"Can we talk?"

The text blinked up at him in anticipation, patiently demanding an instant response.

"Sure, what's up?" he replied, hoping it was nothing too serious.

"Not over text," came her answer. "Can I come over tonight?"

His stomach knotted and he tried to make sense of the sudden, foreign feeling. "Of course. Come at 6, my dad will be out."

Archie continued to stare at the phone, waiting for the reply she would always send back. Instead he was left waiting, concern pricking inside his gut and telling him something was wrong. It was unlike Betty to be so cryptic. He placed the phone down on the counter and picked up where he left off before the ping of his phone, filling Vegas' dog dish with tap water then stripping off his dirty clothes and heading to the laundry room.

He had less than an hour to tidy get cleaned up before Betty came over to talk about whatever was on her mind, and Archie couldn't shake the feeling that something was off. As he pulled a wet load from the washer and tossed it into the dryer, the familiar buzz of his phone against the counter sounded.

"Ronnie" with a picture of her smiling face looked back at him.

"Hey, Ronnie. What's up?"

"Archie, I need you to come meet me at Pop's right away."

Instantly the urgency in her voice caught his attention and set him on high alert. "Is everything okay?" he asked with concern.

"I can explain when you get here. Can you hurry?" Veronica asked.

"Yeah, give me twenty minutes and I'll be there," he assured as they hung up. Archie dug through the pile of clean clothes on the top of the dryer and found something to wear, quickly hurrying it onto his body and heading out the door to meet Veronica.

He found her sitting in their usual booth, dark lips wrapped around a thin straw sucking milkshake from her cup.

"Hi, Archiekins," she said with a smile, leaning over the table for a kiss as he sat down across from her. She tasted of chocolate.

"What's wrong, you sounded upset on the phone," he asked her, settling into the booth and calming slightly as he took in her relaxed demeanour.

"It's my dad," she said with an eye roll. "I think I may have an idea of what he's plotting."

Before she could begin to explain, Archie's phone buzzed against the table from between them and Archie groaned as Betty's face popped onto his screen, directly under the time that read 6:15PM. In his haste to meet Veronica he had entirely forgotten that Betty was coming over.

"Sorry, Veronica," he said as he picked up the phone to answer it.

"Betty, I'm so sorry," he assured.

"Where are you?" she replied, concern lacing her voice.

"Veronica called, I came to meet her at Pop's. I totally forgot you were coming over, I'm so sorry."

"Oh," came her solitary response. She wanted to add her customary "it's okay" to diffuse the awkwardness but found that she couldn't force the words to leave her mouth. Her reality was that it wasn't okay, and that in fact she had been really needing this meeting with Archie tonight.

"Wait for me," Archie replied when she didn't say anything else. "I'll be home by 7:30, I promise."

"Umm," she hesitated.

"Please, Betty. I'm sorry. 7:30, I swear. Will you wait?" He pled, guilt racking him with the disbelief that he had completely forgotten about his best friend.

"Uh, sure, Arch. I'll wait."

Archie noticed that she sounded less than sure. "7:30 I'll be there. See you then," then hung up the phone and turned his attention back to Veronica, who had a slight air of annoyance she couldn't hide crossing her face.

"Betty asked if she could come over tonight, I think she wants to talk about Jughead," he lied, knowing that the reminder of Betty's boyfriend would help Veronica remember that Betty was taken.

"It's okay," she answered, smiling. "So my dad…." and launched into the explanation of what she thought her father had been up to.

By the time Veronica finished her story and Archie looked at his phone, it was already 8:15. He apologized to Veronica for running out on her and literally ran the way back to his house, hating himself for bailing on Betty twice in one night.

As he arrived to his front lawn, breathless and sweaty, an uncomfortable sensation washed over him that he couldn't place, quickly realizing as he glanced up that the feeling was coming from a sight; that of his front door slightly ajar and a soft light from his front hall reaching out onto the porch.

He froze in terror, his mind reeling back to the night in Pop's when his dad got shot, then quickly to the baseball bat he kept in the closet in the front hall. Then to Betty, who was supposed to be waiting for him inside. It was this final thought that propelled him inside, creeping quietly up the stairs and peeking into the hall, noticing that nothing looked out of place.

A shadow moved from inside the kitchen and Archie paused, trembling. The shadow continued to quickly jump back and forth until its owner, Vegas, appeared at the doorframe and trotted lightly towards the front door, seeing Archie.

At Vegas' lack of alertness, Archie entered the house and quickly grabbed his bat, going from room to room throughout the house to check if anyone was there. It was in the living room that he found it: a slight disruption in the couch cushions that raised his hair on end. Two of them tossed on the living room floor, the rest askew across the back.

As he crept towards it another site appeared to him: a note, scribbled onto a scrap piece of paper from the living room and written in thick, black ink.

It read "she's mine".

Archie's heart stopped as the full realization of what that meant set in.

Betty was gone.