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c h a p t e r f o u r t y - n i n e
As Argyle goes to "calm down," which was really just code for "get high out of his mind," Bianca, Mike and Will perch themselves on the hood of an old truck, discussing what the hell just happened.
"You can't let him get to you," Will assures, nodding to the pizza van. "He's stoned out of his mind. He doesn't even know what he's talking about."
"Actually, the problem is that he isn't stoned yet," Bianca corrects. "But the point still stands."
"But is he wrong?" Mike raises his eyebrows. "I mean, if that guy lived one more second, one more second, then we'd know where she is."
Bianca drops her head down at that, sighing, "God, why didn't he say the number? What difference would writing it have made?"
Bianca then gets off of the car, feeling trapped by the tense nature of the conversation. "I should finish digging. We need to get out of here soon."
"Bianca," Mike tries to call after her, but she ignores him, walking back to the shovels.
"Are you okay?" Jonathan approaches her, confused that she was continuing to cover an already hidden body.
"Fine," she mutters, turning back to the grave.
"Bianca, I think it's okay. Nobody's gonna see him."
"Are you an expert on graves now?"
"Are you?" he retorts, earning a glare. "Look, we're gonna find her and go save Hawkins like always. But that'll only work if we're all at our best."
"How much of what you just said do you actually believe?" she plants the shovel in the ground, crossing her arms.
He opens his mouth to defend himself, but gets interrupted by Argyle shouting from the ground. "Hey, does anyone know the dead guy's name? I'm making him a headstone."
"You do realize we spent all morning hiding the body."
"Well, I'll just write, uh, Here Lies Unknown Hero Agent Man. Yeah, saved Argyle, Jonathan, Will, Mike, and Bianca from certain death," he nods.
"You're gonna write our names on the pizza box?"
"They're pretty common names."
"Argyle?" Bianca scoffs. "That's a common name?"
He simply shrugs, continuing to struggle writing on the box. Bianca narrows her eyes at that, reaching her hand out. "Can I see that?"
"It's a piece of shit, I'm warning you now," he hands it over, and she inspects it as Mike and Will walk over, clearly having the same thought process.
"Does it say anything?" Mike asks, just as she unscrews the top, allowing a rolled up piece of paper to fall out.
Mike picks it up, Bianca looking over his shoulder at the writing, with a visible smile growing at the sight of a phone number.
"It's the number. We've had it this whole time," he grins, giving Bianca a high five.
"Let's find a phone booth," Bianca bounces over to the car, obviously much more optimistic than she was five minutes ago.
When the rest of the boys don't immediately make a move, she snaps her fingers, her bracelets jangling at the movement. "Hello, we don't have all day! ¡Ándale, hurry up!"
They quickly move, scrambling to the van as Jonathan catches the keys she threw at him.
"Is it bad that her yelling at us makes me nostalgic?" Will chuckles.
"I was just about to say the same thing," Mike laughs, barely slamming the door as Argyle pulls off.
______
"Oh, wow, my daughter is home for once? This is shocking," Leo chuckles as Sam walks in the house, Steve trailing behind her. "Hi Steven."
"Hi Mr. Flores," he waves, while Sam gives the man a hug.
"Hi Dad," she squeezes him tightly, and he gives Steve a confused look at the sudden affection.
"¿Estás bien?" he frowns.
"Of course," she attempts to smile, giving what was much more similar to a grimace instead. "Is Mom home?"
"I hear my beautiful daughter's voice..." they hear her before they see her, walking in the kitchen with a vase of flowers so big they were blocking her face.
"Ay, ma, careful, you could hurt yourself," she's quick to grab the flowers, putting them on the table.
She waves her off, giving her and Steve a hug. "You coming to pick up some clothes? Or to fill me in on how you and Nancy Wheeler became friends?"
"We're not," she deadpans. "It's just... with everything going on, we all figured we should camp out together. Strength in numbers, you know?"
"Smart," Leo grins, pushing his glasses up on his head.
"Thank you, but I just came to grab some clothes and Steve needs a hammer. Can he borrow yours, Dad?" she asks.
He eyes the boy with an amused grin. "He's doing handy work?"
"Yeah, I, um..." he scratches the back of his neck.
"His trophy shelf broke. As you can see, it's still hard for him to talk about," she saves him.
"Oh, well, it's in the basement. Good luck," he gives a thumbs up.
"Thanks, I'll go grab it. You wait here," she runs downstairs, searching past the piles of art supplies that she was regretting not cleaning up.
As soon as the basement door closes, Gianna and Leo turn to Steve. "Is she okay?"
"Um, of course, why... Why wouldn't she be?" he grimaces, feeling guilty for lying.
"She looks tired. And she's been jumpy," she reasons.
"And she hugged me," Leo scrunches his eyebrows.
"She's just feeling down about Chrissy, you know? She couldn't even go to the funeral," he lies. "But I'm sure with time she'll be okay."
"Thank you, Steven. You're treating her well."
"Just looking out for her," he smiles to himself, as Sam runs back upstairs, triumphantly holding up the hammer.
"Ready to go?"
"Yep," he nods, waving goodbye to her parents as she forces them into yet another group hug so tight they could barely breathe.
"Bye, love you!" she runs out before they can question her, yanking Steve out the door behind her.
______
"Why didn't we think of this sooner?" Bianca grins, holding the empty pen up in the sunlight poking through the backseat. "He literally gave us the number and we didn't realize it."
"I think the whole running from bullets thing might've impaired our judgment," Mike shrugs, spotting what looked like a booth outside the window. "Argyle, slow down. There's one."
"There's a what?" he glances to the back.
Bianca's eyes widen, while Argyle continues moving unbelievably fast. "Argyle, slow down."
"Stop barking orders, my tiny friend," he waves her off, making her once again question why they let someone so obviously intoxicated drive a van full of minors.
"Jesus-" she sighs. "Argyle."
"Slow down!" Mike shouts, and finally he obliges, putting the car into a hard stop right next to the booth.
"Whoa," the long-haired boy blinks rapidly, while the rest of them get out.
"You have coins?" Bianca asks Mike, who nods, handing her one.
"202-968-6161," she reads off as she dials, holding the phone up to her ear.
The line rings, before switching to an odd sound.
"Is it ringing?" Mike questions.
"No," she furrows her eyebrows together, turning to him before passing the phone. "Listen."
"Wait," he hands it to Will. "That remind you of anything?"
"Wargames," he responds, Jonathan taking the phone from him.
"Oh my God, we're not calling a phone. We're calling a computer," Jonathan realizes, and they all run back to the van.
"Everytime I think we've gotten somewhere, we take three steps back."
"Not so fast," Mike shakes his head, reaching in the glove box for a map. "I don't know if Nina's a computer like Joshua or Owens' lab, but Unknown Hero Agent Man gave us access to it for a reason. We just need to find the computer. We find Owens, then warn him."
"We'll need a hacker for that," Bianca leans against the door. "And I'm not bringing my cousin into this."
"I know. Marco is off the board, way too close to your parents. But the only other hacker we know is in..." his eyes scan the map, finding the state. "Utah."
"Wait, Utah?" Jonathan raises his eyebrows, as Bianca's eyes widen in realization.
"Salt Lake City, to be specific."
"Oh my God," Will gasps. "Oh my God."
"What? Why 'Oh my God?'"
"Turn around," he begins to sing, Bianca joining in. "Look at what you see..."
They giggle as Bianca does a shimmy through the song. Truthfully, anytime she thought about that night she felt like it couldn't have been real.
And to this day she didn't understand why "The Neverending Story" was Dustin and Suzie's song.
"Oh, no," Jonathan grimaces.
"Neverending Story. That scared the shit out of me," Argyle nods in recognition. "The Nothing, man? That's some proper existential shit right there."
"You can't be serious," Jonathan ignores him, turning back to Mike.
"Well, let's consider it," Bianca moves closer to the map, tracing a road. "If we take the I-15 north, we should get there by morning."
"Oh, you're really serious."
"I know it sounds insane, but Suzie saved the world last year. Maybe she can save it again," Mike suggests, and Bianca grins, having missed his initiative that seemed to disappear after the summer.
_____
"What happens if we go to this creepy monster guy's place and he's there?" Sam questions, taking a sip of Steve's water as Nancy slows to a stop.
"I doubt he'd be there. I mean typically the Upside Down monsters stay there unless they're hurting someone," Dustin assures.
"Exactly," she blinks.
"He's not there. The lights would be flickering, see?" Nancy points to the home.
"No way this place has electricity," Steve scoffs.
"Let's just go. I'm sure something in there will tell us how to break this curse," Robin nods, opening the door.
Steve steps out first, finally getting a glimpse of the Creel House in all its glory.
It was one of those houses that you could just tell was haunted, you know? Sam could practically see the horror movie writing itself.
And somehow, she'd become the star.
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a/n: midterms have been kicking my ass but I plan to update the next few chapters soon