"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 One-Hundred-And-Forty-Two: Surviving The Curse
(Dear Billy, Pt. 4)
***
Rowan couldn't breathe.
Everything seemed to stop, everything in her seemed to cease to function except for the pounding of her heart and the fear strangling her. Whatever her friends were saying, she couldn't hear them, all she could think of was Alistair and that she was back there again on the 4th of July, his blood on her hands, a hole in his chest, and how she had failed to save him.
It was all she could think ever since Cami said those terrifying words, revealed that just like Max, she should have been worried for her little brother, running around in her brain over and over again.
Alistair is cursed. Alistair is cursed. Alistair is cursed.
Vecna wasn't just after Max. He was after Alistair.
Blood on her hands. Screams and sobs slicing her throat open. Tears burning in her eyes. The feeling of her soul being ripped apart. The current feeling of not being able to breathe, of fear choking her of air
Vecna had cursed Alistair, had cursed her little brother.
And he hadn't let anyone know.
He hadn't let anyone know until it was too late, and now Alistair... now Alistair could...
Blood on her hands, blood beneath Alistair, blood staining his chin. A hole in his chest. Salt scouring her eyes and streaming down her face. Agony flaying her open as she sobbed and screamed. Chrissy's face, eyeless and forever petrified with a scream. Max, in the throes of Vecna's curse and now Alistair in the throes of the curse, Alistair with his eyes missing and every single bone snapped.
That couldn't happen. Rowan needed to save her brother.
Needed to save him, when she couldn't eight months ago.
That thought snapped Rowan out of her daze, had her register the voices shouting over each other, and she croaked out, "Where's Alistair?"
All the voices silenced as Robin and Valerie looked at Rowan, and from the walkie, Cami's fear-strained voice crackled through.
"W-we're at Hawkins Lab. Al said he had a hunch, that he n-needed to talk to the ghosts here. I... I-I went with him because he shouldn't go alone, but I-I didn't know he was cursed, I swear I didn't know, and now he's... h-he's..."
Fear rose up again, threatening to pull her back down, but Rowan pushed it back. Her brother needed her, she needed to save him, she couldn't fail him again.
"Cami, music's the way to break the curse. Did Val or Robin tell you?"
"Y-Yeah, Val said, but Al's headphones and his tapes are with his bag an-and we left them in the foy—"
