Me, Myself, and Her

Chapter Fifty-Three

Chapter Fifty-Three: Begin Again

Annie kept pretty quiet as the others told Nancy everything they knew about this whole situation. Nearly the entire time, Annie kept finding her eyes wandering over to the trailer with bright yellow 'CRIME SCENE DO NOT ENTER' tape.

She couldn't stop thinking about how scary it must've been.

"Annie." The whisper brought her back to the conversation. She looked over and saw it was Max who had spoken to her. There were no other words spoken, just Max moving her hand to sit on top of Annie's leg, tracing patterns to help calm her down.

This kept Annie engaged on what the others were saying. "Our working theory is that he attacks with a spell or a... curse," Dustin said. "Now, whether or not he's doing the bidding of the Mind Flayer or just loves killing teens, we don't know."

"All we know is this is something different. Something new," Max added.

"It doesn't make sense," Nancy said.

"It's only a theory," Dustin tried.

"No," Nancy cut him off, "Fred and Chrissy don't make sense. I mean, why them?"

Dustin shook his head. "Maybe they were just in the wrong place?" he offered. "They were both at the game."

"And near the trailer park," Max said.

Steve, with his eyebrows scrunched, said, "We're at the trailer park. Uh... should we maybe not be here?"

No one spoke for a second, all looking around at where they were. Annie tucked some stray pieces of hair back behind her ear.

"There is something about this place," Nancy noted as everyone looked around. It was as if they were waiting for Vecna himself to jump out at them. "Fred started acting weird the second we got here."

Robin needed more. "Acting weird as in...?"

"Scared, on edge, upset."

Dustin perked up. "Max said Chrissy was upset, too," he said.

Max shook her head. "But not here. She was crying in the bathroom at school."

There was a pause as everyone took in the new bit of information. "Serial killers stalk their prey before they strike, right? So many Fred and Chrissy saw this 'Vecnman'-"

"Vecna."

"I dunno about you guys, but if I saw some freaky wizard monster, I would mention it to someone," Steve said.

"Maybe they did." All eyes turned to Max. She looked at Annie, and it was like the thought was shared to the girl's brain.

"We saw Chrissy leaving Ms. Kelly's office," Annie said, nodding as it all made sense.

Max picked right back up. "If you saw a monster, you... you would never go to the police. They wouldn't believe you. But, you might go to-"

"Your shrink," Robin finished. Max nodded, Annie joining in.

"You think we could break into the school? Find their files and figure out the lead up?" Annie asked, mainly looking at Steve.

He sighed. "You know how much I just love illegal activities," he said, but was getting his keys out anyway.

"Wait," Max interrupted. "We could just stop by her house? I mean, it's not like she's going to be busy. Plus, she's always wanting to talk to us."

"All right, let's go," Steve said, and the group got up to walk over to his car. As they did, however, Nancy started to break off go off to her car.

"Whoa, whoa, Nance." No reply, no stopping. "Nance!" Steve called jogging after her. "Where are you going?"

She turned and Annie could already tell she wanted to go it alone, and was hoping for a quiet, solid break off from the group. "Oh, well- there's just something I wanna check on first," she replied.

"Something you maybe wanna share with the rest of us?" Dustin asked.

Nancy sighed, and looked down. "I don't wanna waste your time. It's a real shot in the dark."

And, as Annie expected, Steve was having none of it. "Yeah, okay, are you out of your mind? Flying solo with this Vecna creep on the loose? No, it's too dangerous. You need- you need someone to..." Nancy waited for him to finish his thought.

Instead, he turned and tossed his keys to Robin, who somehow managed to catch them. "Here. I'll stick with Nance," he said. Annie gave him a weird look, one he pretty much ignored. "You guys take the car and check out this shrink."

"I don't think you want me driving your car," Robin said as she pointed to Steve's beloved vehicle.

He shook his head. "Why?"

"I don't have a license."

"Why?" he asked, more judgmentally confused than just plain confused. "Why don't you have a license?"

Robin shrugged. "I'm poor."

"I can drive," Max offered.

Steve's eyes went wide. "No! Never again! Please. Anybody but you, no!" he freaked, pointing at her. Max rolled her eyes, knowing she was probably never outliving that with Steve.

He looked at the look on Annie's face. "Not you either, don't even think about it."

Then, Dustin had the question written all over his face. "Not a chance."

Annie shrugged. "Looks like you're all out of options, Steve," she said.

"This is just stupid," Robin mumbled, walking up to Dustin's bag to retrieve his walkie. Then, she returned the keys to Steve. "Us ladies will stick together. Unless... you think we need you to protect us."

Annie had to put a hand over her mouth to stop the laugh from coming out. Steve just gave her a tight lipped smile and a short nod before Robin laughed and walked off, Nancy following.

"Be careful!" Robin sent back a peace sign, her only acknowledgment.

When Steve didn't immediately turn to the car, Dustin asked, "Are you just gonna stand there and gawk?"

"Shut up," he snipped.

Annie, who wasn't even trying to hold back her amusement, asked, "No, no, it's a valid question!"

Steve shook his head. "Don't... pile on," he grumbled. "Come on, just get in the car." He looked over to Dustin as he was getting into the passenger seat. "Wipe your feet."

The kid did as told, wiping them on the carpet inside the car. "On the outside! Not the inside..." He started the car and kept talking to himself about being the babysitter, something Annie couldn't help but laugh at.

"Come on, Steve, you know we're more fun anyway," Annie said, smiling brightly.

He just rolled his eyes. "No, you two," he gestured to Annie and Max sitting by each other, "are always damn near insufferable together. I never thought my baby sister would be one of those couples."

Annie opened her mouth, offended. "I'm sorry, weren't you and Steve the exact same way?" she asked, remembering how... affectionate they were.

"Children, children!" Dustin called. "Can we please go? I wanna get out of this place."

Steve sighed. "Yeah, yeah." He put the car in gear and away they went, leaving the trailer park in a cloud of dust.

A/n: people always overlook Steve's trauma... man's can never look at a car without thinking about Max almost killed him 😔💔