TW: Jason being violent

The Number of the Beast - Iron Maiden

Beck woke up disconcerted but rolling over and seeing her friend's long brown hair brought the horrible memories of the day before flooding back. Eddie was gone and she didn't know how to find him.

She couldn't go home so she had gone to Sarah's and Sarah's parents had agreed Beck shouldn't be alone right now with a roaming killer. And that would only last until the police announced Eddie as prime suspect and then she would be back on her own.

Beck rubbed her face, slipped out of bed, and padded down the hall. Sarah's parents were up and cooking breakfast but there was a phone in the upstairs hall Beck used to call Ted Wheeler's number.

A pleasant sounding woman answered and told her Nancy wasn't home but she could take a message. Beck gave her name and when she returned to the bedroom Sarah was waking up as well.

"You were crying in your sleep," she said and Beck blushed.

"Sorry. Eddie does that sometimes and it's... terrifying…" she trailed off and again dug her nails into her palms.

Sarah pulled Beck's hands out of the tight fists they were in and held them in hers.

"We'll find him, Beck."

She had told Sarah that Eddie had been really scared after a bad drug deal and then had gone missing. As much as she trusted her friend, Beck knew that she may be one of the only people willing to believe him completely incapable of murder.

"Food first and then the hunt is on. Okay?" Sarah asked, and Beck nodded. She was starving.

Eddie has slept terribly. It was still cold at night but he was afraid to go into the house too much after Dustin and company had found him so easily. So he lurked in the boat when he couldn't think of anything else to do and practiced the cords to "Master of Puppets" in the air.

A car door slammed and he threw back the tarp. Probably a stupid impluse but it was better to know what was coming he reasoned as he rushed to the boathouse window.

He clutched his busted bottle and relaxed a little when he couldn't spot anyone. That immediately backfired as the door to the boathouse slammed open and he jumped back yelling, "Jesus Christ!" and wielding the glass at… Dustin and Robin.

"Delivery service!" Dustin chirped and the four teens that had visited him the night before entered with a bag of groceries.

His heart started beating again and Eddie tried not to slap Steve as he waved at him. He dug through the bag and found a box of Honeycomb and a Yoohoo. Moving to sit on a crate, Eddie tore open the box, feeling like his stomach had started to eat itself out of desperation, but paused after grabbing a handful of cereal.

Last time he had been eating Honeycomb dry he was in his van waiting to pick up Beck for Punkfest. That had been such a good day…

"You good?" Max asked, clocking the brokenhearted expression he was aiming at the box of cereal.

He nodded sharply, not trusting himself to speak and began shoveling the cereal into his mouth. Maybe it was the fear or the slow starvation but this was the best Honeycomb had ever tasted.

"Where's Beck?" he asked, looking them over.

Max and Robin exchanged a look and his skin prickled.

"I couldn't reach her, Eddie," Max said. "She never picked up her phone and she wasn't at work."

"We've got uh some good news and some bad news. Not about Beck!" Dustin said, quickly realizing the lack of context could be an issue. "How do you prefer it?"

"Bad news first. Always," Eddie said, swigging Yoohoo and trying to let his brain shift off of it's obsessive worrying about Beck. He was still in trouble himself.

This was made even more evident when Dustin told him the police were looking for him and were convinced that he had killed Chrissy.

"And the good news?" he asked, rubbing at his exposed knee.

Apparently the "good news" was that this information was not public but that this wouldn't last long.

"Hunt the freak, right?" he asked, his voice finally breaking and then swearing when Robin confirmed.

Dustin tried to say "all they had to do" was defeat the BBEG and then everyone said they had done this before but that they were now missing a key person who no longer had superpowers but that there was "nothing to worry about" and that sent him.

"Nothing to worry about?" Eddie said, feeling his face twist viciously. "My girlfriend is missing and there's about to be a manhunt for me! Do you know what will happen to her if people start looking for me?! That is if she's still alive and hasn't had her eyes SUCKED INTO HER HEAD!"

Dustin sat completely still and had the good sense to not comment. He looked like Eddie had slapped him but also a lot sadder.

"Eddie, we will find her," Max said, again resting a hand on his arm. He hadn't realized how much he was twitching and she seemed to have a six sense for his need to be touched and calmed. "I'm worried about her too."

Weirdly, that made him feel better. He wasn't alone in his worry for Beck.

And then the sirens started. They threw the tarp over him as he lay back down in the boat but the noises passed. The quad headed off to figure out what the mysterious evil they had named Vecna had done now and again he was alone.

More groceries and more news but also more worries and still no Beck.

Sarah and Beck were finishing a list of places and people Eddie might use to hide when one of the people on the list called Sarah's house.

"Oh my god!" Sarah yelled after answering and Beck bolted down the stairs to the phone in the kitchen. She picked up the receiver and heard Gareth talking.

"Then he punched me in the stomach and threw me into my drums!"

"Eddie?!"

"No! Jason!"

Beck felt faint and gripped the phone hard.

"Beck, Jason's looking for him. He wasn't at practice today and then Jason showed up with Lucas and some other assholes and beat the shit out of me."

"We're coming over!" Sarah said before Beck could answer. "We'll be there in ten."

When they arrived, Todd, Jeff, and Gareth had moved inside Jeff's house and Gareth was holding an ice pack over his split lip. Sarah swore loudly as she examined the bruising and the cut, rubbing his back consolingly. Gareth was flexing his hand continuously, and some of the knuckles were already bruising though nothing seemed broken.

"What happened?" Beck asked Jeff.

"We were practicing and Jason asked about Eddie. Gareth said they could see he wasn't with us and Jason lit into him. Lucas just stood there and watched it and then Jason said he would break his hand if he didn't tell them where Eddie was. So he said maybe Dustin found him because he was calling around."

Beck swore loudly. She had forgotten about the kids and it wasn't a bad guess. But calling Max didn't get her anywhere and she didn't have any other number but the Wheelers.

"Why do they want him, Beck?" Sarah asked when she came back. "You said it was a deal gone wrong but with Jason?"

Beck rubbed her face hard. "He has to get his party drugs from somewhere," she covered. To be fair, she was somewhat certain Jason had bought from Eddie in the past so it wasn't a lie.

"If they find him, they're going to kill him," Gareth said with awful certainty.

"Then we have to find him first," Jeff said and Beck nodded weakly.

"You said it's a deal gone wrong right?" Gareth said, eyes lighting up. "My parents were talking a few weeks ago about how Rick's back in prison and there's no way he's not Eddie's supplier. So his house has to just be sitting empty and Eddie would know that."

"You're a fucking genius!" Beck exclaimed as Sarah kissed the top of his head which seemed safe from injury. "So he's out on Lover's Lake?"

"Yes, but I don't know where."

"That I can find," Beck said, grabbing her denim jacket and relocating the van keys. "Eddie doesn't remember shit so there's no chance he didn't write that address down somewhere."

"I can come with you–" Sarah started to offer but Beck panicked. There was no way she was bringing anyone with her to what might still be an active crime scene that she would then have to explain.

"No! Stay here!" she exclaimed. "I'll call if I need help."

Sarah gave her a look before hugging her friend goodbye. "Don't do anything too stupid, okay?"

"I'll try to keep it to only moderately stupid," Beck reassured and then she was out the door. She wondered if she should return home but decided against it. Time seemed of the essence.

But once again, she missed Max, who was calling from Ms. Keeley's office in a panic that Beck may be in serious danger.

Eddie knew that he should have had enough food for at least another meal but his anxiety had his metabolism at an all time high and he wanted to eat everything in sight.

Not to mention his usual coping mechanisms – beer or weed – were not available so eating was the only passive action he had available to him.

He had thought they would come back for him but so far no luck. Apparently he was quickly forgotten despite his and his girlfriend's looming demise.

Eddie forced himself off that train of thought because it made him so angry he wanted to punch a wall till his hands bled. He refocused on rifling through the cabinets in Rick's house and trying the walkie talkie over and over and over.

He found some Spaghetti O's and though they were not a personal favorite because the O's were a weird little texture, they were edible and preferable to starving or leaving and getting his face kicked in.

Nancy finally picked up (when did she join all this?) and told him, no they didn't know where Beck was but yes they could bring him more food.

"Could you pick me up a six pack?" he added. "I know it's stupid as shit drinking right now but a cold beer would really calm my jangled nerves."

That was as close to sincere as he could manage but instead of acknowledging what he had said, Nancy said she would be right back and hung up on him.

He screamed into a pillow for a full minute after that and then ate the rest of his goddamn Spaghetti O's.

Eddie needed Beck so badly he would have given anything to have her with him at that moment.

Beck hit the floor of Eddie's room ass first and thanked her stars that he had never fixed the screen on his window and never once locked it.

She started her search of his room with the metal case that she knew hid some of what he sold but that didn't get her anywhere. Then she searched his horror of a backpack which made her eyes prickle with tears as she found notes from their last session. Looking under his bed got her socks and guitar strings and Heavy Metal magazines, and his books also had nothing of interest between their pages.

Letting out a yell of anger she kicked his desk hard and then yelped in pain. Beck sat down on his bed and began to cry, pulling his pillow up to her face and breathing in the smell of his skin.

If she couldn't find him and Jason did first…

That thought pulled her out of her feelings and she wiped away her tears. She knew him, better than any other person that wasn't Eddie himself. If there was something here, she would find it.

Digging through his dresser, Beck found his band shirt, the one she had made him, and changed into it. She then closed her eyes and thought. It wouldn't be in one of the doom piles around the room. It would be somewhere easy to access but also not obvious. Her gaze landed on the smallest amp in his room and she pounced.

Beck reached her hand into the narrow space on the back of the amp and patted along the bottom of it until she found a slip of paper.

2121 Holland Drive was scrawled in Eddie's handwriting and Beck jumped up and down with relief and pleasure.

It was dusk out but she was pretty sure that she could make it out there before it got too dark to read the addresses so she climbed back out the window - almost falling off the grill she had used to get up to begin with - and decided to swing by the A&P on her way out there.

As she loaded a basket with snacks she knew Eddie would like, Beck caught sight of two basketball players in black suits. She had forgotten that Chrissy's funeral was that day and she pulled her jacket closed over Eddie's band shirt. What had been a comfort now seemed like a target though there was only so much she could hide.

"Hey!"

The guys approached her, spotting her stark white skin, so she hurried to a checkout lane. This conversation would not be held in the back of the store where she was alone and exposed.

"You're the freak's girlfriend," one of them said and she gave him a vicious look.

"And you're the manipulative basketball prick's lackey," she snapped back.

"What'd you say to me?" he asked but when the kid moved in on her, the clerk ringing up her items intervened and told them to shop or get out. Beck thanked him and hurried out of the store, peeling out in Eddie's van before the guys could make it to their cars to follow her.

It was dark enough by the time she made it to the houses along Lover's Lake that she didn't notice Jason's car as she drove by the head of the drama club's house. She didn't notice them pull onto the rode behind her - headlights off - and she didn't notice them following her.

Eddie saw the headlights pull into the driveway and after a full day of asking when someone might come to feed him or help him with no reply at all, he knew he was on his own.

The boat was a good hiding spot but the second and third car that pulled up behind the original was a good indicator that they would be able to search the house and then move to the boat house in little time. As quietly as he could, Eddie launched the boat and rowed like hell.

He was a good distance out before he heard the scream and it was like an ice pick to the heart.

Beck was here and Beck was screaming.

Beck had gotten out of the van before she realized she had a tail and they had parked her in before she could try to get away.

Jason opened the passenger side door of Eddie's van and examined the peanut butter, bread, and snacks piled there.

"That's a lot of food for one person at an abandoned drug dealer's house," he said, shutting the door and walking around to her.

Beck was truly scared which she hated. She had seen what he did to Gareth for not talking fast enough and had no doubt she wouldn't benefit from the "you don't hit a girl" rule.

"Get him to come to you and we won't hurt you," Jason said, which was a bone chilling offer since Eddie's safety apparently wasn't even on the table.

"He doesn't know I'm here. He doesn't have any idea where I am."

"Hey! Look!" Andy interrupted, pointing out onto the lake.

With the moonlight on the water, it was clear from where they stood at the top of the bank that someone was rowing a boat. Someone with long curls and a very familiar frame.

"Looks like he'll know soon enough," Jason said, grinning. He grabbed her arm and started to drag her down the hill, toward the water.

Beck screamed as Andy took her other arm, digging in her heels and trying to whip her body around as much as she could but they were much stronger than her.

"You mother fucking sons of bitches!" she screamed and Jason clapped his hand over her mouth.

They drug her ankle deep into the water and Beck looked up to see Eddie, sitting in the boat and staring at her with complete horror.

"Hey freak!" Jason shouted out at him. "How about we make things even? You killed my girlfriend, so I kill yours!"

Beck slipped her mouth around his hand and bit down hard. She felt his skin break and he tried to jerk his hand free but she clenched harder, causing him to scream. When Jason's other hand connected with her mouth, Beck was forced to let go of him, and when she tasted blood in her mouth she spat it into his face.

Then water closed over her head.

The minute Jason had hit her, Eddie felt a bomb go off in his chest and he started pulling at the cord on the boat's motor. If he could come in fast enough then he might be able to force them back and grab Beck. Or if he was lucky he could hit this asshole with the boat.

"Come on! Help me out here!" he shouted at the motor before a new struggle on the shoreline caught his attention.

He watched Jason wipe blood out of his eyes and then shove Beck over into the water. As she struggled to her feet, he waded out to her and pushed her over again, forcing her into deeper water.

"It doesn't seem like she can swim," Jason yelled out to Eddie as Beck made sloppy strokes that brought her toward the shore where she could touch bottom again.

Jason reached out and shoved her head under and Eddie screamed over to him, "Stop! You want me so come and get me!"

Jason grinned over at Andy who grabbed the back of Beck's shirt and hauled her back toward the shore as she gasped for air. There was a small argument as Jason goaded Patrick into joining him and then they swimming out to the boat and closing in fast on Eddie.

"Eddie go!" Beck screamed. "Go!"

He started to paddle with the one oar he could manage when the two basketball players were close enough to nearly grab the propellers of the boat. But he was exhausted and couldn't outpace them forever so he pushed to his feet and started swinging the oar, yelling for them to stay back.

Eddie could see Beck was sitting on the ground and yelling for him to go but he couldn't. If they had her instead of him, they might actually kill her and he could not live with that.

But the other kid had stopped swimming and Jason was yelling at him and then… he shot into the air like a fucking rocket and Eddie fell out of the boat.

Beck watched as Eddie's insane words about Chrissy's death were made a reality on Patrick's body before her very eyes.

Hovering in the air, his bones snapped one by one before he finally fell like a puppet cut free and hit the water.

Eddie hadn't been crazy, and Nancy had been right.

Patrick's gruesome murder had taken everyone's attention off of Eddie for the moment so when Beck saw him climb back into the boat and look back at her, she waved desperately at him, inwardly begging him to just go and be safe because that was the only thing she wanted and she had led them straight to him.

He stared at her for far too long and then began to paddle away as Jason and Andy hauled Patrick's body toward the shore.

And once he was far enough away, Beck took off toward the house to call the police.