WILDFIRE ↝ E. MUNSON

[17]

Lily awoke to the feeling of twigs and dead leaves as her cheek lay pressed against the earth. Her eyes peeled open to the bleak morning light, partially shielded by Skull Rock as she slowly pulled herself up into a sitting position. She looked around, expecting Eddie to still be asleep, but instead he was nowhere to be found, leaving her alone under the rock formation.

She shot out from under the rock and up to her feet as the events of the night before came rushing back; Jason, Patrick, and Andy arriving at Reefer Rick's house, hiding out in the boathouse until nightfall when she and Eddie made their escape, and Patrick's lifeless body hovering above the water right before Vecna murdered him. Lily looked around, trying to catch a glimpse of some sort of sign of Eddie's whereabouts, but she came up short, the realization settling in that she was alone.

"Eddie?" Lily's voice came out soft, barely more than a whisper in case anybody was lurking nearby, her breathing starting to get more and more rapid as she was only met with silence in response.

She knew Eddie would never leave her behind, not after everything they'd been through in the past few days. Sure, they'd gotten off to a rocky start, but after the events of the past weekend, he'd make her run away before he'd ever leave her without a word. So either he was somewhere nearby, or they were in some serious trouble.

"Eddie?" Lily called out again, a little louder. "Are you there? Eddie?"

Lily began to step back, surveying the scene around her and searching for any sign of life when she backed into a tall figure, turning around with a startled yelp to reveal Eddie standing behind her.

"Whoa, hey," he said, holding his hands up in surrender. "It's okay, it's just me."

"You asshole, you scared me!" Lily scolded him. "Where'd you go?"

"Sorry," he chuckled softly, and only then did Lily's eyes land on the walkie talkie that lay in his right hand. "I didn't want to wake you, but I wanted to see if there was anything nearby that we could use to get a hold of the others. I found a construction site, and one of the workers left his belt just sitting there, so I figured we could use some new equipment."

"And it works?" Lily stepped forward, taking the device from his hands as she turned the dial slightly, hearing it crackle to life.

"Yeah, should work just fine." he assured her, grabbing the walkie talkie back from her and turning the channel to match their party's.

While fiddling with the walkie talkie, Eddie took a seat again under the rocks, and Lily followed suit. She sat down facing him, both of them sitting in silence except for the occasional crackle of the device.

"Alright, here goes nothing." Eddie murmured, pressing the button for the walkie to go over the air. "Dustin, can you hear me, Wheeler?"

Lily crossed her fingers as they both stared at the walkie expectantly, though where they'd only been met by radio silence the day before, it now crackled back to life. "Eddie, holy shit, are you guys okay?" Dustin's voice came through the speaker, worry lacing the boy's tone as they both sighed in relief.

"Nah man," Eddie chuckled humorlessly, shaking his head, and Lily pulled her knees to her chest, resting her chin on top of them as she leaned back against the rock. "Pretty goddamn far from okay."

"Where are you?" Dustin's voice came through again. "Is Lily still with you?"

"Yeah, she's here, but we're not doing so great." Eddie said. "We're at Skull Rock. Do you know it?"

"Uh, yeah," Dustin assured them. "That's near Cornwallis and-"

"Garrett, yeah," Steve's voice came over the speaker, cutting off Dustin. "I know where that is."