Come Back For Me | Jughead Jones

Chapter 35: Desperation

↳ Monday

May. 15th↲

Sheriff Keller leaned into the microphone, saying: "This case is regarding the school shooting of Riverdale High, along with the disappearance of Catherine Bell."

Archie, Veronica, Betty, and I glanced at each other nervously. The Sheriff turned the mic to us, which we all stared at before looking at the two.

"How did the day start, Jughead? Any abnormalities?" Keller asked, narrowing his eyes at me.

I shook my head, wiping my clammy hands on my pants. "Well, I picked her up and took her to Pop's since it was our six month anniversary-"

Suddenly, my throat tightened at the reminder. This was supposed to be our day.

"It's okay, Jughead," the detective assured. "Take your time."

Betty rubbed my back, helping to comfort me. I took a deep breath and looked back at the Sheriff. "Then we went to school, just barely making the bell. I was with her all the way to first period."

The Sheriff scanned over the others. "Do you kids have classes with Catherine too? Specifically, ones that Jughead doesn't have?"

They all nodded.

Looking back at me, the Sheriff asked: "Continue, Mr. Jones. How was lunch?"

"Fine, we all talked about prom," I looked over to everyone else, to which they nodded in approval. I looked back at the Sheriff, growing slightly impatient. "I was basically with Catherine the whole morning, and nothing strange happened."

He nodded, thinking to himself. "So after lunch, around 12:30, what happened?"

"We all went to our classes, but left Jughead and Catherine behind since they were talking about something private," Veronica explained, looking over to me.

The sheriff's eyes crossed over to me, curious.

I took a deep breath, not feeling comfortable sharing our intimate moments.

"It was flirting talk... and we exchanged I love you's before separating. I didn't see him since he blended into the crowd, but she backed right into his arms. He pumped his shotgun- Wait, no. When she was close enough to him, he fired his gun, and while she was frozen he took her. I tried to get to her, but he stuck her with some sort of syringe-"

"A sedative. Probably a tranquilizer," Keller leaned over to the detective, who was listening quietly and intensely. Her eyes didn't lift off of me the whole time, her mouth hidden behind her hand causing it to be hard to see any emotion.

"Yeah," I agreed with his notion. "Anyways, I tried to get to him as he dragged her away, but-"

"I stopped him," Archie cut me off. We looked at each other, and I slowly looked back to the Sheriff. "He was going towards a man with a shotgun! I couldn't just watch. And then they just disappeared around the corner."

"The boys came into our math class, right as the teacher was finishing locking the door," Betty added.

We looked at the Sheriff, almost expecting him to fill in the gaps. He had nothing, which was no surprise.

"So what does he look like? What's his M.O.?"

"Uh..." I pondered, trying to remember. "His hair isn't platinum blonde anymore. It's dark brown. His eyes were bloodshot from all of the drugs. Um... a leather jacket, blue jeans, blue eyes." I looked around to my friends, which they all nodded in agreement.