✓ | 2. young blood [STEVE HARRINGTON]

one.

CHAPTER ONE:
SOMEBODY'S WATCHING ME

[ MADMAX ]

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          When it began, it began on the 30th October, 1984, exactly 352 days after Thomas opened the gate and exactly 345 days since ELEVEN left.

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"But I don't like Steve."

"Well, Jonathan can't give us a ride today, so he's our only option."

"You should have warned me. You know I don't like Steve."

"You should stop complaining. And the only reason I didn't warn you, and why I made sure Johnathan didn't tell you about having to take Will to school, was because I knew that you wouldn't come this morning if you had even the slightest suspicion that Steve was the one giving us a ride and not Jonathan."

Nancy Wheeler's words were ones of absolute truth. Thomas Mirkwood, also known as Thirteen to his friends and a select few classmates at Hawkin's High, detested Steve Harrington, and if he had even the slightest inkling that he would have to interact with the older boy, he wouldn't have attended Nancy's short tutoring session in her basement that morning.

The normal routine for Thomas' mornings was to catch a ride with Joyce into town, leaving Jonathan with Will back at home, and then walk the few blocks to Nancy's house, where she would teach him reading or writing or mathematics or some other important thing, and then Jonathan would pick them both up to take them to school. Today, however, was not going only with the usual plan, and instead the two teens were waiting out on Nancy's curb for Steve Harrington's sleek red sports car to pull up.

Thomas was sat on the edge of the sidewalk, long legs (which, he was glad to say, were finally clad in fashionable jeans, not sweatpants, and were building up in muscle mass after months of eating good, nutritious foods) bent at the knees with his elbows propped up on them, while Nancy stood beside him with her arms wound around her books, pulled tight to her chest. His rucksack slumped against her legs.

"He knows I am coming?" Thomas asked, looking up at her.

She sighed and nodded, then glanced down at him with a slight smile, nudged his side with the toe of her sneaker, and said, "Remember. We say "I'm", not "I am"."

"Weird," Thomas mumbled, shaking his head exasperatedly.

Before Nancy could reply with anything much more than a giggle, a rusted red car screeched around the corner of the wide, picturesque avenue, cutting the curb next to one of the finest houses Thomas had ever seen. Its windows were all down, allowing Rockwell's Halloween song, 'Somebody's Watching Me' to blast from the stereo at full volume and dissipate into the early morning air, slicing the fresh silence like a scalpel. Thomas quickly stood, grabbing his backpack and slinging it onto his back, and moved further onto the sidewalk so Steve could pull up his car along the curb with a lurch and a scream of the engine.