"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 Seventy-Two: Memories And Morse Code
(The Mind Flayer, Pt. 4)
***
Rowan stuck her tongue out in concentration as she stretched her fingers out, reaching to place the corner of the tarp up on the wall of the shed. Beside her, Steve and Nancy worked alongside her to do the same with the tarp—and made sure it covered every inch of the now-empty shed to ensure Will didn't know where he was.
That was Mike's plan—put Will in the Byers' shed, after it was covered and empty to ensure he couldn't spy and know where they were, tie him up, and hope to break through the Mind Flayer's control and glean whatever weakness the motherfucker had and destroy it. Rowan hoped it would work, that Will was still in there.
And now, after helping haul out whatever was in the shed and dumping it in a pile, she was now working on covering up the walls with Steve and Nancy. And if she was being honest, Rowan liked the task. It helped distract her from what happened at the lab, the anger she felt toward the Mind Flayer possessing Will. Even if she felt uncomfortable being in the shed—this was the place where the Demogorgon had taken Will last year, and even though it had been an year, Rowan could feel a faint trace of decay and cold within the wooden walls of the shed, like the Upside Down had left some remnant behind that time and the elements wouldn't erase.
Rowan shook her head, refocusing on the task of reaching as far as her fingers could go with the tarp, to keep it in place until either she or Nancy could secure it with duct tape or with a stapler that Steve had. Now wasn't the time to ruminate on the horrors of the past, not when the horrors of the present were more important. She just had to put the tarp corner up on that section of wall...
Rowan gritted her teeth as she stretched, the tarp crinkling under her grip, trying to go further than her height allowed her. Come on, come on...
Just as she reached it, her fingers cramped and the tarp corner fluttered out of her hand, landing by her feet.
"Fuck!" Rowan cursed, glaring at the tarp now lying innocently on the ground.
"Need some help?" she heard behind her and Rowan looked to see Steve there, picking up the tarp.
Rowan rolled her eyes. "No thanks. I can do it myself, Harrington."
Steve arched a brow. "Really? 'Cause it looked like you were failing, short stack."
"Okay, mock my height all you want. I can still fucking do this by myself," Rowan shot back as she ripped the tarp from his grip and once again tried to place it in that corner, stretching as far as she could, fingers grazing the spot, but it slipped out of her reach again.
"Sure you don't need help?" Steve questioned, brow still raised, a smirk playing on his lips.
"Piss off," Rowan grumbled as she glared at the tarp and all but slammed it on the spot with her mind. Looking to Steve, she waved her hands. "See?"
