Derrière le Rideau (Behind the Curtain)

•Quatre•

Sadly a rude awakening came around that neither of them saw coming. A familiar text tone goes off and leaves a message that to both teens know means trouble and it's so more than double. The amount this person carries on their shoulders is limitless in the act they have committed and stuck to it. Surprisingly. Since the first wasn't the best.

NOT MY MOM MOM

Hello honey, I'm heading to Riverdale with your new Step-Dad and younger brother! I hope we can reconnect and take you with us after our visit! Love you!

Atlas rolls and sloppily picks up the phone almost dropping it on her plenty of times. Her blurred eyes make out the words and a shaking hand immediately covers her mouth, forcing her not to scream or cry at the new information. And for the record screaming and crying isn't good in this case. This is her mother. One who left the first family due to sexual distractions.

She rumbles as if the ground is being moved by an earthquake, but all is still, and that action causes the other party to wake up. His reaction causes panic for attacks are common in her world. His hand grasps her shoulders and turns her around, the phone gripped in her bone white hand and the screen still glowing in the dark.

"Atlas, what's wrong? Talk to me." In the motion, he is able to get out pieces of words that only he would understand.

"Back... Cheat... Mother..." she gets out as tears are squeezed out of her eyes. Her mouth hangs open but no sound comes forth. A pain that can never stop. A cry that isn't controllable. It just continues on. Jughead brings Atlas under his wings and carefully rocks her back and forth with his cheek pressed against hers.

"Hey, hey... It's alright, I've got you. You don't have to worry. They won't take you, I won't let them." With this knowledge, Jughead glances around with a new caution in his conscious.

Atlas' mother is coming into town. And the only motive is to take her daughter back under her 'safe arms' when they are tainted with a color that people would gladly stay away from. Red. The color of blood, wine, and power. A combination of those three words briefly describes the one, while the other half is incredibly different and more sincere to their personality and actually remains stays loyal, unlike her mother.

"Jug, what if she has the papers to take me back?" Atlas mumbles into his shoulder. Fear strikes his heart, no one else is going to leave Riverdale, by death or crossing the tracks into another state or even town.

Not her.

But low and behold, another face barges into his memory. Raven black to perfect blonde. Two eye colors to one bright and pure tint of light blue and green.

One face molds into another, a new face.

A new and wild sensation.

His heart beats with force as her hand gently touches his chest, this change catches her attention. Jughead shivers and backs away against the wall, without much thought his words turn to betrayal as his legs take him out of the situation.

Atlas stares in bewilderment at his rash action, but as the footsteps recede and the minutes that held hope is torn apart.

"He'll come back. He'll come back," but the sound of nightlife drowns out the previous human contact. Wind howling in the forest, crickets chirping in the tall grass, with an occasional car horn at a long red light. Her limbs move as her conscious is dead and already starting to be buried.

Out the door she finds the moon gleaming down on her wrecked body. Her eyes close as all systems shut down underneath her skin. Blood ceased to flow, the main organ slowing down, and now the mind covered in dirt.

"Damaged" is a nice word to describe Atlas' appearance (mentally and physically) along with "mangled", "tangled", "deformed", or "disgustingly contorted". The worst of the worst.

A ghoul who finds warmth under the cold rays of the silver orb in the darkened sky that is dusted with white clouds and golden starlight.

"Help, me," she gasps as the mist hits the black backdrop and disappears.

They say that music describes a person's current situation, and right now no one is hearing it but it's blasting out right in front of them. Try a low mood tune with deep bass drops and a hint of suspense and drama that slowly gets louder as Atlas' body is lying gracefully spread across rocks with a weak spot of "red paint" on them.

Lights flicker the severed branches and logs as hope comes, but she doesn't want it. She doesn't need it.

A fleece blanket is itching her flesh canvas creating an unmistakable rash. Footsteps reverberate in the room and her mind begins to climb out of its coffin. Eyes roll to the front and open the dividers to a new world that never has been explored. And for a good reason too.

A hospital.

Oh *bEeP*

Hospital, the place of life and death, births and final breathes, all of the positives and all the negatives thrown together in a metal building with wires and heart rate monitors.

"What the-"

"Miss! Miss, uh, unnamed, Jane Doe let's say. How are you feeling?" Atlas sits up bruised and sore in such an ungodly way. Stomach jumping and doing flips like a gymnastic that's offbeat and will soon fall and break a leg.

"How am I feeling? Train wreck excepted with trains and I'm the only person in the game," a trembling groan flees her lips in time for a surprise attack from the gut. "Um, trash?" The nurse runs up and she chucks her head into it and has a return conversation with her food. Yeah. Disgusting. But she does feel much better.

"Oh dear, Jane."

"That's not my name-" she says washing the residue away from her lips with a clean wipe. "I don't know --- I don't want to remember my real name. Just call me Atlas."

"No, Jane is more natural. Now, the sheriff found you in the woods with no one beside you yet someone could smell you from a few miles away. He received an anonymous call in his office to go check 'the Wild Woods' near the abandoned house on the far end of Twenty-fifth Avenue. Now when I heard that news I shook my head and said, 'no one lives there' yet here you are. A young woman with an immense amount of potential, and underneath all of this you are beautiful, I know it. I've been a doctor here long enough to see who has a pure spirit and an honest heart. You do Jane, and keep it that way."

"Um, when do you think I can leave?" She asks, a plan beginning to form in her mind.

"I don't want to be the 'scape goat"

"Well, actually you've been asleep or unconscious for over three weeks so you are due to be out anytime, and your vitals are off the charts, in a very good way, so, you could call your parents to come pick you up whenever you like. You can ask the nurse for a phone and you'll be out."

That was much easier than I thought it would be...

"O-oh! Could I have it now?" The nurse nods her head and brings a portable phone to her side.

"Here you go young lady, as requested." Atlas gives a well-worn smile and takes the electronic device into her hands. Her fingers grease over the too familiar numbers, someone she can trust. Well, hopefully, she can.

"Hey, um, the rain has passed and the seas is bright. I hope the sailor still has his sirens back."