PLAYING LETHA - STRANGER THINGS (S.H)

► Chapter Three - Holly, Jolly

"What are you doing home this early?" Diana asked, "I told you not to come back until 12.40 unless you're grounded."

"I'm back because I thought it was a nag at the fact I barely leave my room, not that you'd be fucking my uncle!"

"Can you not use that word?" Jim groaned.

"What? Fuck or uncle? Cause that's exactly what's going on!" Letha exclaimed, "Jesus, just tell me next time! I can't even call you uncle anymore. Ew. Ew. Ew." Diana and Jim both burst into laughter at the young teenager. She was something else. It was like her whole persona just screamed awkward, "It's not funny! It's scarring!"

It would have been an extreme moment of her life where she would have felt hurt. But Letha just burst into laughter at the awkwardness.

***

As mentioned, Letha had two styles. Colourful, or fucking homeless. Today was definitely looked homeless.

"I love this whole homeless look you're going for. It's totally not in right now and that makes it sooooo in." Ryan Gad came up to the young teen. Letha glared at her friend, "What's got your panties in a twist?"

Letha let out one of the biggest sighs known to man, "Promise not to tell Sydney?"

"Since when do I tell Sydney anything?" Ryan rolled his eyes at her. Letha sent him another glare, "Okay, I promise!" The girl stopped walking when she reached her locker, informing the boy, "Please don't make a big deal out of this, okay? It's just me, the usual me being a girl, okay?" Ryan nodded, "I think I like Steve Harrington."

Ryan's jaw dropped. He was gobsmacked. Letha Sykes, the ice queen who turned boys down left and right had a crush, "What the hell?!" He screeched.

"Jesus, Ryan, you absolute fucking walnut!" Letha covered her ears, "It's not a big deal!"

"What's no big deal?" Sydney popped up. Letha jumped at the girl, "Jesus fuck, Letha. What's with the theatrics?"

As most people could tell within a couple of seconds of chatting with Sydney, she was a gossip. She was the equivalent of Blair from The Facts of Life programme Diana had forced into Letha's life. She wanted to know everything about everyone and she wanted to spread it across the school. Surely she wouldn't do that to her friends, but you could never be sure with Sydney.

Despite the obvious B-I-T-C-H in her, Sydney was quite understanding and she threw the meanest parties. No one messed with her or her friends as that's exactly what Carol did and then everyone found out about her little lesbian venture with Suzy Lyotard. 

Letha faced the girl, "I was thinking of dying my hair. Think I could pull off a blonde?"

Sydney let out the largest laugh, "Sweetheart, only certain people can pull of being blonde's and trust me, I have a hard time enough. You wouldn't stand a chance."

Letting out a forced laugh, Ryan stated, "We still on for the sleep over tonight, Letha?"

Letha's eyes landed on Nancy from across the hallway, "Letha, can I speak to you?" Letha nodded at Ryan and trotted away from her two friends and over to the brunette who had recently just came back into her life, "Did you tell anyone about... You know..." Nancy trailed off.

"I'd never do that to you, Nance." Letha shared a smile, "What happened with you and Harrington is none of my business, so... There's nothing to share." But there was something to share. Just how much Letha would like to be in Nancy's shoes for a change and Letha couldn't even look at Nancy anymore.

"Where's Barb?" Nancy questioned as she looked around the hallway in confusion.

A scowl replaced the smile as Letha thought about the ginger, "I tend to avoid her nowadays. Good luck finding her." Letha walked off to class, completely forgetting about the disappearing act Barbara Holland had pulled the night before.

And leaving Nancy completely confused about who on earth Letha was talking about. Because she sure as hell didn't say a word.

***

"Dustin, I swear to god-" 

Letha was cut off from her threat, "Jesus Christ, Letha! Calm yourself! I know what I'm doing!" Dustin informed her as he tried to fix the chain on the girls' bike, while the others should by the power lines, "This wouldn't be such a big problem if you hadn't failed your driving test!"

"I stand by my statement that the old lady came out of nowhere!" Letha exclaimed. Her clumsy self had not seen an old lady halfway across the road and had to swerve around her while she passed Loch Nora, "She was bound to fall over and sprain her ankle anyway! She was old."

Dustin repeated what she said in a funny voice to show her how ridiculous she sounded, "Do you have any idea how hard it is to be around you right now? Like, why are you here?"

Letha pointed at Eleven, "There's a girl right there, who has superpowers. We have no idea who she is, if she's Russian, or part of the IRA-"

"Why would the IRA be in Hawkins? Why would the IRA be out of Ireland in general?" Lucas asked from the side.

"What caused you to say IRA at all?" Dustin added on.

Letha looked around at the two boys, "I- I can't believe it. You're both ganging up on me. Your closest ally in the adult world-"

"Not an adult."

"YOUR CLOSEST ALLY IN THE ADULT WORLD and you're just doing this to me?" Letha repeated, a glare being sent in Dustin's direction from his comment, "How could you do this to me?" Dustin looked over to Mike saying, "It's going to be much easier if we just leave Letha here." Letha's mouth fell open, "Can we?"

Mike shook her head, "We need an adult here, plus El trusts her." 

"Thank you Mike."

"Plus, she's a snitch, so if we leave her, she'll just tell our parents." Mike added. 

"I am not a snitch!" Dustin shook his head and passed the bright pink bike back over to Letha, all fix. The young ones all hopped onto their own bikes, El on the back of Mikes' and started peddling away, "Hey, I'M NOT A SNITCH!"

***

It was dark now. The group of young boys, the superpowered freak and the teenaged girl who had completely forgotten about Ryan, had been walking for hours and now it was night time, "Why are we by the Byers'?"She asked as they all stopped outside the household. "She said he's hiding here." Mike told the group, who all faced Eleven.

Lucas glanced to the left with a look of disbelief on his face, "Um, no."

"I swear, if we walked all the way out here for nothin-"

Lucas interrupted Dustin, "That's exactly what we did! I told you she didn't know what the hell she was talking about."

"Woah, calm yourself Lucas." Letha rested a hand on his shoulder, "Maybe we did walk all the way out her, but maybe everything's not the way it seems. Maybe she'd right."

Lucas turned to her, "Are you kidding me? You think that Will is here?"

"No! I just think that maybe insulting the girl who can control things with her mind isn't a good idea." Letha told him.

"Why not?" Lucas asked.

Letha repeated it as if he was stupid, "Why not?"

"Hey, guys..." Dustin tried to catch their attention as he stepped forward.

"Yeah, why not?"

Letha cleared her throat, "Maybe because she can CONTROL THINGS WITH HER MIND!"

"Hey GUYS!" Dustin shouted again, breaking up the bickering as the sound of sirens drifted through the air. Two police cars and an ambulance sped past, "Will."

Everyone rushed towards the bikes and peddled quickly, following them all down to the quarry, "Adler's Quarry. Crap..." Letha muttered to herself. If it was Will, there's only one way this would end.

Reaching the quarry, they all stopped behind a firetruck. Letha's breath caught in her throat, watching a group of men pull a body out the water.

Will Byers was dead.