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 ) all i ask // adele army dreamers // kate bush separate ways (worlds apart) // journey
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Something slapped against the exterior of the RV, and the world came rushing back in like it had never paused at all.
Sound hit first, boots scraping against gravel, metal clattering too loud in the sudden closeness, someone outside calling Eddie's name with an edge of urgency that sliced clean through the quiet they'd been living in.
Ruby flinched.
Not away from Steve, never that, but at the way the air shifted, pressure flooding back into the space like a lung refilling too fast.
They were still exactly where they'd been.
Her forehead rested against his, warm skin to warm skin, breaths still tangling between them. Steve's hand cupped her cheek, thumb brushing just beneath her eye, catching the last of another tear before it could fall. His other arm was firm around her back, holding her close, like letting go wasn't an option he was willing to consider yet.
Ruby's hands were still fisted in the lapels of his jacket.
She hadn't loosened them. Hadn't even realized she could. Her fingers were curled tight, knuckles pale, as if some part of her believed that if she let go, gravity would fail her.
Slowly, almost shyly, her hands shifted, sliding upward. One settled at his shoulder. The other lifted to his jaw, her thumb brushing the stubble there, careful not to go lower, not to graze the bruised skin at his neck where the bat had gripped so hard it had torn skin.
She felt him inhale at the touch.
The noise outside grew louder. Closer. Real.
The moment didn't shatter.
It compressed.
Steve didn't pull away. His thumb lingered at her cheek for a second longer before his hand slid up, settling flat between her shoulder blades, steady, grounding, unmistakably present. A quiet pressure, like punctuation.
Ruby stayed pressed to him, chest to chest, her breath evening slowly as she forced herself to anchor back into her body.
This is happening, she told herself. And it happened.
Movement at the front of the RV made her lift her head just enough to see past his face.
Robin's head appeared in the doorway, hand hooked against the back of a bench, body angled half way in, halfway out. Not storming in, not hesitant either. Just checking space, checking availability, already mentally rearranging where things and people would need to go.
Her mouth opened mid-sentence and then closed again.
