Cheryl didn't say anything to Betty when she reentered the hotel room, eyes glossy and breath uneven. If she had been a better person, if she was anything like her late brother, she would have said something, asked what happened.

But she wasn't, so instead she let Betty float in and out of the shower and into bed, the TV playing muted in the dark all the while.

Stupid piece of shit. She should have at very, very least apologized for cutting Betty off from everyone back in Riverdale. Cheryl knew this, but her mouth made no move to express any sort of contriteness.

The silence was unbearable, and Cheryl thought it pointed until she realized Betty's breathing was long and heavy. So, they wouldn't talk until morning.

Cheryl eased her head back. As per usual, she couldn't sleep and instead just trained her eyes on the ceiling.

Even in the dark, most ceilings look perceptibly different. This one was stained and cold. She knew she wasn't under her own roof, neither Thornhill nor Thistlehouse. She wasn't anywhere at all familiar, not Veronicas room at the Pembrooke or Josie's house or…

Cheryl realized she didn't actually have any other friends.

She was almost asleep, enough so that she was thinking of nothing, when Betty's phone jolted, casting blue light onto the ceiling. It was promptly answered by a groggy Betty.

"Hello?" Cheryl heard her whisper into the dark. "Who is this?"

Betty threw off her sheets and shuffled out the door. Cheryl rose, too. Anxiety flared in her chest. Something was wrong.

Or, more wrong than usual.

She paced for a few moments, trying to predict what terrible thing was about to happen, scolding herself for making Betty hate her.

Cheryl crept to the window overlooking the entryway to see Betty walking out with Veronica Lodge.

"Goddammit."

The two figures continued across the street, out of Cheryl's sight.

Everything stopped. All Cheryl could feel was something yanking at her chest, hot and angry and maddening. Her hands were shaking and she thrust them up onto her face with as much force as she could muster.

Sabotage everything.

Whether it was an accusation or an order, Cheryl didn't know, but she took hold of her unwavering fury and charged out the door, into her car.

The buzz from the highway was echoing in her ears, and she wanted to drive fast, but she also knew better than to leave Betty behind. Even if Betty was going to end up leaving Cheryl behind.

Still, she wasn't moving fast enough, so she pulled off onto an empty road and floored the roadster. It begrudgingly lurched forward and flew across the street. She didn't know where she was going or where she was going to stop, but the passing street and the wind blowing her eyes dry was enough for the moment.

Again, her brain conjured p a thousand images from back in Riverdale: Jason's corpse, the hole in his head, her father at the end of the rope, Nick St. Clair's smug face, Betty crying in the bathroom, the bullet hole in Jason's head again…

Cheryl squeezed her eyes shut.

Bang!

Cheryl's face hit the steering wheel, felt something in her nose split. She threw her eyes open, heart in her chest, and prayed she hadn't accidentally hit anybody.

No. She'd simply driven off the road. Like an idiot.

Cheryl made no move to get her car out of the gutter. Instead, she cried until her nose bled.

She was gasping for breath when she realized that Betty would (hopefully) be back to the hotel at some point. Still so filled with dread that it made her every muscle sing with pain, still trembling from anger, Cheryl manipulated the car back onto the road, cursing at herself every second.

On the drive back, the noises of the distant highway all sounded like muted static playing from a faraway room. The sky above wasn't free space and fresh air but the surface, Cheryl and her car and the empty road all underwater. Drowning.

Cheryl took a sharp breath as she tried to push out the image of her father and that gun.

Static.

The car pulled into a spot in front of the hotel. Cheryl wondered if it was driving itself; it certainly didn't feel like she was driving it, controlling her own hands or feet. Still, she managed to put the thing in park and, with a pit in her stomach, turned to face the hotel. Betty with Veronica.

Cheryl scoffed away a touch of jealousy.

And who should be waiting outside the doors to the Two Pence but Veronica herself. Of course.

Cheryl and Veronica liked each other, in theory, but they forgot that all too often. In truth, if Cheryl had approached Veronica, the latter would have offered comfort and support and kind words, as she almost certainly had with Betty. Hell, she probably would have even coughed up a plane ticket home.

Veronica was nice like that.

But jealously and fear and self-loathing were still rattling around Cheryl's head like a child furiously scribbling dark shards of crayon across a color-saturated paper. So, Cheryl found a back entrance that wasn't locked.

Betty was back in the hotel room; she looked anxiety-ridden and sick.

"Cheryl!" Betty breathed when Cheryl pushed open the door. A look at her bleeding nose. "What happened to you?"

Cheryl wiped the trail of blood, trying to get it off but just smearing it over her mouth. "What happened to you? You just took off. And you look awful."

"Veronica came out. She wants to take me home. I told her I'd come."

Cheryl's heart leapt. "Oh."

"Yeah. And I thought I wanted to, at least a little bit, but I'm really not so sure now. We're so close."

"Go tell her that."

"She's not leaving without me. And there's no way she's coming with us."

Cheryl bit her lip, tasted the blood. "There's a back door to this hotel."

"What?"

"We check out, take the back entrance, and we're back to Kerouacking it before Veronica even sees what's happening."

"Jack Kerouac was a racist and a sexist. And that would be cruel."

"Okay, you're right about Kerouac. But I don't care about Veronica right now," Cheryl said earnestly.

Betty was quiet. Then she grabbed the bag and they snuck up to the front desk.

/

Betty hadn't been particularly sociable on the drive down to California, but she was in the car and Cheryl considered that a win. She couldn't tell if Betty was still angry about her contacts being blocked or if she felt bad about leaving Veronica at the Two Pence, and Cheryl couldn't decide if it was better for Betty to be mad at herself or at Cheryl.

Because, technically, it was Cheryl's idea to ditch the pearl-wearing rich girl. So in any case, Betty was probably manufacturing a grudge against Cheryl.

"We're in the home stretch," Cheryl ventured, trying to gauge Betty's resentment based on her response.

Betty gave a straightforward answer. "I'm still mad at you, Cheryl."

"I know. I had no right to do… what I did. But everyone else has no right to guilt us into coming back. They don't get it."

"I don't even get it," Betty huffed. "I should have gone back with Veronica. I feel awful. I don't want to be in Riverdale, but I don't want to be here, either and we just left her."

"Look, I said I was sorry," Cheryl said childishly.

"No, actually, you didn't."

"Well, I'm sorry," Cheryl said, though every word was more bitter than the last.

"Yeah, for what?" Betty challenged.

"What are you talking about? You know for what."

"Do I?" Betty shifted in her seat and Cheryl prepared to feel very bad about herself, insults pulsing at her tongue. "Are you sorry for cutting me off from all my friends? For making me think they didn't care about me? Or for being an unrelenting bitch to me since freaking elementary school? Are you sorry for the way your brother estranged my sister from me and my family?"

Cheryl quivered with directionless anger.

"Are you really sorry, Cheryl? Are you actually sorry for anything? Because it seems to me like all you—all you Blossoms do—is ruin things. Your father causing such a mess through the whole town, starting everyone's problems. Your mother coming after my father, trying to take our family apart, trying to finish what Jason started. All you do—"

"I can't drive while I listen to this," Cheryl growled.

"Then pull into a rest stop because I have a lot more to say," Betty demanded.

"No, you don't."

"I do, actually."

Cheryl didn't want to let Betty keep spitting slander, but Cheryl could tell she wasn't going to stop. If Betty was going to keep throwing accusations, Cheryl figured she might as well be focused enough to get in a word edgewise. Trying to drive was a disadvantage. She pulled into the exit advertising a rest stop, the place dirty and empty like most everything as of late.

"Okay," she stood and slammed the car door shut. "If I'm so vile, why did you come with me? Why stay with me?"

"Why did you even invite me?" Betty was standing, too, pacing madly across the grass. "Am I just the next thing you Blossoms want to destroy? Me and the ties to everyone important to me? My friends, my family?"

"God, you and your family," Cheryl scoffed. "Don't get so high and mighty on me. Don't forget that we are related. You talk so much shit about the Blossoms, but don't you forget that you are one, Betty." That was her answer.

"Like hell I am, Cheryl."

"You are, actually. In your blood. You can't run from it any more than I can, Cooper."

Betty took a deep breath, fists clenched so hard her knuckles were white. She opened her mouth to retort, but was cut off.

"Hey!" A man emerged from the rest stop, and both Cheryl and Betty whirled.

"What?" Cheryl spat at the man, who was greying and tall and tan. Neither of them were in the mood to give anyone directions.

"Are you two in trouble?"

"What do you mean?" Betty asked shortly.

"You're those missing kids, aren't you?" The man stepped farther toward them. "Those missing kids from back in Riverdale?"

The name of their hometown made both girls freeze. Cheryl's anger melted into fear as they exchanged a glance.

"Maybe so," Betty said cautiously.

"Oh, oh, damn." The man squirmed. "I was just coming up from Greendale. Heard about you. And the way you just vanished one night. Do you need help getting back? I can phone your parents."

"That would be excellent." Betty stopped forward.

"Don't do this," Cheryl said.

"Come on," the man from Greendale said.

"Oh, I'm not coming." Cheryl folded her arms.

"Come on," he repeated."

"No, I'm not going back to Riverdale."

"Aren't you worried about your parents?" The man from Greendale asked.

"No. And it's mutual apathy," Cheryl retorted.

"Really? Because there's a reward out for you," the man from Greendale was intensifying and apprehension was taking root in Cheryl's stomach.

"Don't go with him, Betty."

"I don't even know why I'm here, Cheryl. And I have to apologize to Veronica."

"Come on," the man from Greendale repeated.

"Again, I refuse." Cheryl opened the car door. "Look, you have a nice trip home, Betty," she said disdainfully.

"There's a reward out for you," the man from Greendale urged. "Clearly someone's worried about you."

Cheryl got in the car, revved the engine.

"Hey!" The man from Greendale had suddenly gone furious. "Don't you dare drive away from me, bitch."

Jesus. Cheryl hesitated; if driving away hadn't meant leaving Betty stranded at a rest stop with a vaguely unhinged drifter, Cheryl would have taken off without a second thought. But Betty was standing wide-eyed behind the man, so all Cheryl could think to do was give her tentative glance.

"You best come back to Riverdale with me, Miss Cheryl Blossom," the man from Greendale said, stepping closer to the car as Cheryl leaned forward to put the roof up.

He saw her reach for the switch, pulled a knife, and Cheryl's blood went cold.

"Step out of the car," he said slowly and evenly.

Cheryl was frozen.

Suddenly, the man toppled and his head hit the side of the car with a thud.

"What the hell?"

Betty, standing behind the groaning man from Greendale, had kicked him hard in the back of the knee.

Go team Cooper.

"Betty—"

The man fumbled back to his feet, grabbed at Betty, who stumbled backward.

Cheryl pulled herself out of the car, rushed up to the man, and pulled him away from her.

There was a brief struggle, the man from Greendale trying to keep off both girls, who were hitting at him with knees and fists and feet as his clawed at them.

Betty let out a cry of pain, tumbled into the grass, and the man pulled his knife.

Cheryl lunged forward and grabbed his knife-wielding arm, dug her nails in so he dropped the weapon. For Betty to pick up.

The tables had turned and the man from Greendale realized this, pulled away.

"I just need the money, I just need the reward money, I just really need the money," he huffed, winded.

Cheryl pushed him away. Betty was less relenting, fury still flickering behind her eyes.

"You stay away from me!" she growled, held the knife to him like she was willing to cut him.

"Betty…" Cheryl started, but she was no saint herself and made no move to intervene.

"Get away," Betty demanded.

"Give me my knife back."

"No. Leave."

"Give me my hunting knife back, I need that!"

"To threaten kids?"

"It's mine!" The man from Greendale stepped forward, made a grab. Betty swung the knife. Hard.

Everyone shouted in cacophony as ribbons of red flew through the air, Betty angrily, Cheryl surprised, and the man in complete agony.

The man from Greendale fell to the ground, clutching both hands to his bleeding face. Time to bolt.

"Betty, let's go!" Cheryl grabbed Betty by the arm, but she pulled away and stepped forward.

Gave the man from Greendale a hard kick.

Another.

"Betty, we need to leave," Cheryl said urgently over the sound of the man's howling. "We need to leave now!"

/

There was blood on Betty's shirt and it made sitting in the booth across from her almost unbearable, the rusty red splotches calling to Cheryl's eyes like sirens.

Cheryl couldn't stop thinking about how Betty had kept hitting the man from Greendale, even after he'd fallen to the ground, face bleeding and wailing in pain. Cheryl was almost angry about it, though it was quite possible that she'd have done the exact same thing if she'd had the knife.

But Betty was supposed to be better than Cheryl. She was Betty Cooper—everyone's best friend, the girl next door—and Betty Cooper wasn't supposed to hurt people. She was supposed to be the one to smile at everyone in the halls and give freshmen directions to their homeroom and tip diner waitresses almost 50% and invite the less fortunate to lunch. She wasn't supposed to make anyone bleed or scream. Other people could do that. Not Betty Cooper.

Hypocrite, Cheryl scolded herself as she picked around a salad.

The girls were in a tired old restaurant mere blocks away from the beach, people coming in and out with saltwater in their hair. They were quiet, listening to dishes clang in the kitchen and a lone ceiling fan whir overhead. Cheryl hadn't actually been hungry when she suggested they stop for lunch, but she didn't want to get to the ocean just yet.

She didn't really want to get to the ocean at all.

Not just because it meant they'd have to head home afterward, but also because large bodies of water were rather daunting to her as of late.

Drowning, disappearing, corpses halfway underwater with bullets in their heads…

Cheryl sighed, tried to make it inaudible, but Betty looked up at her, jaw skewed in a bitter scowl, eyes icy.

Cheryl wasn't good at being in fights with people. She'd been raised on poison; she was good at winning the upper hand in power struggles, at cutting people off entirely, destroying them socially, hurling insults at them, but not at repairing anything.

She racked her brain for a time she'd fought with Jason; she knew it had happened, but she couldn't recall over what or show they had made it better.

Not that Cheryl really wanted to make this better; the man's shouts of agony were still ringing in her ears and his blood was still staring at her from Betty's powder pink shirt.

To say nothing of the awful insults Betty had spat before the man from Greendale.

They were still heavy on Cheryl's mind. She knew her father was guilty. Her mother was certainly not doing any favors in repairing the Cooper family. Her brother… He was mostly innocent, Cheryl had decided that long ago.

And Cheryl was probably much guiltier than he had been.

"We're so close to the ocean now," Betty said darkly, seemingly to no one.

"Yep," Cheryl said tensely.

"Why did we stop for lunch? We're so close and I'm not even hungry."

"Well, I am," Cheryl said, though her full plate suggested the contrary.

"Forget this," Betty said and dropped her fork. "I'm going for a walk. I'll come back here when I'm done."

"For real?"

"Yeah, for real. I need some air. And I actually want to see the ocean."

"We can go in like fifteen minutes, Betty, just let me—"

"I'm taking a walk." There was no question in Betty's tone.

"Fine." Cheryl shrugged, trying to look annoyed. Of course Betty didn't want her company at the final destination, after all this way.

Well, screw her.

/

A/N: To anyone who's actually reading this, I'm seriously slowing down on my writing so the gaps between chapters are getting a little longer. Sorry about that. Trying to pick up my motivation again (I wrote the first four chapters in like one week… I wish I could always be that inspired lmfao.)