Really? ||Steve Harrington x Female Reader||

Holly, Jolly: Pt. 2

"Barb!"

My voice was hoarse from screaming the past hour. I'd combed through these woods at least twice, yet there was still no sign of Barb. No trodden down bushes, no clothing articles, heck, there weren't any footprints, either! That was definitely the weirdest part. I couldn't find any footprints from Barb, but I couldn't find any from that weird monster, either. I mean, I would've expected that to leave something behind, but nothing was out of the ordinary.

Maybe I really was drunk, and my trauma did something to distort my vision. Hopefully that's what happened, and Barb was just hiding. Still, I continued to search.

"Barb?" a familiar voice called.

Look who decides to show up, I bitterly thought. I walked towards the source, finding Nancy aimlessly wondering around near Steve's pool.

"Barb!" she called.

"Nancy!"

Nancy turned to me, her expression almost hopeful. Her face fell when she realized it was me.

"No, it's not Barb," I snapped.

"I see that. Have you found anything?"

"No," I sighed, walking alongside Nancy. "There aren't even any footprints."

"I found her car where it was last night, but there was no sign of her there."

Something rustled behind me, breaking up our conversation. I whipped my head back and stared, trying to find what had caused it. Anxiety crept into my chest as I thought about that thing last night.

"You heard that too, right?" Nancy whispered. I nodded.

In the corner of my vision, I caught something long and gray sprinting past us. My head snapped towards it, instantly recognizing it.

I didn't even say anything to Nancy. Instead, I grabbed her hand and ran, trying to put as much space between us and that monster as possible.

"Y/n! Y/n, stop!" Nancy yelled. I ignored her, and continued to run.

"Y/n!" She twisted her hand out of my grasp and stopped, causing me to stop, too.

"Nancy, we have to get away from here!" I gasped, quickly catching my breath.

"What was that thing?"

I glanced up at Nancy, my hands planted on my knees with my chest heaving. "I- I don't know."

"You're not telling me something," she stated, her arms folded across her chest. How was she not out of air?

"You're right," I admitted. "I'm didn't tell you everything because I didn't know if I was seeing things right. But after seeing that alien, everything makes sense." I recounted the story of what happened, how that monster had confronted me on Steve's porch but didn't follow me. When I was done, Nancy didn't appear skeptical.

"So you think that thing has something to do with Barb's disappearance?"

I nodded, "I'm almost positive. And, I think it has something to do with Will, too."

"How do we know we aren't just seeing things? Like, what if that was just an albino deer?"

"Nancy, I've seen that same thing twice now. I don't think my eyesight would deceive me twice. Plus, you saw it too."

Nancy sighed, "Yeah, I guess."

My mind suddenly got an idea. I pulled out the photos Tommy had given me, specifically the one I saw before.  I ignored my frozen figure and glanced at the background, searching for anything out of place.