through the dark; vic criss

Thirteen.

Thirteen.

Obviously, they couldn't stay in their little corner by the back door forever.

Isabelle had to go home eventually, with Victor making her promise to hang out with him again. They never specified a time or day or place but Derry wasn't huge. They'd run into each other (she hoped).

The next morning, when Beverly Marsh showed up at her doorstep with Annabelle in tow, Isabelle felt a little overwhelmed.

"Hey, Isabelle, is your sister here?" Beverly asked, words a little rushed.

"Haley?" Beverly nodded quickly, eyebrows knitted together. "I think she's taking a shower... why?"

"We - the losers - we need to talk to you about the quarry," Annabelle kicked at a stone on the pathway. "Please. It's important,"

The way she said was almost begging. Isabelle couldn't say no. "I'll get her,"

Haley wasn't taking a shower, but her hair was damp. She just blinked at Isabelle when the door opened abruptly.

"Beverly's here,"

"Marsh?"

"Yeah, she uh... she wants to talk about what happened at the quarry," Haley's face went pale.

"I don't want to talk about that,"

But she did, because it was eating at her a little bit. Isabelle saw that every time she looked at her sister. The parties, the drama and the friends can serve as a distraction for a while, but it doesn't work forever. It doesn't change what happened at the quarry.

"She says it's important - like really important,"

Haley looked at her silently for a second, then out the window. Like she thought she'd see Beverly and that would help her decide what to do. Or maybe, some darker part of Isabelle's mind started to whisper, she thought she'd see the thing from the water.

"I'll be down in a minute,"

Beverly had moved away from the door by the time Isabelle made her way back downstairs. Instead, she was over by the fence in front of the Randall house with Annabelle. They were both holding the handlebars of their bikes steady.

"She's coming," a thought suddenly occurred to Isabelle, "where exactly do you want us to go?"

"Bill's house," Annabelle answered. "It sort of became our base camp,"

Isabelle couldn't help but smile. She remembered when she used to play with the boys who lived down the street from her. They'd mark two houses as the respective base for the two teams they'd divide the group into. Isabelle remembered one of the boys teaching her how to make a sword out of sticks and the pipes he'd found in his dad's shed because the other boys didn't think she should have even been playing. They used to use the Torres' house as a base, but then their mother saw Isabelle playing with them and said she wouldn't let a girl play games so rough in her backyard.

Those were among her happiest memories.

"How are we getting there?"

Beverly and Annabelle, in perfect unison, looked down at the bikes they were holding and then back up at Isabelle, looking at her as though she were stupid.

Isabelle's tiny chuckle made the beginning of her sentence breathy. "I can't ride a bike,"

"Why not?"

"I never learned,"

Haley came out of the house then, glanced at the girls and the bikes for only a moment before she darted back inside. She emerged seconds later with Charlotte's keys in her hand.

"Won't your sister need them?" Beverly inquired, eyebrows a little furrowed.

"She's at work - dad drove her because he had a job today..." Annabelle tilted her head. "He's a photographer; either spends every day at home or doesn't finish shooting until midnight,"

It was a little difficult to fit Beverly and Annabelle's bikes into the car without damaging them, but they did it. Mostly because Beverly assured them she'd dropped her bike on the ground plenty of times and one time it fell down the slope by the kissing bridge. She said it would be fine.

Bev sat in the passenger seat, giving Haley the directions because she hardly even knew Bill Denbrough, let alone where he lived. She just knew the gossip.

Annabelle sent a small smile to Isabelle. Probably because she saw Isabelle biting at her lip nervously.

"There's no reason to be scared,"

Isabelle sent the smile back. "I'm not scared,"

"This is crazy," Haley said bluntly. Isabelle stared at Bill.

"It's crazy but it's real,"

"No," Isabelle shook her head, almost laughing. "No, no, no way. You're telling us that there's some ancient clown-demon roaming around Derry and you're going to stop it?"

"We're going to try,"

Mike took a step towards the girls. "It's evil. It knows what scares us most and that's what it shows us,"

"What, so it's just some bored guy in a clown suit trying to scare kids?" Haley's voice, probably without her realising, was raised a bit. She didn't seem upset enough to be yelling, she was just confused and a little shocked. Isabelle felt the same.

"No, it's- it's not a person it's just... an it, an evil thing that's not really alive,"

"So how do you know it can be killed?" Isabelle looked at their faces before she continued. None of them tried to interrupt. "Because, as far as I know, if something isn't alive it can't die,"

"We can hurt it," Beverly spoke up.

"How do you know?"

"If we ca-can figure... figure out where it li-liv-lives we can do s-something," if it were anyone else, the stuttering and the tremble in Bill's voice would have conveyed a fear. But it wasn't. This was Bill Denbrough: the kid who wasn't afraid. Not of his basement, not of failing, not of Henry Bowers. "We ha-have to."

Isabelle could only observe him for a moment. She couldn't find her voice. Couldn't find the heart to tell him she didn't want to find whatever took Georgie Denbrough into the sewers.

980 words.

i feel like everyone aged five years since i updated this jdcbkdj

weirdly, i write more when i'm at school so things are looking up