42. busted

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BUSTED

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BUSTED

・゚: * "And what exactly were y'all doing at the lake?" Sheriff Powell asks the four as they sit in the Sinclair's living room, Dustin's, Lucas', and Mike and Nancy's parents all looming over them along with Sheriff Powell and Officer Callahan.

The four all look at each other totally totally not suspiciously at all as they struggle to come up with an answer on the spot.

"It's comp-" Dustin starts weakly from Nora's right.

"Um, uh," Lucas tries from the other end of the couch.

"We were just- we were going for a walk," Max says on Nora's other side, but for once Nora is not thankful for the closeness as she feels her face burning up incredibly shadily and is practically sweating in her clothes.

I'm too young to go to jail.

"A walk?" Callahan mocks. "At 9:00 pm?"

They're not gonna send you to jail for doing nothing wrong.

"To the lake," Dustin's voice cracks through the whole statement. "We're gonna. . . take a little swim. .  Lil' night swim."

Harboring a wanted criminal is definitely wrong.

"Dusty," Dustin's mom looks very concerned. "Someone was just murdered there."

Oh my God poor Patrick.

"Yeah," Dustin nods along. "We. . . we didn't realize that until we got there."

"That's why we didn't swim," Lucas laughs awkwardly.

"And Nancy," Mrs. Wheeler speaks up. "Was she with you at this night swim?"

"No," Max shakes her head.

"Yes," Dustin nods eagerly at the same time.

"We're not sure. . ."

"Are you guys going to call my parents?" Is the only Nora can think to add to the break in the conversation.

"Nor," Max shoots her a look.

"Just like, my dad's just a grade-A asshole," Nora doesn't take the hint. "And I haven't spoken to either of my parents in like eight months, give or take. . . mostly give. I mean, I've never really talked to them, like, in my life- y'know they've just always so been busy with work, and Steve-and-I-always-joke-how-he-basically-raised-me-but-it's-like-true, ha, and, like, I don't even know their favorite colors, and literally the last time we've even celebrated a birthday together was-. . . um, hm-. . ."

"So-" Powell starts as Nora trails off, clearly deep in distressed thought.

"Anyway," she shakes it off. "I just mean to say I don't wanna deal with all that, and you don't wanna deal with all that either, and y'know they're just gonna make it a whole thing-"

"Nancy was with us," Dustin allows them to get back on track before Nora can treat this entire experience like a therapy session. "Then, she left."

"That's when you guys came!" Lucas trails on.

"Right, and then, they dared me. . . to say what I said," Max also adds to the story.

Lucas and Dustin give the worst fake laugh to each from beside Nora, Dustin nudging her a bit to get into it, but all she's doing now is thinking about the last birthday they celebrated together.

No, because they weren't there when Steve got his license otherwise they would never have let me take the BMW out.

"Have you had any contact with Eddie?" Powell clearly does not believe one second of this story.

And then Mom and Dad were in Florida for that whole month.

"That psycho. . . freak killer?" Dustin drags out. "God, no."

Was that work emergency before or after my arcade birthday party?

"No, absolutely not," Lucas nods and shakes his head at the same time.

"No, we haven't heard from him," Max takes a more nonchalant tone.

They must've driven her to see that one movie. . . but that was for Christmas. That kind of counts!

"We barely know the guy," Lucas drags out.

Okay, the last time they've celebrated anything together was. . .

"Who?" Dustin emphasizes.

Nine years ago. . .?

"Oh, that's a bunch of bull," Nora's favorite Sinclair pulls the girl out of her thoughts before she can spiral anymore.

"Erica!" Both her parents scold in unison.

"I mean, you realize they're lying. The whole couch is on fire."

"Erica!"

"Just the facts!"

"Are you lying to these policemen, Dusty?" Mrs. Henderson seems genuinely hurt.

"NO!" Dustin's voice is too high pitched.

"Lying to the cops is a crime son," Lucas' parents turn to him next.

"I'm not lying!" His voice also cracks.

"The fire is consuming us," Erica says matter-of-factly.

"Threaten 'em with a little jail time," Mr. Wheeler straightens. "Maybe that'll loosen their lips."

God, no.

"You wanna send our kids to jail?" Mrs. Sinclair directs her criticisms to Mr. Wheeler now.

"We need to take this seriously-"

"He didn't mean it like that," Mrs. Wheeler clarifies.

They all continue arguing over each other, a pit growing deeper and deeper in Nora's stomach as she waits for someone to reintroduce the idea of calling her parents.

Where's Steve? Shouldn't they have tried to contact them by now? Did something happen? Why is everything that could be going wrong, actually going wrong?

"SHUT UP!" Powell stands up to yell, everyone looking at him in silence as if they just remembered he was there. "We're gonna try a more civilized approach. One at a time," he puts his pointer finger up to demonstrate. It leads to Max. "You first."

"What?" Max sits up a bit. "Why me? I'm not even in the Hellfire club?"

"Up!" Powell doesn't back down. "Chop chop! Let's go!"

Nora looks after her worriedly, only to feel like she's drowning in dread as she feels a liquid slide down her upper lip. She wipes a finger over her runny nose, thinking maybe if she wills it enough, there won't be blood when she looks down.

But, alas, she shoots off the too small couch to run to the bathroom, trying to stop the red liquid from sliding down any further.













































































a/n:
lol double update i thought this situation called for it

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