WILDFIRE ↝ E. MUNSON

[12]

"Max!" Steve shouted after the young redhead as she stormed out of the house, blazing a trail towards his car, and Lily attempted to keep up with both of them as Dustin and Lucas hurried after them. "Max seriously, seriously, I'm not joking, okay? I'm not driving you anywhere."

"Steve, if you think that I'm going to spend what is likely the last day of my life in the armpit that is Mike Wheeler's basement, then you're out of your mind." Max said, not slowing in her path to the car. "So you either take me where I need to go or you're going to have to tie me down, which is technically kidnapping of a minor, and if I live to see another day, Steve, I swear to God, I will prosecute and have my sister testify as my key witness."

Steve's eyes moved over to Lily as Max attempted to open the door to the backseat of his car, but the door remained locked. "You're seriously going along with this?" he asked.

"Steve, what good is staying down there anyways?" Lily asked. "We're just sitting ducks down there."

"Open the door," Max demanded.

"Uh, no," Steve said.

"I know a good lawyer." Max insisted, and Steve looked back at her, awestruck as she simply stared him down.

Steve shook his head with a sigh, grabbing his keys from the pocket of his jacket and moving to unlock the car. "Henderson," he said sharply, "that super walkie of yours better reach Pennhurst."

He unlocked the car, and Lily slipped into the middle seat in the back, next to Lucas, as Dustin slid into his usual seat in the front next to Steve. She looked back up as Max hesitated outside the car, her attention pulled to something in the distance as Lily's eyebrows furrowed together slightly in concern.

"Max," Lily spoke up, grabbing her sister's attention. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Max said quickly, shaking her head as she got in the car and slammed the door shut, the engine roaring to life as Steve turned the key in the ignition. "Steve, just drive."

"Where to?" he asked, his eyes finding Max in the rearview mirror.

"Our place," she said, and he nodded, peeling out of the subdivision and onto the main road.

Lily watched as Hawkins passed by in a blur, with Steve speeding down the main roads in order to get to Forest Hills Trailer Park as quickly as possible. The quicker he fulfilled Max's wishes, the quicker he thought they'd be able to return to the Wheelers'. They pulled up in front of the mobile home, the brakes squealing against the gravel, and Steve put the car into park, quickly looking back at Max.

"This better be fast, Mayfield." he said, and she nodded, pushing the door open.

"Twenty seconds," she said, jumping out of the car.

"I'll be back, too." Lily told Steve. "I just want to change really quick."

Steve sighed, nodding as Lily ran after Max into the house. As Max began to lay a pile of letters down on the table, Lily quickly moved into the bedroom, pulling open the closet and beginning to peel off the clothes she'd been wearing the past two days and swapping them for a plain gray shirt and a flannel, along with a different pair of jeans. She reached into the back pocket of her old pair of jeans, pulling out the letters Max had written for her and Eddie and placing them on top of the dresser for safekeeping. If the time came that she'd need to read her letter, she'd deal with it then, but for now, she couldn't bear the weight of carrying them around in her pocket any longer.

Lily slipped her shoes back on, looking out the window to where Eddie's trailer sat across the small field of grass, still covered in police tape, though the emergency vehicles that had surrounded the place the last time she'd seen it were nowhere to be found. She forced her eyes away from the trailer, heading back outside to the car, though where she was expecting to see Max already waiting in the backseat, instead she saw the three boys waiting outside the vehicle for them, with her sister nowhere to be found.

"Where's Max?" Steve asked. "That's a lot longer than twenty seconds."

"She's not out here?" Lily asked, and the boys shook their heads as her gaze moved back to the mobile home. "She wasn't inside, I thought she came back already."

As they made to move back towards the house, Max came storming from the backyard, looking visibly shaken as she held tight to the strap of her backpack. Her panicked eyes met Lily's, and Lily could see how uneven her breathing was as she crossed the front yard to reach the others waiting by the car.

"Max, what happened?" Lily asked, crossing her arms over her chest. "Where'd you go?"

"That was longer than twenty seconds." Steve said, but his face quickly fell as he took in the expression on Max's face. "Hey, whoa whoa whoa, are you alright?"

"I'm fine, just drive." Max said, not waiting for Lily to get in the car before she climbed into the middle seat, and Lily and Dustin briefly exchanged a worried glance before she climbed into the backseat after her.

"Did something happen?" Lucas asked.

"Can we please just go?" Max asked, her eyes trained on the floor as Steve backed the car out and away from the mobile home.

"Where to now?" he asked as they reached the end of the trailer park.

"Turn right," Max simply said, and Steve sighed before turning the car in her chosen direction, a silence settling among the group as he drove through the outskirts of Hawkins.

"Hey," Lily spoke up softly, turning to Max and breaking the silence. "Do you remember that time you first tried to teach me how to skateboard? When you were seven and I was ten?" Where she expected Max to ignore her, instead her sister nodded, looking back up at her. "I couldn't figure out how to stop the board, and I went rolling down the hill into that duck pond."

Max smirked softly, the corners of her mouth faintly turning up. "And then you got chased by that goose." she said, her voice quiet.

Lily chuckled as the sisters recounted the memory, reaching out and taking Max's hand and giving it a soft squeeze. Max nodded back at Lily before her eyes moved back to the window. It wasn't much, just a silly memory from childhood, but she could feel the tension between them diffusing, if at least only a little. "Turn here," she said to Steve, causing Dustin to look back at her in confusion.

"Here?" he asked, and she nodded before reaching into her backpack and removing one final envelope.

Steve turned into the entrance of the Roane Hill Cemetery as Lily caught sight of Billy's name scrawled across the envelope, causing a nervous pit to form in her stomach as she realized what Max was doing. Lily hadn't been back to visit Billy's grave in months, but Steve knew the way, putting the car into park as the familiar headstone came into view at the top of the hill.

"Do you want me to go up with you?" Lily asked as she got out of the car, Max climbing out after her and slightly shaking her head.

"No, it's okay." Max assured her. "I need to do this on my own."