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 ) stuck in 1983 // st soundtrack falling // harry styles
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They sat exactly where Dustin had instructed, arranged in a loose semicircle around Nancy's bed, as if the mattress might ignite or crack open beneath them at any second. The air felt tight, charged, like the room itself was holding its breath. Steve kept his flashlight locked onto the bed as if the beam could will a message into existence, jaw clenched, shoulders tense with the kind of panic he only allowed in small, private doses.
Waiting became a torment all its own.
Ruby felt the first curl of a headache blooming deep at the base of her skull, sharp, sly, coiling its fingers behind her eyes like a hook.
A bad one. A Vecna one. The kind that arrived with purpose. She drew a slow breath through her nose, hoping the steadiness of it might chase the pain back into whatever dark corner it came from. It never worked. It either passed on its own... or it dragged her under. Pulled her into visions. Into memories bent until they didn't resemble memories at all.
Not here. Not now. She couldn't lose herself in that place again. They were too close to whatever the end of this was going to be.
Robin noticed before anyone else. She always did.
"Hey," she whispered, leaning in until Ruby felt the soft heat of her sister's breath against her ear. Robin's fingers brushed the small of Ruby's back, grounding, searching. For a half-second her voice wavered, distorted, like someone tuning a radio past the right station, but then it snapped back into place. "Are you okay?"
Ruby forced a smile that wasn't bright enough, or real enough, to fool anyone. "Fine."
Robin didn't believe her, that flicker in her eyes said she absolutely didn't, but she let it go. For now. She knew Ruby's limits better than Ruby did sometimes.
Steve muttered under his breath, low and taut with impatience. "Come on. Come on."
As if pulled forward by his words, Dustin's faint voice drifted through the static of the room: "...seeing this?"
At first, nothing looked different. Just the stale, ash-fogged air of the Upside Down.
Then, the faintest shimmer. A soft, trembling glow.
Nancy didn't hesitate. She reached toward it, and the moment her fingers brushed the air, the shimmer brightened, bursting outward like dust catching fire. More motes flickered to life, swirling, pulsing, illuminating the room with a warm, impossible glow.
Ruby's breath caught. It was the first beautiful thing she'd seen in the Upside Down.
Dustin's faint laugh drifted faintly through the rippling air, delighted and distant, like he couldn't believe what he was seeing either.
