*12*

🔥CHAPTER 12🔥

*-*Third Person's POV*-*

A truck pulled up at the Hargrove household, pretty late at night, the two adults entered the house with the groceries that they have brought. "Hey, guys, we're home." The woman says loudly so that the children would be able to hear her, but she got no reply. "Guys? Hello? Max?" She calls out going to her daughter's room first, only to find the room empty and her window wide open. The woman sighs as she went to close the window.

Billy was in his room, getting ready for his date he had with another random girl at school, only to distract himself from the unknown feeling he had for a certain dark haired girl. He lid a cigarette, taking a huge pull, breathing it out, dancing to the rock music that was playing on his radio, and looking at himself in the mirror. He did his hair, putting on cologne, even on place that wasn't really necessary. Billy checked what his ass looked like in the mirror, in the new pair of jeans he brought recently, being very cocky with his appearance.

His mood went down when there came a knock from his door, and the voice of his stepmother following. "Billy?" She calls.

"Yeah, I'm a little bit busy in here, Susan." He says, staring towards the door, through the mirror.

"Open the door. Right now." Yells his father as well, he sighed, taking one last pull of his cigarette walking towards the door, opening it, to find both adults standing there.

"What's wrong?" Billy asks, not understanding why they were bothering him.

"Why don't you tell us?" His father asks.

"Because I don't know." Billy states.

"We can't find Maxine." His stepmother spoke up.

"And her window's open. Where is she?" His father asks him, never looking away from Billy.

"I don't know." Billy says

"You don't know?" The older male scoffs out.

"Look, I'm sure she just, I don't know, went to the arcade or something. I'm sure she's fine." Billy says, going to his closet to get a jacket, his father followed him inside his room. "You were supposed to watch her." He states firmly.

"I know, Dad. I was. It's just you guys were three hours late, and, well, I have a date. I'm sorry, okay?" Billy tells him, with a few sighs in-between. "That's why you've been staring at yourself in the mirror like some faggot instead of watching your sister?" Neil asks, his arms crossed, looking towards the mirror than Billy.

"I have been looking after her all week, Dad. Okay? She wants to run off, then that's her problem, all right? She's 13 years old. She shouldn't need a full-time babysitter. And she's not my sister!" Billy says, which his father didn't like very much, as he put of the radio in Billy's room, pushing him up against the closet, making Billy grunt from the impact.

"What did we talk about?" Neil asks, but when Billy didn't answer him, he slapped him across the face, his stepmother looked away, not liking what she had to witness. "What did we... talk about?" Neil asks, a little slower this time.

"Respect and responsibility." Billy mutters.

"That is right. Now, apologize to Susan." Neil tells him, billy was breathing heavily staring at his father, tears in his eyes as he says, "I'm sorry, Susan.'

"It's okay, Neil, really..." The woman tries saying, but got cut off. "No, it's not okay. Nothing about his behavior is okay. But he's gonna make up for it. He's gonna call whatever whore he's seeing tonight and cancel their date. And then he's gonna go find his sister. Like the good, kind, respecting brother that he is. Isn't that right, Billy?" Neil states, letting go of Billy, but when he didn't get an answer he yelled, "Isn't that right?"

"Yes, sir." Billy says softly, Neil sighs deeply stepping closer to him once again. "I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you." Neil says in a calmer voice.

"Yes, sir." Billy repeats a little louder. "Find Max." Neil orders, walking out the room, closing the door behind him, leaving Billy by himself to get himself together, throwing a glass to the floor, he covered his eyes, as he cried, how he wished he could be in Meliah's comforting embrace right now, she's the only person that wouldn't judge him for his flaws.

"You're positive that was Dart?" Lucas questions Dustin, who was walking Infront. "Yes. He had the same exact yellow pattern on his butt." Dustin says.

"He was tiny two days ago." Max points out, not understanding how this thing has gotten as big as they said he has. "Well, he's molted three times already." Dustin states.

"Malted?" Steve asks confused. "I'm pretty sure he meant molted, they shed their skin, to make room for their growth, I think it's like hornworms." Meliah explains to the Harrington teenager.

"When's he gonna molt again?" Max asks.

"It's gotta be soon. When he does, he'll be fully grown, or close to it." Dustin states.

"And so will his friends." Lucas points out.

"Yeah, and he's gonna eat a lot more than just cats." Steve says, having everyone stop in their tracks. "Wait, a cat? Dart ate a cat?" Lucas questions Dustin.

"No, what? No." Dustin awkwardly says, but Steve kept on opening his mouth. "What are you talking about? He ate Mews."

"Mews? Who's Mews?" Meliah asks, confused about the turn the conversation took.

"It's Dustin's cat." Steve states, having Dustin turn towards him. "Steve!"

"I knew it! You kept him!" Lucas states, pushing Dustin's shoulder.

"No! No. No, I... No, I... He missed me. He wanted to come home." Dustin says, in total denial.

"Bullshit!"

"I didn't know he was a Demogorgon, Okay?" Dustin tells Lucas honestly.

"Oh, so now you admit it?"

"Guys, who cares? We have to go." Max says, only deepening the fight, "I care! You put the party in jeopardy! You broke the rule of law!" Lucas yells.

"So did you!"

"What?"

"You told a stranger the truth!" Dustin says pointing the flashlight in Max's face, having her scoff as she asks, "A stranger?"

"You wanted to tell her, too!" Lucas pointsout. "But I didn't, Lucas, okay? I didn't tell her! We both broke the rule of law, okay? So we're even. We're even." Dustin shouts, Meliah and Steve heard the screeching of monsters in the distance, Steve took a few steps forward to see where they were.

"No, no! We're not even. Don't even try that. Your stupid pet could have ate us for dinner!" Lucas yells

"That was not my fault! He wasn't gonna eat us." Dustin states.

"Guys?" Steve calls out to the kids, but they didn't hear him, as they kept on arguing. "He was crawling to come say hello?" Lucas sarcastically asks, when Meliah shouts to get their attention, "Guys!" Having them here the monsters screeching in the distance aswell. The boys went to follow the sound.

"No, no, no. Hey, guys, why are you headed towards the sound?" Max asks confused, but none of them answer her, "Hello? Hello?"

Meliah waited for Max to catch up to her, and told her, "You'll get used to the way they do things." They followed the boys, as they heard the screeching continued. When they got to an opening, it was too dark to see.

"I don't see him." Dustin says.

"It's the lab." Lucas says looking through his binoculars, "They were going back home." He adds, they stood staring at each other before walking towards the lab.

As they got closer to where the gate is located they heard a voice yelling out, "Hello? Who's there? Who's there?" Walking out of the woods none of the two groups expected to see each other.

"Steve?" Both Nancy and Jonathan asks, since he was the first person they saw.

"Nancy?" Steve asks confused.

"Jonathan." Dustin states.

"What are you doing here?" Nancy asks the group, that came out of woods, Steve didn't answer and only questioned her back. "What are you doing here"

"We're looking for Mike and Will." Nancy says.

"I hope they're not in there, are they?" Meliah asks, pointing her flashlight towards the lab.

"We're not sure." Nancy says.

"Why?" Jonathan asks, the monsters screeching close to the lab, gave him the answer, just wasn't the answer he was looking for, and so everyone started talking over each other.

"We haven't seen Will..."

"I haven't seen him since..."

"The power's back." Nancy says loudly having grabbed their attention, Jonathan ran to the little cube for the security, to open the gate, but the gate still didn't want to open, no matter how many times, he tried to push the button.

"Let me try." Dustin says stepping into the cube.

"Hang on..."

"Let me try, Jonathan!" Dustin says a bit louder this time, pushing him out of the way, and start pushing the button himself, but it still wasn't working. "Son of a bitch! You know what..." Dustin says in frustration, pushing the button even more.

"Hey! I got it!" Dustin says, chuckling as the gate started to open up. "I got it!"

Jonathan and Nancy got in the car speeding through the gate, towards the lab leaving the rest to wait at the gate. The wait felt like hours, when it was only a few minutes that has passed.

"Guys?" Meliah questions, hearing the tires of cars screeching against the road, next there was two sets of headlights speeding towards the gate, the first car kept on honking their horn, everyone got out of the way, the chief stopped next to them.

"Let's go." Hopper says. They didn't hesitate to get in.

"Come on! Come on, let's go! Let's go! Come on!" Steve says, helping everyone in, jumping in himself, and they quickly were on the road once again.

*•Unedited•*