CYNOSURE | RICHIE TOZIER

XIII

"Are you sure you don't want me to come over?" Beverly fussed as she wiped away her best friend's now drying tears.
"I'll be okay. I promise." Eliza reassured, forcing a weak smile.
She was still in shock.
"I'll give you a lift on the back of Silver if you'd like? I can drop you off somewhere where your dad won't see if he's not working." Bill offered.
El smiled gratefully, "Yeah, okay. Thanks, guys."
All the boys nodded at her but Bev hesitated, "As long as you promise to call me as soon as you get back."
"I promise."
"Alright." she sighed, pulling El in for another embrace, "I'll talk to you later. I love you, Bowers."
"I love you too, Marsh. Bye guys."
"Bye, El." Ben and Mike mumbled in unison, still not over the afternoon's stress.
She chuckled at Stanley who still looked terrified, "See ya later, alligator."
The Jewish boy gave her hand a quick squeeze and a feeble grin, "In a while, crocodile."
Bill mounted Silver and motioned for her to hop on. She wrapped her arms around his waist to prevent her from falling off as he started to peddle, her heart twanging with guilt as she remembered Richie's earlier statement. They were only halfway there when Eliza ordered her friend to stop.
He panicked and did as he was told, nearly toppling them over in his haste, "I'm sorry. W-What's wrong?"
"No, I'm sorry. I'll get off here if that's okay."
Bill opened his mouth to ask her why she wanted to get off when it was still a ten-minute cycle to her house but noticed the Bowers Gang gathered around Belch Huggins' car at the side of the road in the cover of the trees, smoking, "Alright. Bev might worry though."
She giggled, "I think I can deal with her."
She hopped off and said a quick goodbye before jogging to her brother and his two friends.
It was Belch who recognised her first, "What are you doin' here, Liza?"
"I just thought I'd come see my favourite Reggie, Hen-Hen, and Vicky."
Alerted of her presence Henry jumped up to give her a half-hug, noticing her puffy eyes, "Are you alright? What happened?"
"People are dicks." she whispered, the tears threatening to come tumbling back.
"Tell me about it." Vic sighed as he strolled over to ruffle her hair, "I have to hang out with your brother."
She didn't even smile.
He put an arm around her shoulder, "That bad, huh?"
"First Mrs. Kaspbrak called Henry evil and Mum useless then Ri-" she paused, her eyes widening, "I mean one of my friends, called me a slut and said Mrs. K was right."
Henry looked so furious she almost expected to see bubbles appear under his skin as his blood boiled, "Tozier?"
"No." she lied even though she knew Henry wasn't stupid.
"Then who?"
"I'm not telling you."
"Why not?!"
"Because you'll do something stupid like go look for him and beat him up." she argued.
"So it was him?"
"It doesn't matter! I'm not gonna let you start throwing punches and just prove everyone right!"
"But he fucking deserves it!" he snapped.
"And all those other kids you seem to enjoy hurting so much do?" she yelled but then her voice dropped to a whisper, "I just want to go home."
"Okay." he exhaled and turned to Belch, "Sorry."
He just grinned and lit another smoke, "It's all good. I'll drop the three of you off."
"Thanks, Reggie." El mumbled as she climbed into the back of his cherished car.
"Anything for you." he winked, starting the engine.

Eliza lay on her bed as Henry sat restlessly on her bedroom floor and Victor flicked through her record collection. After ten minutes of bickering between the two boys, Vic carefully placed the vinyl into her record player and smirked at Henry's groan.
"Seriously, Vic? You pick the same one every time!"
"Who's Vic? I'm Kurt Cobain."
El giggled as Vic began to leap around the room playing air guitar and pretending to sing. She pushed herself off her bed and mimed the drums as she danced with him, pulling Henry up too. After finally giving up on maintaining his ego, he joined the band on bass. It had become almost a ritual, the boy with bleached hair playing Negative Creep by Nirvana in Eliza's room every time he came over. Vic started them off, El was always quick to join, and Henry had to be pressured in by his younger sister each time. Eliza was glad to have a distraction, she almost had a full two minutes and 54 seconds where she had completely forgotten the day's events. However, her bubble of bliss was popped in the worst possible way. As the song neared to a close and her breathlessness caught up with her, she paused to look outside her bedroom window, noticing movement out the corner of her eye. Unfortunately, it wasn't just a trick of the mind. There was no doubt that that was the same creature Beverly had stabbed with a poker that afternoon. In one hand was a single red balloon. In the other was something that shocked her much more severely. She recognised the switchblade immediately, despite the distance. It was Henry's. The one he'd lost after chasing Ben over the Kissing Bridge and had left her in Belch's car, only to be rescued by Richie, to find. She yelped as she noticed the clown now suddenly had a mullet and was wearing a red muscle-shirt, still with the big orange pompoms. She backed up into Vic, nearly knocking him over.
"What is it?" he queried, panicked, scanning the view from the bungalow window.
"It was there!" she moaned, fresh scars beginning to bleed.
Henry's eyes widened, alarmed, "What was?"
Her words brought another round of tears, "The clown! It had your knife!"
Henry's voice was skeptical but he latched the window anyway, "Liza, there's no one there. What are you talking about?"
"Eliza, there is no killer clown outside your window." Vic sighed, going to change the record.
"I know what I saw!" she snapped viciously and he froze for a second, shaken, "You think I'm crazy, don't you?"
He turned away, feeling a little guilty for upsetting her, "That's not what I meant. The light was probably playing tricks on you."
She grabbed his arm and forced him to look at her. For a moment, Victor Criss was petrified. Her eyes no longer seemed like hers. It wouldn't be hard to mistake them for dolls' eyes he thought. They were comically large and shone as if they were made of glass. They were no longer blue but seemed to suck in colour like a void.
"Was it playing tricks on me when It teleported me from Bill's garage to Neibolt Street?! Was it playing tricks on me when It cocooned me in spiderwebs and hung me from the ceiling by my feet?! Bill is wrong. He said It's not real but he's wrong. He's a liar!" she screamed hysterically and sank to the floor, bringing her knees to her chest, weeping, "I'm not crazy! I'm not! I'm not! I'm not!"
Henry had rushed to her side, "Eliza! Snap out of it! Nobody said you're crazy. Just tell me what happened."
"I feel sick." she whispered, accepting her brother's arms.
This time when Vic made eye contact he realised her eyes had never changed. It wasn't her eyes he had been looking at. It was fear. He had seen fear. He stood stunned as he mulled it over in his mind. The girl who was, in his words, his 'unbiological sister', wasn't just scared, terror had possessed her. He suddenly thought of The Exorcist but shook away the thought. He was being ridiculous. His eyes flicked to the scene outside the window, morbid curiosity forcing him to search for what could have caused such a reaction in the young girl. He wasn't sure what he was expecting but it definitely wasn't Patrick Hockstetter, complete with the homemade flamethrower. Pat had only joined the Bowers Gang at the beginning of that summer but Vic had been aware of him for a lot longer than that. They had a couple of lessons together in school and Patrick's hobby of killing flies with his ruler and keeping them in his pencil case didn't go unnoticed by the boy with bleached-blonde hair. Henry had also told him that Pat believed that everything in the world was fake and that he was the only thing that was real. Vic didn't really understand it. Eliza had told him that Patrick probably had solipsism syndrome but Vic thought that was just a polite and overly complicated way of saying bat-shit crazy. That was one of the reasons he was glad El had finally made some friends: she was hardly ever anywhere near Pat. The lanky boy had gone missing after chasing after that fat new kid and Victor was not expecting to ever see him again. Especially not in the state he was as he crept outside the Bowers' residence: his throat had been slit and he was covered in blood. The only thing Vic could think to compare him to was Carrie from the Stephen King book and movie. He had always been scared of Patrick. Patrick was insane. He had to admit Henry had been acting a little strange that summer - he seemed desperate to hurt the group of kids Eliza had started hanging out with (Vic had considered ditching Henry and joining her - surprisingly, he didn't particularly enjoy beating up little kids) and there was a split second where Vic actually thought he was going to kill the fat kid on the Kissing Bridge - but if you looked hard enough, Vic knew Henry had a layer of humanity (he could even go as far to say that there was compassion somewhere in there - Henry would deny that though of course), a layer that his sister could bring out easily. Victor Criss didn't think Patrick Hockstetter had that. He thought the rumour that the pyromaniac killed his baby brother in his crib just for the fun of it was probably true. All of a sudden, Patrick's neck began to twist. It turned an entire three hundred and sixty degrees before coming to a stop. This was the first time in Vic's life that he had wanted to see Pat. The boy's face had gone and what was underneath was much much worse.
"Killer clown." he whispered just loud enough to remind Henry of his presence.
Henry growled, "What the fuck are you gawking at?! Are you gonna help or what?!"
"Oh! Uh, yeah." he stuttered after crashing out of his daze, crouching by the ghostly pale girl wheezing on the floor.
He helped Henry move her to her bed and she looked up at him with wide eyes, "I'm gonna hurl."
"I'll go find a bucket." he mumbled and headed to the kitchen to hunt under the sink, pausing in the doorway to take a final peek outside - the clown had vanished.

A/N: There are probably a shit ton of mistakes in this but I'm too lazy and tired to do another proof read. The chapter is shit anyway. I go back to school today after summer break. Fun. I'm running on four hours sleep though bc I was up doing homework. Don't procrastinate kids! Anyway, I hope I don't die before Voltron season 8, and bye.