One

Chapter Four - part two

   The next morning Phina woke up, still in her best friends arms. The events of yesterday still fresh in her mind, her continuing head ache getting worse because of it.
   Phina taps Jonathan's cheek, "hey Jon, you need to get up."
   He groans, slowly opening his eyes, "why?"
   "You need to go see Will," she states, her face falling.
   Jonathan nods solemnly. Phina shifts herself off of him so he can stand up. She sits up and without even asking, he throws her some of her clothes from a drawer dedicated to when she stayed the night. The clothes she was wearing were dirty from yesterday's events, her jeans stained brown from the kneeling in the dirt, and the dried blood from falling on the asphalt parking lot.
   "Thank you," she said.
   He nodded, grabbing his own clothes to wear, "I'll change in the bathroom."
   He gives her no time to object and walks out of the room. She stands up from his bed and starts to change her clothes. She pulls on the pair of black leggings and then the loose blue top. She looks in the mirror her eyes going towards her messy hair, using her fingers, she soothes the mess as much as she can.
   Phina grabbed her leather jacket and pulles on her boots, before leaving Jonathan's room and going out to the living room, where Jonathan had just woken up Joyce.
   Phina quickly noticed that Joyce had gotten little sleep, also the ax that rested on her lap. She sighed but didn't let Joyce see it. Even if Phina knew what Joyce was saying was the truth, that she wasn't imagining it, the paranoia was going to drive her mad, and could end up getting her hurt.
   "Are you guys leaving soon," Phina asks Jonathan.
   He nods solemnly, "yeah, you can come with if you want."
   "I can't. My mom is probably having a heart attack right now, I didn't exactly tell her where I was going last night," Phina sighed.
   Jonathan gave her a look but nodded, "yeah, you should probably go home. I'll call you later, ok?"
   "Ok," she nodded back.
   She walked over to Joyce, giving her a tight hug before she left the Byers' house. She dreaded having to face her mother, but knew if she prolonged it anymore, she'd be in much deeper shit.
   She got to the house and noticed her mom was just leaving. She groaned, thinking she was about to get an earful, but as soon as she parked and got off her bike, her mom was hugging her.
   "I was worried about you last night," Karen whispers into Phina's ear.
   "I know, I'm sorry I left but..."
   "No no no. I knew you went to Jonathan's, I knew you would've gone no matter what I said. I was worried about you, how you're feeling. I know how much you cared for Will, and how much you love the Byers," Karen pushes away, holding Phina at arms length, "are you ok? You can stay home if you need to. Mike is staying, you guys can comfort each other."
   Phina feels the tears build up in her eyes again, "yeah, I want to stay home with Mike. Thank you mama."
   Karen pulls her daughter in for another hug, sushing her as she cries. Though Phina believes Joyce about Will being alive, it didn't stop the pain of thinking she'd lost him from being there.
   "You go on inside. Go talk to your brother ok?"
   "Ok."
   Phina turns walks into her house, calling out to Mike, "Mike, where are you!"
   "Downstairs!"
   She rushes downstairs to see her brother, Dustin, Lucas, and El. They were all sitting on the floor, El playing with the CB radio. Mike motions for her to sit next to him, and she doesn't question it.
   They all sit there, staring at the radio. El concentrated on it, and little whimpering noises come through the speaker. Phina sits forward, listening closely. To her, it definitely sounded like Will.
   "We keep losing signal, but you heard it right," Mike asks, looking at them.
   "Yeah, I heard a baby," Lucas says.
   "What," Mike asks him, confused.
   "Mike, you obviously tapped into a baby monitor, it's probably the Blackburns next door," Lucas says dully.
   "Uh did that sound like a baby to you? That was Will," Mike snaps.
   "Mike..."
   "Lucas you don't understand. He spoke last night, words," Mike tells him, "he was singing that weird song he loves, even El heard him!"
   "Should I stay or should I go," Phina whispers, getting a nod from both Mike and El.
   "Oh, well if the weirdo heard than I guess," Lucas says sarcastically.
   "Are you sure you're on the right channel," Dustin asks.
   "I don't think it's about that. I think, somehow, she's channeling him," Mike explains.
   Phina and Dustin look at each other, "like Professor X."
   Lucas gives Phina and Dustin an exasperated look, "are you actually believing this crap?"
   "I don't know. I mean, do you remember when Will fell off his bike and broke his finger," Dustin asks.
   "Yeah, he sounded exactly like that," Phina nods towards the radio.
   Lucas looks at them, almost like he was offended, "did you guys not see what I saw? They pulled Will's body out of the water, he's dead!"
   "Calm down Lucas," Phina scolds the boy.
   Dustin looks down sadly, then back up, "well maybe it's his ghost, he's haunting us."
   "It's not his ghost," Mike says.
   "Well how do you know that," Lucas asks.
   "I just do," Mike answers.
   "Then what was in that water!"
   "I don't know!"
   "Hey, both of you cool it," Phina shouts, "yelling at each other ain't gonna solve anything!"
   "Sorry," they mutter.
   Mike starts back up, "all I know is, Will is alive. Will is alive and he's out there somewhere, all we have to do is find him."
   El starts messing around with the radio again, and Mike shakes his head, "this isn't going to work. We need to get El to a stronger radio."
   Dustin lights up, "Mr Clark's Heathkit ham track."
   Mike nods, "yeah."
   Lucas shakes his head, "the Heathkit is at school, there's no way we're gonna get the weirdo in without anyone noticing.... I mean, look at her."
   We all look towards El, and Phina couldn't help but agree with Lucas a little bit. El didn't look like an average girl, at all. El looks at them, a little wide eyed and confused.
   "I got an idea," Phina smirks.

   El comes out of the bathroom, wearing one of Nancy's old pink dresses, and a blonde wig. She looked more average now, that's for sure, but Phina preferred the normal El.
   Phina smiles at her little brother as he gets flustered over how El looks, calling her pretty. El goes over to a mirror in the hall, looking at her reflection.
   "Pretty.... Good," she said.
   Phina smiles at her now, she was slowly becoming attached to the girl, the protective feeling she had for the boys, now extending to her as well.
   Phina heard a noise and looked out the window closest to her, it was her mom.
   "Shit, guys go to the basement, Mom's home," Phina shouts.
   The kids all rush to the basement and Phina runs to the couch, sitting down as if she'd been there for hours.
   Karen came through the door and instantly looked over at Phina, "good, you're up, I know you wanted to stay home, but the cops want to talk to you and Nancy about Barbara."
   Phina sighs, "ok, let me get my shoes."
   She goes down to the basement and looks at all the kids, "I have to go, when I get back, you guys need to fill me in on what happens, ok?"
   They all nod, "ok Phina."
   She ruffles Dustin's hair as she walks away from them. He swats her hand away but smiles. Phina runs up the stairs and to her mom.
   "Ready," she says sadly, she didn't want to talk to the cops, but she knew she had to.
   They go out Karen's car and make their way to the high school.

   The three Wheeler girls sat in the empty cafeteria, talking to two officers, coincidentally they're the two cops that held Phina back last night. Phina had already explained what happened before she left the party, leaving out the beers.
   "So you left, while you were soaking wet? You could've froze," one of them says, officer Powell.
   "I know. But the adrenaline from the anger I was feeling, well, I didn't really feel the cold, didn't think about it," Phina said, lying a little, but no one noticed, not even her mother.
   The cops moved onto Nancy, getting her story from her. She got to the part of when she'd last seen Barb, they were having an argument about Nancy going up to Steve's room to get dry clothes.
   "Barb wanted to leave, and I didn't. So I told her to just go," Nancy sighed.
   "Then what," Powell asks.
   "Then, I went upstairs," Nancy said, "to put on some dry clothes."
   "Then the next day, you two went back and saw a bear, you're thinking," Powell again asks.
   Phina shakes her head, "not a bear, couldn't have been, to lanky, if it was a bear it looked like it had been starved all its life."
   Nancy nods, "we don't know what it was, but I think, maybe, it took Barb. You need to check behind Steve's house and..."
   "We did," the other officer stated, officer Callahan, "there's nothing there, no sign of a bear."
   "And no car," Powell chimed in.
   Phina looked at him, startled, "what?"
   "Look. We figure Barbara came back last night, and took off somewhere else," Powell said.
   Callahan then started speaking, "has she ever talked to you about running off? Leaving town maybe?"
   Nancy looks at the table and shakes her head, "no. Barb wouldn't do that, ever."
   "She wasn't maybe upset about the fact of you spending time with this boy? Uh, Steve Harrington?"
   "What? No," Nancy says.
   "Maybe she was jealous? When she saw you go up to Steve's room," he asks.
   Nancy starts to defend herself, "it wasn't like that."
   "Like what?"
   She stutters slightly, "Steve and me. Where just friends. We just talked."
   "Now was this before or after you changed your clothes," Callahan asked, slightly mockingly.
   Phina glared at him, "what she did with Steve has nothing to do with the fact that Barb is gone. Why don't you try acting professionally and find her."

-1767 words-