Billy's gone.
Ruby Buckley's world ended with him.
But Hawkins isn't done with her yet.
When strange deaths begin again, Ruby is pulled into the heart of the storm. Between shadowy nightmares, the town's newest outcast, and someone she was never s...
( songs for the chapter ) where is my mind // pixies one more hour // tame impala
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Nancy hadn't been joking.
Within the hour, she and Robin were out the door, heading for Pennhurst in their makeshift academic disguises, "Ruth and Rose," armed with forged credentials and the kind of nerves that come before a con.
Back in the Wheeler basement, Steve and Ruby found Max exactly where they'd left her, sitting at the desk, shoulders tense, her pen moving quickly over the paper. She didn't look up when they came in.
Ruby hesitated by the stairs, watching the steady motion of Max's hand. She didn't need to ask what the girl was writing. She already knew.
***
A while later, all four of them, Steve, Ruby, Dustin, and Lucas, sat crammed together on the couch, their eyes drifting toward Max like magnets they couldn't resist.
"I know you guys are staring at me," Max said without turning around.
Immediately, chaos.
Steve suddenly found the ceiling fascinating. Ruby snatched a small foam ball off the table. Dustin lunged for a magazine. Lucas grabbed a newspaper and pretended to read, upside down.
"Staring?" Ruby said quickly, tossing the ball in the air with exaggerated casualness. "What are you talking about?"
"What? Sorry?" Steve echoed, now examining the frayed threads of Ruby's ripped jeans as if they held the secrets of the universe.
"You said you needed something?" Lucas asked, his voice an octave too high.
"Just hanging out," Steve mumbled, twirling the loose denim strings around his fingers.
Max sighed, a long, exhausted sound that carried years of frustration in it.
"How you think burning holes in the back of my head with your eyes is protecting me from Vecna, I don't know," she muttered.
She stood, a stack of sealed envelopes in hand.
The group froze like they'd been caught sneaking cookies before dinner.
"You can look at me now," she said, flatly.
They all spoke at once.
"Thank you, sorry," Dustin blurted, closing his magazine.
"Sorry," Lucas echoed, tossing his paper aside.
"Sorry," Steve murmured, finally releasing Ruby's jeans and resting his hand lightly on her thigh instead.
Ruby caught his small, silent gesture and dropped the ball onto the coffee table with a sigh. "Oh, thank God. My arms are dead." She flexed her fingers. "Next time, you can play catch, Harrington."
