Jailbird || Stranger Things

forty-six ➵ code breakers

 The week is long. The silver cat feeds when blue meets yellow in the west. A trip to China sounds nice if you tread lightly.

    "Tread lightly?" Robin mumbled, tapping her pen against the paper, looking over her notes down the page of Reese's notepad and then picking up the dictionary to check her translation. "Tread lightly..."

    A knock on the staff door shook her out of her thoughts, and with a last sip of her soda, she climbed through the window, hopping down from the counter to answer it.

    "Delivery for you."

    "Thank you," she signed where prompted, her eyes suddenly catching on his uniform. Lynx Transportation.

    "Have a nice day."

    "Yeah you too."

    The delivery man turned to walk down the corridor. At the sight of the embroidery on the back of his shirt, Robin remained in a daze, watching the grey animal get further away.

    "Silver cat."

    With her thoughts surging, she turned and shut the door behind her, picking up the notepad. Frantic turns of the page accompanied her muttering, repeating phrases as she walked through the shop to the front desk. "Silver cat."

    "You're not gonna believe who Dustin thought was a Russian," Steve and Dustin walked through the fort of the shop, unaware of Robin's chaotic thinking.

    "You did too."

    "No, I did not."

    "Yes, you did."

    "No, I did not."

    The boys' arguing was cut short by Robin pushing through between them, running to the middle of the food court. Her eyes kept following the signs, muttering still.

    "A trip to China sounds nice. A trip to China sounds nice. A trip to China sounds nice. A trip to China sounds nice," her eyes caught onto the neons of Imperial Panda, "A trip to China sounds nice!" Then came the next line, "If you tread lightly," she read from the page, once again searching for the corresponding store... "If you tread If you tread—" Kaufman Shoes. "If you tread lightly!" she turned again, not even needing the pad to remember, "When—When blue and yellow meet in the west," she recited, searching again, The clock. The blue and yellow hands of the clock! "When blue meets yellow in the west."

    "Robin."

    Steve's voice shook her out of her daze, attracting her attention as she smiled in triumph.

    "What are you doing?" Steve asked.

    "I cracked it."

    "Cracked what?"

    "I cracked the code."

────── 

"Turn every shower on," Teresa waved Max towards the cubicles, opening the couple of curtains that she could. As the girl set off, she led El to the floor by a bench, and pulled out a roll of duct tape from her bag that usually stayed in her car. "Take a seat," she nodded for her sister, and reached for the goggles hung up on a nail in the wall.

"Are you sure—"

"Max, just— Not right now, I'm sorry. Give me a minute and I'll start thinking," she spoke, tearing off pieces of duct tape and handing it to El to stick over the goggles.

"Okay, they're on," Max came over, watching as El put the photo of Heather in front of her on the floor.

"You guys spied on the boys yesterday?" Reese turned to her, taking a seat on the bench on El's other side.