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 ) are you lonesome tonight? // elvis presley la llorona // chavela vargas
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The car ride to the trailer park was completely silent. Tension danced freely in the air, keeping rhythm with the low hum of the song playing on the radio.
Ruby hated tension. Despised it. It made her skin crawl, set her nerves alight. Normally, she'd crack a joke, say something stupid just to cut it. It's how she was wired. But this time, there was no breaking it. No line clever enough to make it dissolve.
In the back seat, Max sat sat with a fidgety Lucas and an almost-pretending-to-sleep Dustin, staring out the window with something close to despair in her gorgeous ocean-blue eyes. Her head rested against the seat, her gaze fixed on the blur of the woods as the car moved. In the passenger seat, Ruby's eyes were locked on her through the rearview mirror.
Max was beautiful. Her soft, fair, almost pale skin. That fiery red hair that clashed so perfectly with her fierce personality. Her rosy cheeks, the way they flushed when she laughed. Her smile, that small, rare smile that made her dimples appear. Her laugh, the one that could light up an entire room and make her eyes spark with life.
Oh, those eyes.
So incredibly blue. So serene. So gorgeous.
The way they resembled Billy's was extraordinary. They weren't related, and yet so many things about them could suggest otherwise, the furrow of their brows when they were confused, the quiver of their top lips when anger took hold, the scrunch of their noses in disgust, the roll of their eyes in irritation, and the way those same eyes softened when they were sad, when they were hurt, when they were breaking.
It always came down to the eyes.
They never lied, not if you knew how to read them. Not if you knew what you were looking for.
And Ruby knew. She'd looked into those eyes for months. Every single day.
Her boyfriend's eyes had been the prettiest thing in the world. Bluer than the ocean, brighter than the sky on the most perfect spring day, not too hot, not too cold.
The kind of day when the trees stretch back into green after winter's frost, when the flowers bloom again in reckless color, whispering the promise of warmth just around the corner.
A sky without a single cloud, a calm periwinkle blanket spread over a waking earth.
Billy's eyes had been like that whenever he looked at her, calm, reassuring, safe. They were full of love. Precious, unconditional love.
And they're gone now. He's gone now.
But Max is here. And she has the same eyes. She is just as important to Ruby as Billy was. She loves her just as much, only differently.
