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CHAPTER ELEVEN Haunted House With Living Ghosts
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THIS WAS NOT how Rhiannon would've liked to spend her Saturday morning.
Trips to the lab meant she had to get up early, and as the antithesis of a morning person, it was her worst nightmare. If you asked her, her parents were being entirely unfair when they made her see Dr. Owens every few weeks... Like, she didn't need a shrink when she had the power of music and faking smiles, thank you very much.
Always a skeptic, her dad was weary of the lab people because he didn't like them — didn't trust them. Only Dr. Owens. And though he said Dr. Owens was the most qualified person to help her, she always thought the lab was too clinical for her comfort. Too suffocating. Too many questions. She felt like they'd lay her body on a cold, metal table and dissect her insides in the name of science. They would do so in steps: cut her intestines to check if black fluid would ooze out, probe her beating heart, then leave the flaps of flesh split apart when they were done for the flies to swarm around... Her imagination could be so charming.
The white walls made her skull pound, dug into an odd crevice in her brain that left her uneasy. The rooms reeked of antiseptic and the sharp, sour trace of cleaning products. They tried to make it welcoming but it was anything but. And she wasn't fond of the people either.
"This place gives me the creeps," she said as she sat on the stiff examination chair. "I wouldn't be surprised if they hid aliens in here or something."
"Just keep your cool," Hopper said, clamping a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "And if it gets too much, you let me know."
"Keep my cool," she echoed with a nod, gaining strength.
"So, uh..." Hopper trailed off, and he had this weird tone in his voice that made her wrinkle her nose. "You and Steve—"
