Hawkins was the perfect place for her; she had the idyllic life - not quite routine, but she was fine with that. Just enough happened in the small town for her to write her weekly journalism columns and normality was certain.
Until a certain chain o...
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"You're positive that was Dart?"
Lucas' question broke the tense silence that had fallen over the group as they walked down the railroad tracks. They all protested Shay's suggestion to take her car - despite the possibility of them being ambushed at any moment - so there they were: walking like a bunch of sad sacks of shit with more questions than answers.
They assumed that the creatures were heading somewhere for some reason. That was the only explanation that they had for the Upside Down creatures not eating each of the human beings, which they could have done easily. Whatever reason the Demogorgons had for not eating them was still a mystery and they were supposed to be figuring that out by following them apparently.
"Yes. He had the same exact yellow pattern on his butt." Dustin sounded defeated as he spoke about the Demogorgon he'd affectionately named 'Dart'.
"He was tiny two days ago." Max chimed up from the back, right next to Shay.
"Okay, how come you all know about this thing? Dustin, did you keep it as a pet?" the teenage girl frowned as she thought about it, wondering who in their right mind would keep that thing as a pet.
Then again, the kids were pretty nerdy. Sweet, sometimes irritating as all hell, but incredibly nerdy.
"No, I just found it and showed it to the party," Dustin shook his head. "Anyway, he's molted three times already."
Whatever 'the party' meant. But he was talking about this thing like it was a lizard or something and not a carnivorous thing that would eat them all if it so much as went hungry for a moment.
From the corner of her eye, Shay watched as Max began to look uncomfortable about the topic at hand. Welcome to the club, girl. "Well when's he gonna molt again?"
"It's gotta be soon. When he does, he'll be fully grown, or close to it. And so will his friends."
"Yeah, and he's gonna eat a lot more than just cats."
Everyone froze at Steve's words. Not only were these things dangerous, but Dustin had kept one. She knew he was lying.
"You kept a cat-eating monster," Shay watched the boy turn and look at her with a wild look in his eye. Like a deer in headlights, almost. "Dustin, get a lizard if you want to watch it eat things, not a Demogorgon in dog form!"
"I didn't keep him!"
"What are you talking about? He ate Mews." Steve chimed up from the back.
Lucas looked just as pissed as she was, if not more so. It wasn't a surprise that he jumped in and initiated an entire argument that Shay took a step back from. It was just Dustin and Lucas going at it, throwing jabs at each other, until Dustin decided to bring Max into it, too. They all clustered together and started a yelling match that Steve and Shay just looked at from the side.
