GONE GIRL » Billy Hargrove

0.17 » waiting

The next two hours felt like an awful blur to me. We walked down to the Lab where we encountered Nancy and Jonathan.
After we managed to get inside the vicinity I only saw Mike and Will as well as Hopper outside already.

Steve grabbed my arm and ran over to a van, asking me to hotwire it since he knew I could do that. Looking back at the others and remembering the demogorgons I snatched the bat from Steve and smashed it into the cars window, opening the vehicle from the inside. Hotwiring would have taken up too much time.

We drove over to the Byers' house as fast as we could and barricaded the doors as safely as possible. After tracing around for a while I sat down on the couch, Loki trailing up next to me as Nancy looked at me out of the corner of her eye.

"Hey what happened to your face?"

Shit. The makeup must've come off.

"It's nothing to worry about," I insisted and began patting Lokis back, signalling her that the conversation was over. As per usual, she didn't understand.

"Luce, you have an actual back eye and cuts all over your face. Don't tell me it's nothing." - "Well then let me rephrase it: It is none of your business."

She let out an indefinable scoff before getting up again to walk over to Jonathan. Were we just going to play the waiting game now? Probably.

I was quite good at that.

I resumed observing the others a bit, until it slowly started to get uncomfortable and I looked down on my hands that were folded in my lap. The cuts were starting to heal whereas some had started bleeding again and I cursed myself for not putting on any band aids. With a sigh I got up from the couch, Loki winced and I walked over to Jonathan who was kneeling next to Will.
"Do you guys happen to have any band aids?" I asked quietly and he nodded, telling me where I could find the first aid kit.

Trying be as quiet as possible I practically tip toed over to the bathroom, got the first aid kit and washed my hands, staring at my own reflection in the mirror.

"You will not disobey me."

My father appeared behind me for a split second and disappeared just as quickly.

"You will do as I say."

I felt tears welling up in my eyes as I turned the tap over so that the water would become even colder than it already was. My body started to tremble unstoppably.

"Either you come back home with me, or it all ends right here and now."

I splashed a handful of ice cold water into my face and felt a shiver running down my spine. I closed my eyes and pressed my cold hands to my face, sitting down on the rim of the bathtub.

"It's gonna be okay. The APB has been sent out. We have a good lawyer. They're gonna find him. It's gonna be okay," I kept repeating to myself as a mantra, taking deep breaths.

Someone knocked at the door and I jumped, almost stumbling over my own feet.

"Luce? Everything okay in there?" Steve asked and I swallowed the lump that had formed in my throat.
"Yeah!" I replied, my voice giving up on me. He opened the door and kneeled down in front of me.

"What's wrong?" The door closed behind him and he took my hand in his. "I told you to stay at home."

I shook my head. "I know, I know you did. But ... I needed to do something, I couldn't just sit around and wait and drown in memories. I just let it get to me for a second, that's all," I insisted, rubbing my cheeks to wipe away the tears.

"You know you can't keep bottling everything up like this, don't you?" Nodding I placed my free hand on top of his and forced a smile.

He got back up, opened the first aid kit and began patching up my hands. "How'd that happen anyway?" - "I broke a vase." - "Of course you did."

Steve smiled at me as he finished off the last bit, putting an arm around my shoulders. "You're gonna be okay, Luce, and I'm always gonna be here for you. Don't you ever forget that."

I got up and put the first aid kit back into the cabinet, then turned around to look at my best friend.

"This sucks." - "Huh?" - "All of this. I dunno it feels like the universe doesn't want us to finally get some rest."

Steve sighed and pulled me into his arms.
"Look, yes everything does suck right now, I won't even try to deny this. But things will be okay at some point, and we should hold on until then, no matter what."

Nuzzling my face into his chest I wrapped my arms around his waist and hummed in response. "I hope so."

∞

I retreated to my place on the couch next to Loki who climbed over my lap just to lie down on the other side, staying awake and seemingly alert.

"So are you and Lucy like together?" Dustin asked and Steve slapped his forehead a bit too hard.

"We're not," I said, chuckling and the boy furrowed his brows.

"Didn't look like it though," He insisted and I sighed, not even asking how he had seen us. Probably opened the door and neither of us really took notice of it.

"Look, Dustin, boys and girls can be just friends as well, you know?" Steve nodded in agreement. "Friends like all of you guys, it's not that complicated." We looked at each other for a second, and I was almost 100% positive we both thought about how ridiculously ironic this statement seemed at the current time.

Suddenly the phone began to ring and we all jumped, Nancy ran over and picked up, placing it back in the handle to hang up again. It kept ringing.

In the matter of seconds she pulled out the entire phone along with the cables from the wall and smashed it into the ground, silencing it once and for all.

We all stood there, staring down at the floor for a few moments, only to move back to the living room and grab a weapon each.

This was going to be a long night...

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A/N: I hope you guys enjoyed the new chapter and are enjoying the story in general so far!♡
I'm gonna have a bit more time for writing now that I officially graduated high school and my college application is pending hehe 🤗 The next few chapters are altogether probably going to be rather intense but I mean stranger things is intense itself so~ 😅
again, thanks for reading and I hope you're having a good week 💕