𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐲 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐞 // 𝐞𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐞 𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐱 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

10

I sit up and my back feels like it's knotted. It's definitely from sleeping on this shitty pallet. I rub my eyes and take a deep breath. I look beside me and Eddie is gone. what? I stir up in a panic.
"Eddie?" I say listening for a response. I can hear nothing but the sound of small waves of water coming from the lake.
"Eddie!" I insisted this time lifting what seemed to be more tarps and junk.
I start running around the boathouse looking for any sign of this boy.
Frantically, I run past and see a mop of black hair outside the window leading towards the pier. I quietly open the door.

It seems like Eddie is just staring at the water. I quietly approach him and tap him on the shoulder.
"What ya doing?" I see and I peek over at what he's looking at.
"Is that my book?" I said kind of upset that he had went through my stuff.
"No.. um yes it is." He says placing it down on the dock.

"Im sorry y/n, I was just thinking.. if I ever was able to go back to Hawkins and graduate after all of this dies down, I want to at least do it right this time." He said. I could tell he was being genuine.
"Well.. how do you like it?" I said taking a seat next to him.
"Of course you're reading a classic. The classics bore me so bad." He said rolling his eyes.

"It's Romeo and Juliet, how can you not like it?" I say snatching the book and laughing. "too much advanced English. I barely know my ABCs." He jokingly said. "Where for are thou, my ability to write a decent essay?" Eddie said as if he was playing out an act like true Shakespeare. I snickered.

"Well maybe you can read it to me and I'll help you through it."
We moved up on the dock to where a hammock was and he helped me into it.
He took a seat across from me on the bench. I watched as he opened the book and began to read. I listened to him for a while, zoning in and out between the sound of his voice moving along the pages and the rippling water.

"Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs.
Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;
Being vex'd a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears." He stops.

I look up at him.
"What happened?" He looks at me with a look of disgust.
"This is cheesy." He says pointing at the book.
"Of course it's cheesy, it's a romance novel written in like prehistoric times!"
I said, feeling the hammock sway back and forth.

"It doesn't even make sense to me." Eddie said slowly marking the page and closing the book.
"Eddie..." I was kind of disappointed that he wanted to give up.
"Look, let's make a deal." I said now sitting up in the hammock. I had his full attention.
"If you at least finish my book, We will read any book of your choice and we will complete the project on that book." He looks at me kind of excited that he could offer his novel selections.

I could just imagine what kind of ideas were going through his head. He would probably want us to write our novel on one of the books from the Goosebumps series or something weird like that.

"Okay.. deal." Eddie says extending his hand out to me. I take it and he shakes it softly. "But... not today." He said setting my book down on the bench and standing up. "This might be one of my last days as a free man, and no offense but I don't wanna spend my last free moments doing something that I don't really enjoy doing." He says as he paces the dock.

"Fair enough, you'll have plenty of time to read in a jail cell." I snickered and grabbed the edges of the hammock.
"Not funny y/n." He says waving his finger at me but smiling.
"It was funny to me." I said as I rock myself back and forth.

"Where do you think they are?" Eddie asked out of nowhere.
"Who?" I asked, genuinely confused on who he was referring to, still rocking myself in the swing.
"Um, Dustin and his friends." He says skipping a rock into the water.
I had forgotten about them, I had felt so at peace with Eddie it felt like the rest of the world had disappeared.

"Oh, I don't know." I said, kind of disappointed that he would bring up the fact that we had been left alone together, going on 12 hours now.
"I'm sorry Eddie." Sometimes I feel like when I do spend time with people I get annoying and I don't mean to be. I think he could tell how his response made me feel because he began to reassure me.

"There's nothing to be sorry for... I'm just hungry." He said letting out a chuckle. "Don't you dare think I'm getting sick of your company."
He said pointing his finger at me again with a smile.
We sat there together for a few more minutes before we heard the sound of gravel crunching in the front yard.

"Shit." He looked at me and quickly helped me out of the hammock. We both stumbled up the steps trying to get inside to see who it is. As we run in, I notice Eddie grab a knife that had been laying on the desk, he runs up to the window panting. "Shit... oh shit." He takes a pauses and lets out a huff after not seeing anyone outside. He begins to regain himself. He turns to give me a smile just as the door is opened with a loud bang. "Jesus!" Eddie said throwing me behind him with his arm and holding his knife in front of him.

I look around Eddie to see Dustin, Max, Steve, and Robin standing there with several market bags.
"Delivery service!" Dustin smiles at us.
Eddie lets out a long sigh of relief and lowers his weapon. He takes a second and looks back at the group. Steve waves and I giggled behind him.
The boys bursted the bags open and Eddie was at them like a starved animal.

"y'all got Yoo-hoos! Y/n they got Yoo-hoos!" I watch as Eddie rummaged through the bags. It reminded me of a child opening their Christmas presents.
He pulls a few things out of the bags and brings them over to me.
"Okay so here's your own Yoo-hoo. A bag of beef jerky. Anddd a banana." Eddie says handing me several different items.
Somehow they had gotten all of my favorites. Max probably took note of the things I kept in the kitchen. "Thank you guys." I said honestly happy to have something to eat.

"Okay, now it's time to talk." Dustin says clapping his hands together.
"So, we've got some good news and some bad news. How do you prefer it?"
Dustin asks watching us devour the food we were given.
"Bad news first, always." Eddie manages to say between mouthfuls of honey combs.
"Alright, bad news... we tapped into the  Hawkins PD dispatch with our Cerebro, and they are definitely looking for you." Eddie gives him a glare of disappointment.
"Also.. they're pretty convinced you killed Chrissy." Dustin adds.
"Like 100% kind of convinced." Max says, not making it any better.

Eddie sighs.

"And the good news?" He says running his hands along his legs anxiously.
"Your name hasn't gone public yet.." Robin chimes in. "But if we found out about you, it's only a matter of time before the others do." His gaze meets the floor. "And once that gets out, everyone and their shallow-minded mother is gonna be gunning for you." He looks down again for a second.

"Hunt the freak, right?" He says asking Robin.
"Exactly." She says. I hear him mutter curses under his breath.
"So, before that happens, we need to find Vecna, kill him and prove your innocence." Dustin says as if it was a simple chore list.
"That's all, Dustin? That's all?" Eddie says in a snarky tone.
"Yeah no, that's pretty much it." He says not really picking up on Eddie's sarcasm. Eddie scoffs.
"Listen Eddie, i know everything Dustin is saying sounds totally delusional, but we've actually been through this before." Robin tries to lighten the mood.
"Well, they have a few times.. and I have once. Mine was more human-flesh based, theirs was more smoke related, but bottom line is, collectively, I really feel we got this." Robin may not be the best at making light of a situation but she at least brought some comfort to Eddie and I.
"We usually rely on this girl who has superpowers. But uh those went bye bye." Steve chimes in. They all start mumbling about how she doesn't really have her powers anymore and their kind of just brainstorming at this point.
"There's nothing to worry about." Dustin interrupts the rest of the chatter.
Steve lets out a lighthearted laugh. I just watched as Eddie gave him a shocked look.

Seconds later, we hear a squad of sirens outside.
"Shit.." steve mutters.
"Tarp. Get under the tarp." Robin points and Eddie ducks into the boat and hides under the thin blue sheet. We ran to the windows as we heard the sirens getting louder.  Thankfully they drove right past us.