Blood of My Blood, Flesh of My Flesh (Bughead)

26. Baby You're a Haunted House

Inside the forest portal, Betty sits on the ground, legs drawn up to her chin.

In front of her is Jason, his body still cold to the touch and unmoving, still deathly looking.

After dragging him inside, Sweet Pea had squished a bag of blood down Jason's throat. That had gotten a little more color into his face, or as much color as a vampire could possess, and this was just further evidence that he would wake up. Or, so Sweet Pea claimed.

He'd left a box of blood bags near where they laid Jason on the grass. When Betty had asked where he'd gotten the blood bags, Sweet Pea had said he'd 'ever so generously taken them off the hands of the local clinic'.

First, if the Blood Drive posters were true at all, Betty was pretty sure that the clinic had never had a time where it had too much blood. Second, she knew this was a more creative way of saying he'd stolen them. But she couldn't complain; she wasn't exactly cutting open her arms for his food and all.

It had been hours, and he still was silent.

She'd been warned it could take days, but...

"You gotta wake up," She whispered, "Please, Jason, wake up in there."

She inhaled hard. She'd never really been this close to Jason before. He was just the star football player at her school that she would pass by in the halls on occasion. She truly couldn't think of a single conversation they'd ever actually had. It was bizarre that he was in her room right now, after being changed to a vampire.

"Not only do we gotta figure out who killed you, and I fear you're the only one who can tell us, but you have to come back for Polly. You're going to be a dad."

Of course, he already knew this, but Betty had to say it out loud again. She thought of Sweet Pea, who had no parents. She thought of Jughead, whose mom left when he was young and he rarely heard from her aside from an obligatory birthday call. She thought that it was so unfair and that her niece or nephew deserved a dad.

She wanted this for Polly.

Of course, Jason did not answer.

She hoped he heard her though. Maybe he'd fight harder to wake up if he remembered what was waiting for him here?

Betty's phone beeped. She lifted it to see a text from Cheryl. She frowned, reading it.

"Your sister," She told Jason, "She says she urgently needs to talk to me. I wonder what she wants?"

Betty started to crawl out of the portrait hole but turned around one last time to stare intently at Jason. No movement, but she hoped. There was a note near the blood bags explaining things if he woke up and no one was around.

Betty, if she could, would have waited in the portrait hole all day and night for him to come around, but Cheryl said that this was a matter that could not wait.

Betty wasn't taking any chances about anything anymore.

XXxxXX

Betty sipped on her milkshake at Pops, checking her phone, waiting for Cheryl to arrive. She felt the chain of her necklace, but Polly was still suspiciously silent.

Why wasn't she answering?

The lack of communication was nearly enough to make Betty drive herself back up to her grandmother's house. This was unlike Polly, especially since she'd been talking Betty's ear off over the necklaces of late.

Before she could worry more, Cheryl breezed into the diner.

"It's hard for me to admit this," Cheryl said without any niceties or helloes, "But I don't think Polly should come back at all."