Risky Business ｡ Stranger Things

34 : Fool for Love

Burnt coffee stung the air and cigarette smoke followed. The police station wasn't busy and there was a lot of morning chatter about last night's game floating through the doorway of Chief Hopper's disorganised office. Prue and Grey had arrived before eight that morning but the good Chief had yet to arrive for work.

"What game are they talking about? Football?" Grey asked, leaning over the arm of his chair towards Prue, who was sitting in the opposite chair, bouncing her leg with impatience.

"How should I know?" she nipped back, her voice thin as she kept eyeing the doorway, hoping it would fill with the man's burly appearance. The sound of Neil Hargrove's belt making contact with Billy's skin still echoed in her ears from last night. The gross sound had even found a way into her nightmares.

Grey blew air out from his cheeks, bored. "I'm gonna be late meeting the party at the pool," he expressed, picking up the office items that cluttered Hopper's desk. Grey was already in his swimmers, ready for his big day at the community pool, while Prue was wearing a summer dress with her dirty canvas sneakers. 

"The girls will wait," Prue replied, her knees bouncing now as she cast another anxious look over her shoulder. Still no Hopper. With Mission Strange tickling at the back of her mind, she turned back to Grey. "Remember when I told you about Dad being down in the basement?"

Grey frowned, dropping a paperweight back down onto the desk. "What did you do?"

Prue leaned forward, dropping her voice. "I went down there and found all his research on the Upside Down," she informed her baby brother.

His eyes popped wide. "You picked the lock?"

"That's what you took from that?" She shook her head in astonishment but continued. "With the research and the mysterious phone call I overhead, I went to the library—"

"You went to the library without me? You know I have overdue books that need returning!" he huffed out, throwing his hands up.

She shushed her brother. "Just listen to me, geez! I found out that Dad has been communicating with another lab in Morgantown, West Virginia."

"But Dad's on sabbatical," Grey butted in, his eyebrows wrinkling together.

"And that's not even the strangest part. I found an article saying that the lab is making experimental materials for extreme environments," she said.

"Like the desert or the moon?" he mused out, mind figuring out the puzzle, turning the pieces around and around till they slotted together.

"Or?" she prompted her brother further.

His eyes snapped even wider. "The Upside Down!" Further down the hall of the station, a door clambered open and the clicking of the elderly receptionist's kitten heels pitter-padded: Hopper was here.

"We'll finish this conversation later," she whispered to Grey as a shadow fell over the office, followed by a gruntle groan.

"It's way too early for this," he greeted the Owens siblings in a gruff voice, drinking deep from a steamy mug of coffee. He rounded the desk, flopping down into his roller chair, barely squeezing his hulking frame into it. "Please tell me you've lost your dog or something," he said, tired eyes swapping between the two siblings.

"We don't have a dog," Grey offered up before Prue cut in quickly.

"We do want your help though. The police kind of help. Someone I know is getting abused by his father and—"

Hopper rested his elbows on the desk. "Who's the kid?" he demanded to know.

"Billy Hargrove and possibly his little sister," Prue explained. "They live on Old Cherry Road and we were over there last night for dinner and—"