Chapter 4

"Shit shit shit shit."

Dustin chanted the word like a mantra. He heaved at his sister's limp body, struggling to get it back out in the hallway. At the same time, he had to make sure Dart didn't escape into the house. Jamie's legs were finally free from the door and he kicked it shut, effectively trapping Dart inside. Dustin had had plenty of odd pets when he grew up and he knew for certain that his room was essentially a sealed cage, not even the bat he kept in 2nd grade had managed to find its way out of there.

"Let's go, Yertle," he said to the turtle sticking up from his vest pocket. He'd snatched her when making a run for it, when Jamie had frozen on the spot. She looked kinda like Will out on that field, eyes closed, but obviously moving behind her eyelids. Completely stiff. Since she was still a couple of inches taller than him, he settled for grabbing her around the waist and lifting her straight up. Awkwardly, he walked her to her own bedroom and tipped her onto the bed.

It had been a few years since he'd last had a 'sleepover' in her room, but the futon was still where it used to be and he grabbed some more blankets from the living room. Their mom came back inside just as he'd released Yertle into Jamie's closet.

"This isn't like my baby at all," was the first thing she said and Dustin felt that huge pang of guilt. Claudia loved her kids, doted on them, but she adored the cat. It was a constant, he supposed, more-so than a couple of unpredictable teenagers that came and went as they pleased.

"Mom," he said and put both hands on her shoulders. "You need to get some sleep. It's probably just some kids that thought he was cute and started feeding him. Tomorrow we'll make some posters, put them around the neighborhood and make sure he'll come back here, okay? Okay."

It was a little weird, parenting your own parent, but he'd done it a couple of times now. Especially when Jamie was in the hospital. Sometimes, it'd just get too much for his mom and then he'd have to step up and be the man his dad hadn't been able to be.

"Okay, thank you, Dusty," his mom said and kissed the top of his head. "You always keep such a level head. Love you. Good night."

"G'night," he said and prayed that Dart would keep absolutely quiet before his mom went to bed. If he started rummaging, his mom would think it was Mews and then it'd set off a whole chain of events that would be best to avoid. While his mom got ready for bed, Dustin grabbed the huge emergency flashlight from the kitchen and a new set of batteries for the radio.

A quick check on Jamie revealed she was still catatonic. That would be just great, wouldn't it, if she slipped back into a coma. Dustin had caught glimpses of her scarred leg a couple of times, even as careful as she was to hide it, and thinking of that combined with Dart's expanding mouths, plural, made him realize just how stupid a plan it was to try and make Dart bite him for something as petty as superpowers. Especially a shitty superpower like good hearing.

A yellowish bruise had begun to form on his wrist. Yeah, he was not ready to rule out superstrength just yet. Jamie had biceps like a kindergartener, no way should she be able to grip this hard.

The light went off in his mom's room and he let out a breath. Back inside Jamie's room, he put the flashlight by his pillow, next to the radio. Mike was over at Will's house and...Lucas was still rigging that trap to catch Dart. It was late at night now though, if he tried to contact Lucas they would just get in trouble. Hopefully - hopefully - Dart would remain satiated on Mews until tomorrow morning at least.

##

Jamie was no better by the time morning rolled over Hawkins. Dustin had slipped in and out of sleep, listening intently for the slightest indication that Dart had escaped. He shook his sister's shoulder a few times, but she was gone. Great. Just great.

His ruse to get his mom out of the house worked and he watched her get in the car to drive to Loch Nora, to look for the cat that was lying dead and half-eaten in his bedroom. All right. Time to initiate the rest of the plan. First, he had to barricade Jamie's room. He thought about getting her out of the house, but figured his neighbors would find it a bit suspicious if he dragged his sister's unconscious body over the front lawn.

Instead, he used duct tape to seal her door and windows. He also put up a trip wire in the hallway, so if Dart went that way, he would know. What he would do if that happened he would have to figure out on the spot. Dressed in his old baseball catcher uniform, armed with his hockey stick, he laid out the bait and prepared the trap. It was a good plan. Dart, who seemed to prefer meat over nougat now, would follow the trail of baloney from his bedroom, out the back door and then into the cellar. Dustin, who would be hiding in the safety of the shed, would watch Dart and close the hatch to the cellar behind him.

The only problem was that this plan essentially required him to open his bedroom door while he was inside the shed. If he had had time, Jamie's help and some wires, he probably could have made that happen with an easy switch, but as it was now, he had none of this.

"Okay, okay, okay," he repeated to himself. He heard Dart rummage inside his room from the other side of the door. "Okay."

"All right, Dart," he called out and leaned forward. "Breakfast time."

It was at least a hundred degrees inside Jamie's room when she woke up. Her t-shirt and jeans were both plastered to her skin. She rolled out of her bed, head swimming, sweat dripping. The sun beamed through the windows, but they were both shut completely, even taped down with duct tape. What the hell? Even the bedroom door was taped shut, sealing the room completely so not even air could escape. No wonder it was stifling inside.

"Dustin?" she asked aloud. His old futon was spread out on her floor, his red and white hat sitting next to it. No answer, but she still heard him. He was going: "Shit shit shit shit shit!" over and over again, while moving, somewhere close to the house. It ended with the sound of the shed swinging open and then slamming shut.

"Dustin?" she asked again and tried the door-handle. Locked, from the outside. "Dustin, you little shit, open up!"

Agitated, she kicked at the door. It sprang open with duct tape pieces flapping behind it. Finally, fresh air! She stepped out into the hallway, but froze at the sound of tiny feet padding over the linoleum. Dustin's room was down the hall, the door open. Out stepped the tiny nightmare from last night, a miniature version of the creature that had nearly cost her her life. Like a little mascot for Upside Down. It spotted her with its non-existent eyes and shrieked her way, the mouths opening to its full extent.

It came bounding towards her and she shrieked herself, stepping back into her room and slamming the door.

A happy jingle rang out in the hallway while the creature made a disgruntled noise. A new round of "Shit shit shit shit!" revealed that Dustin was making his way back into the house.

"DUSTIN, GET OUT OF HERE!" she yelled, safe from her side of the door. The swearing got closer still, before it stopped, and Dustin let out the tiniest "Shit!" before his footsteps went the other way again. Jamie's hand was frozen on the door knob. She wanted nothing more than to hide in her closet for the rest of her life. She was not superhero-material!

"Shit shit shit!"

"ARGH!" Jamie yelled and wrenched the door open again. Hallway was empty, but she saw the edge of Dart's tail disappear behind the corner. Then Dustin screamed.

"YOU STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM MY BROTHER!" Jamie shouted and ran into the kitchen. Dustin stood just outside the back door, fully decked out in his catcher gear, brandishing a hockey stick to keep the screeching Dart at bay. The creature had turned when Jamie came running and split its head open to reveal its multiple sets of teeth at her. Even if it didn't reach her knees in height, it managed to send waves of panic through her system. She grabbed blindly at the mop-rack and closed her hand around a broom.

"Cellar!" Dustin croaked from behind his protective mask, before he yelped and jumped back as Dart took a few steps closer to him.

"Shoo!" Jamie said and waved the broom at the chicken-like thing. A detached part of herself wondered about the efficiency to say 'Shoo!" to a mightmarish monster, but it was what she did and she had to stand by it. It snapped at the bristles of her broom, the sound of teeth clicking almost making her pee her pants on the spot.

"I got a plan!" Dustin shouted, causing Dart to turn yet again. Jamie turned white as snow when she watched Dustin enact his plan by running down the small pathway to their cellar. The thing about catcher gear was that it only protected the front, and Dustin's entire backside was exposed to any and all sharp teeth that got near enough. Like an overeager puppy, Dart ran after Dustin and Jamie ran after Dart again.

Dustin't didn't run straight to the cellar, but to the shed. He skidded to a stop and turned a round with his hockey stick. He roared and started running after Dart, the tiny thing now turning to escape, but Dustin swung his hockey stick, smacking the creature down the basement steps. Jamie and Dustin both threw themselves over the hatch to close it, both feeling the thumps when Dart tried to get back out.

"Sorry, buddy," Dustin muttered. "You ate our cat."

Jamie wedged the broom handle between the handles of the cellar door. Dustin pulled off his protective mask to wipe his face from sweat and Jamie took the opportunity to smack him on his head.

"That was your plan?" she screamed, only now aware of the tears streaming down her cheeks. "To use yourself as bait and bitchslap it into the basement? OUR BASEMENT?!"

"Jamie, Jamie, Jamie!" Dustin shouted, fending off her hands. He then proceeded to bitchslap her. It stung smartly on her cheek and for a moment she was too shocked to act. He used that moment to establish contact. "Get your shit together! We need to figure this out before Mom gets home!"

Tears and sweat and snot mixed together on her face. "Where is Mom?"

"I sent her to Loch Nora to look for Mews. Now you got two options: bury Mews out back or clean up the blood in my bedroom. One or the other, going into hysterics is not an option right now. It was enough that you went catatonic for twelve hours."

"I did what?"

"Focus! Burial or blood, Jamie?!"

She chose burial, because at least that got her out of the house. Still sniffling, she wrapped tiny Mews, or the tattered remains that was left of him, into a shoebox and went all the way out back where she and Dustin had built their tree-house a couple of years back. Dustin had exchanged his oven mitts for rubber gloves and scrubbed away at the stains soiling his wall-to-wall carpet. Now she was thankful for the enhanced hearing, because she heard him wherever he went in the house, trying to establish contact with one of his friends.

Jamie dug a hole, about three feet deep, and gently placed Mews' box down there. Thinking she should at least say something as she started to bury him, she just whispered: "Sorry."

Inside, Dustin was getting more and more agitated by the complete radio silence from Mike, Lucas and Will. He was fussy on the details, but something was going on with Will. Jamie opted to try using the phone to reach them, or even Chief Hopper, but could not get through anywhere. Straight to voicemail at the Byers, met with a busy-signal at the Wheelers and stuck with Florence, the secretary, at Hawkins PD.

"What's our plan here?" she asked Dustin breathlessly after telling Florence that she was only interested in talking to Chief Hopper, not one of his deputies. Her face was covered in sand, Dustin's in sweat.

Dustin shrugged. "We have to kill Dart."

"Yeah, no shit, shitbrain!" Jamie snapped. "But how? I'm not going down there. I nearly pissed my pants before. I'll freeze up again and then it'll gnaw my face off like it did with Mews and-"

"Hey, hey, hey, hey," Dustin said calmly with more authority than she thought possible for a thirteen-year-old. He placed both gloved hands at her shoulders and forced her to look at him. "Calm down. We'll figure this out. I'll ride over to Mike's, see what's keeping him. Okay? Okay."

"I'm not staying here alone with that thing underneath me!"

Dustin shrugged with an exaggerated roll of his eyes. "Well, maybe if you'd had your driver's license you could have driven us somewhere, but since you don't..."

"You're just winding me up so I'll forget about being scared. Asshole."

"Is it working?"

"Yes! You know I can't - couldn't - drive because of the pills," Jamie sputtered and dared Dustin to mention the fact that she could - in fact - not drive at all, regardless of pills. She shook her head, to clear it as much as to get hair out of her face. "I'll ride over to the Byers, maybe Chief Hopper is there if Will's not doing good."

"All right, we meet back at the bus stop down the street. No-one goes near the house alone. Deal?"

"Deal."

They stared at each other, hugged quickly, and said "Love you!" at the same time.

No-one was home at the Byers. There was a car she didn't recognize in the driveway, but the door was locked and no-one answered her even as she knocked incessantly. No Joyce, no Jonathan, no Will and no Hopper. Great. Just great. She resisted the temptation to kick the door, like she'd done back home, because Joyce only barely made things go round and adding house repairs on top of that just felt bad.

On her way to the bus-stop to meet back up with Dustin, still in the middle of the woods that the boys called Mirkwood, she regretted not taking the time to do a full service check on her bike. The rear tire was losing air - fast.

"Shit," she said and got off the bike to take af look at it. Oh yeah, it was flat. Biking would not only total the bicycle completely, it would be ten times as taxing. "Ugh. Shit!" Not thinking, she kicked the bike.

The whole frame twisted under her foot and she ended up with a bike that could only turn left.

In the middle of the road, she let the bike drop into the ditch and stumbled back. She could just not catch a break! Jesus Christ! Hands laced in her hair, yanking it down her face, she stared at the bike, the empty road, and back to the bike again. Did she have time for a good cry or should she try and bend the bike-frame back, so it at least went a little more forwards than now? She should probably get started on the three-mile trek back home. Dustin would be eaten by Dart long before she ever got back.

Too caught up in her self-wallowing, she completely failed to utilize her so-called superpower and didn't even notice the car until it was nearly too late. The swimming-pool blue Camaro roared towards her, swerved less than ten feet away from her and screeched to a halt inches before it ended up in the ditch along her bike. The driver tore out of his seat, dressed in blue denim to match his car, with a shiny earring in his right ear.

"Are you goddamn suicidal?" he snarled and thumped the hood of his own car, riled up on adrenaline and anger. "What the hell are you doing standing in the middle of the goddamn road?"

Billy Hargrove - or California - got up in her face, so she could see every strand of hair that made up that trashy mustache dancing across his top lip. "You wanna snuff it so badly, Coma Girl, how 'bout doing it some way that won't total my ride?"

Jamie took a step back, cast a glance at his Camaro, pictured him holding the same speed while chasing a couple of middle-schoolers and made up her mind. Fist balled, arm back, she punched him square in the nose. The impact sent shockwaves up her knuckles. He reeled backwards with a trail of blood in the air, already clutching at his banged up nose with a look of mixed shock and fury.

"That was for trying to run down my baby brother, you Cali piece of shit," she said in an uneven voice. She met his stare relentlessly, chest heaving with increasing adrenaline. "Now you listen here. I've had a really long, and I mean looong, day and the only reason I didn't knee you in the goddamn balls is because I threw up on your shoes and I feel kinda sorry about that. With that being said, if you ever come near my brother or his friends again, I'll break your goddamn face."

Billy stared with wide, steel-blue eyes. His nose had stopped bleeding, leaving just a streak of dark blood mixing with his mustache. She saw his fingers twitch, the fire behind his eyes. "I don't normally hit chicks-"

"Yeah, and you'll keep that up if you know what's good for you," Jamie finished for him before he could even think that thought through. Inside her mind screamed at her as to what the hell she was doing, but the initial impulse had set of a chain-reaction. She couldn't do anything but surf the wave. Now his lip lifted, like he couldn't decide whether to be furious or amused. She didn't care, couldn't care. "I need a ride into town."

He scoffed, a full body reaction, even if a smile threatened to break through on his bloodied face. "You just sucker-punched me and now you're asking me for a ride?"

Jamie opened the passenger door on his car while maintaining eye-contact. "I wasn't asking."

The windows were fully rolled down on both sides of the muscle car. It was sleek and angled, like a streamlined shark, and with plenty of horsepower to suit Billy's personality. The man in question stalked over to the driver's side and spat out a thick glob of spit and blood before he got in. "You hit like a girl."

She just rolled her eyes and waited for him to start the car. He had to light his cigarette first though.

Her heart still hammered in her chest. This was the first time she'd intentionally hit anyone since early middle school, where she punched Bobby Leiman for spying at her in the girl's room. Jamie wasn't gonna pretend like she knew anything about fighting, other than to keep her knuckles turned inwards to avoid breaking her own fingers, but she could hold her own. She hoped, at least. Some of her New York-cousins had given her some pointers once.

"Where'd ya need to go, Virgin?" Billy asked, giving her a deep stare from his side, head almost resting on his shoulder. His eyes were heavy again, like he was ready to fall asleep, but not like she was boring him. Quite the opposite. There was something...almost playful in his voice, in his eyes, the way he looked her up and down and she wondered how many girls had sat where she was sitting, being subject to the same scrutiny.

"Just take me to the corner of Barley Avenue and Paddock Road."

He laughed, like she'd said something funny, and started the car with an angry roar. Billy Hargrove drove like he hated the road, cutting corners and speeding wherever possible. He tore through the countryside, one hand on the wheel, the other stroking the knob on the gearshift. "So, who's your brother?" When she gave him a pointed look, he shrugged. "So I know who to stay away from."

"He's the one that literally looks just like me, if I happened to be a thirteen year old boy," Jamie answered, because it was the truth. It wasn't hard to tell they were siblings. They matched even more in the looks-department than Mike and Nancy, and they were pretty similar as well.

Another long scrutinizing look up and down her body. "I'm having a hard time imagining that right now."

This earned him another eye-roll. She was dressed in ratty jeans and an oversized t-shirt and she was still covered in dirt from when she buried Mews. "Take a left here."

Billy was fond of needle-sharp turns and she had to grab onto the doorframe to keep from falling over onto his side. He laughed and bobbed his head to the music, some angry rock-song she'd never heard before. This was the first time she'd interacted with him while sober or at least fully conscious. It wasn't hard to tell why both Steve and Dustin referred to him as a douchebag.

"So I heard Wheeler ran off with your boyfriend. Was that before or after you decided to run off with hers?"

Oh God, she had forgotten all about the high-school drama in the panic revolving around Dart. "What'd you mean she ran off?"

He shrugged, but she noticed the sardonic smile. "They skipped last period on Thursday and no one's seen them since."

He was only saying it to get her riled up, but that didn't mean it was a lie. It probably wasn't. Nancy wasn't the kind to skip school though, not for any guy. Karen had said she was sleeping over at Stacy's, which indicated Nancy had lied to her mom about her whereabouts. So wherever she was, she was there voluntarily. With Jonathan. And now something was going on with Will.

"No comment? Really?"

"You know, the rumor I heard was that I'm pregnant with your baby after Tina's Halloween party," Jamie said and gave him a humorless smile. "So any shit about me and Steve or me and Jonathan just pales in comparison."

"Hah!" he laughed, the cigarette bobbing between his lips. He took a deep drag and exhaled so his face was clouded in smoke. "Yeah, I heard that one too."

"I am sorry about your shoes though," Jamie finally said, feeling the mood had lightened a bit.

This time Billy shrugged. "Don't worry, they've seen worse."

"I bet." She nodded at the next intersection. "It's just up here." The Camaro lurched around the corner and her stomach sank. Dustin was already waiting for her, but not alone. Somehow, he'd cajoled Steve into joining him. That was his car at least, and the guy in question stood leaning on its hood, straightening up when Billy and Jamie pulled into the large bus-stop. The rest of the street twinkled in the background, old Halloween-decorations still out.

"Pales in comparison, huh?" Billy asked with a shit-eating grin on his face. He stopped the car and to Jamie's annoyance, got out even before she did. His jeans were really tight and probably helped him strut down to stare at Steve inches away from his face. "King Steve, fancy seeing you here."

Dustin gestured to Jamie behind Billy's back, the message being pretty obvious: "What the hell?"

She gestured right back, wondering why he'd involved Steve of all people when he had been going over to the Wheelers. In a whispered conversation with her brother, she relayed how her bike broke down and he clarified that Steve was handy with a baseball bat. Okay, she knew that, he had practically saved her life from the Demogorgon. She would still have felt a lot better if it was Chief Hopper who went down in that basement armed with a gun and not Steve with a baseball bat.

Steve and Billy were still standing inches apart, throwing quick-witted remarks at each other, riling each other up to a full-on fistfight. The testosterone was suffocating. She and her brother looked at each other and came to a silent agreement.

Dustin grabbed Steve's arm and pulled backwards: "Steve, remember the thing we need to go do, like, right now? The actual emergency?"

At the same time, Jamie confronted Billy, stepping between him and Steve so he was forced to look at her instead. She moved towards him so he either had to step backwards or getting knocked over. "Thanks for the ride, now I'm a little sorry about the nose, not that sorry though. This has been great, let's never to it again."

Billy called her bluff and stopped going backwards, causing Jamie to crash into him. Her chest met his and it was like pressing up to a brick wall. He was literally all hard muscles. The cigarette-flavored breath from his mouth fanned across her face, making her eyes water.

"I like David, as the name, if it's a boy," he said, not relenting an inch even if their bodies were awkwardly pushed together. "Or Sara, if it's a girl."

Jamie rolled her eyes, but said nothing. She let him have the last word, figuring it would make him leave faster. Sure enough, when she didn't respond, he smirked and backed off. Not without blowing kisses to Steve first though. They waited until he tore away from the intersection, before they all deflated and piled into Steve's car.

"Why would you agree to hitch a ride with that son of a bitch?" Dustin complained, while Steve tried to explain that: "I don't trust him, not one bit. Not everyone who seem that way is a full-fledged asshole, but that guy, he definitely is."

"Okay, the alternative would've been waiting for the next car to come along," Jamie snapped when she was tired of the berating. She was already pissed that she got the backseat when it was Dustin in the front. He'd called shotgun. Brat. "I was lucky even he was driving past, that road is usually deserted."

"What was he doing up that part of Hawkins anyway?" Steve had one hand on his wheel and was using the other one to emphasize his words. "There's pretty much nothing there apart from the Byers' and a few hunting cabins."

"Joyriding?" Jamie shrugged and met Steve's eyes in the rearview mirror. "Don't know, don't care. I got a ride and I got to chew him out for nearly running down the boys, so I'm five by five on how that went down. How was I supposed to know you two got unfinished business?"

Steve said nothing, but turned his mirror so she was the full focus, not the road behind them. His eyes crinkled in mirth, before he returned the mirror to its original position and then addressed Dustin: "Yeah, I see what you mean."

"Told you," Dustin said in a happy sing-song voice. "She's back."

Jamie rolled her eyes, mostly because she couldn't think of a clever retort, and ended up kicking Dustin's seat. "Dude!"

Thank you so much for reading! There's a bug on the fanfiction-site so I can't access or reply to any reviews. I still read every one of them, they just don't show up on the webpage. Hope it's fixed soon!