"I swear, if I'm dying tonight because of you, I'm gonna haunt your ass so hard, Harrington!"
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah! I'm gonna go full Poltergeist and shit!"
"Then bring it, Graveswood."
"Challenge accepted."
***
In which after years of suppressing their...
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Chapter Twenty-Two: The Portal
(The Flea And The Acrobat, Pt. 6)
***
Turns out, they didn't get out of the woods before dark fell.
Rowan was honestly considering they were lost, since it felt like they had been walking in the same patch of woods for hours, only knowing time had passed when the sun had sunk and the moon had risen, bringing with it the darkness of night and faint, winking stars beyond the canopy, forcing them to switch on their flashlights and having Rowan be grateful to Nancy for bringing a spare because she definitely forgot to grab one of her own.
The only positive was that Nancy and Jonathan hadn't argued any more since Rowan's own outburst, instead choosing to be in tense silence, which was fine for Rowan. Especially since she was more preoccupied with getting out of here with her life and not bang her head in on one of these trees... or considering the possibility of not leaving because if she did and got back home, then she'd face her aunt's wrath, and that just might be a scarier possibility than confronting a monster lurking in the dark woods of Hawkins or the Man and his agents also stalking these woods at night.
She refused to think about her other option, that she could just teleport to Jonathan's car and bring Nancy and Jonathan with her. But that would mean questions, questions she couldn't answer, and even though they were searching for a monster, Rowan couldn't risk revealing her own abnormality, that she could only even begin to think of doing so if their lives were at risk.
That not even getting out of these godforsaken woods was worth it, not when she just entertained the thought of hers and Alistair's boogeyman traipsing around the woods at night, eager to snatch her up if she did anything strange.
After what felt like another hour of walking, Nancy stopped.
Rowan suppressed a groan, and Jonathan said irritably, "What, are you tired?"
"I swear, if you are..." Rowan muttered, but Nancy silenced her with a look, saying, "Shut up. Both of you."
Rowan blinked, and Jonathan said, "What?"
"I heard something," Nancy revealed, face screwed up in concentration.
Like that, Rowan was back on high alert. Her hand grazed her gun and her eyes scanned the dark woods around them, looking for the flash of a gun or moonlight glistening on slick, pale skin, as she, Nancy and Jonathan followed the sound Nancy heard, which sounded like a whimper, almost like the exact same sound the monster made.
However, when they arrived at the source of the noise, Rowan felt her wariness shift into pity.
Because the source was a wounded deer, its neck glistening wet and red from the fatal wound on it, eyes glazed with pain. It continued giving wheezing whimpers, its side heaving with shallow breaths, a futility when even Rowan could sense that death was seconds away from claiming its life.
