"I have to go,too," I spoke up, my voice barely above a whisper. "My mom's waiting for me." It was only half the truth.
I went around the circle, giving each of my friends a tight hug, saving Ben for last. I tried desperately to keep the tears from...
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•°Corinne's POV°•
Knowing Bowers was hunting us, especially when we were alone, we had a terrible feeling about who his next target might be. After hastily patching up Eddie's gruesome cheek wound, we moved as a unit, our fear propelling us toward the library.
We burst through the heavy doors, our breath coming in ragged gasps, and were met with a scene straight from a nightmare. Richie was on his knees, violently throwing up into a trash can. Mike was slumped on the floor nearby, clutching a bleeding arm. And lying between them, eyes wide and unseeing, was Henry Bowers. Dead.
"Hey."
"Hey. Oh, my god."
"Are you all right?" Ben asked, rushing toward Mike. "No,I'm not all right," Richie choked out, wiping his mouth. "I just fucking killed a guy."
"Richie, he was talking to Mike," I pointed out gently, though my own stomach was churning.
But Mike seemed oblivious to his own injury. "Where's Bill?" he demanded, his voice tight with pain and panic.
Ben immediately knelt to tend to Mike's arm, using a ripped piece of cloth from his own shirt as a makeshift bandage. Mike fumbled for his phone and dialed Bill.
"Bill, we're all at the library. Where are you at?" Mike asked the moment the call connected.
Whatever Bill said on the other end made Mike shoot to his feet, his face pale. "No, no, no, no, no. Just, just... Look, just come here to the library. We can talk about the plan," Mike pleaded. We all watched him, our collective anxiety spiking. "No, no, no. Bill! Bill!" Mike yelled into the phone, but it was useless. The line was dead.
He turned to us, the truth dawning on his face. "He's going to fight it alone."
"What?"
"Alone? It's about the group. The ritual doesn't work without the group. Doing it together is why it'd work," Mike insisted, his voice frantic. He noticed Richie staring at a strange, ancient Native American artifact on a nearby table and quickly snatched it away.
"Mike, did he tell you where he was going?" Ben asked, his voice steady despite the chaos.
But it was Beverly who answered, her voice certain. "If he really wanted to kill Pennywise, there's only one place he'll go."
"The same place the ritual needs to be performed," Mike confirmed, his shoulders slumping.
A heavy silence fell over us. Eddie, who had been quiet, stared at the floor, his arms crossed tightly over his chest. "Oh, we're not gonna like this, are we?"
Ben's eyes met mine, and I saw my own dread reflected in them. "Fuck," he muttered, the word heavy with resignation.
We found Bill on the rotting porch of the house on Neibolt Street, a solitary figure against the decaying wood.
"Bill!" Beverly called out.
He turned, his face a mask of grim determination and guilt. "No, no, you guys, no! I-I started all this. It's my fault that you're all here. This curse, this fucking thing that's inside you all... it started growing the day that I made you go down to the Barrens, because all I cared about was finding G-georgie." His voice broke. "Now, I'm gonna go in there, and I don't know what's gonna happen, but I can't ask you to do this."
Beverly didn't say a word. She simply walked over to a rusted fence, yanked a pointed spike loose, and hefted it in her hand. She turned to Bill, her expression fierce.
"Well, we're not asking you, either," she said.
"Bev..."
"We didn't do it alone then, Bill," Mike stated, stepping forward. "So we're not gonna do this alone now."
"Losers stick together," Ben added, his voice firm. His words hung in the air, a vow that solidified our resolve. We were terrified, but we were together.
"So," Eddie said, breaking the solemn silence that followed. "Does somebody want to say something?"
Bill managed a weak, sad smile. "Richie said it best when we were here last."
"I did?" Richie asked, bewildered. "'I don't want to die'?"
"Not that."
"'You're lucky we're not measuring dicks'?"
"No." Richie's eyes lit up with realization."'Let's kill this fucking clown'?"
Bill answered him with a single, decisive nod and a breath of laughter that held no joy, only a fierce, final agreement.
Richie stood up straighter, the fear in his eyes replaced by a hardened, shared purpose. He looked at each of us, then back at the house that held our nightmares.
"Let's kill this fucking clown," he repeated, and this time, it wasn't a question. It was a promise.
