[ 𝚂𝚞𝚗 & 𝚁𝚊𝚒𝚗 ] ~ 𝙹𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚗 𝙱𝚢𝚎𝚛𝚜 𝚡 𝙾𝙲

XIII - Shit Show

"It can't be good for her to be in there for this long."

Twelve was in her room doing some creepy witchy woo magic shit, and the rest of them were waiting around.

"Mike, you need to relax." The redhead told him.

"What if she gets brain damage or something!?"

"Just shut up, Mike." Justin groaned, leaning her head back against the doorframe behind her. "I'm sure she's fine, dude."

"Don't you trust your girlfriend?" Rylie sighed.

"She's not his girlfriend anymore." Lucas said at the same time Max told the room "They broke up."

"Mike doesn't know what the hell he's talking about." Max shook her head with an eye roll.

"Oh, and you do?"

"No, I don't-"

"Uh, yes, from The Hawkins' Post." Nancy spoke into the phone.

"You're not from the Post, Nancy. You got fired." Justin grinned.

Nancy shot back a look of annoyance as she continued talking to the person on the other end. "I- I called a couple days ago about the- Yes, yes, uhm. . .I was just. . .following up to see if anything else had gone missing, or if- Okay. Uh. . .sorry to bother-" She took in a sharp breath as the dial tone sounded. The man had hung up on her. She hung it back on the wall with a sigh.

Jonathan crossed out the picture in his phone book. "Who's next?" Nancy asked as she walked over to him and his brother. Justin moved away from the door she was standing at to instead lean on the counter beside Will.

"There is no next. Unless you want to start calling random people's homes." Jonathan informed his girlfriend.

"It doesn't make sense." Nancy threw the newspaper onto the counter top.

"What part of any of this makes sense?" Jonathan shrugged.

"I miss when my biggest problem was getting out of bed." Justin sighed, pushing off the counter to stand up straight.

"There's a pattern, okay? A consistency to their behavior. They've been feeding on these chemicals since this started, and- and what, they just stop out of the blue?"

"Maybe they have all the chemicals they need." Will offered. "Maybe they've all turned into those. . .things."

"But what about the source?"

"What the fuck does it matter?" Justin scoffed, crossing her arms to her chest. "You really wanna go after this shit? Wouldn't it be better, smarter if we just got the fuck away from it and stayed safe!?"

"What, no! That's not an option, we can't just let it live in Hawkins! It'll just keep growing." Nancy shouted.

Justin growls slightly in her throat, rolling her eyes.

"I mean, did the Mind Flayer just suddenly stop infecting people?" Nancy questioned. "And even if the flayed are monsters now, why can't El find them?"

"They're not monsters." Rylie whispered from across the room, Justin's head snapped around to look at her. With just one glance, you could tell that the blonde was drained, both emotionally and physically. Justin almost felt bad for her, until she remembered who she was dealing with. It was Rylie fucking Watson. Even if she looked exhausted, she was still a bitch, and no amount of pity or empathy or whatever the hell you wanted to call it, was going to change that.

"Okay, can you guys settle an argument for us?" The redhead girl came up between Justin and Will, the Wheeler kid behind her. "Who do you think should decide El's limits? Mike or Eleven?"