broken hearts club! • bill denbrough

eleven.

"the greatest teacher will send you back to yourself."

It was just a day after they found and saved Mike from Henry when Logan received the phone call.

She'd been awake since what she assumed was four in the morning, when the guest sleeping on the floor woke nearly every girl in the house, screaming in her sleep. Even the girls still wide awake outside came rushing in to see if she was okay.

Guinevere had been crying hysterically when Logan pulled her down to the dark, empty living room and shooed everyone back to sleep as she let her friend cry on her shoulder.

"Do you wanna talk about it?" Logan stroked the mop of brunette hair on her shoulder, hearing only slight hiccups now.

"The- the clown." Guinevere shook her head and shivered, as if the very thought of that damn clown frightened her, a feeling which Logan knew all too well. It scared them both to death, one of them was just a little better at hiding it.

She walked into her house, looking for her bag so she could grab it as soon as possible and the hell out of that house to go stay with Richie. She'd wanted to get away from there since she was six years old.

She had expected to walk in on her drunk father laying on his chair alone, Henry nowhere to be seen. She would have preferred that. Instead, she walked in through his front door and saw the same clown she'd seen in the pharmacy bathroom, holding her best friend in a chokehold with It's razor sharp fingernail held to his neck.

"This can't be real." She shook her head and thought back to what she'd shoved in the side of her jeans moments before she made the decision to leave. Her father kept a gun in his safe when he didn't need it. However, she knew the password (always her mother's birthday, even after she left them) and grabbed it just in case.

"Right on time, Vere." The clown turned around and giggled at her, it's nail becoming even sharper around Richie's neck as she slowly stepped closer to examine that this was, in fact, real. "Best friends do everything together!! They laugh together, they live together, they die together." It's voice was enthusiastic and even slightly comforting up until the end. The voice became deep and scary, even demonic.

"Guin, go." Richie, surprisingly to Guinevere, was very calm. He sat still under the clown's grasp and even gave his friend a sympathetic smile. "You don't need to do anything stupid. That's my job."

"Not so fast, Richie." The clown waved it's finger, staring Guinevere down as she stepped closer. There was no way in hell she was leaving him. "You first, then the girl." It's finger got longer and sharper by the second, getting closer and closer to Richie's throat.

"No, no, no! Please, don't hurt him! Take- just take me. I don't know what I'd do without him." She used her hands to cover her face before realizing that she had a gun tucked under her shirt. She pulled it out and aimed it at the clown. She was not worried about hitting Richie, as she was taught from a young age to shoot and run. "Just take me and let him go and you'll both walk out of here okay."

"That's not how it works, girl." It laughed before it's nail quickly turned sharp as a knife, now touching and pushing into Richie's throat, a slight smile on the boy's face that confused Guinevere.