Panic seized him, cold and hard against his chest. He tried to quell it, his mind racing over any possibility other than the one that was facing him. No matter how many maybe's his mind conjured, there was always one thing they couldn't explain: the note.
Her face flashed before him, bright eyed and sincere, smiling over her shoulder at him as he walked behind her. Quickly replaced by an image of him, soulless green eyes connecting over his bleeding father. The images merged, blending into one of Betty lying crumbled in a pool of blood on the floor of Pop Tate's, eyes open and blank, and the Black Hood menacing above her with a gun in his hand. He pushed the images from his mind.
Archie's hands trembled, fumbling in his pockets to find the familiar shape of his phone but he found that he couldn't see. The illuminated icons staring back at him had no sharp edges, just faint blurry lines that shifted and changed the more he tried to focus on them. Frustrated, he swiped to his calls and dialed the highest name on the list, pleading under his breath that she'd answer.
Betty's phone rang straight to voicemail.
Archie stared at the phone again, forcing his mind to focus as he bolted from the front door with the phone pressed against his ear, listening to the ring as he darted across their connecting lawns and knocked insistently on the Cooper's door, hanging up the phone as Jughead's call went to voicemail.
Deafening silence roared back at him. Pacing the length of the house, Archie pressed his face against the cold glass of their living room window, cupping his hands against his eyes to block out any light. Stillness was the only thing looking back at him.
From his palm the vibration of his phone caught his attention and he quickly raised it, heart falling when Jughead's name appeared on the screen.
"Is she with you?" Archie asked, full panic setting in.
"What? Is who with me?" Jughead answered, his voice full of confusion.
"Betty. Is Betty with you?"
"No, Archie. She told me she was meeting you. What the hell is going on?" Jughead's concern rose.
"I think you should come over, Jug. And hurry."
Jughead's breath came in short, sharp gasps as Archie recounted the story to him, fear and fury bubbling up inside him at an alarming rate.
"We need to call the sheriff," Jughead responded when Archie finished his story, removing his token beanie and running his fingers through his hair.
"We're not calling the sheriff," Archie countered instantly. "This is personal. I will find her myself."
"Yourself?" Jughead asked, incredulous. "This isn't about you, Archie! This psycho has my girlfriend. I don't care about this personal vendetta you've launched against this guy, I won't let you put her in any more danger than she's already in." His voice rose with his statement, loud and full of anger and fear.
"I know this guy, Jug. I know that he's playing with me! I can do this, I can get her back!" Archie roared back, stepping closer to his friend to intimidate his point.
"This isn't about you! It has nothing to do with you, actually. It's about Betty! I know it's hard to see outside this little Archie bubble you have going on," he stressed, circling his finger dramatically in the air around Archie's head, "but if you removed yourself for even a second and paid attention to your so-called best friend, then you probably would have known that not only has the Black Hood written Betty a letter, he's also been personally calling her!"
Archie frozen, breath caught in his chest. "He what?" he whispered, disbelief filling him. "When?"
"Last week," Jughead said with a sigh, walking to the couch and sinking dejectedly into it, resting the weight of his head against his palms. "It started with the cypher, he told her that she was the only one who could solve it since it was her speech at the town meeting that inspired all this. The calls started shortly after."
"She never told me," Archie sighed, sitting next to his friend.
"No offence, Archie, but you haven't exactly been there for her lately. I know you have Veronica and all, but this is Betty we're talking about."
Archie sighed, unable to find the words to express the guilt and disappointment he felt in himself. Though neither emotion came close to the gut-wrenching fear that still gripped him.
"We're calling the sheriff," Jughead repeated, tilting his head to make eye contact.
Archie nodded. "I know."
They waited in silence for him, anxiously tapping their feet against the floorboards, hands twisting in their laps, trying anything to calm the swell of fear and panic that gained momentum for every second Betty was missing. As the seconds on the wall clock ticked past, Archie could no longer stand the stillness of it and rose from the couch, tossing his phone onto the soft cushions in frustration behind him.
The vibrations sounded the moment it left his hand.
Archie and Jughead reached for the phone at the same time, Archie grabbing it a second before him and reading aloud the 'unknown caller' ID.
"Answer it," Jughead demanded, standing.
Eyes locked on Jughead, Archie answered the call and placed it on speakerphone. "Hello?"
The replying voice was distorted, filtered through an app that hid his identity. "I told you she was mine," it growled.
"I swear to god if you so much as touch her," Archie threatened, unable to contain his outburst.
Jughead grabbed the phone from his hand. "Where is she?" he demanded, hands trembling.
The voice laughed, a low, loud menacing sound from the back of his throat. "I promise I'm taking good care of her."
The line went dead.
Jughead and Archie froze, their eyes pinned to each other with terrified expressions, then jumped in unison as the sound of the front door opening and slamming shut reached their ears.
"Guys," she cried out, her voice an octave higher than normal.
Veronica rounded the corner, dressed in her black cape and carrying a coloured article that was distinctly not hers. "You need to see this."
As she rounded the corner it became clear that she had been crying. Streaks ran down her tanned cheeks, the runs a shade paler than her normal colour, black stain rimming the underside of her eyes.
"Someone left this for me at my front door," she said, holding out the pale pink article towards them.
Jughead grabbed it from her and recognized it instantly. It was Betty's sweater, he had seen her wearing it just a few days before.
"Turn it over," Veronica demanded.
Jughead flipped the sweater over in his heads. There, against the pale pink cotton of the soft cloth, was a blood stain so large it covered the entire front.
