In My Blood

Episode 9 - Truth Time

   "This is so exciting!" Diana exclaimed as she helped me with the makeshift bed on her bedroom floor. Charity sat on the girl's bed, her eyes narrowed while she looked through the files on Hawkins Lab I had given her. "It's like a mystery slumber party!"

"Only we're dealing with actual mysteries, not those fake ones," the blonde girl hummed, crossing her left leg over her right. Her short baby pink nightgown came right above her knees, matching the scrunchie holding her hair in a low ponytail. "'Project MKUltra.' How did you even get this?"

"I found it at my house," I told her honestly, adjusting my blue pajama shorts as I sat down on the floor. Diana sat between the two of us, her dark hair in two low pigtails that ended a few inches below the collar of her polka-dotted pajama set. "It seems everyone is curious about the scientists and the lab."

"Where were you today?" Diana asked me curiously. "Your bike was at school but I never saw you. You had us really worried." I contemplated whether or not to try and come up with a lie, fidgeting under Charity's gaze, but there was no point. If Nancy and Jonathan achieved what they wanted to do, which I had full faith in them doing, a lot was going to spill about last year's events. If I could keep a few friends before the truth would be revealed, it was the best way to go. Besides, they didn't need to know everything.

"You two won't believe me if I tell you," I gave them a warning, and Charity smirked. She leaned forward with a mischievous look, her and Diana exchanging a glance of excitement.

"Try me," the blonde encouraged me, and I smiled softly as I adjusted my sitting position. Diana's eyes were wide, her fists clenched tight as she waited for me to spill.

"Remember when everyone thought Will Byers was dead, we buried a dummy?" I said, and they both nodded. "Morgue papers were signed off by the Hawkins Lab. I went there with Nancy Wheeler and Jonathan Byers."

Both girls gasped at the same time, jaws dropping. "No way," Charity tried to call my bluff, shaking her head. I shrugged with a cheeky grin. "You're not serious!"

"Swear my life on a Bible," I told the two of them.

"How did that even work?" Diana asked me. "Did you just drive up there? How did you even know where it was?"

"No, we didn't, and it's in the middle of the woods," I explained. "Nancy and I used to be good friends with Barb; we both knew she wouldn't just run away. That's what started her search last year, and shit went down. What was the excuse for Will Byers being missing?"

"They said he got lost in the woods for a week," my brunette friend answered, and I shook my head.

"No, he wasn't," I told her. "He was taken to this other dimension-like place, and that's where Barb went, except he was the only one who made it back alive. The lab is responsible for all of it. The three of us were going to tell the Hollands the truth, but these scientists literally kidnapped us and brought us to the lab. Deep inside is this massive wall that looks exactly like that dimension, and I think... I think it was like a portal of some kind! Hawkins is connected somehow, and the government's trying to hide-"