She knew it wasn't real—the party was playing deafening, incessant rave music—but in her head, Cheryl was hearing the music of some divine violin.
Maybe she was dying. Cheryl pictured it: a weapon crossing her soft and feminine neck, ribbons of blood bursting out like a bow sliding across strings releasing beautiful music.
She grabbed her neck to see if her hands would come away bloody. No, but she still couldn't breathe. Cheryl tried to catch her breath, panicked. Despite everything, Cheryl didn't want to die. She didn't want to look like Jason had before they put him in the ground, grey and bloated and unfocused. She didn't want to take her last breath or hear a damning gunshot or be separated from her body. She just wanted it all to stop, without that awful unpleasantness.
Cheryl gripped the arms of the chair she'd retreated into, tried to stop the room from spinning. Whatever ecstasy was once in her had been seized by Betty freaking Cooper, leaving behind only the physical numbing and the horrifying removal from reality. She was upside down, had to keep from falling onto the ceiling…
No, that wasn't right.
But something was definitely wrong with gravity, Cheryl decided, gulping down nausea. She squeezed her eyes shut, blocked out all the movement that was so far from natural.
She was probably going to die. Or pass out. Or be raped. Or all of the above. Not in that particular order, of course. Every dancer, druggie, drinker, and wallflower at the party became a threat; paranoia was buzzing about Cheryl's head with sudden ferocity.
She staggered to her feet, tried to stop imagining them with a gun pointed at her head or awful intentions swirling through their brains.
"They're just regular people," Cheryl whispered, dazed, to herself. (Never mind that so many of the regular people in her life were, in fact, overtly malicious.)
She could still hear the inexplicable violin despite the party music thumping and rattling in her chest. And with every thump, her the lights got brighter, the room moved faster, the people got scarier, her heart leapt faster.
Her eyes met with unfamiliar eyes across the room. Beady eyes. Below, sharp teeth, a menacing grin. A person made to kill.
She looked away, realized everyone looked like monsters from children's books, from stories her mother had spent many childhood nights weaving.
Cheryl had to get out of there.
She stumbled forward, groped the closest wall for support.
"Betty?" She called in the most pathetic of whimpers. "Betty?"
A distant memory of Cheryl yelling at Betty would explain why her voice was almost hoarse. Had that really happened? But the memory felt like a dream slipping quickly away with every waking minute.
Another image, in a jarring flash: Betty with a knife, slashing it back and forth in a flurry of wrath.
Directed at Cheryl?
Unsure, one hand took itself from the wall and shakily went up to her face, trying to feel for blood or scabs.
Her cheeks were soft and warm, flawless. They felt wet, but her hands came away without any blood on them.
Cheryl had to sit down again, stupidly on the floor. She took in a breath and just let a moment or two pass, tried to keep the feeling of rising panic in check. She took another deep breath, tried to keep her being from floating right out of her body and into some obscene nightmare…
Too late.
Jason being shot by Clifford appeared violently. She'd replayed the security tape's footage in her head thousands of times since that awful night Betty called her, yet every time the image was fresh and sickening and just as dreadful as the first time she'd seen it.
This time, though, it was worse. The roles altered jarringly. Jason pulling the trigger. Cheryl tied to the chair, bloody and exhausted. Then, Penelope staring her down from across her outstretched arm, hateful and cold, but somehow almost casual as she aimed the weapon, as if ending someone's life was some annoying chore.
Cheryl jolted forward, tried to break out of the chair.
She waved her arms frantically for one brief moment, unrestrained in reality.
Tripping, she thought vaguely, but that thought was challenged by another: If she wasn't tied up with a gun to her head, that had to mean that she was the one with the gun.
No, no, no. There was no gun. No torture victim tied a chair in front of her. That hideous scene had already taken place. It was gone and done forever and Cheryl had never been a part of it. Never a part of it.
Everything at the party was normal. Elated teens and young adults flying high under neon lights. No one was going to die.
Except, maybe, from overdosing or alcohol poisoning. Both of which, Cheryl mused, might be a problem for her given she felt as though she was twelve feet above her body.
But no murderers, Cheryl reasoned, although the image of Betty Cooper slashing a knife was beginning to creep closer again, malice written all over Betty's face.
No, Betty was not a monster. She was good. She was Betty Cooper, everyone's favorite girl next door. Cheryl closed her eyes, rearranged the picture: Betty Cooper sitting on the bleachers on a sunny day at Riverdale high, cross-legged in her bright Vixens outfit, all blue and gold and white, ponytail a perky golden halo behind her.
And a knife sitting beside her. And blood on her hands.
She was saying something to Cheryl, mouth moving quickly, urgently. Then she started laughing. Or screaming? Cheryl couldn't hear over the music. And Betty was getting farther and farther away.
Shit, she had to figure out what Betty was saying.
Cheryl took a sharp inhale, tried to pull herself together, and miraculously found her way to the door. She stumbled outside onto the California sidewalk. The air was tinged cool and fresh and tinged with salt; Cheryl inhaled, exhaled, and something inside her loosened. She could almost think with some degree of control.
Betty had been palling around with that gross emo guy. Probably trying to get whatever sick fix she'd been deprived of this week because Jughead hadn't come along on their expedition.
Refocus.
She had said something about going to a beach? Cheryl wondered if that had been real or some fabricated, drug-induced memory. Why hadn't she come along? Night walks on the beach beat stifling, hellish parties any day.
Oh! Except when there's a bloated corpse on the shore, Cheryl remembered with sickening vividness. But even then, it's almost a toss-up.
Dread still anchored in her stomach, Cheryl slowly made her way across the street and down the roadside to the sea. She was vaguely aware that teen girls shouldn't be wandering lost and aimlessly on unfamiliar streets, wasted and helpless in the middle of the night, but her head was too fogged by the horrors of the past to focus too much on the present.
Maybe that was why these horrible things keep happening to her. Cheryl made a brief mental note to protect herself from the traumas of the present rather ruminate on those of the past. It was probably the drugs that made Cheryl feel like that obvious statement was groundbreakingly insightful.
The beach wasn't far; Cheryl could see the coastline, but Betty and that posse of obnoxious young delinquents were nowhere to be found and by that time, Cheryl couldn't even remember why she was looking for Betty in the first place.
Instead of walking the beach, (smashed and alone at high tide, a surefire recipe for disaster,) Cheryl took a seat on the border half-wall and took a good look at the ocean. Waves rolled onto the sand, dappled by moonlight and starlight, twisted and contorted. Cheryl closed her eyes, knew they shouldn't be moving like that.
She took in more of the sea air, let it be the only thing she felt, let it find her blood and bring her heartrate back to normal. It had limited success.
Suddenly, a short, staccato scream rang out from across the sand.
Cheryl tore her eyes open, sat up straighter, tried to discern if the scream had been real or another alcohol-addled illusion. Her attention was met only by the crashing of waves, so Cheryl sunk back down into an uncharacteristic slouch and tried not to think of which trauma had caused her subconscious to summon that awful scream.
Before she could find anything else to think about—and not for lack of trying—another cry shot across the beach. Not a human's but a dog's: a quick, crisp, pained yowl that had to be real because she could feel it vibrate in her ear.
Cheryl jumped off the wall, steadied herself, and followed the sound, dragging her feet through sand.
"Hey!" Betty's voice. Weak. Scared.
Cheryl strained her eyes and saw four silhouettes in the dark.
"Betty?" Cheryl broke into a clumsy run. "Betty!"
"What was that?" One of the silhouettes, now closer and far clearer (one of Ben's friends?), whirled to face Cheryl. "Hey!" he called angrily, menacingly.
"Hey!" He yelled again, this time concerned, and punctuated with a single brutal smack.
Cheryl was pushed backward, realized she'd run straight into him in a full sprint. She fell backward onto the sand, felt something residual on her head that wasn't pain exactly; Cheryl was senseless from whatever it was she'd coursed her body with the party.
She stumbled back to her feet, saw Ben cry and grab for his head in pain.
But she was invincible!
Cheryl's moment of pride was cut short when she saw that Betty was crying.
"What's going on?"
The two other guys still standing exchanged a glance, glared at Cheryl.
"Get out of here, bitch."
They were both holding knives.
"Betty… What's going on?"
"Shut up, don't tell her a thing," the one closest to Betty demanded, knife pointed threateningly at the blonde.
"Turn around and walk away," the other said gravely, fingers tightening around his own knife.
Cheryl wondered for a moment if perhaps the flash of Betty with the knife had been a vision of the future.
"Get the hell out!" Ben growled from the sand.
Cheryl's eyes wandered, fell on a dog, a big German Shephard tied to a stake in the ground and bleeding from its back, turning the sand below it black in the darkness.
These boys were doing something very, very wrong. The dog was contorted in pain and anger, growling softly at the boys.
Cheryl took a step backwards, as if she was about to surrender and turn away. She stopped and instead bent down and took the knife from the collapsed Ben.
The dog waited for a moment before realizing its own freedom; in that time, the two boys lurched forward with their knives and slashed at Cheryl.
One knife made it to her arm as Cheryl clumsily fell backward. Blood spurted back from her arm, but Cheryl didn't feel a thing.
Invincible!
She swung at him, landed her fist right in his face as Betty's expression leapt in surprise.
The other made a move, was stopped by Betty, who clubbed him with her fist.
Another flash of Betty slashing with that knife…
Quivering, Cheryl prayed this wasn't happening, but had to keep her grip on the man's raging arm, block it from smashing in her nice face.
She did have a nice face, Cheryl thought loftily. It would be a shame if some angry teenaged beach bum were to ruin that for her.
Cheryl shoved the guy; he stumbled backward toward the dog, whose fight responses flared up finally and who leapt on the guy barking powerfully.
She raced forward, kicking sand with every sloppy, dramatic stride, then shoved the man attacking Betty as hard as she could. He fell forward, face hit Betty's with a comical-sounding clunk.
"Ow!" Betty shouted, almost accusingly. Were they mad at each other?
"Let's cut bait," Cheryl said with a grab at Betty's arm.
They got a few feet before Ben snatched at Betty's ankle from the ground, yanked her facedown into the sand.
Cheryl slid backward, pulled Betty to her feet.
"Why—why do you do this?" Betty howled at the man, Cheryl pulling her safely out of his reach.
"If I don't—if I can't—it's just me! It's just my fault! I can't let it be my fault, I can't…" He was weeping.
Betty and Cheryl spared a moment to watch him blubber and choke over his own words before realizing the pissed off dog wouldn't be able to hold off the two friends forever.
They turned and ran back to the car.
Cheryl sat in the passenger's seat, Betty in the driver's. They were silent for quite some time, trying to catch their breath, Cheryl waiting for the world to stop spinning in an awful, nauseating vortex.
"What, um," she started with a clear of her throat, "what just happened?"
Betty was silent, stared at the steering wheel in the dark, trying to form the words.
"Betty?"
"He seemed pretty nice. He was having a tough time. We went down to the beach and he was talking about it…" Betty took a deep breath. "And then one of his friends brought out the dog. And they all had this really awful look in their eyes. One of the was holding his knife at me.
"And then they started, like, chanting things…" Betty bit her lip. "They were devil worshippers or something. And they were going to sacrifice the dog and then… and then me."
"No way," Cheryl stammered. "No way. That doesn't happen in real life. They… They're insane."
"Yeah. They are. Batshit crazy. He said everything was going to turn around once I was gone."
Cheryl half-laughed. "I mean, yeah, everything would when they were tried for murder."
"Well, we were two runaway teenagers like two thousand miles from home. They might have gotten away with it."
"Please," Cheryl grunted. "If you mysteriously disappeared, Jughead would be on your murderers' asses like sap on maple trees."
Betty laughed lightly, said, "Still, we're not safe out here alone," and started the car.
"Where are you going?"
"A hotel or something?" Betty shrugged. "I really don't know."
"Okay. A hotel. We'll go back tomorrow." Cheryl felt ready.
The car revved, crawled out of the parking lot in front of the party, music still playing faintly from inside the hotel.
"I'm not like that, right?" Betty asked suddenly, scared. "I know it sounds kind of conceited, but please, tell me I'm not like that."
"Like what, exactly?"
"Like, I would sacrifice someone else just for the off-chance everything stops being sucky for me. Blaming everybody else, wanting to hurt—"
Cheryl couldn't help but laugh. "Betty, you're nothing like that." She paused, finally remembered the context of the image of Betty cutting the air with that knife. The man from Greendale. The guy who was attacking them. She had been angry about that, for some reason. It didn't make any sense now. "And that guy—the man from Greendale—he was awful, too, and he deserved what he got."
Cheryl wondered, fleetingly, if she deserved what she got.
"Thanks, Cheryl," Betty said and then they both went quiet.
They ended up driving for another hour before stopping at a hotel, the radio quietly humming pop songs into the night. They passed hotel after hotel and Cheryl suspected that Betty kept passing them up because she wasn't willing to risk staying anywhere near the boys from the party. Which was fair. She was fine with getting far away from them, too, and she was drifting in and out of sleep the whole ride.
When at last Betty stopped in front of a modest motel, Cheryl was pulled from her sleep and the parking lot was spinning in greys and yellows. She sat up carefully, pushed the door open, and pulled herself up, holding too tightly to the sides of her car.
Wordlessly, Betty came around to the other side of the vehicle and helped Cheryl inside.
/
In the morning, her head felt too small, like everything inside of it was pushing on her skull excruciatingly, like it was going to explode with the slightest motion.
"Jesus Christ," Cheryl hissed at the ceiling, the motel room painfully bright. Of course they'd find the only well-lit motel room in the world for the morning she was impossibly hungover. The blankets were stiff and scratchy; the pillow felt like a rock.
Cheryl forced herself out of bed, into the bathroom, tried not to puke in the shower.
She was sick of foreign tubs and miniscule shampoos. She wanted to be twelve years old again and showering in her room at Thornhill on some Saturday morning, Jason out for a jog, her father in the maple trees and her mother entertaining Nana Rose.
But that was all behind her and she settled her wishful thinking on the shower in the bathroom at Thistlehouse, remembered its every grey tile and the feeling of the glass separating it from the rest of the room. It was familiar, at least.
She would be back there soon, Cheryl told herself with equal parts love and dread.
She turned the shower off, not sure she could stand much longer, shoddily dried herself off, and threw those same damn clothes on that she'd been wearing every day for the past… How many days had it been? Cheryl was too tired and sore to figure it out. Felt like a year. Maybe two.
"You look good," were the first sarcastic words Cheryl heard when she emerged from the bathroom. She probably looked like hell. Betty was smirking.
A threatening grumble was the only response Cheryl could muster before flopping back down onto the bed.
"We have to check out before noon," Betty said.
"And what time is it now?" Cheryl asked, trying not to move her mouth or her chest or her head too much as she spoke.
"Your face is like two feet away from a clock," Betty said.
It was true. There was definitely a clock on the bedside table, but Cheryl was certainly not about to turn her head a full ninety degrees or even move her eyes to focus on anything. "And what, dear cousin, does the clock say?"
"It's ten-thirty. I'm showering and then we're leaving."
Cheryl halfheartedly hummed her consent to this plan.
Betty emerged from the bathroom far too soon, smelling like cheap soap and stale clothes. Cheryl wanted to puke again.
"Let's go," Betty said, slinging Cheryl's backpack over her shoulder. "Checkout time."
Cheryl followed with a stiff countenance. She let Betty talk to whoever was behind the front desk, proceeded to the car and immediately sat down in the passenger's seat. She took the stuffed animal from the backseat and used it as a pillow.
"Be careful with Fox Doll," Betty scolded when she opened the driver's side door and sat down. "He's fragile."
"Like, emotionally?"
"Like we got him from a claw machine and probably costed a total of seventy cents to produce. Don't let him tear." Betty started car and then they were rolling down the streets of California, leaving the ocean behind them.
"Wow, you really care about stuffed animals, Cooper. I bet you once thought your Beanie Baby collection would be worth thousands," Cheryl said, rearranging Fox Doll under her screaming head.
"Only because my mom told me it would," Betty grumbled. "You know I got yelled at when I removed the tags?"
Cheryl snorted. It sounded about right.
She looked out the windshield, at the road stretching out in front of them once again, the veins of the country all delivering people to every possible location across the continental U.S., its concrete reach swelling with life and movement, the complex system that carried them all the way to the edge of the ocean.
And one of the roads would take them home.
/
A/N: Hey ya'll! My fickle ass just wrote like 80 pages of this fic before completely losing steam and I hit a block for a really long time. But I managed to finish off this chapter and there's only one left at this point. We are almost to the end of the road! Reviews will keep me going!
