Jeopardy- Stranger Things

Chapter Twenty Two

November 9th, 1983

"What are we doing here?" Lucas asked exasperated. Dustin had tossed his bike to the ground and stood leaning over slightly, hands on his knees and breathed deeply.

"She said he's hiding here." Mike said, his tone was too happy for the situation. Was he seriously defending her?

"Um...No!" Lucas chided, patronisingly and shook his head. Dustin huffed. George looked away and fought the urge to hide his face and scream in frustration.

"I swear if we just walked all the way out here for nothing-" Dustin groaned, still out of breath.

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

After George had left the previous night so he could get home before Nick did, the others had stayed at Mike's for dinner and spent some more time around El. The others had filled George in at school on how Eleven knew Will's D&D character, flipped over the board and said he was 'hiding'. It sounded seriously crazy to George but she was the best hope they had at the moment of finding Will. He only hoped it hadn't all been for nothing.

"Why did you bring us here?" Mike asked, even he was sounding suspicious of her now. Eleven just stood there, staring at them in confusion.

"Mike, don't waste your time with her." Lucas interjected. Not the best move. Mike wheeled around and snapped at him.

"What do you want to do then?" He spat and Lucas took a cautionary step backwards.

"Call the cops," He said calmly, "Like we should have done yesterday."

George sighed and ran his hands through his hair, then dragged them down his face. This was going nowhere. They were supposed to be looking for Will, their friend, his friend. They were supposed to be finding one of the few friends George had ever made in all of his 12 years on Earth.

Instead they were wasting their time with a girl they found wandering the woods who, in his opinion, needed help from someone more qualified than a bunch of school boys. At first he'd been all for helping this girl, but whatever her problem was, it was too complicated for them to fix.

"We are not calling the cops!" Mike protested as Eleven physically recoiled at the prospect of police officers turning up for her.

George turned around, ready to step in and try to fix things. He suspected he'd be a great mediator, he'd seen his sister patch up tricky situations countless times over. But something else stole his attention. He squinted, trying to make out what he'd thought he'd seen. It couldn't be? Through the dense trees he thought he saw...a glimmer? Like a light, a torch maybe? Was there someone out there? But the closer he looked the less he saw. It must have been his imagination, the leaves were so thick, nothing was getting through there.

Then he saw it again, it was brighter this time, closer. A blue beam flashed across the trees. Then a red one. Red and blue, alternating. Flashing red and blue lights. And a siren. It was faint but it was definitely there.

"Guys." George whispered, step forward, straight through the middle of Mike and Lucas' argument. Dustin flicked his head around to follow George's gaze.

"Oh no." He mumbled.

"Guys." George affirmed, turning to face them.

"What?" Lucas quipped, obviously annoyed George had stepped in the middle of something. Even Mike looked annoyed.

George didn't even need to explain himself as the lights had gotten brighter and the siren had gotten louder. It was undeniably an ambulance.

*

Nick held her breath as she opened the door to the break room and watched as a billow of smoke flooded out. Did Don have smoke alarms in his shop?

"You off?" Frankie asked cooly as she blew out a circle of smoke.

Nick nodded, not wanting to breathe in any of the fumes.

"Wanna stay for a fag?"

Nick shook her head.

"Suit yourself."

Nick grabbed her bag, which she was sure absolutely stunk of nicotine by this point and headed for her car. She tossed her bag in the trunk so she didn't have to smell any more fumes than necessary and hopped in the front seat.

The engine turned twice before she managed to get the car started. She'd leant down to be eye level with the key while she turned it as if that would somehow fix everything or give her any indication as to how to fix everything but somehow it worked. As she resurfaced, she was blinded by the blue and red flashing lights of a troop of ambulances, police cars and the likes whizzing past down the road that lead for home. Nick frowned. That was odd. Hawkins was normally a sleepy little town, well excluding- Oh my god, Will.

Without a second thought, Nick slammed her foot on the accelerator and instead of turning left and heading home as she usually did, she frantically steered right, and followed the trail of ambulances.