Jeopardy- Stranger Things

Chapter Fifty Four

November 12th, 1983

Dustin sat at Joyce's dining table, her phone clamped between his chin and his shoulder as he wrote down everything Mr Clarke was telling him about how to make a sensory deprivation tank. He was nodding intently as scribbling away as everyone else sat around him, watching and waiting. But George wasn't so interested.

He'd snuck away from the table and gone to sit alone in Joyce's small sitting room. The room was almost entirely covered in Christmas lights and part of the wall was missing and had been boarded up messily with planks of wood that was letting in a draft of cold air but he didn't mind so much. He just wanted to be on his own for a bit.

It wasn't too long before Joyce had noticed he was missing and had found him sat alone in the dark just staring in between the cracks in the boarded up wall. She sat down silently next to him and smiled slightly when George caught her eye.

"You doing okay?" She asked softly. George looked at her and then back to the wall as he shrugged and nodded half-heartedly.

"Did Nick say where she was going?" He asked after a while of sitting in silence. Joyce sighed and tried to smile as George looked to her for guidance.

"No," She said quietly, shaking her head slowly, "But she did a very brave thing." Joyce tried to reassure him but George looked away from her again to stare blankly at the wall.

"Those men," he piped up, "The bad men. They were at the junkyard. It didn't work, whatever she did, wherever she went, they didn't follow her."

"We don't know how many men there are out there who are after us," Joyce said, shifting to sit closer to George, "Some of them might have gone after her. But I know your sister, she's tough and can take care of herself. Just have hope, like I do for Will. We just have to trust her now."

*

Nick passed the radio over to Hopper, fully aware that George would try to talk her out of it but she knew they didn't have much of a choice. Those men already knew what she and her car looked like. They weren't likely to follow Jonathan or Hopper, but if they saw her car again, they'd take the bait. She knew it was risky. She knew it was dangerous. But when was it not? How many times now had George asked her to help him when he was in danger, no questions asked? Now it was her turn to not ask questions while she did something dangerous. Nick smiled, she was just thankful it wasn't him in danger this time.

She darted out of Joyce's house before George had a chance to say anything back to get her to change her mind. She jumped in her car, started the engine and backed out of Joyce's drive without a second glance back at the house. It was now or never.

Nick sped away as fast as she could, accelerating hard to get the attention of whoever these men were. She didn't dare risk taking her eyes off the road, not even for a second in case she sped off the road and crashed. She could only hope that her plan had worked and whoever it was that was putting George in danger were now coming after her.

*

Nick slowed down when she got into town. The last thing she needed was the police pulling her over cause she was driving too fast. To make up for her lack of speed, Nick took every possible turn she could, going down every single side road to throw off whoever was following her. For a while, it was working. A couple of those vans that had chased them earlier were lurking around and had started following her from a distance and a few fancy looking cars with blacked out windows had caught on two, but by the time she made it to the centre of town, the cars and vans had lost interest.

Nick pulled up opposite the cinema and waited, looking behind her in the rearview mirror to catch a glimpse of anyone who might still be following her but the longer she waited and still nothing came she had to admit that her plan had failed.

"Shit," She cursed and slammed her fist down on the steering wheel, accidentally sounding the horn. A couple of passers by turned to glare at her but she didn't care, she just glared back and they were soon on their way again. All except one.

From across the street, none other than Steve Harrington was halfway up a ladder, scrubbing off graffiti that now read "Slut Wheeler". Three guesses who that was about. Nick rolled her eyes. She thought he liked her and now he was pulling this stunt? Eurgh, men.

Nick rested her elbow against the driver's side window and leant her head on her arm, covering her eyes with her hand in frustration at her failed plan. Now what was she going to do? Those bad men, or whoever, were still out there looking for George. They could have found him for all she knew. He could be in real danger.

A nock on the glass startled Nick. She jumped, frantically moving her arm away from the window and scowling when Steve, ever so coolly, bent down to peer in at her.

She wound down the window to tell him to fuck off but before she could, he interrupted.

"You okay there?" He said and Nick immediately rolled her eyes, "It's just, most people don't randomly sound the horn when they're happy."

"Oh what do you care," she snapped, flicking her around to face him and sending her hair spinning.

"Look," he said with an earnest sigh and ran a hand through his hair, "I know I've been kind of a dick to you at school and-"

"Kind of?" Nick interrupted bluntly, obviously seething, "Kind of a dick?"

"Okay, fine, 'a dick'," he corrected but Nick didn't look any happier, "But I-"

"Let me guess," she cut him off again, this time sounding dangerously calm, like a volcano before it erupts, "Now that you're dating Nancy you've seen first hand what it's like to subjected to constant torture and you're not going to do it anymore." She said with a scarily happy looking smile.

Steve frowned for a second, clearly not expecting Nick to take it so well. He didn't seem to realise that it didn't add up and smiled, thinking he'd won.

"Yeah, exactly!" Steve said as he rested his arm along the open window, smiling and nodding, glad he'd got through to her.

"Fuck off," Nick spat in response and furiously wound the window up without giving him so much as a second to remove his arm before the window pain dug into him, forcing him to spring back.

Steve held his arm and frowned, watching as Nick drove off, sticking up her finger at him in the mirror.