far too young to die ✰ m.w.

CHAPTER FOUR

Ignoring Mike and Lucas, Emily and Will went inside of their house in order to clean off the dirt they had gotten on themselves when they fell. Mike and Lucas followed them in but surprisingly didn't say a word the entire time. After many long, quiet minutes, Emily turned to Mike and suggested that they go back to his house. He agreed, and the four of them went back out in the pouring rain and rode their bikes back to the Wheelers'.

Upon arrival, the four of them went immediately to the basement like they always did and began to discuss what had just happened at the Byers'. The twins came clean about what had been happening for the past few days and what they were now certain it meant. Mike now understood what Emily had been keeping from him and why, but with what had just been discovered, they both found it inappropriate to talk about something as insignificant as a quarrel, so things remained uncomfortable between the two of them.

At first, the group thought it best to try to contact the other party members, but when they were reminded of what time it was, they decided to put it off until the morning, since Dustin, Eleven, and Max would likely all be sleeping by now. The rest of them spent the night in Mike's basement that night, which was a bit awkward given the state of the relationships between most of them.

First thing the next morning, Lucas used his supercomm to try to get in contact with Dustin. After a few minutes, it was pretty much accepted that Dustin was unavailable at that time, so they moved on to Max, and by extension, Eleven, since Emily was sure the two girls were still together. She did, however, try to tell Lucas that Max would not respond to him, and if she did, it wouldn't be to listen to what he had to say, but he refused to listen.

"Do you copy?" Lucas said into the supercomm. "This is a code red. I repeat: this is a code red."

"Dude, she's not gonna answer you!" Emily told him again, annoyed with hearing him repeat the same thing over and over.

"But it's a code red!"

"Doesn't matter. She's not very fond of you right now. Besides, she doesn't know about any of this. She'll probably just think you're saying 'code red' to get her to talk to you."

Lucas still refused to see reason and continued on trying to get to Max. "Max. Do you copy? This is a code red."

"Shut. Up," said Max's voice. There was then a click sound followed by silence.

Lucas looked to his friends. "She turned it off."

"See? What'd I tell you?" Emily said.

"Just call her," Will suggested.

"I'll do it. She'll just hang up if she hears a boy's voice."

Emily got up off of the couch, where they were all sitting, and went over to the phone, holding it up to her ear and dialing the number of the Hargrove house.

After just a few rings, Max answered and said, "I'm sleeping. Go away."

"This is Emily. Do not hang up. Something happened after I left your place. Come over to Mike's as soon as you can. We'll tell you everything then. Hurry." Emily hung up, not giving Max the chance to ask questions or argue, and then turned to the boys, specifically Lucas. "Keep trying Dustin."

"He's not answering," Lucas reminded her.

"I said, keep trying."