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 ) jungle // emma louise home sweet home // mötley crüe
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Thunder boomed above them, too close, too sharp, splintering through the canopy of black, trembling leaves. The sound rolled across the forest like something alive, something pacing.
Ruby walked between Robin and Nancy, their bodies cutting a thin, determined line through the underbrush. Each step sank into ash-coated soil.
Behind them, Eddie and Steve lagged a few paces back, their flashlight casting a weak, trembling cone of light that seemed to dread what it revealed. Ruby's eyes flicked to the beam every few seconds, checking its angle the way someone checked a pulse.
"Couldn't we have tried a road," Robin muttered, swatting at a vine that recoiled like it was offended, "or something just slightly less creepy?"
Nancy kept her eyes forward. "I think we're getting close. We're almost out of here. Don't worry."
"'Don't worry,' she says," Robin fired back. "In the demon woods. In the reverse dimension. During supernatural monsoon season."
Ruby snorted, quiet but real, and Robin caught it like it was a firefly she'd been chasing.
"There it is," Robin beamed. "A laugh. God, Rubes, thank you, I needed the serotonin."
Ruby nudged her shoulder against Robin's, warmth fighting its way through the cold. "Just trying to keep morale high."
Nancy glanced over, relief softening the firm set of her mouth. "Morale is good," she said. "Morale keeps us from spiraling."
Robin raised her hand. "I would like the record to state that I spiral on a professional level."
"That's true," Ruby agreed automatically, but her attention drifted back, inevitably, to Steve.
He was pretending. She saw the truth anyway. She knew the way his shoulders hunched when they were screaming with pain, how he shortened his stride when exhaustion threatened to swallow him whole. She saw how he kept one hand hovering near his bandaged side like he was guarding a secret.
Nancy noticed too, of course she did, and her voice softened. "He'll tell us if it gets bad."
Ruby's throat cinched tight. "No, he won't."
Robin huffed. "Yeah, Steve's constitution is like, ninety percent stubbornness, ten percent flirting."
The heat that jumped to Ruby's cheeks betrayed her faster than she could swallow it down. Nancy politely pretended she didn't see.
But then Nancy murmured, "He listens to you more than he listens to anyone."
Ruby snapped her gaze to her. "He does not."
Nancy lifted a single eyebrow, the infamous Wheeler eyebrow that could pin lies to a wall.
"This girl." Robin threw her hands up dramatically. "Ruby, sweetheart, babe, my beloved, he jumped in front of a bunch of bats for you. I'm sure he didn't even hesitate. He went full 'knight in shining Harrington', right?"
