"Finding somewhere cheap to stay will not be a problem, I see," Cheryl remarked. "God, how many people do you think were murdered in one of these allies?"

"Hopefully none," Betty said reluctantly. "This place here looks good. I mean, not good, but it looks like a place we can stay the night."

Cheryl pulled the convertible into the parking lot of a crumbly motel, its lights flickering from motel to just tel. She out the roof up and they slipped out of the car, then stared at it for a second, the vintage model comically out of place in the sketchy parking lot. "I hope no miscreants steal my tires."

The inside of the motel was just as shoddy as the outside, the intentional color of the carpet indistinguishable through decades' collections of stains, the walls covered in cracks and chips and splotches of blood.

"One room, two nights," was all Cheryl said when she approached the desk.

As she and the grizzly man behind it exchanged rates, Betty turned to the open window, where in the dark streets a parade of the outlines four young boys was passing by, the boys shouting and growling at each other loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear.

"Hey, shut the hell up, Jodes, you don't know what you're talking about!"

The smallest boy, who must have been Jodes, retorted with "Screw you, bitch! You know I'm right."

Betty watched as the largest silhouette gave Jodes a smack with a clenched fist, and the boys were all quiet as they carried on past the hotel.

Nice neighborhood.

"Can we get a second-story room?" Cheryl was asking from behind.

"Nope."

Cheryl grumbled, but Betty heard her take the keys from the desk before coming up to Betty. "Okay, here we go. Room sixteen."

"You can have the bed farthest from the door this time," Betty offered as they walked through the poorly-lit hallway.

Cheryl swung open the door and shrugged. "Thanks, but unfortunately, the bed farthest to the door is also the bed closest to the window, and someone could easily break in through there, so either bed has an equally high hypothetical mortality rate."

"Oh." Betty took the bed closest to the window.

"I'm showering," Cheryl said. "I'll be down the hall."

"Okay."

Cheryl left for the bathroom, and even from down the hall, Betty could hear the water start. She stared out the window, wondering if the boys she'd seen earlier were safe on the street, if they had a home they could return to.

She thought of her own house, not covered in a drug dealer's blood or tainted by the knowledge of her father's affair, or empty with the void Polly had left behind, or chilling with the knowledge of her brother lurking in the next room. It was just her house, quiet and tame and home.

For the first time, she wished she was home, desperately and painfully, wished her mother would come through the front door and start making dinner, wished her father would be there, too, wished she would be able to sleep in her own bed and wake up with her best friend next door and her boyfriend just a text away.

But what kind of friends stops texting or calling when you drop off the grid? Betty felt a pang of guilt for wishing they'd contact her; they'd sent a fair number of messages the day she'd ran, yes, and it probably wasn't fair to be so resentful, especially since she was the one who'd run away from them.

The motel didn't supply anything with which Betty could charge her phone, unlike the last place, and she considered stealing a wad of money from Cheryl so she could buy a charger or find a phone booth and call her mom or Veronica or Jughead, but the thought of going out alone at night was enough to stop her.

Plus, the water down the hall had stopped, to Betty's surprise, because it had been less than fifteen minutes and she didn't take Cheryl for a quick showerer.

"This motel must be run by waterbenders, because by all scientific accounts, water that cold should be ice," Cheryl explained as she slammed the motel door shut. "God, I'm having flashbacks."

"I'll shower in the morning, then," Betty decided.

Cheryl, still clad in the only outfit she'd brought, flopped on the bed. Betty snuck out to the bathroom to prep for bed.

When she got back, the ceiling fan was on, the room's stale air slightly less stale in its wake.

"Have you ever played existential hide-and-seek?" Cheryl asked, sitting up from the stiff and lumpy bed.

"Pretty sure that's what we've been playing for the past couple days."

Cheryl smiled. "No, it's a conversation game," she explained as Betty crawled under the stiff and scratchy covers. "Jason and I used to play it all the time. Kind of like twenty questions, all of them yes-or-no, but you keep asking until you find the other person. The premise is that there's a hider and a seeker and the hider can hide literally anywhere ever, no matter the size or whether it really exists or when it existed in time. Like, you could hide at Pop's or you could hide in Spider-Man's suit, or you could in the 'Hi, welcome to Chili's' bathroom, or you could hide inside of a person if you're so inclined, but I think that's creepy as hell."

"Okay, I have a hiding place."

"Really? You want to play?"

"Yeah, why not?"

"Okay, let's do this." Cheryl cleared her throat. "Are you in the United States?"

"I am."

"Uh, okay, are you someplace real?"

"It's real."

"Okay. Are you in a place? As opposed to, say, a person or a thing."

"I am not in a place," Betty stated.

Cheryl deduced, using an impressive number of questions, that Betty was somewhere in Riverdale, only sometimes in the same place, and carried on someone's person.

"Oh, damn, you're hiding under Jughead's filthy beanie, aren't you?"

"You found me."

"I don't know if that's sweet or gross. I'm going to go with gross because I bet you all the cash in the backpack that he never washes it."

"It's sweet," Betty insisted, "and you're currently sleeping in the same clothes you've been wearing since Friday, so shut your mouth."

"You are, too," Cheryl snorted. "Okay, now you seek."

"Uh, okay, have I seen it in real life?"

"Nope."

"Is it in the States?"

"It will be, probably."

"So, it moves?"

"Oh, no."

"What?" Betty chewed her lip. "How will it be in the United States if it doesn't move?"

"Guess you'll have to figure that out."

It took close to an hour for her to figure out that Cheryl was hiding in Betty's future grave.

"You're sick," she grumbled.

Cheryl gave a sadistic laugh. "Maybe, but I win."

"What? This game has no winners."

"False, because I am the winner."

/

"Well, you didn't lie about the water being cold," Betty said as she reentered the room the next morning, still dripping frigid but clean water. "Let's get out of here."

"Amen." Cheryl was already packed and ready to go, so Betty threw her few things into the backpack and they high-tailed out of the motel.

Despite its alien disposition, the car was unscathed in the morning light, still pretty and functional.

Mostly functional, Betty remembered, because they needed to get gas yet again before getting on the highway.

"Hey!" a voice called as they were stepping into the vehicle. "Ladies!"

Cheryl and Betty turned to face the band of boys from the night before, two of them perched on the curb behind the car, the other two standing in a cheesy pose, arms crossed and posture sturdy.

"What?" Cheryl barked as Betty sunk back.

"Do you girls work at the Slipper?"

"The what?"

"The Slipper." The group leader stepped forward. He couldn't have been more than thirteen; though he was stocky and tall, his freckled face was still strewn with undeveloped features and padded with baby fat.

"And I repeat: the what?" Cheryl prompted again.

"The strip club? Right in front of you?" The boy huffed and gestured behind him, where a small concrete building was labelled "The Slipper". "Genius bitch."

"You're, what, ten? Go home," Cheryl snorted.

"We're twelve," the big boy said as if it was very impressive. He stuck out a hand for Cheryl to shake, which she did with a roll of here eyes. "And we want to get into The Slipper."

"Well, good luck," Cheryl said with a wave of her hand. Betty wondered how she was so nonchalant. They were young, but all of them looked like sociopaths, beady eyes wide and wild on sunburnt faces, and they were encroaching around the car, two looming over Cheryl and two over Betty.

"Yeah, but they won't let us in because we're so young," the boy behind Cheryl said, and Betty saw her jump just slightly.

"Again, I offer the best of luck," Cheryl said stiffly.

"Bet we could get in behind you," the boy in front of Betty said with a grin.

"That's just not going to happen. Good day, perverts! Betty, get in the car."

Betty obeyed as Cheryl dropped into the driver's seat. She checked her pocket once, twice, then widened her eyes. "Shit."

"What?"

"Looking for these?" The boy who had been behind Cheryl said with a smirk, holding out the car's keys.

"Give those back." Cheryl sounded exasperated, but Betty her fist clench in her lap.

"You'll get them back when we're all in the club," the largest boy bargained.

Cheryl got out of the car, slammed the door, and made a grab for the keys.

The biggest boy threw them to the boy behind Betty, and Betty followed Cheryl's lead and grabbed for them.

The boys tossed them back and forth, a cruel game of monkey in the middle, and when one of the boys finally threw the keys to the smallest boy, Jodes, he didn't move Betty thought she could manage to grab it. She swept, but with an apologetic look on his face, Jodes threw the keys right to the biggest boy again.

Cheryl grabbed the big boy by the collar, and as he tossed the keys off again, he grinned maniacally. "Jesus, boys, why go to the club? This is hot as hell."

Cheryl shoved him and looked behind her for which kid had the keys. Betty realized dreadfully that she'd lost track of it, too. She scowled and finally asked: "All we have to do is walk in?"

"With us right behind you."

"Fine."

"Great. The joint opens at eleven."

"PM or AM?" Betty finally asked. "Because we have to be back on the road as soon as possible."

"AM." The biggest boy confirmed, combing his hair back with his hand. "Allow us to introduce ourselves. I'm Thad, that's Austin, Zach, and Jodes." Thad's face soured as he said Jodes' name.

"Thad, Austin, Zach, and Jodes?" Cheryl repeated. "God, you guys are going to be habitually crashing gaudy frat parties in ten years. Crashing, and not attending, of course, because you won't be smart or talented enough to get into whatever Podunk college town is hosting those hideous keggers."

Zach snorted. "And you guys must be so well-off, having ended up here."

"We're not stuck here like you guys; we're just passing through," Cheryl retorted.

"Yeah, we're travelling to the west coast," Betty said proudly. "We'll be in another state by the end of the night."

The boys exchanged a glance.

"Yeah?" Thad asked, eyeing his buddies. "What are you running from?"

"Everything," Betty remarked as Cheryl lied: "Nothing."

"Uh-huh," Austin mused. "Probably, like, abusive families or some shit."

"Hey!" Betty thought Cheryl was going to defend her family, but instead she said, "Don't say that word; you're like ten."

"Twelve," Austin repeated, "So, yeah, I know the shit word."

"Are you guys criminals?" Jodes asked timidly.

"No," Betty said too defensively as Cheryl lied again.

"We sure are!"

"Cheryl," Betty started, panicked. "We're not criminals, kid."

"Speak for yourself, Betty."

"Yeah?" Thad grunted. "What'd you do?"

Cheryl thought about that for a second before deciding she was an arsonist. For a moment, Betty wondered if it might be true; there was certainly a lot about the fire at Thornhill that had been kept quiet. Kevin had shared once at school that, according to his father, the whole house had been thoroughly doused in accelerants before the fire started. Plus, the timing was too strange. And why had Ms. Blossom been so badly burned while Cheryl made it out untouched?

"An arsonist? What did you burn down?" Thad pressed.

"A middle school filled with punks like you."

"You're lying!" Austin shouted.

"Yeah, I am. You really got me. Great job, Ace Attorney." Cheryl picked at her nail. "No outlaw would ever confess their crimes to a group of ratfink kids on the street. You would probably snitch on us anyway."

No, Betty supposed, an outlaw such as, say, a murder accomplice, would not disclose such information.

"We wouldn't snitch!" Austin protested.

"Did you kill anyone?" Jodes asked.

"Have you ever seen a dead body?" Austin interrupted.

Betty flinched and prayed no one saw. "No, I've never seen a dead body." Cheryl had been able to see through her lies before, and Betty had been repeatedly told she had an awful poker face, but the everyone was more interested in Cheryl, because she admitted she had.

"I've seen two," Cheryl said as though she was discussing the weekend weather. "But I didn't kill them, despite popular belief."

"Woah…"

"You're lying again," Zach accused.

"Maybe. Maybe not." Cheryl shrugged. "You'll never know for sure."

That upset the boys deeply, and they asked more questions, Betty relieved that they only seemed interested in rattling off morbid questions to Cheryl.

"Whose were they?"

"How did they die?"

"Were their eyes open or closed?"

"How much blood, how much blood, how much blood?"

"Where did you find the bodies?"

"Did they shit themselves before they died? I hear you shit yourself before you die! Did they shit themselves?"

Betty held her breath, trying hard to push out the image of the man's corpse on the floor of her home, of her mother covered in splotches of red.

"Maybe I don't want to talk about it," Cheryl said coolly. "And don't say shit, you're like ten."

"Dude, they totally shat themselves!" Zach exclaimed eagerly.

"They did not!" Cheryl snapped defensively; although Betty wondered briefly if Jason had, having been tied up for over a week.

Three of the boys erupted in snotty laughter; Jodes cast his eyes at the ground.

"Did you know them?" Jodes asked quietly.

"I think it's almost eleven," Cheryl said in an equally quiet voice.

"We're gonna see some boobs!" Austin pumped a fist in the air.

"Classy," Cheryl grunted as she led them across the parking lot.

The inside of The Slipper had a techno beat pulsing dully throughout the club, the place just opened, slow and depressing, with a sparse selection of middle-aged alcoholics littered inside to match.

"They with you?" The man in front of the door asked. "Been trying to slip in for a while and—"

Cheryl waved a hand. "They're with us."

"Hmm," the man didn't take his eyes off of Cheryl and Betty, and the parade of awfully underaged kids trailing behind.

"Are you two new here?" Betty turned to face a woman in a seductive purple robe. She averted her eyes.

"Nope. Just passing through," Cheryl answered.

"Oh, well that's cool. It's slow this early." The woman stretched out a hand and said, "I'm Pony."

"Pony?" Cheryl didn't shake the hand, so Betty did. "What kind of a name is that?"

"A stripper name," Pony laughed. "I thought it would be funny. Like, riding the Pony."

"That would work better if you were a prostitute," Cheryl said bitterly.

Pony was silent.

"I'm Betty," Betty offered.

"Hi, Betty!" Pony smiled.

"That's Cheryl," Betty gestured. "She's always like this."

"I am not," Cheryl pouted. "I'm just upset because those kids dragged us in here and I want to leave." She whirled. "Where did they go?"

Pony gestured across the club, where the boys were enthralled with another girl putting on a show.

"Back in a flash," Cheryl growled as she started toward them.

"Where are you going?" Pony asked.

"To the ocean!" Betty beamed. "Pacific, because it's farther away from our town and it's just in general the superior coast, according to our culture."

"Cool." Pony played with her nails. She couldn't have been much older than Cheryl, her face still rounded and her stature small. "Where are you coming from?"

"Riverdale," Betty told her.

"Riverdale?" Pony thought on that for a moment. "The name sounds familiar. Is that the place with all the, uh, the murders?"

Betty nodded solemnly.

"Shit." Pony stared at the ground. "I'm sorry."

"Okay. They gave me the keys back." Cheryl reappeared, car keys looped around her fingers. "Let's get the hell out of here, Betty."

Betty looked back at Pony, who was giving Cheryl a strange look, probably trying to decide if she recognized her from any of the news stories on their small town.

"Can we go to lunch before we leave?"

"Sounds good," Cheryl agreed.

"Pony, do you want to come with us to lunch?"

"What?" Cheryl asked.

"I should work," Pony said politely. "I really need the money."

"For those sick boys? Believe me, they don't have any money," Betty insisted. "Please, let us buy you lunch."

"Betty…" Cheryl protested, but Pony either didn't notice or simply pretended not to and obliged.

/

"So, are you two going back home?" Pony asked through a mouthful of cheesed burger. They had returned to the small diner Cheryl and Betty had eaten at the night before. "Or are you heading out to the Pacific for good?"

"Just for the week," Betty said. "We're on spring break."

"Fun," Pony nodded. "What are you running from, if you don't mind my asking?"

"Actually—" Cheryl started, but resigned to a sigh when Betty gave an answer.

"It's kind of… complicated? Basically everything in that town just went bad and we want to get away."

"I get it," Pony nodded. "If memory serves there were two separate disasters, right? I watch the news a lot before work. A kid was killed and then some guy just lost it and tried to kill everyone he deemed unrighteous?"

"That's the gist," Cheryl said. "But, please, enough about us. How'd you end up stripping in this shitty place?"

"It's not bad, actually," Pony defended. "People pay well, but only when there are people in the club. If you decide not to go back to Riverdale, you two could make a killing working someplace popular."

"I have a brother in the business," Betty blurted out. "Not stripping, and not prostitution, exactly, but other things."

"Does he make good money?" Pony asked.

"Well, no."

"Then your family must know what it feels like to go a day unfed." Pony took another bite. "Which is why I appreciate this so much."

"Actually—" Betty picked around at her food— "just he does. Not the rest of us."

"Oh," Pony said. "I have two kid siblings to feed. We had to run away from home."

"Why, if you don't mind my asking?" Betty asked.

"I'd rather not talk about it." Pony stared Cheryl down again, then her jaw hung open. "Oh, God, that first kid was your brother, wasn't he? That's where I've seen you before?"

"Nice to know I've made national news," Cheryl grumbled.

"Oh, I don't mean to—" Pony started, but cut herself off. Her eyes dropped to her plate, clean save for some smears of ketchup and grease. "I really appreciate this, but I should head back to work. For real, I cannot thank you enough."

"Sure thing!" Betty chirped. "Let me just get the check and I can—"

"Oh, you don't have to give me a ride back. I can walk. Have to walk off all this food before I can work, in fact." She stood, looked apologetic. "Really, I can't thank you enough."

She skirted out of the diner with a jingle from the door.

"Why did you do that?" Betty demanded.

"Do what?"

"Make her feel so bad for asking questions."

"She's a big girl, she can handle it. Do you want a milkshake?"

"No, I don't want a milkshake."

"Good, because we don't have the budget for that after an unplanned third mouth to feed."

Betty stewed in anger for a moment. "Right, because we have the money to stay in a fancy hotel and drink a whole bottle of champagne ourselves, but we can't tip decently or help nice people we meet?"

Cheryl was staring into the backpack. "Well… now we can't."

"What?"

"Betty?" There was a horrified urgency in Cheryl's tone. "Betty, the money is gone."

"What? Are you sure?"

"It's a tiny backpack with literally one pocket, look!" Cheryl foisted the bag into Betty's lap, where Betty sifted through the toothbrushes and the soaps they'd stolen from the hotel.

"Oh my god." Betty's gaze shot back to the door, her hair swung wildly. It occurred to her briefly that she wasn't wearing it up. "Wait a minute, what if Pony stole it?"

"Duh, why else would she have left in such a hurry?"

"Okay, okay, this is fine," Betty reasoned, "we can just use the card in the car and then go back to the club."

Cheryl bit her lip. "No. I don't want anyone to track that card anywhere. It's just not smart. One of us can wait here while the other goes back to the club and gets the money back."

"Alone?"

"No one's going to kill someone in a club at one in the afternoon, Betty."

"Fine." Betty stood up. "I'll run back to the club and get the money back."

"Like hell you will!" Cheryl barked. "You'll probably end up letting her keep half of it!"

"Fine, you go."

Cheryl furrowed her eyebrows. "No, she's more likely to give it back to you. You weren't a bitch to her. Go."

"Back in a flash."

The afternoon was still and warm, sunlight reflecting off of the convertible, the only car in the lot. Betty wanted to run all the way to the club, sprint without looking back, and she didn't know why.

Instead, she shuffled down the sidewalk slowly, trying to figure why her first impulse had been to bolt, why she still wanted to run all the way down.

Betty stopped in her tracks halfway to the club.

How did I end up here?

Why had she decided to come with? Why had Cheryl even wanted her along?

Betty groaned inwardly and tried not to think about it.

Get to the club, get the money, get back to Cheryl, get back on the road, get to the beach, get home.

Answer about a million questions from angry or (worse) apathetic friends and family. Go back to school. Get a degree. Go to college. Go far away. Work. Retire.

Die somewhere, go to hell, she thought as she pulled open the door to the club. The end is nigh.

"Is Pony here?" Betty asked the man at the door.

"I didn't see her come back after she left with you two." He leaned inside, looked around, and said "I don't see her."

Betty cursed under her breath, walked in, combed through the club.

The middle school boys were counting ones for throwing. She was awful for letting them in, but the staff was worse for letting them stay.

/

"So, I've never dined and dashed before," Cheryl said. "It was easier than I thought it would be."

They were parked in front of the club, too nervous to turn the car on because it was low on gas, waiting for Pony to come back. To their horror, the card had also been swiped from the glovebox, so without paying or speaking, Betty and Cheryl had snuck out of the diner.

"I feel bad."

"We didn't really have a choice."

"We could have worked it off, washed dishes or something."

"I don't think that's a thing that restaurants do outside of the movies."

"Wouldn't have hurt to ask."

"Yes it would have." Cheryl sat up straight and pointed. "We would've missed the target."

The thieving woman was walking back up to the club, shoulders slouched.

"She looks like she feels bad, at least."

"Shut up." Cheryl threw the door open, stepped out and slammed it shut. "Hey!"

Pony's eyes went wide. "Shit, you scared me! What are you two doing here, shouldn't you be in, like, Montana by now?"

"I think you know why we're here." Betty stepped out of the car, too.

"God, I'm so sorry!" Pony blurted out before Betty and Cheryl could take a step closer. "It was so, so stupid, God, I'm sorry, I just had to buy groceries, food, for my family!" She fumbled through her clutch and relinquished the small black card.

Betty and Cheryl exchanged a glance.

"And the cash?" Cheryl demanded, grabbing back her credit card. "Don't tell me you spent it all."

"C-cash?" Pony stammered. "I didn't take any cash, I really didn't. I just snuck this out of the glove box when you were driving me to the diner and I figured you would just call in fraud in a day or two, no harm done—okay, minimal harm done—"

"You really didn't take the cash?" Betty asked, trying to be gentle, but getting angry and scared.

"I really didn't. I really didn't take the cash. And I really shouldn't have taken the card, God, I just stole from two minors whose lives are probably hell, I'm so sorry—"

"We don't want your pity. We just want our money." Cheryl grabbed Pony's clutch and wrought it open. "Damn, you really didn't steal it, did you?"

Pony shook her head.

/

Cheryl had assured Betty that she would make a decision in the morning: they were either going to press forward with the card, accept that the money was gone, or linger here until someone came to collect them. Who, Betty wasn't entirely sure. Probably Betty's mom. Maybe Penelope Blossom; but Betty couldn't see her charging down to Ohio for her daughter, no matter how angry. Maybe she would send someone.

In any case, Cheryl had been certain that if they used their card to stay in the motel, they'd be caught by morning. Apparently, her fear of her mother was mightier than her fear of murderers, so they were sleeping in the car, Betty swaddled in a blanket that had been in the trunk, Cheryl with her leather jacket draped over her front.

Betty ran through the trip in her head. They hadn't gotten very far. There was no way of knowing if that was for the best.

/

A/N: Really, I just wanted to name a character Thad. Because what a name. Also, to the guest that asked last chapter if this story is romantic: no, it's not. I mean, in theory, you could read into it however you want, but they are related and imo Cheryl's just being kind of a creep. Platonically.