Hopelessly Devoted ➳ a.a ♡ b.c.

thirteen

"give me the hint." archie said angrily into the phone.

"only if you ask nicely." the black hood taunted.

"could you please give me the fucking hint?" archie asked with a mocking attitude.

"close enough." the masked man said.

"let's just say you'll find betty under her favorite place, look for her favorite book. now go, you have half an hour to find her, and if you can't i'll bury her. dead, or... alive." and with that the call was ended, and archie was scrambling to get dressed and into his dad's car.

as he shoved the key into the ignition, he wracked his brain for ideas. it couldn't be in her house, because that definitely was not her favorite place. it couldn't be jughead's trailer, or pops because they didn't have much in the way of books. then it hit him, the library.

when betty was in a bad mood, library. when she needed to get away from her mom, library. when she just wanted to escape all the drama riverdale offered, she would read in the library for hours. how was that not the first thing that came to his mind?

he sped all the way to the large, brick building. pausing at, maybe, one of the stop signs along the way. it was hard to tell if he was trying to get to betty, or away from the terrible things that came to his mind when he thought about what she was going through.

when it was open it was a normal library. it was quiet, and normally had a few people scattered here and there. there was the students who came to study, the people who came to find new books, and the kids hidden behind various bookshelves kissing or smoking anything they could get their hands on.

archie rushed out of the car, leaving the door wide open, letting the cold air infiltrate the small shelter that was his dad's pick up truck.

too many good days had been spent in the old thing, most with betty. there had been a few road trips, before and after receiving an actual license, there was the occasional late night drive when neither could sleep, and there was the countless summer nights they'd spent laying in the back counting the stars. their stars.

even though it was closed, the library was easy to break into. archie had done it enough times with betty, to know how to skillfully jump the fence, and pick the old lock on the front door.

he threw the doors open and yelled out to her, "betty!"

archie ran into the building, and began searching every aisle for any sign of a blond ponytail. he found nothing.

23 minutes remaining

what's her favorite book? archie pulled on the ends of his red hair trying to think of one specific book betty loved. however, there was one slight problem. betty loved every book she read.

he tried to remember her mentioning a specific book recently, but nothing came to him. that is, until realization crashed down on him. betty's all time favorite books, ever since they'd known each other, had always been nancy drew.

she would become obsessed with trying to figure out the mystery before it was revealed, and she loved the ever-changing element of the series. she'd spend hours reading them to archie, and when she tutored him in reading those were the books she'd used. he just needed to find the right one.

he quickly found the shelf with the many rows of nancy drew books, and began skimming through them. throwing them to the ground once he found them useless.

17 minutes remaining

there were three books left on the shelf, race against time, the clue of the velvet mask, and where's nancy. all pertained to the current situation in different ways. race against time was symbolic of archie's scramble against time to find betty, the clue of the velvet mask depicted the black hood's signature ski mask, and where's nancy symbolized riverdale's very own nancy drew going missing.