about that?"
"She's gone, Dad." FP stood frozen with his coat half-off, and Jughead hurried to get the rest of the story out before his father's temper could flare. "I rallied the younger Serpents. We drove her out of Riverdale. And I got my pound of flesh in the process."
"Are you nuts? She will be back. You better believe that."
"She won't!" Jughead shouted over his father. "I was very persuasive. And even if she does, we will take care of it. You and me. And the other Serpents. In unity there is strength."
At that, FP threw his hands up in the air, turning away.
"That's the sixth law. While you were in jail, I recited that every day. I lived by that." Jughead moved around the coffee table while his father sank onto the couch, putting his head in his hands. "You want to take my jacket? You want to relegate me to Toys for Tots? Fine. But I'm still a Serpent, Dad. And this? This life, that you wanted to protect me from? I'm proud of this." They looked at each other, Jughead desperate to make his dad see how he had changed, who he had become. "I'm proud of who I am. You can't take that away from me."
FP nodded slowly. "All right, son. We'll … take it one step at a time."
Jughead swallowed hard, hoping he had done the right thing.
"Let's start by eating," FP said, reaching for the bag. "I'm starving."
"Me, too." Jughead grinned in relief, taking the spot on the couch next to his dad, glad that things looked like they might get better between them. They'd spent too much time apart to waste any more of it.
In the old photo albums among her grandfather's stuff, Betty and Archie had found the picture they were looking for—her grandpa and several other men standing together in front of a mound of fresh dirt, near a tree they both recognized from Pickens Park.
They had called Sheriff Keller on their way, but neither of them wanted to wait for him, concerned that every minute that passed shortened Mr. Svensson's chances of surviving whatever ordeal the Black Hood was putting him through.
In front of the tree was a mound of fresh dirt, just like the one in the picture, with a shovel sticking out of it, and a sign saying "Here lies Joseph Conway. Sinner."
Archie grabbed the shovel and started digging while Betty held her flashlight on the grave so he could see what he was doing. They dug down until the shovel hit something solid, and brushed the dirt off. It was a wooden box. Together, they lifted the lid, and found … nothing. It was empty.
"Where's Mr. Svensson? Why would the Black Hood bury an empty coffin?"
Suddenly, Betty had a sickening feeling she knew what had happened. "What if it's a—"
The click of a gun being cocked interrupted her. They looked up to see the Black Hood standing over them.
He pointed the gun at Archie. "Get in the coffin."
Archie stood frozen, staring at the gun, and Betty thought of the way his father had been shot, of his confession that he hadn't seen the shot because he'd been too scared. She would have understood if he'd done what the Black Hood asked, but instead he shook his head and stood his ground. "No. No way."
The Black Hood moved the gun, pointing it instead at Betty. "Get in the coffin, or I shoot her in the head. Right now!"
Betty tried to think how to get away, but they were standing in the grave. There was no way they could get out and run fast enough to avoid being shot and killed. They were too far from the Black Hood to try to attack him. There was nothing they could do. She looked at Archie hopelessly as he stepped down into the box and lay back.
"Shut the coffin. Step out of the grave. Betty, do it."
Reluctantly, trying to hold back her tears, she reached for the lid. Archie nodded at her, accepting the inevitable, but that only made it harder. "I'm sorry," she whispered, lowering the lid. She climbed out of the grave, her eyes on the Black Hood.
"Pick up the shovel. Fill in the grave."
She picked it up, but her hands were shaking so she could barely hold it, much less dig with it. "Please don't make me." But the gun didn't waver, and she began moving shovelfuls of dirt from the pile Archie had made into the grave he lay in. "We know," she said desperately. "What Mr. Svensson's sin is. What he did. That's the town's secret sin! What you want revealed, right?" The gun never wavered, but she kept on, because it was the only thing she could do. "We can do that! I can do that. Mr. Svensson, wherever he is, he doesn't have to die. Archie doesn't have to—"
The sound of police sirens cut into her words, and she stopped, her breath catching in her throat. The Black Hood looked away, distracted by the sound, and Betty mustered up all the strength she had left and struck him across the face with the shovel. He fell, and she jumped back into the grave, frantically pushing at the dirt to get it off the coffin lid. Pulling it open, she helped Archie out.
By the time they scrambled out of the grave, the Black Hood was gone.
"Where is he? Where'd he go?"
"This way." Betty ran ahead, with Archie close behind.
He caught up with her on the bridge, moving past, running as hard as he could. "Hey!" he shouted at the Black Hood. "Stop! Gun!" He held up the Hood's gun, which he must have retrieved from the gravesite.
The Black Hood stopped running, climbing on top of the bridge railing.
"Get down now!" Archie shouted, aiming the gun at the Hood. "Get down, or I'll shoot you. I swear to God I'll do it! You tried to kill my father, and my friends. You're going to pay for your crimes."
The Black Hood looked back and forth between Archie and the river below.
Archie tightened his grip on the gun. "You are not escaping. This ends tonight."
The Black Hood began to climb further over the railing, preparing to jump.
"I said stop!" Archie's shout echoed in the stillness of the night. Then the gun went off, and blood spurted from a wound in the Black Hood's side.
He fell onto the bridge.
Behind them, they heard Sheriff Keller's voice. He was on the bridge, his gun drawn. Betty realized that it was he who had fired the shot, not Archie.
"Archie, put the gun down!" The sheriff came toward them, his gun aimed at the still figure of the Black Hood. "Stay back, Betty." Kneeling down, the sheriff felt for a pulse. "He's dead."
"Who is he?" Betty asked, unable to stand not knowing for a second longer.
Holstering his weapon, Sheriff Keller ripped off the hood. Only then did Betty see the missing finger on the Black Hood's left hand. It was Mr. Svensson. He had cut off his own finger and sent it to her.
She reached for Archie, holding onto him tightly, trying to tell herself that it was over, that she and everyone in Riverdale were safe now … but it was too soon for that to feel real.
They called Jughead and Veronica and met them at Pop's. In this moment, they needed their friends and former loves more than ever. The meeting was awkward, Jughead and Veronica sitting together across the table from them, both expressionless. They were very good at it, Betty thought, with an uncomfortable feeling that everything she thought showed in her eyes.
Their fathers were there, too, speaking in low, intense voices with Sheriff Keller, but they left the four young people alone, which Betty was grateful for.
They told the story of what had happened that night, but couldn't manage to get across exactly what it had been like to stand there in that grave, under the unwavering eye of the Black Hood's gun.
"Your instinct about Svensson was right, Ronnie," Archie said at last. "You thought he was the Black Hood. We could have ended it, right there at school when we confronted him. I didn't see it, I didn't … I didn't … see it in his eyes."
"Forget his eyes," Veronica told him. "I can't believe he cut off his own finger."
Betty rubbed the back of her neck, the tensions of the night getting to her. "The finger of accusation."
"So we know who done it. Why did he do it?" Jughead asked.
"Mr. Svensson accused an innocent man of murdering his family and got the man killed. So maybe in some backwards way, he thought that targeting sinners would balance the scales somehow," Betty speculated. "I don't know."
"No, no, it makes sense." Veronica leaned forward, thinking it through. "I mean, Svensson was always around, lurking in the hallways."
"He could have seen me and Miss Grundy in the music room," Archie said.
Betty nodded. "Yeah, he could have seen Moose and Midge buying Jingle-Jangle."
"Guys, this is starting to feel like that weird last scene in Psycho." Jughead grimaced. "The truth is—" He paused, and the rest of them looked at him for the truth. "I … have nothing, actually, except that he's in a body bag and we aren't. I think that's enough for tonight."
And they sat there, the four of them, looking at each other, for once with nothing further to say.
Christmas morning dawned. Jughead and his dad opened presents together in a moment of astonishing normalcy.
Jughead had saved Betty's gift, not sure if he wanted to know what she had found for him, but opening it, he was overwhelmed. He lifted it gently from the box and placed it on the table in front of him, reverently.
"Let me guess," his dad said, "that's from Betty."
"It's a vintage Underwood. It's the typewriter of champions." He gazed at it in wonder, only vaguely aware that the wonder was as much for the giver as the gift.
"You, uh, you maybe want to swing by later? Say thanks in person?" There was a world of fatherly advice in the look FP gave him, and Jughead was caught, because he wanted to do just that … but he didn't, as well. The reasons he and Betty weren't together hadn't changed. Nor would they.
But oh, how he wished they could.
"Oh, I'm … I mean, I'll probably just call her," he stammered at last. "Or text her."
His dad put a hand on Jughead's shoulder and didn't push further, for which he was grateful.
Alone in her room, past the weird normalcy of the Cooper family Christmas morning, Betty opened her gift from Jughead. It was a lovely edition of Beloved, but the note was what put a lump in her throat and made her eyes sting with tears. "A signed first edition for my beloved. Thanks for introducing me to your favorite writer. Love, Jug."
She missed him desperately, wanting to reach out and pick up the phone to call him, to end this coldness between them—but it had come from him, and he had to be the one to end it.
Late that night, she took the box of clippings and other papers relating to the Black Hood out from under her bed and carried it downstairs, to the peaceful living room, lit only by the Christmas tree and the fireplace. Kneeling by the fire, she took the lid off the box. One by one, she fed each piece of paper to the flames. When she came to the hood he had left her, she stared at it for a minute, running it through her fingers, before dropping it into the fire.
And then she snatched it back. Because the Black Hood might be dead … but the blackness inside her was still there, and maybe she needed something to remind her of what happened to a person when they let the blackness take over.