Hello, again! Thank you, for your wonderful comments, they mean a lot! They also helped inspire me and get this chapter out way sooner than I thought. I hope everyone enjoys it, be sure to leave a comment letting me know your favourite line. Happy Holidays!

Warning: Mentions of blood, violence, guns/weapons, death, murder, and abuse

Darkness. That's all she could see before her, an empty pit of black nothingness. It was so dark in fact she wasn't sure if her eyes were even open or not. She tried to reach her hand out in front of her, to catch the movement between the shadows but found she couldn't move. It felt like she was floating in the darkness, the black abyss swallowing her whole until there was nothing left, not her eyes or her fingers, just nothing.

Is this what death is like? She couldn't help but wonder, thinking it the only possible explanation for what she was feeling, which was simply: empty. She couldn't hear a thing, not the sound of her blood pumping or the whoosh of her breath, not the wind outside or the pound of the music, there was just nothing.

Maybe this whole time there wasn't a heaven or hell after you die, maybe it was just this: an empty chasm, for eternity. Betty wanted to cry at this, to be sad or at least angry, but she couldn't feel a damn thing. If she could feel anything at all, she thinks that would scare her the most; the only thing worse than pain is feeling nothing at all.

It takes a while, how long she isn't sure because in the darkness time doesn't seem to be real or even a factor at all, but she hears something. It's low at first, a buzzing that couldn't be distinguished as anything, but eventually, it clears enough and she recognizes it. She knows that noise, she's heard it before, she can't pinpoint exactly where and maybe that's because her brain is a puddle of mush in her skull from the pounding it took, but she knows it's a Serpent.

The darkness begins to fray at the edges, the blanket of black pulling apart a strand at a time till light fills her vision. The light swirls, tunneling then expanding till all she sees is white. Even though she can't make out shapes or figures it's so much better than the darkness.

"Jesus Christ, Malachi, I didn't think you would fucking kill her." The voice she recognizes spits, syllables hard and rough as the roll over his tongue.

The name rings a bell but it takes her a moment to place it like her memories are scattered in her head and she isn't sure where to pull them from.

His reply is muffled like she's listening through a door or their conversation is taking place at the bottom of a swimming pool but she manages to make out: "Does it really matter? Jughead will come either way and then we'll kill him and all those other snakes too."

Her throat tightens, her ears start to ring, and the darkness begins to spin and blanket across her eyes. Betty wants to scream out, thrash her fists into the ground, and kick her legs out at them both and whoever else wants to hurt her family, but she just can't seem to move. The light is fading, darkening at the edges and streaking across her vision till all she can see are stripes. Suddenly, she's exhausted. She wants to rest, give into the growing darkness and fade away, but she can't give up on her family. She's given up on herself before, dozens of times, but she could never give up on them.

They were her salvation when she needed them most.

They were her friends when she had none.

They were her support system when she broke down.

They were everything a family was supposed to be, they loved her, unconditionally, without boundaries or limits.

And they would never give up on her, so there's no way in hell she's giving up on them.

And like she was the puppet master of the strings of darkness that crossed her vision, one by one they started to lift, till only light remained.

"I'm going to get my cut, right?" comes the voice she recognizes again, "I told you their plan to destroy the stash and helped you get the blonde bitch, I did everything I promised."

Betty may be half dead and barely conscious on the floor, but she knows a traitor when she hears one. Whoever this person was, they were no Serpent, not anymore.

"Of course, you've been good to the Ghoulies and now we are going to be good to you," Malachi promises a sinister edge that even Betty could pick up lacing his words.

Betty, who had been told a lot of information over the past few months, not just from Jughead, had learned exactly what happens to a double agent. If they snitched on their own people, who's to say they won't do the same to you? They are only as good as their intel, after that, they're a liability, at best.

Despite her state of unconsciousness, or whatever the hell this was, she needed to find a way to warn the Serpents, she couldn't let them get hurt because of her. She tries to move, even a finger, but it's like her blood is made of cement and her bones are carved from marble. She can't even feel her limbs at this point, she knows they are there but it's like she's detached from her body, unable to move or make a sound. She tries again, but this time she tries to open her eyes instead, which are crusted shut with dried blood and tears that had long since taken residence on her lashes. It isn't easy and probably takes an embarrassingly long amount of time but she finally opens them a crack, just enough to see into the room and the figures before her.

She doesn't see much at first, just blobs of colour and blurry figures, but then, her vision clears, sharpening at the edges and filling in the details. The first thing she sees is the man from before, the one who made her dance; her brain, which was still surprisingly functioning, had finally put together that this was Malachi, Ghoulie King. The other figure, who was older and not quite as tall as the lanky gang leader also came into focus, his scruffy appearance and leather attire all too familiar.

Further down, but only by a few floors, the Serpents made their way up a back staircase leaving a trail of blood and bodies in their wake; some were limping or bleeding, all were bruised and sore. Shell casings covered the floor and splatters of blood decorated the walls in a disturbingly beautiful abstract.

Jughead, who usually wasn't this much of a violent person, didn't care who got in his way, he would kill his way through the Ghoulies one by one if he had to. His clothes, all black, were smeared with blood, some his and some not, but at this point, it was impossible to separate. The others, who fought at his side till the teeth gritting, knuckle busting end were following him up the staircase weapons trained and ready for what was to come, whatever that may be.

They're all tired and bloody, beaten and bruised, but most of all they are determined. They had finally made it to the top floor, not without a few battle wounds, to the room that housed what they were looking for: their queen. Jughead stands in the center of the group at the front, the rest of his faithful men and women soldiers flanking behind them. They aren't sure what's going to be on the other side of this door, but they are ready to face whatever it is.

Jughead doesn't hesitate and swiftly lifts his foot up to the slab door, before kicking it as hard as he can dead center. The door slams open, reverberating off the cement wall before coming to stop. The first thing Jughead sees is Betty, unsettlingly still on the floor. Her skin is impossibly pale, the only colour on her flesh being the smears of dried blood.

The fluorescent lighting of the warehouse reminds him of the first night they shared together in Pop's and for a moment Jug is transported back to that evening, and he wonders how that could feel like a lifetime ago. It seems like an entirely different Betty and Jughead shared milkshakes and burgers in the vinyl booth he grew up in.

He acts quickly, the flickering of the light breaking his daze, and makes his way over to Betty. Jughead drops down beside her, knees cracking loudly against the cement as he takes her into his arms. She's almost naked and he can't help the clench of his jaw at the thought of what they did to her, what they made her do. His uses his jacket as a blanket, draping it across her limbs and center and tucking the worn leather collar beneath her chin. There's a lump in his throat that he can't seem to swallow and it's keeping him from calling out her name or worse, from admitting what's going on, saying it out loud and making it real.

"Jughead?" asks Toni and he doesn't even have to turn around or pay attention to thick curvature his name takes when she speaks it to know that she is crying.

He uses his hand, that's split open at the seams with blood oozing out and decorated in bruises and a speckling of scars, to brush back her hair. It's matted and dirty, a mixture of blood, dirt, and tears clinging to her blonde locks but it's still Betty. Even her face, that's bruised and swollen with a river of red trailing down her temple, is still her.

"My beautiful Betty," he finally manages, despite the lump still deposited in his throat. "What have they done to you?"

It's silent in the room, despite the war waging all around them, none of them can seem to hear a thing. That's why, when Betty lets out the littlest groan of pain, their heads all snap up and Jughead's lump all but disappears.

"Betty!" he cries, for what seems like the millionth time that night, but this time in joy.

It takes a moment, or two, but the blonde finally manages to pry open her eyes. She winces at the light at first and tries to blink away the harsh contrast; but then it happens, there's not darkness or blinding light, but instead, what she wanted to see since the moment she got here: Jughead.

"Oh baby," he breathes, bottom lip wobbling and an overflowing cascade of tears running down his cheeks. If it were any other person, he might be embarrassed, ashamed even, because that's just how he was raised, but the relief and happiness he feels at that moment were all-encompassing, clouding over any other thought and he just couldn't find it in himself to give a damn.

Betty, who feels like she has had one of the worst, yet best, years of her life, had never been happier to see him. If she was honest with herself, she wasn't sure she was ever going to again; and that thought, above all, even the fear of dying, was the worst one. But he was here, this was real, and she just wanted to tell him how much she loves him.

"Are you okay?" he begins, voice frantic and much too high "Oh my god, of course, you're not okay, I'm such a fucking idiot. Where does it hurt? Do you think anything is broken? Can you talk? Can you walk?" He pauses, only to suck in a much-needed breath before continuing: "Who did this to you? What did they do to you? Where are you bleeding from? What-" but before he can continue with his barrage of questions, she stops him with a simple word: "Jug," and although her voice is hoarse from a mixture of crying and misuse Jughead swears he's never heard anything so beautiful.

"Yeah Betts's," he asks, ignoring the sting from his bloody lip as a smile stretches onto his face.

"You're not wearing your hat," she finishes, voice wavering like it takes everything in her to say it as her fingers come up to dance between the strands of loose waves.

Jughead, who thought a million times that night he would never feel her touch again, couldn't contain the morphed sob of laughter that tumbled from his lips, even if he wanted to.

"I'm so fucking sorry," he cried, leaning into her touch for a moment before softly pulling her flush against him, his arms coming to wrap around her in a protective embrace. "I'll never leave you again," he promises, enjoying the feeling of her fingers curled and buried in his messy locks.

Forty-seven. In the twenty-two hours, Betty had been missing Jughead had smoke forty-seven cigarettes. It wasn't healthy, for his lungs or his psyche and it probably said a lot more about him that he would ever openly admit, but seeing her, alive and smiling, fucking joking, after everything, made him never want to pick up a cigarette again.

"T-there's something I have to tell you," she begins, licking her cracked, dry lips as she speaks.

"Take it easy, Betts." Jug replies worry evident in his entire being.

"It's important," she reassures, struggling to sit up for a moment before decided instead to just lean against him. "I know who the traitor is, he's the one who told them about your plan and helped the Ghoulies take me."

"Who?" he asks, voice deadly and jaw clenching at the thought of one of his Serpents trying to destroy the thing he loved most.

"Tallboy."