Thank you to my two reviewers: Ava and Chloe0X0!

Ava: Whew, glad to hear that fighting scene was okay!

Song is World on Fire by Klergy

March 6th, 2019

"Maybe we should stop for the night."

Sweet Pea looked up from the fire, a squirrel roasting merrily over it.

"No."

"Yeah, but-,"

"Look," Sweet Pea said, checking how well-done it was, "We need to eat. It's a necessity. But the longer we wait, the bigger chance you have of succumbing to infection." He said, "And that Betty will be killed or…" He swallowed, "Worse."

Nick frowned, biting the inside of his cheek. There was a good chance that he wouldn't make it to the hide-out anyway, not with that scalpel still in his eye. Of course, Sweet Pea had him write down all he knew about the hide-out, or what he could manage on the sheets they'd found. Sweet Pea wasn't an idiot. This wasn't his first hostage.

He chuckled to himself.

"Is this chick really worth all of this?" Nick asked, waving his hands around, "You beat me, dude. You could be miles away. Alive. No one's walked away alive before."

"Did you not hear me?" Sweet Pea snapped, "Wife. She's worth it."

"Aren't you a little young. You're hardly 18."

"And you're a douchebag, but I thought we weren't saying obvious things. I guess you just wouldn't get it." At Nick's dubious face, he rolled his eyes, "A fucking misogynist like you wouldn't understand a fantastic woman like her. Women are just interchangeable to you, huh?"

There was silence on his end.

"You may have beaten me, but you won't be able to take all of 'em," Nick said after a long second, "You'll walk in there and die."

"Didn't know you cared," Sweet Pea said, taking his food off and throwing a measly limb to Nick. Nick dove for it as Sweet Pea leisurely tore the meat off the skinny bones.

"I don't," Nick said, mouth full of food, "I just...you wanted to know, didn't you?"

Sweet Pea examined him, "You were a college kid before this, right?" Nick nodded, "Ah, well, what was your major?"

Nick did not answer. He glared at Sweet Pea defiantly.

"Oh, come now, let's get to know each other a little," Sweet Pea drawled, "And humor me?"

"Accounting."

"Right, accounting," Sweet Pea drew it out, "You thought you'd get some stuffy office job, marry a...well, maybe not a 'trophy' wife, maybe more like a 'participation medal' wife, and things would just be dandy. But then the world ended and you and your little band of sickos got a taste for blood and realized you could exploit the system, right?" Sweet Pea guessed.

"Well, if-,"

"Shut up," Sweet Pea cut him off, not interested in his excuses, "Point being...this whole...thing? It's new to you. Maybe one of you was a closet psychopath before, but most of you are just stumbling along as you go. Me though?" Sweet Pea pulled down his collar, "See that tattoo? Know what it means?"

"You made bad life choices?"

"Watch it, Nick. I might have promised not to kill you, but I'm not opposed to slicing out your other eye," He said, which had Nick cowering a bit. Thank god, "It's a gang sign. Southside Serpents, near New York City. I was born in bloodshed. By the time I reached sixteen, I'd killed, I'd pushed drugs, I'd been every bad example of a clichéd mobster that you watched from the safety of your Netflix. The apocalypse is an experimental hunting ground for you? It's fucking life for me."

"And?"

"And I won't lose a lick of sleep killing every single one of you," Sweet Pea said darkly, "And I will. Maybe not easily...I know my own strengths, but I've been doing this forever. I'm leagues above all of you."

Nick licked his lips, "The Predators could use someone like you, ya know? I'd put in a good word. You could probably even keep Betsy-,"

"Betty."

"Same difference, her. Whatever. Why go through all the effort of killing us when you could just join us?"

Sweet Pea laughed out loud, "You must have just realized how incredibly fucked you are, is that it?" He threw a bone licked clean into the woods surrounding them, "You can shove your offer up your ass. I'm entirely not interested."

"I'm dead serious. We'd need people like you."

"I want zero part in whatever you have going. Honestly," Sweet Pea chewed on a leg bone, sucking out as much juice as he could, "I want to get as far away from your hideout as I can once I get my girl. I hated people before the end of the world, and this has just made me hate them even more now. I've seen enough violence forever. I just want to take my fucking wife back home and live out a simple existence and just be fucking happy but motherfuckers like you come around and ruin that, so go to hell."

"God, you really love her." Nick's tone was hard to define. Sweet Pea thought of how he should have told her, about how he should have told her months ago. About how angry he was. About all of this. About how much he missed her already. About how scared he was.

He said none of this. This worm didn't deserve that. Instead, Sweet Pea continued eating. The sooner he finished, the sooner they'd be back on the road.

XX

Betty was herded into a large storage facility. One of those abandoned factory type places, with questionable machinery everywhere, though it didn't look like much of it had been touched since the mid 90s.

She was handcuffed in a line with the other girls from her truck. They were all in various states of distress and somewhere through the five stages of grief. Betty hadn't even touched that yet. She couldn't.

The first thing that hit her was the realization that her truck wasn't the only truck. Women in lines were pouring in from every direction and the reality of how many were captured was staggering. It was enough to make Betty vomit in her mouth a little.

She swallowed it back down.

They really weren't being too picky. Young, old, able-bodied, frail, dark, light...any woman from miles, it seemed like they'd snatched up. There were a few notable girls that were still snarling and fighting with everything they had, but most seemed depressedly resigned to this.

Betty was taking everything in.

She was counting guards. She was mapping exits and pathways. She was cataloging what sort of guns was on the men. Betty was scanning the room and taking each moment in like a gigabyte of data, filing it away neatly in her mind. She wasn't making a fuss- no reason to make herself known right now- but she was not going to let her guard down. Nor was she ready to accept this fucked up reality.

Bambi was still whimpering softly in line next to Betty, shaking so hard that Betty was sure she was going to spontaneously combust. She wanted to say 'hey, it's going to be okay', but honestly...Betty couldn't promise that.

She'd dealt with really sick people her entire life. The sort of people that go on to kill their sons or townspeople. She was raised by killers. You sneeze in Riverdale and you hit a killer. Therefore, Betty knew full well as she stared into the eyes of these men that they were no one to take lightly.

What had they called themselves? Predators?

It was apt.

They were savages.

When it seemed like all the catches were lined up, Betty was jostled into a very long chain that stretched the entire length of the manufacturing floor. She guesstimated there were close to 100 women, and maybe 50 guards. Which were 150 more people alive than she'd previously thought. If they were pulling in catches of 100 near every day...well, people were a lot more prepared for the apocalypse than Betty had thought.

Either that, or this was just the weekly 'bring in yer woman' week, but even 100 women per week? It was something to mull over.

And somehow, her and Sweet Pea had ignored them all up until now.

Her heart clenched hard. She thought of him for just a second before she locked away his image. If she let herself get too weepy, too sad she'd never accomplished her escape.

Compartmentalize. She was good at that, wasn't she?

"Listen up, sluts!" A guy who radiated power walked to the floor, quieting the sobbing girls by shooting one bullet into the sky. Betty knew his type immediately. He got off on power, making people feel fear. He probably couldn't finish in bed unless he felt in control. He inspired loyalty by fear, not by his charisma. His alphaness was just waiting to be taken over by someone killing him.

Betty had her money on second-in-command from the way he looked at the Alpha.

"You have been picked by The Predators. You get something out of your sorry, pathetic lives, thanks to us! We're going to be going around and categorizing you now. Unfortunately, many of you, just isn't worth much. Not pretty, at least, because that's what matters. There are still jobs to do and we sure as hell ain't doing them," He said, looking back at the boys who all laughed along with him, like he'd just cracked a hilarious joke, "You can look forward to hard manual labor, and maybe if you play your cards right, bump up in a few years. The second category are where most of you will go. Pretty enough, but nothing special. A specimen with enough shit to grab some barter on the market. You'll be sold to the highest bidder, and then after that, you're not our problem anymore. Third category is for you truly lucky ones in life. If you get chosen for our higher echelon group, you get to be a pet for one of our men. This is the life of luxury, girls. If you wanna do something, hope you've got the right stuff to get there."

Bambie was still quaking beside Betty.

"I hope I get that group. The third. I hear it's…" She trailed off, unable to finish her thought.

Yeah, Betty would kill before she was placed anywhere.

They started at one end of the line. A group of about five of the 'upper-house' men went girl by girl, examining her from all angles, before sending her to one of three groups. Betty realized with a mounting sense of horror that they were forcing the girls to take everything off except bras and underwear.

Which meant that if Betty wanted that bobby pin from her shoe? Yeah, that was going to be taken.

It would be too obvious to lean down and grab it, someone would surely notice.

She needed a way to get that bobby-pin.

A girl two away from being sorted tried to get away. She started making a fuss, screaming and tugging on her chains. Immediately, one of the enforcers came over and slapped her hard across the face, hard enough to cut her cheeks open.

Betty shouldn't have been surprised that a group that liked to kidnap women was not above also hitting them.

But that...that gave her an idea.

She took two seconds to inhale softly. Draw in her courage, prepare herself. She told herself that if she wanted any chance of survival, she needed to keep that bobby-pin with her. A bobby-pin could do a great many things in a pinch and she was not in a position to be losing items right now.

Slowly, slowly, she toed the bobby-pin to the top of her foot, using weird ankle movements to transfer it up her combat boots until it was a hair away from peeking out.

She was ready.

"Hey," Betty called, finding her voice, "You."

She was near the end of the line. The men were still focusing on girls way at the other end. Betty set her sights on a guard that was staring down the girls menacingly. He startled, as though shocked anyone would have the audacity to talk to him.

"I bet you were a virgin before this, hmm?" Betty began. Around her, girls started to whisper and hiss in horror at her tone and accusation, "I bet the only way you've been able to feel pussy is because of the world ending. Had it not, you would have gone your whole life jerking off to anime girls, right?"

"Shut your mouth, whore." He threatened, stalking up to her, "I...you…" He was practically purple with rage.

"And, even now, these girls don't actually like you. You're a rapist, so," Betty said, continuing, though she was freaking out inside, "How does it feel to be a vile human being, someone that your own mother probably wishes she smothered at birth?"

The first hit came for her face. She was prepared for that, but it still really hurt. It was like knowing you were walking outside in below-freezing temperatures. You can hype your mind up for it, but that first moment of contact is still awful.

The second hit came for exactly where she wanted. Her stomach.

As she was doubled over in pain, gasping as she tried to regain her breath, her fingers quickly slid into her boot.

"How do you like that? Huh?" He said, pulling Betty up just as she palmed the bobby-pin into her sweaty hands.

He gave her one final hit across her face. When he looked into her eyes and saw fear, it was real. Betty was under no illusion that he was as pathetic as she might taunt him to be. A coward and an asshole, yes, but an unchained one. There were no repercussions in this world. He could do awful things to her. He might still.

"What the fuck is up with you, girl?" Nala demanded.

"Just confirming a theory," Betty hissed back, feeling around her lips to make sure there were no broken teeth. She was probably going to have a black and blue face.

God, she hoped that was worth it.

By the time the group reached her (sending Olaf to manual labor and Nala to the 'premiere' group), Betty was hurting all over.

She let them strip her down. She stood, unflinching, as their eyes roamed over her body.

She thought of Sweet Pea.

"Second," One guy said, jerking a finger. She couldn't even be offended she wasn't fit for the 'premier' group. Thank god, really. More chances for escape, if she just had to overcome one guy who 'bid' on her.

"Wait!" One of the guards from the truck broke away, "This one's given us quite a bit of trouble. And," He glanced back at Betty, "She claims her father's the Black Hood. Dunno, might be worth it for the premiere group?"

"I'd love a crack at her," The guard Betty had taunted added.

The Alpha examined Betty for a second. When Betty did not back down, he smiled something so evil and so void of any goddess, it sent a shiver down her spine.

"Sure. Third group. We'll break her yet."

And that was that. Betty was unchained to be transferred and then re-chained to the smallest group.

Bambi was sent to the second group, where she broke into uncontrollable sobs once again. Betty tried to not let it get to her. She would get them out before she was sold off, she promised herself.

It was only another half-hour before everyone was sorted. Betty realized there must be fires blazing somewhere because, despite their skimpy coverings, she wasn't particularly cold. A little chilly, but overall still acceptably warm, and it was the middle of winter.

As the three groups were taken their separate ways, Betty was corralled over to a long hall-way with rooms that had been made into cages. Each cage was pretty small, about the size of a half-bath. And there were just rows of it.

"This is Purgatory. Top-tier predators pick every month, and until then, you'll stay here. If you get picked over three times, it's back to the auction." One of the guards spoke, waving his hand like he was introducing them to a tropical paradise.

He went about putting each girl in a cage. The cage had a bucket, a cot with a pillow and a blanket and little else.

Homey.

Betty was shoved and prodded into hers. She spat at the men, already trying to memorize locks. It seemed like it could be picked. She was confident she could escape.

As soon as all the girls were locked up, the men left, locking the main doors to the hall.

Whispers started to circulate wildly, though there was a general idea of despair that hung heavily over everyone's head.

"Betty! Betty!"

Betty snapped her head up. Who was calling her name?

She wrapped the blanket around her like a shawl, going to the bars of the cage door. The voice was strikingly familiar.

God, where had she heard that voice before?

"Betty! Oh, wow, it is you...fuck…"

As soon as she heard the high-pitched voice swear, she knew. It was a voice she'd only heard a handful of times, mostly via the phone, twice on FaceTime. It was the voice of someone she'd chastised for swearing before.

Bile rose in her throat as she matched a face and a name to the quivering tone. She shook her head frantically, hoping that it wasn't.

"The cage...across the way! To the right!" The voice helped guide her eyes. She caught the twin-braids and her stomach lurched.

"Jellybean," She murmured, staring at the face of Jughead's younger sister, "What are you doing here?"

XXxxXX

Sweet Pea sat on the edge of the van, fingers reddened with blood. He stared out into the infinite forests around him, a sense of darkness curling around him with such a precision that he felt helplessness he'd never experienced before.

The knife between his fingers clattered to the forest floor.

Nick was dead.

It was to have been expected. He was dragging around a guy that likely had severe internal bleeding from the knife in his eye, but that didn't mean Sweet Pea hadn't hoped…

It had been a bad death. No glory, nothing easy. He'd gone clawing and whimpering, fighting against the demons dragging him down. He'd been sobbing and aware and pleading with some unseen figure to spare him, as though he'd done anything to deserve such kindness.

When he went, it was with a violent shudder before his body lay supine.

Sweet Pea had kicked a tree and then raided his body for anything useful.

He'd found a wallet.

Nick was actually a Chad, but the names seemed pretty synonymous to Sweet Pea.

Then, knowing what was going to happen, Sweet Pea had dug a knife into Nick's brain, making sure that he wasn't coming back.

His one sure-fire lead was gone.

He didn't even deserve a funeral, hardly deserved the place-marker where he'd died.

"Betty, god," He whimpered, lying back into the bed of the truck, "Hold on, please."

He still had the directions. He had weapons in the back of his car, plus the few he'd spent last night making. Wooden spikes sharpened to a point weren't fantastic weapons, but he could still impale someone well enough. And, there was the scalpel now free from Nick's eye. Plus, he still had his gun (eight bullets), a knife, and the crowbar.

His chances could be far worse.

And, hell, he could run a few over with the van. Yeah, it would be a time and a half to clean guts out of the undercarriage, but it would be worth it.

The directions were crumpled in his hand on a piece of paper. Not even paper, it was a crappy napkin drawing from a diner somewhere back in Ohio. He remembered that he and Betty had raided it and had pie. It seemed like lifetimes ago.

Why couldn't they just stay in their bubble?

Maybe, if they hadn't needed to have gone out for Sweet Pea's sake, they'd be having sex by a fire right now. They'd be laughing. They'd be talking about their feelings. They could be doing anything but this.

Life sucked sometimes.

He set the napkin next to him and drove, preparing himself for a fight of his life.

And then...he found…

Nothing.

The directions led him to a field. An empty field, mind you, with only one tiny tower. Nothing big enough for the kind of operations that the Predators did.

Rage and realization flooded him all at once.

He was a fucking idiot, wasn't he? Nick was never going to draw a nice little treasure-map right to the hide-out. He knew he was dying and he knew they wouldn't get there. He wasn't going to sell his skin.

Sweet Pea felt his knees quiver as he collapsed in the field, laying down on the dirt.

Betty could be dead by now. Nick could have driven them in the entirely wrong direction. He could spend the rest of his life searching and never quite catch up with her again.

And, his life may not be too long.

He was feeling faint and woozy. He really hadn't properly attended to any of his wounds and it had been about eight hours in total. These were things a doctor should see, but surprisingly they were fresh out of those.

He hadn't eaten much else, other than that squirrel. Even that hadn't been much.

When he stood, his vision blurred at the edges.

He wasn't going to give up, not now. Not yet. If what Nick claimed was true (and, well, some of it had to be, right?) chances are that Betty would be sold at auction or kept for the upper members. The auction was three days away. He still had time to find her.

There had to be other people who knew where the Predators were, right? Nick had mentioned some groups paid a fee to keep their women. Gave them other things. Didn't rock the boat, per se. Paid them a tax, if you will.

He just had to find one of those groups.

Sweet Pea wasn't a fantastic tracker, but FP had been. He tried to pull forth his sage mentor (he'd been doing it a lot lately) and think of FP showing him how he tracked down a deer. People had to be easier, huh? They were a lot louder and less finessed.

It took him about two hours. He picked up a track, back behind where Nick's body was. There was already a wolf gnawing at him, a scraggly animal whose ribs could be seen. At least Nick was going toward something useful now.

Sweet Pea treads carefully, not wanting to make any sudden movements. He didn't know if these people were good or bad or in between. He was sure he hadn't stumbled upon the Predators, because it would be a bigger production, right?

In a clearing, there were maybe thirty people, all gathered around a fire. Safety in numbers. Some seemed like decent people, though it was hard to tell from this far away.

He felt his vision fading.

He was about to pass out, fuck!

He stepped on a twig and immediately, half the people in the clearing went on defensive mode.

Okay, time to make himself known before he got an arrow through his forehead.

He stumbled out into the clearing, trying to dislodge his gun from his holster, as well as his crowbar.

"I come in peace," He slurred, "Weapons gone...I'm just trying to find my…" He felt his feet betray him, twisting him and causing him to trip as he walked. His forehead pounded as blackness rose over his eyes, "My...wife…"

He hoped, as he fell, someone caught him before he hit the ground.

XXxxXX

Betty sat on the very edge of the cell, her legs curled around her and her arms resting on the bars. Now that the guards were gone, there was light whispering all through the cell-block. By her estimation, there were about thirty women here. She'd heard someone else say that the guards were so arrogant that they didn't care if the woman talked...they believed that they wouldn't dare try to figure out an escape plan.

Most of the captured women were so beaten and abused, this was likely true.

Betty stared with a deep-set frown at Jellybean. She'd hardly thought about the girl. Usually, the thoughts of the young teen only came when she was thinking of Jughead, and those days were far past now. She'd never met her, but they'd Skyped or FaceTimed enough, plus Betty used to be her friend on Facebook. Yes, it was weird to be staring at someone who resembled her ex so strongly and have a weird sense of knowing someone without ever having truly met them.

Betty wished they hadn't. Betty wished Jellybean wasn't here too.

"I got caught like two days after the last picking," Jellybean explained, leaning against the side of the cell, "It's five days until the next one. I've been here for nearly a month. They feed you twice a day...it's pretty decent, to be honest. I mean, we're the cream of the crop, apparently. They have to keep us looking non-skeletal."

Jellybean was in moderately fine shape for being captured for so long. Grimey and dirty, sure, but not underfed.

"You're like thirteen," Betty whispered in horror, her throat closing.

"There was a girl here who was eleven," Jellybean said in a dark sort of seriousness, "Until she killed herself. There are some really sick dudes out there. That's how they've won."

Betty tried to hold back her revulsion because otherwise, her vomit would sit with her in this cage.

"Is Jughead with you?" Her question was so soft that it broke Betty's heart.

"No. I thought he was with you, honestly, if he were…" She bit off what she was going to say, "Him and FP, we uh, we got separated. They went looking for you and your mom. I haven't seen either since."

"What day did Riverdale turn?" Jellybean asked.

"Like, May 11th." Betty said 'like' as though she were unsure, but to be truthful, it was a date she doubted she'd ever forget, "Last year."

"Mhh." Jellybean nodded hard, "You see, Arizona was already overrun by May 9th. We packed up our vacation early to try to get back to Riverdale or Toledo, but uh, well…" She looked down, "Yeah."

"Which means that by the time that they set out for you, you were long gone," Betty winced, sucking in a hard breath. It was a true fool's errand.

"Do you wish Jughead had stayed with you?"

"No, no!" Betty sent her the most comforting look she could manage, "I would have been furious had he chosen me over you. He really loved-loves- you." She tried to cover her tracks quickly, but Jellybean was staring at her hard.

She had the same look of determination that Jughead used to get. The same calculating eyes, the same pinch to her brow, the same tilt to her head. It was a look that told Betty he was furiously working behind his head on some riddle, and he often got to the bottom of it.

"Jughead's dead, isn't he?"

Betty debated telling her the truth for a second too long. Before she said anything, pained anguish flooded Jellybean's eyes as she came to terms with it.

"I'm sorry," Betty said, wiping the edges of her eyes, "I'm pretty sure he is. I mean, there's some good evidence that we found. I'm not sure about FP, but I think...I think Jug's dead."

It had been so long since she'd cried for Jughead, but telling his kid sister this fact, along with the present sureness in her stomach that curled and ate away her insides, caused her eyes to water without control.

Jellybean tried to keep it in. Her lip quivered and her whole face shook. It was a good twenty seconds before she sniffled, and then she just couldn't stop. A few girls in the cages around them gave her sympathetic looks, having heard the conversation. Plus, girls crying in there was not a foreign sound.

"Jellybean, frick, I'm so...sorry."

Betty meant it.

She stayed silent as she let Jellybean cry it out, watching the girl's shoulders shudder and the ground wet underneath her.

Soon, she dried her tears.

"Mom's dead too," Jellybean whimpered, "I'm sure of it. I saw it."

"God." Betty blinked at her, "God, I'm…" She couldn't even form words.

"I've had time to come to terms with it. It wasn't recent," Jellybean murmured, giving a sad smile, "You kept saying 'we'. You weren't alone, were you?"

Betty hesitated. She wondered how Jughead's sister would feel, hearing that she was with another guy. In love with someone else.

"Please," Jellybean asked, "Tell me something good. Or, was it not good?"

"No, it was very good," Betty was quick to assure, "The day that Riverdale got over-run...the day we woke up, he actually saved me…"

We're not out of the woods yet ;)

When I was originally writing this, I wanted someone from their past to pop back up at the Predator's Lair. It was only later I remembered ALL the minor characters, like Cheryl's cheerleader followers, but I'd already thought of Jellybean. Unfortunately, once I had thought of her, as cruel as it was, I couldn't not have her appear. Poor JB :( But, it also starts to tie together some more information about what might have happened to Jughead.

On another note, I've been voted in many categories for the Bughead Fanfiction Awards! I've been voted best Author for 'Other Couples' (probably mainly for writing these two) along with some other things, so if you like me, consider voting for me on the tumblr competition!