WILDFIRE ↝ E. MUNSON [1]

[26]

Lily watched out the window of the Winnebago as they passed the end of Hawkins city limits, trees rushing by in a blur as Steve drove the RV further and further from town. She leaned back against Eddie's shoulder in an attempt to get comfortable as he wrapped an arm around her, only faintly listening to the conversation between him, Debbie, and Nancy as her eyes grew heavier and she fought to stay awake, exhaustion seeping in after hardly sleeping the night before.

"Okay so guns, obviously," Nancy was saying, scribbling a list down on a notepad she'd found in one of the drawers along with a pen as Debbie and Eddie nodded in agreement. "Ammunition, hunting knives..."

As Nancy continued her list, Lily let her eyes fall shut for a moment too long, only to quickly open them to see Eddie looking down on her with a sly grin. "You can go to sleep, you know." he murmured to her while Debbie and Nancy continued to converse, though Lily was no longer paying attention to anything they were saying.

"I'm fine," she insisted, shaking her head. "I don't need to sleep."

"Robin's asleep," he pointed out, gesturing to where the younger Buckley girl leaned against the wall of the RV with her eyes closed, and he brought a hand up to play with her hair again. "You should, too. Get some sleep, Mayfield. You'll feel better."

"I'm fine," she insisted.

"Sleep," he said again, briefly moving his hand from her hair to cover her eyes as she sighed in defeat.

Lily shut her eyes, too exhausted to respond as she finally let herself relax against him, and his hands returned to playing with her hair as she drifted off. She wasn't sure how much time had passed when she opened them again to see Steve pulling the Winnebago off onto the side of the road, having been woken up by the shift in terrain of the vehicle leaving the asphalt and moving onto the grassy field.

"The War Zone," Steve spoke up as he shifted the RV into park, killing the engine. "Everyone present and accounted for?"

"Somewhat," Lily muttered tiredly, reaching up to rub the sleep from her eyes.

"Alright, Eddie, Lily, Cam, Lucas, and Dustin, the five of you stay here." Nancy said as she rose from the couch opposite the dining table. "The rest of us will go in and get the supplies. We'll be back soon, but for the time being, just try your best to stay out of sight."

"Good luck," Lily said to Max and Lucas as they passed by them from the sofa in the back of the vehicle, the rest of the group beginning to pile off the Winnebago one by one as they made their way towards the store.

Dustin peered through a slight crack in the blinds now covering the window as the others walked down the street to the parking lot, shoppers coming in and out of the building everywhere around them, the RV parked just far enough down the street that it shielded them from view. "That's a lot of people here," he mused uneasily.

"Guess we didn't avoid the angry hicks after all." Cameron murmured from her spot in the passenger seat, across from where Steve had been driving.

Lily peeked through the blinds after Dustin, the army surplus store hard to miss in the near distance. Even parked down the street, she could see the red, white, and blue missiles hanging off the sign advertising their products, or the large green building behind it that their friends had vanished into. No doubt the crowds stemmed from people trying to protect themselves from the murders that had befallen Hawkins, to protect themselves from Eddie if they ever got the chance to find him.

"So what is this plan?" Cam asked, turning around in her seat to face the rest of them. "Is this really going to work?"

"It has to." Dustin said adamantly. "I don't think we have any other options. If Max can distract Vecna long enough, and we can distract the Demobats, he's defenseless. It has to work."