⸻ ❛𝐖𝐑𝐀𝐏 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐀𝐑𝐌𝐒 𝐀𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃 𝐌𝐄 𝐖𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐄 𝐈 𝐃𝐑𝐎𝐖𝐍 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐎 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐎𝐒!❜
Rory Hargrove is obsessed to uncover the truth behind Barbara Holland's disappearance, while facing her brother's enemy and buried secrets from...
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THE STAINED GLASS WITH ITS FLOWER DESIGN appeared before their eyes, revealed after the loud crash of the wooden beam nailed against the door.
But the stained glass no longer held its vivid colors—the red of the petals, the green of the stem, the blue and yellow... Now there were only blackened shades, grays, a pale mirage of what the house had once been, displaying the morbid ending that had claimed that family some thirty years ago.
The dust that rose from the floor with the impact of the wood—making Rory sneeze at once—and the grimy exterior of the bluish house, surrounded by tall weeds, betrayed how long this place had stood still in time. No one had the courage or interest to enter a place so thick with unknown and negative energies.
That image of the flower in the stained glass stirred something in Hargrove and Mayfield. Seeing the tension in Max's face, her chest rising and falling at the sight of that image—the very same one that had haunted both girls' visions, each in different ways—Rory felt compelled to hold her stepsister's hand.
She knew Max would find it cringe that she reached for her hand, but Rory had promised herself she would hold on just for a moment, so that the redhead's fiercely independent spirit wouldn't be unsettled. And, at the same time, to show she wasn't alone.
Steve Harrington, hammer still in hand, twisted the knob. It rattled in protest but did not open. "It's locked," he announced what everyone had already guessed.
"Vandalism an option? Or will that wake the house's evil spirits?" Rory tried to joke, though she could feel Max's tense energy seeping through their joined hands. Clearing her throat, she looked back, directly at Robin. She knew the blonde would be up for such madness. And she was right.
Robin hefted a brick, raised her brows with pride, and Rory saw the stone sail past her at full speed.
The window shattered, glass rattling across the floor inside.
"For a brick-thrower, your aim's pretty good," Rory murmured with a grin, remembering Buckley's sprint.
"I surprise myself sometimes." Robin winked in reply.
Still caught by Robin's speed, and with his brow furrowed—clearly disgusted at the thought of sticking his hand through the jagged hole in the stained glass into the unknown—Steve reached through and turned the knob from the inside. The door swung open, granting passage into the house.
"What exactly are we supposed to be looking for in this shithole?" Steve muttered, his eyes scanning the darkened walls.
"We're not sure. We just know this house is important to Vecna," Nancy said, contemplative.
