Risky Business.

008. bad timing, steve

chapter 008 ,
bad timing, steve

"YOU'RE POSITIVE THAT WAS DART?" Lucas asked, completely adamant in his belief that it absolutely couldn't have been Dustin's tiny, squishy lizard-friend from the other day.

"Yes," Dustin said again, exasperated. "He had the same exact yellow pattern on his butt."

Max scrunched up her brow. "But he was tiny two days ago."

"Well, he's molted three times already," Dustin said, shuffling his feet along the railroad tracks. It was dark out, and their only source of light was Steve's flashlight, which he aimed to the ground in front of him. Dustin tripped over his own shoelace.

"Malted?" Steve said as he reached out with his free hand to help Dustin regain his balance.

"Molted," Dustin said again. "Shed his skin to make room for growth like hornworms."

"Ew," Lucy muttered to herself, scrunching up her nose.

"When's he gonna molt again?" Max asked Dustin.

"It's gotta be soon," he replied, shrugging. "When he does, he'll be fully grown, or close to it. And so will his friends."

"Why'd they run away?" Lucy asked. "Steve said they were called to something, but what else would possibly be calling them? And where the hell is my brother?"

"He's out there somewhere," Dustin said, shrugging offhandedly. "He's probably at Will's house, if I had to guess."

"If you had to guess," Lucy repeated to herself with a scoff. She stopped in her tracks, facing Dustin with her arms crossed. "Listen, Henderson, the only reason I'm here in the first place is for Leo. All I want to do is find him. Make sure he's safe. If you can give me any sort of information on that, now's your chance to come clean. Because so fucking help me God, I will find him, even if that means I have to go off into the woods in the middle of the night and make myself bait so the Demo-...things come after me instead of my brother. But before I do that, I will ask you one more time, Dustin: Do you have any idea where Leo is?"

"Will, Mike, and Leo are at the lab," Lucas said. Lucy's eyes moved to him, but he had shifted his gaze to Dustin. "Will had another episode and Mike and Leo helped Joyce and Hopper take him to the lab so they could run tests. I was radioing with Mike before you called me."

"So they're at the lab? So they're—they're safe," Lucy said, glancing between Dustin and Lucas. "Right?"

"Uh.. not if that's the lab they're at," Steve called. He'd veered off when the rest of the group came to a stop and was standing at the edge of a clearing, gazing down with a grim expression on his face. He turned over his shoulder. "You guys hear that?"

Lucy zoned in, and it wasn't long before she heard what Steve had: Echoing screeches coming from below. She rushed over to Steve's side to see what was beneath them.

"Shit," she muttered, a hand on Steve's shoulder to stabilize herself. She shared a glance with him, then they both started off down the hill.

She heard Dustin and Lucas follow after them, but Max called down: "No, no, no, hey—why are you guys headed toward the scary sound?"

     The screeching only got louder as they moved closer to the official-looking building that Lucy could only imagine was the lab where all of Will's check-ups took place. She knew very little about the illnesses he was suffering—if any at all—and sometimes wondered what exactly he had gone through, because Lucy wasn't stupid. She knew the statement Hopper had put out when they found Will wasn't the whole story. But now Lucy was growing curiouser and curiouser by the second as she stalked towards a laboratory to save her brother from a bunch of man-eating demon dogs from, supposedly, another dimension. Some part of her itched to know the whole story, but one thing was for sure: It was obvious that it was all connected, and it all led back to Will.