18. running out of time

The three ran their way to the school, and hurried their way to find the others, as Dustin suddenly informed them on a code red.

"What's wrong Max?" Clemency worriedly asked the agitated girl, as they reached the group, facing a blank wall. "I had a vision... it was here, right here... I saw a grandfather clock..." She informed, making the group furrow their eyebrows in response.

"A grandfather clock?" Nancy made sure, as the girl nodded in response, as she looked back at the walk, worrying Clemency even more. "It was so real..." The girl says, as a tear fell from her eye. "And then, when I got closer, suddenly I just... I woke up." Max added.

"It was like she was in a trance or something. Exactly what you and Eddie said about what happened with Chrissy." Dustin says, looking over to Clemency, as she sighed heavily. Max looked over to the group, as they all put their attention to her, with her increasingly worried expression facing them. "That's not even the bad part..." She says, as she hurried back to Ms. Kelley's office, and the rest followed as they looked at the girl, with concern.

"Fred and Chrissy, they both came to Ms. Kelley for help. Uh, they both were having headaches, bad headaches that wouldn't go away. And then... the nightmares. Trouble sleeping. They'd wake up in a cold sweat. Then they started seeing things. Bad things. From their past..." Max worriedly explained, as she looked at the rest of the group, but as her eyes fell on Clemency, the girl immediately knew where this was going, and the implications scared her.

"These visions, they just... they kept on getting worse and worse, until eventually... everything ended." Max stammers, as she looks at the group. "Vecna's curse..." Robin thought.

"Chrissy's headaches started a week ago.. Fred, six days ago... I've been having them for five days... I don't know how long I have. All I know is that, for Fred and Chrissy, they both died less than 24 hours after their first vision." Max says, as her tears started to well up and her voice trembled more, feeling her throat closing up, as the rest comprehend the information they are receiving,anxiously.

"...And I just saw that goddamn clock, so... looks like I'm gonna die tomorrow..." Max says as her breath hitches. The thought, and the information was not fully sinking into Clemency's mind at the moment, as she is in denial at the possibility of someone she herself knew personally, would suffer the same fate as gruesome as she had witnessed that fateful night at Eddie's trailer, well, not yet at least.

The group is suddenly startled by a commotion coming from outside, as they all turned their head to look towards the door with fear in their eyes. Steve quickly grabbed a tall lamp, as he directed the rest to stay in the office, as he left the room to see who or what caused the clanking noise.

The rest slowly followed way behind him, as he cautiously approached and looked ahead of him, and they all grew anxious as the sounds started getting louder, and louder, as it seemingly approaches, as Steve readied the lamp, waiting for whatever it is that is, assumingly, about to attack them.

They all screamed, though as it turns out, it was just Lucas, on his way to them and screaming with them, in shock and fear. Surprising Steve as he finally realizes who it was, quickly putting his weapon away. "It's me!" Lucas yelled at them, as they looked at him in disbelief. "Lucas?" Nancy exclaimed, furrowing her eyebrows looking over the boy.

"What is wrong with you, Sinclair?" Steve scolded the boy, giving him a disappointed look, and the boy apologizing to him.

"Where even were you, and you seem so out of breath... you okay?" Clemency worriedly says, as the boy pants. "I was... I was biking for eight miles.... Give me a second. Shit." Lucas says, as he catches his breath, the rest of the group looked at him with confusion in their faces. "We've got a code red." He informed, as he quickly approached Dustin, as the rest looked at him as he did. "I've been with Jason, Patrick, and Andy, and they've gone totally off the rails. They're trying to capture Eddie, and they think you know where he is. You're in terrible danger."

"Those shitheads..." Clemency mumbled to herself upon hearing this, making Lucas look over her with confusion in his eyes. "All right. Yeah, that definitely sucks, but we've got bigger problems than Jason right now..." Dustin quietly says, looking over to Max, making Lucas look back to him, then to Max, with confusion in his face.

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Nancy and Robin left the rest down the Wheeler's basement, as they went and forged some fake documents to proceed with their plan to get answers from Victor Creel themselves, the rest of the group looked at the news paper clippings on the murder case, while Max sat in front of a desk writing something, Clemency looked after her from afar, all four wondering what she might be writing.

As the two finally came back, and showed them the documents, Clemency and Steve slowly looked at each other in realization, and back to Nancy, as she looked back, with questioning eyes. "Where's ours?" Steve asked, in confusion, as Nancy pursed her lips in response.

The two followed Nancy and Robin as they went to Nancy's room, Steve still confused as to why they could not go with them, but Clemency sort of agrees to stay, given the thought of what might happen to Max anytime soon.

"Nancy, you're out of your mind if you think I'm babysitting again." Steve says as he walks after Nancy, as she approaches her wardrobe, as Clemency sat on the bed listening to the two. "First, they're not babies anymore. And Max is in real danger. She needs people around her." Nancy informed, as Steve disapprovingly looked at her. "I know. But why does it always have to be me?" Steve says, but Robin suddenly exclaimed and interrupted him as she went over Nancy's Tom Cruise poster, as Nancy reasoned it out for being an old poster.

"Okay, but Steve... we really needed to be around Max, and Nancy's the one who should take care of all the talking, with that intelligent mind of hers..." Clemency says, as Nancy nodded in appreciation, making Steve furrow his eyebrows. "Yeah, and we need to convince Dr. Hatch that, like him, we are true academic scholars." Nancy added, as Steve looked at her, then to Clemency, furrowing his eyebrows.

"Okay... but why not bring Clemency instead then?" Steve thought, making Nancy look at him, and then on her sister, with pursed lips. "Because, someone responsible had to stay around for you guys not to do anything stupid while we're away." Nancy says, as Steve looked at her in disbelief, while Clemency nodded in agreement, making Steve roll his eyes.

"Holy shit. There's a little ballerina in here." Robin softly says as she opened up a music box and showed it to the three, as they gave her a deadpanned look, while Steve slowly looked back to Nancy. "Academic scholar....? She's giving you an academic scholar vibe? Yeah." Steve sarcastically says, as Nancy grabbed a pink dress in her closet. "No, but... She will." Nancy says, as Robin looked back to her, mouth agape, as she gave her a look of disbelief. "Oh, please, tell me that you're joking..."

‧₊˚

As the two finally left, as Steve and Clemency watched them as they went, Lucas climbed up from the basement, catching their attention. "Clem, they really did leave you here." Lucas softly says. "Yeah, well, I would rather look after Max anyways." She explains, as she furrowed her eyebrows at him. "How is she, by the way?" She added.

"Well, she's still writing." He says, pursing his lips.

The three came back to the basement, as they watched Max while she continued writing, intrigued and worried, since she still had not said a word to them in a while now.

Feeling the four teen's gaze behind her, Max looked by her shoulders looking at them with her peripheral vision. "I know you guys are staring at me." She quietly says, startling the three boys as they pretended to do their own stuff, making Clemency roll her eyes at them and sigh.

"What are you doing there, by the way?" Clemency softly asks the younger girl, as she looks back at her, grabs what she had written, and approaches them, while the boys still pretend not to look at them. "You can look at me now." Max says as she looked at the other three, as they all stopped, and apologized to her, making Clemency pursed her lips.

Max sighed, as she looked at the papers she's holding, Clemency furrowed her eyebrows as the girl walked closer to them. Max proceeded to give them small brown envelopes, for them, and for El, Mike and Will, making them all furrow their eyebrows.

Clemency quietly gasps as she immediately realizes what it was, though the boys did not seem to catch up to it yet, as she looked at the girl with sadness in her eyes. "Max..." She quietly says, as the girl looked her directly in the eyes and sighed.

Suddenly, the boys started opening the letters, getting both Max and Clemency attention. "What are you doing? No, don't. That's not for now. Don't open it now." Max hurriedly stops them.

"Don't... okay. I'm sorry. What is this?" Dustin asked, confused, as he turned to look at the two boys, just as confused as him, then two Clemency with a dreadful look in her eyes, making the boy more worried as he quickly looked back at Max.

"It's a fail-safe... for after... If things don't work out." Max explained, making the mood drop lower than it already is, while the feeling of dread grew heavier, Lucas quickly shot a concerned look at the girl. "Wait, whoa. Max, things are gonna work out-" He reassured, as Max quickly interrupted him.

"No! No, I don't need you to reassure me and tell me it's all gonna work out, because people have been telling me that my whole life and it's almost never true." Max disappointedly says. "It's never true... I mean, of course this asshole curses me. Should've seen that one coming." Max added, as she felt tears welling up her eyes, as she inhaled sharply. Clemency immediately stood up, and held both of the younger girl's hands in hers and looked at. "We still don't know what we could do to get you off of this damned curse... but just know that we want you saved from this curse, okay? You're really important to us, Max." Clemency says as she tightly holds her hand, as Max nodded and weakly smiled in response.

Max looked over to the walkie-talkie on the desk, and let go of Clemency whose eyes followed her tracks, looking with confusion. Max grabbed it and looked back at the group, as their attention stayed on her. "If we go to East Hawkins, will this reach Pennhurst?" Max asked.

"Of course. Yeah." Dustin responded, while Steve looked at him with confusion. "Why are we talking about East Hawkins?" He asked, as he looked back at Max, who gave her a knowing look.

"No. No. No!" Steve says, as Max quickly left the Wheeler's basement, and the other four looked at each other, and quickly followed after her. "Max, Max. Seriously." Steve called out as he followed after the girl. "Clemency!" Steve called out, as he looked behind her, looking at her, his eyes telling Clemency to stop Max.

"Steve, if you think I'm going to spend what is likely the last day of my life in the armpit that is Mike Wheeler's basement, no offense, Clemency..." Max says, as she looks back at the older girl, pursing her lips in response. "...Then Steve, you're out of your mind. Either take me where I need to go, or you're gonna have to tie me down, which is technically kidnapping of a minor." Max says, Steve furrowing his eyebrows as he looks at Max then on Clemency.

"...And if I live to see another day, Steve, I swear to God, I will prosecute." Max added as she quickly grabbed Steve's car door, but could not open it due to it being locked, making Max give Steve a stern look. "Open the door."

"Uh, no..." Steve protests, as Max turns to look at Clemency instead, making Steve look as well. "Clemency..." Max says sternly, as Clemency looked back at her then to Steve who shook his head in disapproval, as Clemency sighed.

"Clemency... Nancy left you here because you are the responsible one... please stick to it." Steve softly says, as Clemency looked at the two,hesitant on which decision to make.

"Max..." She says, as the girl kept a stern look at her. "I will keep a close eye on you." She says, as she hurried Steve to open the car as he looked at her with a disapproving look. "Hurry up, Steve." She says, as Steve sighed to himself.

"Henderson, that super walkie of yours better reach Pennhurst." Steve told Dustin, as he went to the driver's seat, while the rest went inside the car, and they went their way to where Max wanted to go.

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