Chapter Text
To kill a Dahlia is a rare thing for an adult, rarer still for a teenager, but when the Lady Cheryl emerged from the woods that day, the impossible began to seem possible. At any other time, in any other town, this might have been a sign of hope, but in Riverdale....it's just a sign that things are going to get worse.
Sophomore year was swiftly turning into one of the most mortifying times of Betty Cooper's life. That night, in her bedroom, she gently traced her fingertips over the pale, soft, newly growing flesh that replaced the horrific holes left by the Dahlia and her angry blood. The creature had chosen her, instead of Archie, for the deadly attack, and while Betty was fully aware that it had always been a 50/50 chance the thing would choose her, it still felt personal.
Of course it did.
Betty looked down at the half-moons still pressed into her palms, the marks that did not go away no matter how many vials of blood she slammed into her body. How did everyone around her seem so normal about this? How did Archie glow with strength and health, while the lifesaving blood that flowed through her veins only stoked the black fires that burned in her heart. It's possible that everyone felt this way, and ignored it. Maybe it was a flaw in Betty, like a crack in a porcelain teacup, that made her feel it worse than others.
Jughead had told her that she didn't have to go to the drive-in that night, not if she didn't want to, not after what happened to her at lunch. She had seen the worry in his changeable eyes at the rebellion of her own blood. Maybe she would have taken him up on the mercy of a social out. She could picture herself curled up in her room, trying to remember who she was before it loving Archie, before she hunted the beasts. Would it really be so wrong to throw off the pressures of high school social expectation, just for one night? Yes, Betty might have taken Jughead's out, if not for Cheryl.
The teacher had arrived to see Cheryl's killing blow, some relieved, some impressed, at the precociousness of this Sophomore in high school. As Betty and Archie were (embarrassingly) tended to by the school medic in full view of the rest of the class, Cheryl marched out of the forest as though she did something like that every day. Almost everyone watched her, adult and teen alike, her longbow over one shoulder, resplendent in red. She stopped at Veronica's side and casually said
"See you tonight, and make sure there's a Cherry Coke waiting for me."
Before she swept off. Unbothered. Seemingly unaware of the fear and confusion that might arise from the appearance of a Dahlia, seemingly unaware that she just saved Betty Cooper's life.
Staying home felt like hiding. Staying home felt like proving Cheryl right about something, even if she had been uncharacteristically gracious after the original incident. Betty glanced out of the window of her bedroom and into Archie's. He wasn't home. Perhaps he had already left.
*
As Archie made his way to the drive-in, the streetlamplight stretched his shadow to ghoulish proportions. Up until lunchtime that very day, Archie had felt confident in his abilities with his sword. Now, although not for the first time, he wondered if he should talk to Dilton Doiley about getting his own pistol. Betty was a crack with hers, maybe he could ask for sharpshooting help.
At the thought of Betty, her face, dreamy in its pain, flashed across his mind. He willed it away. Never again. It would never happen again.
Music wailed in his headphones as he walked, safe on this well-lit path through the heart of Riverdale. The guitar and the pounding of drums drowned out the now-familiar cries of the adults out on the Hunt, his father among them. It made Archie proud that Fred Andrews was out there, keeping the town safe. It mixed with his guilt.
Perhaps this mixture of emotions was the reason why he was so distracted. Archie, a talented Hunter in his own right, absolutely would not have been stalked by anything, headphones or not. Yet, as his thoughts spin out, thinking about more than just his father, but what it means to live normally in times such as these. Should he feel guilty for living this life, the life his father quite literally fights for him to live? And if that's the case....shouldn't his choices be better?
And this, as it always did, caused his mind to circle back to Geraldine, as it often did. They hadn't spoken since he told her he was going to the cops, but her warning still haunted him. Would what he knew really matter? Would it break the case? Was it worth the risk?
These questions haunted his mind, dogged his steps, and for that reason, he did not hear the slight echo of footsteps behind him. He didn't feel the gaze of one intent on murder.
And so Archie walked the lit path, never straying, not aware that the Big Bad Wolf had picked up his scent, and was right behind....