He made a grand gesture at himself, and Betty rolled her eyes with a good-humored grin. But then she became somber again. “What if I’m still not ready?”
“If you weren’t ready, you wouldn’t have made it out of that junkyard alive,” Archie pointed out softly. “Whatever you think you have to prove, you proved it.” When she didn’t answer right away, he added, “And for what it’s worth? I would trust you with my life. I mean, uh … I guess I kind of am trusting you with my life.” Reaching over, he gave her shoulder a friendly nudge. “Seriously, though, Betts. You’re kinda my hero.”
She didn’t say anything—just flipped down the passenger-side visor and started trying to clean the rest of Ethel’s blood off her face—but out of the corner of his eye, Archie could see a small, private smile tugging at her lips.
They didn’t say much for the rest of the drive back to the bowling alley, tension filling the car like slowly rising water, replacing all the oxygen in the air. There were two werewolves out there, somewhere, and they’d lost track of them both. Whatever his intentions were when he’d chained himself up in the woods, Jughead had escaped his own safety precautions—and with Bingo’s gig by now almost certainly over, who knew where he might be? Neither Archie nor Betty wanted to bring up worst-case scenarios yet, but neither of them had the energy for optimism, and so they remained silent.
The lot outside Coney’s Bowl-o-Rama was still fairly crowded when they pulled in, and Betty all but sprinted for the door as soon as Archie put the car into park. Inside, the air buzzed with loud conversation punctuated by the clatter of pins, but the only music that played was prerecorded, pumped through speakers mounted at ceiling level. Leading them to a bar at one end of the building, Betty cursed out loud when she took in the small performance-space setup in the corner—empty and dark.
Shoving her way around the room, she checked every face there, growing increasingly distressed when it became clear that Bingo was not among the remaining crowd. There were two boys their age seated at the counter, however, sharing what was left of a giant platter of nachos, and a measure of relief finally crossed her expression when she noticed them. Claiming the stool next to the guy on the left, whose T-shirt featured a stuffed cartoon bear holding a switchblade, Betty turned on a million-watt grin.
“Hey! You’re Tough Teddy, right? From the band?”
The boy glanced over, gave her an appraising look, and then offered a smile that he had probably practiced in the bathroom mirror a few hundred times. “That’s me. Why? You want something autographed?”
“Maybe later.” Betty gestured around the bar. “Listen, do you know where Bingo is?”
“Oh.” His smile dropped faster than a guillotine. “You’re one of Bingo’s fans.”
“Sort of. Not exactly.” Betty’s own grin faded as frustration crept into her tone. “Listen, I was here for your first set, but then I had to take a friend home, and I only just got back. She knows Bingo really well, and she wanted me to give him a message, but I don’t know where he is.”
Teddy ate another nacho, taking his sweet time chewing and swallowing before he decided to answer her. “Well, we don’t know where he is, either. Some girl threw a drink on him during our break, and then he and his girlfriend had some words, and she threw a drink on him, and then he had a diva fit and said he had to go. So we never played the second set.”
“You didn’t?” Betty blinked, her back going straight.
“Nope.” Teddy ate another nacho. “They pay us in food and free games, though, so Buddy and I have been hanging out and making the most of it. You’re welcome to join us, if you want.” Then he jerked a thumb in Archie’s direction. “Unless this dude is your boyfriend. Single chicks only.”
“Thanks for the tempting offer,” Betty said mildly, “but the food here looks kind of disgusting, and this message is really urgent. Any idea where Bingo went when he left?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.” Teddy gave a half-hearted shrug that made it clear he wasn’t going to be making any guesses and then turned back to his bandmate to continue the conversation they’d been having when Betty interrupted.
“Damn.” Facing Archie again, the girl slammed her fist down on the counter. “Damn!”
“Don’t panic, Betts, it’s not too late,” Archie said, swallowing the words I hope. “We can still find them.”
“Yeah. Okay.” She cast one more glance around the bar and then nodded, a grim set to her jaw. “Let’s go.”
Together, they raced back through the bowling alley and out into the parking lot, the full moon watching them like a judgmental eye.
Music played softly from the wireless speaker on the bathroom counter as Bingo Wilkin shut off the taps in the shower, a tingle building in his fingers. In fact, the tingle was building everywhere, his blood itching with the need to shift, his body desperate to claim its true form. Just thinking about it made coarse hair sprout on his chest, the bones of his shoulders and rib cage aching with the urge to transform themselves. Drawing slow, deep breaths, he fought it back.
It wasn’t time yet.
Stepping out of the tub, he grabbed a towel and dried off. Maybe it had been silly to take a shower, since his plans for the evening included morphing into a creature of nightmares and bathing himself in the blood of his next meal, but the soda had made his hair sticky, and he couldn’t stand the way it felt. His mouth twisted into a perversely delighted smile at the memory. Betty Cooper. He’d never realized what a spitfire she was. Maybe it was her who he ought to have been pursuing all this time.
Dressing in loose-fitting clothes—things he could take off again without too much trouble, once his limbs started being a little less cooperative—he made his way to the kitchen, where a digital clock showing the late hour glowed in the darkness. He was just reaching for the light switch when he paused, his eyes narrowing as they drank in the shadows that filled the room. Aside from the hum of the refrigerator, everything was silent; his parents were out, and he was home alone.
Or at least he was supposed to be.
“Jughead?” Bingo smiled into the dark, the itch in his blood just a little bit stronger. “I know you’re here—I can smell you. Come out, come out, wherever you are …”
Two yellow lights blazed to life in the far corner of the room, a tall, misshapen figure staggering into view from behind a freestanding cabinet, moving to just where the light from the hall could touch him. Muscles writhed and rippled across Jughead’s bare chest and arms, his body caught painfully between its two forms, and he glared at Bingo with undisguised loathing. His shoulders were covered in hair, his hands knobby and clawed, and his face was twisted into a nearly unrecognizable shape.
And yet he still wore that ridiculous hat.
“Hello, cousin.” Bingo flipped on the kitchen lights, smirking as Jughead flinched from the sudden brightness, his eyes hypersensitized by their own unearthly glow. “I was wondering how long it would take you to seek out your pack.”
“What …” Jughead struggled to speak, his voice gruff and guttural, his words strangled by the inhuman structure of his altered throat. “What … did you … do to me?”
“Me? Nothing.” Bingo crossed to the sink, smiling, acting nonchalant—but he kept the small kitchen table between the two of them, just in case. It wouldn’t slow a determined werewolf down for more than a second … but these days, Bingo didn’t need much more time than that to complete his own change. “Your genes did this, buddy. Our genes. It’s a lot to take in, I know, especially in the beginning, but it’s part of your DNA, just like your pasty skin and dark hair.”
Jughead shuffled a little closer, breathing hard, one of his legs bent back the wrong way. “You … made me … kill people!”
“I didn’t make you do anything.” Bingo got a glass down from the cabinet, his hands burning now, Jughead’s proximity making his own werewolf blood howl in his veins. “Two months ago, you found me on the night of your first change, hungry and wild; I took
you into the woods, I taught you how to hunt without getting caught or killed, and you had the meal of your life. You’re welcome for that, by the way.”
A fist came down on the kitchen table with so much force the surface cracked, and Bingo turned to see his cousin quivering with rage. “You’re the reason … those people … are dead! You … I … I didn’t want … to, t-to …”
“You didn’t want to?” Bingo laughed heartily before gulping some of the water. “Keep telling yourself that if you need to hear it, but it’s a load of crap.” He set the glass down on the counter with a loud clunk. “Hunting is a natural instinct for our kind, and you were going to kill whether I helped you do it or not. And don’t give me that disgusted look, either, because I might be the only other person who knows exactly what happened to Pop Tate. You and I have the same dark side, buddy.”
“That was … an accident.” Jughead’s shoulders sagged miserably, his voice reduced to nearly a whisper. “I n-never … never meant to … never wanted to—”
“Yes, you did.” Bingo rolled his eyes, finally losing his patience. “Of course you meant to kill him—of course you wanted to. You’re a predator, Jughead Jones! I didn’t force you to wait inside that crypt so you could ambush your buddy Dilton. I didn’t make you rip his liver out with your teeth. I didn’t hypnotize you into chasing Grundy into our trap, and I definitely didn’t set you loose in the Chock’Lit Shoppe. That was all you, man, and the sooner you embrace it, the happier you’ll be.”
“Happy?” Jughead’s eyes blazed, and he grabbed one of the kitchen chairs, hurling it across the room and into the shelves above the stovetop. Coffee cups shattered, cookbooks spilling to the floor, and the violence sent adrenaline racing through Bingo’s system. His cousin snarled balefully. “You think … I could ever be … happy again? Like this?”
“Well. Not with that attitude.” Bingo crossed his arms over his chest.
Jughead let out a growl that turned into a roar, and he picked up another chair, flinging it into the refrigerator. The stainless-steel door of the appliance dented, the makeshift missile fracturing, and magnets rained to the floor. Wheeling around, the muscles in his face convulsing as his nose and ears stretched another centimeter into their new shape, Jughead exclaimed wildly, “We … we killed people!”
“And we’ll kill more.” Bingo grinned. “And eventually you’ll get good at it.”
“I don’t … want to!” Jughead was gasping for air, his rage pulling energy away from his fight against the shift. “Make it … stop! We have to … keep it … from happening—”
“Haven’t you been listening to me at all?” Bingo slipped his shirt over his head. The moment was coming when his own resistance would crumble, and he was ready for it, the tendons in his neck jutting out already as his body started giving in to its own transformation. “There is no stopping it! And even if a way existed, even if I could do it, I wouldn’t.” His bones cracked as they expanded, his skin pulling and stretching, but it felt like relief.
“You’re so pathetic, you know that? You’re turning into something better, faster, and stronger than a mere human right now, but you’re still fighting it every step of the way. Stop feeling sorry for people, Jughead—they’re nothing! I’m glad I am what I am.”
A million pinpricks danced up his arms as fur began to poke through the skin, and he stepped out of his pants just as the muscles in his legs began to knot and swell. Jughead was still clinging to the last vestiges of his human appearance, but his battle was nearly lost. Still, he managed to rasp, “You’re … a monster.”
“I’m just like you,” Bingo returned with a gleeful laugh, his spine crackling as it lengthened, his ears rising into points. “And I know how hungry you’re feeling right about now. So what do you say, cousin? Up for a bite tonight?”
Jughead’s chest heaved, a tail sweeping the air as what remained of his jeans split apart, and he snarled, “Maybe I am.”
With that, he tossed the kitchen table aside with a mighty crash and lunged forward, jaws stretching and snapping—his jutting teeth primed for Bingo’s jugular.
“I NEVER SHOULD HAVE TAKEN my eyes off him!” Betty exclaimed, throwing herself into the passenger seat of Archie’s car and squeezing her head between her hands. Outside, the night was still and perfect, a single feathered cloud traveling under the bright disc of the moon—but all she could see was red. “If I’d just stayed at the stupid bar, if I hadn’t been so dead set on proving what a scumbag Bingo was being—”
“Then Ethel would have ended up changing into a werewolf in the middle of a bowling alley filled with people,” Archie finished for her as he buckled his seat belt. “Even if that wasn’t why you did it, you still probably saved a whole bunch of lives.”
Betty thought for a moment, her eyes narrowed. “That isn’t the point and you know it, but you’re deliberately making it hard for me to argue with you.”
“Guilty.” He smiled, putting the car into gear and reversing out of their parking spot. “You’re gonna drive yourself nuts if you second-guess all your choices like this. You lost sight of Bingo, but you prevented a bloodbath—and now that we know who the werewolves are, we still have a chance to stop them.”
Unspoken words filled the car as they reached the mouth of the lot, Archie’s headlights spearing out into the night. Softly, Betty said, “I’m sorry. I know I’ve said it before, but I really am sorry we have to go after Juggie.”
“Yeah, well.” Archie looked away, shifting uncomfortably. “It was always going to end up being somebody’s best friend, right? Might as well be mine.” An empty smile tugged up one corner of his mouth when he finally turned back to face her. “Anyway, you know what they say: ‘Sometimes you have to kill to be kind.’ ”
It was a saying he’d learned from Elena, of course, and Betty nodded the way she had every time she’d heard it out of her aunt’s mouth. She wanted to ask if Archie really would be ready to kill when the time came … but she was afraid he’d say no. The truth she really didn’t want to admit out loud was that she might also say no if he asked her the same thing. The memory of Ethel’s final moments was impossible to escape from—and even though she’d had no other choice at the time but to defend herself, she’d killed someone she knew. It wasn’t an experience she was anxious to repeat. Ever. And especially not in the next few hours.
“So,” Archie finally said, after they’d each been sitting uncomfortably with their thoughts for a while. “Where are we going, anyway?”
His car was still idling at the exit of the bowling alley parking lot, the crisp night inappropriately peaceful around them, and Betty drummed her fingers on the dashboard. “Where was the last place you saw Juggie?”
“It was in the woods, not far from the campgrounds.” Archie stared up at the moon. “I guess he might still be out there. As far as I know, that whole area is still closed to visitors, so there shouldn’t be any people around tonight. If we’re lucky, maybe he’s just hunting deer and rabbits?”
“We’re not lucky.” If Betty was certain of anything, it was that. “They could have gone after deer and rabbits last month, but they didn’t. They know exactly what kind of prey they want, and they’ll go where they can find it.”
Archie winced a little, understanding what she meant. “So, Riverdale, then?”
“I’m not sure.” Betty turned back around, looking at the lit-up frontage of Coney’s Bowl-o-Rama. “Wolves are pack animals, and it takes lycanthropes a while to develop the kind of self-control they need to override their animal instincts. If Juggie changed and escaped while you were in your car, there’s a pretty decent chance that the first thing he did was go looking for Bingo.”
“Oh, man.” Archie ran his fingers through his hair, making it stand on end. “Last month, the only reason I went to Reggie’s stupid party was because of Jug. He told me he thought Bingo might be there, and he needed to see him.”
“They were together when I found them,” Betty confirmed, thinkin
g back to that night by the Wesley Road bridge—to the way Bingo insisted Jughead take her home. “Maybe you and Betty should stop for a bite on the way.” An involuntary shiver shot through her all the way down to her toes as she was thrown by a sudden, disturbing realization. She blinked twice, her heart sinking beneath an enormous weight, wishing that she was wrong—and knowing that she wasn’t. “Bingo was the one in control. He left first, on his own, and kind of made a point out of it. He wanted Juggie to be by himself that night, so there wouldn’t be another werewolf around to help him stay in control once he shifted and the hunger set in.” Her voice thin and faraway, she struggled to articulate the next thought. “He meant for Juggie to eat me.”
Archie turned pale. “You really think so?”
“One of the reasons werewolves eventually embrace the beast within is because they can’t handle the guilt anymore,” Betty said softly, looking down at her hands. There was still blood under her nails. “All that death, and no one to blame but themselves? The fastest way to escape the horror is to lean into it. You saw what a mess he was after Pop Tate died—now imagine if the person he’d killed was one of his oldest friends.”
Archie swallowed a few times before he seemed to find his voice again. “Okay. Okay, so … Jug probably went after Bingo. But where did he go?”
“Like you said, the woods are probably empty. Most of Riverdale really rolls up the sidewalks after dark these days, and Sheriff Keller has extra patrol cars on the streets—so if Bingo’s smart, he’s probably staying local.”
“Makes sense,” Archie allowed. “I’m not super familiar with Midville, though. And I definitely haven’t spent enough time with Bingo to guess who he’d target if he decided to go after people he knows.”
“Have you ever been to his house?” Betty asked. “If his parents are at home, maybe we can bluff them and get some ideas.”
“I’ve been there once.” Archie scrunched up his nose, thinking. “It was a while ago, but I bet I could find the neighborhood again.”
A Werewolf in Riverdale Page 16