Thank you all so much for 25 thousand reads, I literally can't even believe it and I can't thank any of you enough. Thank you for all the support on this story, I don't even know what to say 🥺💕
I hope you all enjoy this chapter, it's kind of really messy since I rushed to try and get it out. Thank you all for reading :))))
"He took me, Y/n. He-He took me... I-I don't... I-I-I don't..." Iris fell silent as she dabbed a dampened tissue beneath her eye, her breathing labored.
The two girls sat on Y/n's bed, a blanket wrapped around Iris' quivering body and Y/n's hand held on her shoulder to attempt to comfort Iris the best she could.
"Just take some deep breaths, relax. He can't get you now, I promise." Y/n mumbled, massaging her friends shoulder as she sobbed out, sniffling a little.
Iris basically melted into her warm arms, holding her tightly as if Billy were about to come right back and rip her away from her arms.
"You don't have to tell me everything that happened." She assured her, feeling Iris pull away from her, "I just... need to know that you're okay."
"I saw you." She choked out, suddenly, watching as Y/n's eyebrows furrowing with confusion. "He did something to me... I don't know what b-but... I saw a building, a-a burning building. It was Starcourt." She paused, unburying the memory from her mind as she zoned out a little, staring at the used tissue that was balled up in the palm of her hand.
"I saw you and Brad, you two were in one of the back halls behind the shops. Brad was sc-screaming and crying, I don't think he was in pain though at least at that moment. He had this really deep cut, it was really deep but I don't think he was in pain then. But you... you were out cold, Y/n."
"I couldn't tell if you were like... gone. There was blood gushing down your shirt and-and out your mouth. I don't know what happened though, I couldn't see a wound from where I was but the-there was so much blood. I didn't know what to do and-and-and-and... Brad... h-he said..." Iris paused, her breathing getting heavier again.
"Hey, hey, it's okay. I'm okay. Look at me, Iris." Iris rose her eyes to meet hers, "I'm okay. You see me? You see this perfectly okay human being? I'm fine, I promise. Nothing's gonna happen to me." She said in a more promising tone, not breaking eye contact for even a second.
"I... I... I don't know what's happening to me, Y/n." She paused for a moment, swallowing a ball of tears building up in her throat, "The first thing I did after... that... I came here. I don't even remember walking here. I just remember needing to see you and Will. More than basically anything. I-I-I think I was worried, I don't... I don't know."
Y/n grabbed Iris' hands, gently, holding them in hers, "Are you okay, Iris? Do you like remember what he did? Maybe we can report it, if you're comfortable with it."
"I don't remember anything, Y/n."
Y/n gazed into Iris' teary eyes for a moment before letting out a small huff. "Come here." Y/n wrapped her arms around Iris and pulled her into a hug that she gladly reciprocated, "I'm so sorry that happened."
"It's okay... I'm fine. Thank you." She sniffled, hugging Y/n even tighter than before.
Iris' eyes fixated on her wall, squinting her eyes a little when she saw a picture of Mike, Y/n, Bradley, and Eleven at the Snowball tapped up onto the wall. Her breathing hitched a little, feeling her eyes involuntarily averting over towards Eleven and Brad.
Iris' glare hardened, her eyes fixating on the two. She just stared intensely over at her brother and Eleven, that was until she felt Y/n pull away from her arms.
"Do you want me to see if my mom can drop you off or something?" Y/n asked her, looking softly into her blue eyes.
Iris let out a small sniffle before nodding her head. "Yeah... that would be nice. Are you sure it's not too much trouble?"
"Of course not. It's right down the road."
"You're not gonna tell anyone about this, right? You can't even tell Brad."
"Are you sure abo-"
"Y/n, you can't." Iris exclaimed, cutting her sentence off.
Y/n sighed, reluctantly, nodding her head, "Yeah, yeah, sure. I won't tell anyone."
"You promise?" Y/n lifted up her pinky finger, earning a laugh from Iris as she twisted her finger around Y/n's.
"I promise."
>>>
(This next scene isn't gonna have Bradley acting like himself at all but I tried)
The next morning, Will, Lucas, and Bradley stood outside the Wheeler's front door, waiting impatiently. "So he didn't tell either of you why he called us?" Will sighed out, holding his arm as he stared towards the door.
"Nope." Lucas told him as Bradley shook his head. Lucas scoffed, stepping forward and pressing his pointer finger in the doorbell once again.
Bradley looked down at the black watch that clasped onto his right wrist before frowning down at the time, "I wish he'd hurry up. I'm supposed to be hanging out with Y/n soon." He sighed out, earning a revulsed look from Will and a sly smirk from Lucas.
"Ooooooh." Lucas teased, elbowing Brad's side, watching as his cheeks lit up and a smile stretched on his lips.
"Disgusting." Will sighed, shaking his head and tearing his eyes away from Lucas and Brad. Brad's eyes locked on Will, his smile falling at the sight of Will's disgust towards his sister's relationship.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the door swung open and there stood a panicked Mike. "Finally!" Will breathed out as Brad and Lucas sighed out in relief and annoyance.
"Sorry, guys." Mike told them, running a hand through his dark locks, a bit of embarrassment striking him. "Just come in." He told them, kicking the door open more for them.
The three boys strolled into the house, Mike leading them into the basement. Bradley, Mike, and Lucas all plopped down onto the couch and Will rushed over to the table that had been home to many of the Party's greatest memories and he began setting up a D&D game.
"So why did you call us here, Mike?" Bradley's voice echoed through the Wheeler's basement.
Mike squeezed his eyes shut with a sigh. He slapped his hands to his face, running them down it as he spoke, his voice muffled. "Because I'm fucked... I-I'm screwed. I lied to El." He tore his hands away as he leaped up to his feet, beginning to pace around the room.
"What? Why did you- Wait, Wait, about what?" Brad scrunched his eyebrows up, glaring over at Mike as he stopped directly in front of him.
"I told her that my Nana was... dying so I didn't have to hang out with her."
Bradley sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and pointer finger as he shook his head.
"And why the hell would you do that?" Lucas joined in from right beside Bradley, his arms crossing over his chest.
"It was that asshole, Hopper. He threatened me."
"Did he say he'd kill you?"
"What? No!"
"So then, what's the big deal?"
"The big deal is if I don't do what he says, then he'll stop me from seeing El." Mike exclaimed, Lucas rolling his eyes a little bit and Brad sighing a little, "Like permanently. You don't understand. He's crazy."
"So lying is what you chose to do?" Bradley spoke up, frowning, "You know how she feels about lying. She says 'Friends don't lie' all the time, did that just go over your head or something, Mike?"
"What was I supposed to do?"
"Not lie." Brad stated as if the most obvious thing ever causing Mike to clap his hand to his thigh, groaning with annoyance, "Maybe you could try telling her what Hopper said to you. Hopper's obviously not comfortable with you guys around each other 24/7 so maybe try to give each other some space."
"No, no, no." Lucas stood up to his feet, shaking his head as Mike plopped down onto the bed, "If you tell her you lied or even hint at it, she's just gonna get pissed."
"If you keep prolonging the lie, she'll get even more pissed!"
"Brad, have you and Y/n ever had this problem?"
"Are we supposed to have this problem?"
"Didn't think so. Listen, Mike, you can fix this, it's just one little mistake. I've made hundreds, thousands of mistakes. Max has dumped me five times." Lucas extended his palm out to show his fingers as Brad scoffed, shaking his head.
"And what have I done? Huh? Have I despaired? No! I've marched back into battle and I've won her back every single freaking time."
Brad clapped his hands together, sarcastically, Lucas and Mike turning to him, "Remind me to go to you for relationship advice when Y/n and I have problems, Lucas. You guys obviously know like nothing about girls."
"What do you know about girls that we don't?" Lucas fired at Bradley, standing up straight, "I mean you didn't know what a kiss was until like December."
"Well you just said that you and Max broke up five times. I mean, I get that some relationships are a bit rocky but five times, really?"
"Since when are you a marriage counselor?"
Bradley stood to his feet, marching over to Lucas' side, ignoring his comment. He met eyes with Mike before beginning to talk, "Hear me out, okay? I get sometimes honesty can be a bit painful sometimes but really, it's the best policy in a relationship aside from like trust and communication. Without, those three things, relationships are, well, unhealthy."
"Brad, movies are your sources of relationship advice." Mike told him, lifting an eyebrow, sceptical of whether or not he should be listening to him.
"Listen, Mike, I'm not finished yet. In a relationship, you have to fix what's broken before things get worse because you care about each other and don't want to risk losing them. You get what I'm saying?"
"You get that from a movie too?"
"I'm just trying to help, Lucas."
Mike and Lucas locked eyes before both of them took off up the stairs, leaving Brad and Will alone in the basement, "I tried." He muttered under his breath.
Will snapped his head up to face Brad before looking to the stairs, "Wait, they left?" He sighed out, sadly as Bradley nodded his head, shoving a hand in his pocket.
>>>
Iris stared up at her ceiling, her body stiff, almost as if there wasn't an ounce of life racing through her. She swallowed, harshly as it started happening again.
The blurred vision, the sweaty palms, the rapid breathing.
It was all coming back to her.
She felt the arm latch onto her mouth, sucking the life out of her and replacing it with another.
This wasn't her.
This wasn't fucking her.
Why could no one see it?
A sob ripped from her lungs as the voices from the living room tv got progressively louder. She sat upwards, her hands clasping to her ears as the voices got louder, filling her head, echoing through her head.
Her sobs continued, growing more frequent, "Please..." She cried out, her voice broken as she dug her nails into the underside of her ears. "Why me? Why me? Why me? Why me?" She repeated, between sobs as she relived the events of last night.
Every drop of pain, every ounce of sorrow filled her being once more.
Blood slowly dripped from her nose as she remembered the Starcourt Mall, burning in the distance. As she remembered her brother crying over the figure of his bleeding girlfriend and the girl she had called a friend all her life and all that Iris could do is stand there, watching, unable to look away.
The blood dripped into her parted lips and onto her t-shirt, the metallic taste being the least of her concerns as the memories just flooded through her body until... it finally just... stopped.
Just like that, everything left her, the pain, the dizziness, the memories. With a snap of her fingers, it was all gone.
Iris inhaled a large breath as if she hadn't breathed in minutes, blood still running down her nose and there was just one thing on her mind.
One person.
One person that she for some reason felt a bitter hatred towards.
One person that she wanted gone.
One person that she needed gone.
Brad.