Hawkins Indiana, August 19th, 1983
Veronica threw her hands up to block out the blinding lights.
There was a screeching of tires, the blare of a horn and the smell of burnt rubber filled her nostrils. A car was coming at her, trying to stop but still driving straight at her.
She threw herself to the side, dived off the road, twisting her body into a somersault and expected a solid landing. She would have stuck the landing, only she was on top of a hill. She rolled down the side, rolling over rocks and branches as she went. Smashing into a tree trunk, she came to a stop.
Owwwwww!
She just laid there, letting her body and mind settle for a moment. Her head stung, but she knew it wasn't from her tumble down the hill.
Her mind hurt, throbbed behind her closed eyes and all through her skull. She'd never done anything like what she'd just done before. She knew that mind reading could be achieved using spells and rituals, artifacts too, but this wasn't just hearing thoughts. She'd seen and felt. It was like she was physically there, wherever there was.
She'd been riding passenger inside that girl's body but it wasn't possession. She was in that girl's mind, she couldn't control anything but she experienced everything the girl did. It wasn't something that she'd ever even heard of before.
She was starting to feel like she was in over her head. And she knew that she was. She'd never had to deal with a Big Bad on her own. Little baddies, yes. The type that were easily slain on a patrol, no complex plots, no ulterior motives besides "because I can". And when she was involved in large cases it was never alone. She was a soldier she took action when it was needed, she wasn't an idiot, she just hadn't needed to play this role before. That was a Senior Slayer type of thing. Buffy and Faith and the original Scoobies.
Where was Giles when she needed him? Or even Andrew, her nerdy Watcher in training.
"Gone." It was a throaty whisper, half choked and extremely raw. It wasn't emotion. She missed her makeshift family but she'd long ago accepted the fact that they were gone.
It wasn't emotion, it was the ache in her throat. Dry and shredded raw from her frantic screaming. As though she'd been doing so for hours and maybe she had been because when she opened her eyes they sky was dark.
She could see the glow from the car's headlights in the corner of her vision. It painted the trees above her in an erie yellow light. It made her eyes hurt just looking at the bright contrast between the pitch black sky and the bright yellow trees.
A burning sensation in the back of her eyes, she could tell it was from her little mind excursion. Whatever it was that just happened, she didn't want to experience it again. Not anytime soon at least.
Veronica could hear music coming from above, along with a stream of curses. She turned her head to look up at where she'd just fell from only to see a figure clumsily making its way down to her.
"No. No. No no no. Don't be dead, please don't be dead." She could hear the guy panicking to himself as he neared her. "Shit! My parents are going to kill me, I'm going to go to jail-" Veronica toyed with the idea of actually playing dead with the guy but decided against it. His voice was getting seriously high with his anxiety.
She cleared her throat a couple of times before she could fully make out the words. "Not dead, dude." She waved a hand at him, still sprawled out in leaves and dirt. Her voice was hoarse.
"What the fuck!?" The guy, a teen actually, stumbled to a stop a few feet away from her head. His white shoes were visible even in the dark. She squinted her eyes as she looked up at him. She wasn't exactly a good judge of height being short herself, and currently in pain, and in the dark and viewing him upside down, but he was taller than her that was for sure.
"What the hell is wrong with you?!" He leaned over her with his hands on his hips. She couldn't see his face, he was nothing but a black silhouette against the yellow of his headlights, but she could guess that it was most definitely pinched in anger. "I could have killed you! Standing in the middle of the road in the dark! Who does that?!" He tossed his hands up in the air to emphasize his point. The outline of his head shifted, hair probably falling into his eyes.
His voice grated on her nerves. She ached. Body, mind and soul, all just a big ball of ache. She was tired. From the magic, the fall and the stupid fucking Fates that kept fucking with her destiny. She had enough to deal with as it was. She didn't need this random asshole to tell her how stupid she was. She knew how stupid she was acting, better than anyone.
"Oh, fuck off!" Her voice came out clear that time.
She could hear him splutter at her words. "Excuse me?!" He hadn't expected that response. Well good. She hadn't expected to be ran off the road. You get what you give.
Veronica's hands gripped the rough bark of the tree she was against, she used the hold to help pull herself up into a sitting position. Her temples throbbed, but it wasn't going to stop her.
"I said, 'Fuck. Off.' I'm not the only one at fault here. I was standing in the road, sure, but it's not like I just threw myself into your way all of a sudden. And I was at the top of the hill, you had your headlights on, you should have seen me standing there before you even got close. What were you doing that kept your eyes off the road? Hmm?"
"Pssh! What!? Don't turn this around on me." He waved a hand around to emphasize his words. "I'm not the one who was standing in the middle of the woods like some weirdo!"
"No, you just drove out of the fucking woods like some weirdo. Where the hell did you even come from? There's nothing beyond the lab but woods, I could see that from the top of the hill! Why were you wandering around the forest in the dark?!"
"I didn't come out of the woods, I was at the quarry. Not that it's any of your business." He was really starting to get frustrated. He threw his hand up with a little groan. "You shouldn't even be out this late. What are you? Like nine? Isn't it past your bedtime?"
She half hugged the tree during his little fit, pulling herself up so that she stood at her full height. Her head swam. Little spots of color littered her vision. Dots of reds, greens and blues rained down across her view but that had nothing to do with her mouth.
"Oh, wow that hurt. 'Past my bedtime?' That was a good one, real original. Why don't you just jump back into your car and crawl back into whatever skirt you've just finished chasing. Bet she wasn't really satisfied with the two minutes she just received."
She could hear him mutter to himself. "What the fuck?"
She let go of her hold on the tree. She was still seeing spots but at least it wasn't getting any worse. She'd be fine. "Now if you'll excuse me, I kind of have some shit to take care of."
Veronica had every intention of marching back up that hill and doing….. Something.
She didn't have a plan but she knew she had to do something. That girl in that lab, that Witch, she was in danger. Those people, those scientists, were all pieces of shit that were using that girl for something bad.
She could feel the hair raise at the back of her neck. That monster in the dark, that demon, was part of the reason why she was here.
And she'd do something about it as soon as she got back up that hill.
She pushed her way past him, which didn't really make the impact she wanted because she was like a foot shorter than him and was barely able to put any force into the action.
She felt him turn with the motion. He called after her as she ascended the hill. "Hey! Watch it!"
Well, she attempted to ascend the hill. She'd grabbed onto a root to help her pull herself up the slope and the thing came loose. She could feel herself falling backwards, she prepared to hit the ground again.
Instead she fell into a pair of waiting arms. Before she knew it, she'd been scooped up in a bridal carry and they were already halfway up the climb.
"What are you doing? Put me down! Now." She didn't really fight his hold. She knew she wasn't in the condition to make it up on her own. She'd just had to let her objection be known.
She was just petty like that.
She really didn't enjoy being carried around like some child though. She was physically thirteen, and mentally somewhere between that and seventeen. Maybe. Sort of?
Besides the whole age thing. She was a Slayer. She was supposed to be this super strong, almost indestructible being. Super healing, super reflexes, strength, agility, all of that stuff.
And here she was in the scrawny arms of some random teenager, barely able to walk and definitely magically exhausted.
She was better than that, than this. Or at least she had been. She hadn't exactly kept up with any of her training while she'd been off world. There hadn't really been a need before the past month.
That was going to have to change.
She couldn't do anything in the condition she was in. She couldn't break into a government facility. She couldn't slay a demon. She couldn't save anyone.
Not right now.
So she let the teenager carry her without too much of a fight. She let some of the tension and anger that had built up fade from her system
"You're lucky I don't drop you. You're, like, really harsh. And look at me, bruised ego and all, still helping out the little damsel in distress."
How dare he?
Veronica Lehane-Hernandez was no damsel.
"I will literally stab you." So the anger hadn't dissipated fully.
"What?!" He laughed out as they finally reached the top. His breath tickled her ear. She swatted at him in retaliation.
"Alright, we're at the top. Put me down already." He set her down none too gently, before making his way to his car. He didn't even look back at her.
His car was parked on the crest of the hill. It took up two lanes as he'd apparently swerved into the other lane in his attempt to avoid hitting her. The driver's side door was open. The radio was still on, Stevie Nicks's Stand Back filtered from the car. His headlights were still on, blinding her yet again.
He didn't immediately get back in the car. He went around the passenger side and picked up her bike. He opened up one of the back doors and began to shove the thing into the back seat.
"What the hell are you doing?" She stumbled over to the hood of his car.
He didn't look back at her, too focused on getting the bike's wheels to stay in a certain position. "I'm driving you home. You can't ride a bike like that. You'll fall right over or really get hit by a car or something. I don't need your death on my hands."
"Yeah, I get that. But be gentle. I bought her myself. Mommy and Daddy didn't pay for my wheels." She couldn't stop the words from slipping past her lips, nor did she try.
She could hear him groan from in the car. She could tell that she was really working him up. It was entertaining. She hadn't had a good banter since the last time she saw Spike and that was years ago.
"Yeah well, self bought or not-" He re-emerged from the car and shut the door before the bike tried to spill back out. "-it's still a piece of shit."
He looked back at her with a laugh. "Holy shit! You're bleeding." He gestured at his own face.
"What?" Veronica brought her fingers up to her forehead. Nothing. She slid her hand down the bridge of her nose. Once she reached her upper lip she knew where it was coming from.
Blood was dripping out of both nostrils. She whipped at her mouth with her sleeve. She pulled at the shirt so there was a little bit more material she could ball up around her hand. The shirt shifted around her small frame as she did so.
She pulled the sleeve back from her face. The grey material was now a mix between brown and red. She waved a hand at the teen for a confirmation. She just wanted to know that she wasn't actively leaking blood down her face.
He wasn't looking at her face though. Instead he was staring at the exposed skin of her neck. It wasn't in a creepy way, more like a worried way.
Veronica rolled up her bloody sleeve and brought up that same hand to brush her fingers along her neck. Her fingers brushed across the expanse of scarring she'd received during her first Slayer related hunt.
Thick jagged lines, five parallel to each other, started at the neck and worked their way down and then suddenly jerked sideways once they reached her collarbone. She vividly remembered the pain that the clawed hand had caused, how it almost ripped the skin right off her body. How she'd been able to see bone through the gouges. There were burn marks throughout the wound as well. She'd cauterized the wound with her glowing hands, trying to melt the skin back together in order to stop herself from bleeding out.
It was crude and it hurt like hell. But it saved her life.
The scars were usually hidden by a constant glamour she held, but apparently she'd dropped the spell during the weird mind meld with the girl in the lab.
"Are you okay?" He cleared his throat. She could barely make out his features because the lights were still shone in her direction but she could hear the pity in his voice clear as day.
"I'm five by five." She narrowed her eyes at him. Daring him to object.
"Good. That means 'everything's okay,' right?" He averted his eyes, looking towards the lab in his play at avoiding the ice in her gaze. "I had a Grandpa who fought in the war. He won. Um yeah, so point is he bought me these Walkie-Talkies and he taught me the lingo. 'Over and out,' 'copy,' 'five by five,' all-"
He was babbling. She interrupted him. "It happened a long time ago. I'm over it. Let's just get in the car so you can drive me home and this day can finally be over."
"Yeah, let's do that."
Veronica slid her backpack straps off her shoulders and made her way to the passenger seat.
He was already in his seat fiddling with the radio when she closed the door and settled in.
"Oh. It's Steve, by the way. Steve Harrington."
Harrington. How pretentious.
"I literally couldn't care less. Just head that way for like five minutes and it'll be the very first house you see."
"Right. Okay." Steve nodded his head once and then they were off.
She just wanted to go to sleep.
They'd been in silence for all of a minute before he spoke again.
"Soo, you're not gonna put on your seatbelt?"
"Oh my Goddess! You're such a fucking dork. Just drive!"
—
Veronica eventually stumbled out of the car once they got to Marianne's. She left the car without so much as a goodbye. Just dragged her backpack out of the car with her and headed for the door.
She figured Harrington would unload the bike. She didn't wait to watch. Though she did hear him mumble to himself under his breath.
She reached for the knob of the front door and realized she hadn't actually locked the door on her way out before. She then realized she never left Marianne a note either.
The woman was kind but strict. She didn't have many rules and Veronica just broke an important one.
The handle gave way easily. No need for her to dig out her key. The house was dark. No lights, no sounds. Nothing.
She entered the house, leaving the door open, still hearing the teen complaining about not being a butler. She ignored him as she made her way into the kitchen. She flicked on the light and noticed a little folded piece of paper on the center of the island.
Marianne would be gone until Sunday afternoon. Apparently the woman had a client in Illinois that she had to deal with.
Veronica made her way back outside. Clicking on the living room light as she went. She stood on the porch as she watched the boy bring the bike up to the house.
"Are your parents home?" The light from the house illuminated his face. It was the first time that she'd actually seen his face in full. She was able to make out the details now that the only source of light wasn't being shined in her eyes.
Tall, wide shoulders, trim, typical 80s big hair. Brown eyes, straight nose, chiseled jawline. Pretty. But not too pretty. If that made sense.
"Foster parent." She waved the paper around. "And no, but she left a note."
He mumbled something that sounded an awful lot like "well at least you got a note." She twitched a bit but otherwise ignored it. She often heard what she wasn't supposed to hear.
"Are you sure you're okay?"
She wasn't okay. And she knew that he knew that. But she wasn't about to admit it out loud.
"Mhmm."
"And you're okay all by yourself?" He stared up at her with intense searching eyes.
Ugh.
She kind of just wanted to yell at him again but she knew he was being serious when he asked. He could have dropped her off and not looked back. Hell, he could have left her there in the woods. He was being kind and she had a feeling it wasn't something he did often. So though it bugged her she answered him honestly. Or as close to honest as she could get.
"I will be." She wasn't okay at the moment. Not in the way he meant. But she would be once she got some sleep and got her shit together. She would be okay again once she had a plan.
But first sleep.
"I'm just going to go to sleep. I'll be fine."
"No more woods?" He crossed his arms in front of his chest. Tucking his hands under his arms as though to warm them. He raised a single brow as he looked at her.
"No more woods. Today." This was all that she could promise.
He rolled his eyes at her words. But she could tell that he knew it was the best he'd get.
"Fine. Just go inside already. It's freezing out. It's past your bedtime." He shooed her towards the door.
Instead of responding to his teasing in kind Veronica thanked him and then promptly shut door before he could respond.
She quickly made her way to her room. She haphazardly undressed and her fingers trembled as she unlaced the knife sheath from her leg.
She usually slept in a t-shirt and shorts combo that she kept in her dresser, but she paused as her hand met the drawer. Her hand was tinted red with her blood and dirt was under her nails. She looked down at her other hand and found it was just as dirty, but her eyes strayed from the grime and settled on her wrist.
009
The drop in her glamour had revealed all that she kept hidden. The tattoo was something that she rarely even thought about. Out of sight, out of mind. And she'd kept up an almost constant glamour since she'd landed in the 80s.
She looked into the mirror on her closet door. Saw the dirt on her skin, the leaves in her hair, the blood on her hands. She was bone tired but she needed a shower first.
It was quick. The water was as hot as she could make it. The steam was so thick she could feel it fill her lungs as she breathed. She started with her hair. Watching as little prices of leaves and dirt washed down the drain. After wringing out the conditioner she allowed herself a single minute to lean against the wall and just let the scalding water flow down her back and drip down her face. She counted the seconds. Then she practically scrubbed her body raw and she was done.
She knew that she really should map out some type of plan or whatever. She could barely keep her eyes open at this point though. It could wait one more day.
She dried off her hair and dressed. She lazily brushed her tresses. She knew the horror it would be in the morning without brushing it.
Veronica fell asleep as soon as her head, still wet, hit the pillow. Tremors wracked her body as she slept.
She didn't wake up until Sunday afternoon.
—
Hawkins Indiana, September 6th, 1983
"She's been at it for the last two weeks." Lucas pulled the binoculars from his eyes and handed them over to Dustin. The boy had been swatting at Lucas's shoulder for the last few minutes. It was his turn to be lookout.
Will looked up at his two friends as they both spied on Veronica. He wasn't really comfortable with the fact that the Party was stalking her, but he was curious as to what she was doing.
He peaked around the staircase they were all sitting on and out toward the highschool football field. Veronica was just a speck from where they stood. Hence the binoculars.
"I don't get what she's doing though. Last week she was running laps around the field and running up and down the bleachers. I don't know why anyone would do that outside of P.E. but I understood that. Exercise. Physical training. This I don't get." Dustin pulled the binoculars away from his face and waved them in the girl's general direction.
Dustin looked down at Mike and Will, the only two who hadn't looked through the scope that day. "She's just sitting there."
Lucas decided to chime in as well. "And she's been sitting there for the last half hour. Lunch is up in…." He checked the watch on his wrist. "Two minutes. And she hasn't moved from that spot even once."
"Let me see." Mike stood from his spot next to Will and climbed to the top, their designated crow's nest. He kneeled against the railing and held his hand out for the binoculars.
Will watched as his friend studied the girl through the lenses. "I think she's meditating." Mike looked down at Will while passing the binoculars to Lucas. "You said she knew some kind of Karate, right? Maybe it has something to do with that."
"Maybe she's training for some type of tournament. She's like the granddaughter of that lawyer on Kerley, or something. That woman is always heading out of town. My mom says she works on retainer for some big company in Chicago. She's always in the city, maybe Veronica used to be a part of a dojo over there." Lucas plopped himself down in Mike's abandoned seat and nudged Will with his elbow before handing the binoculars to him.
Lucas's words did make sense, Mike's too but he felt like they didn't quite fit what was going on. Will looked back at the girl in the field and thought back to what he'd observed of her since they met.
The way she had literally leaped in from out of nowhere on that first day. The way James flinched whenever she so much as entered the same hallway as him. The speed she showed when she ran around the highschool's tack. The way she weaved in and out of the crowds in the halls during breaks, gracefully and quick.
It could be all chalked up to the Karate thing. But it didn't feel right to him. There was more that was going on with her. He just didn't know what.
Yet.
Will turned toward the railing and brought the scopes up to his eyes. He tried to get Veronica in focus but his aim was off. He could make out her hair pulled up into a bun and then her backpack on the grass at her side.
He shifted around and was able to steady his view of her. She was sitting with her legs crossed and her feet tucked in under her knees. Her hands rested on her legs palms up. Her face was blank, eyes closed and expression slack. She looked like she was asleep, really.
She probably was meditating. But he had the strange urge to know why.
"That's boring." Dustin came down to sit on the stair above he and Lucas, Mike followed him.
"How is that boring? How many people do you know besides her that do Karate? How many girls?" Mike began to pack up his backpack, Dustin and Lucas followed.
"What more do you want from her? She's already staving off the mouthbreathers." Lucas stood up and tossed out his trash into a garbage can nearby.
She actually was keeping Troy and James at bay. The worst they'd done in her presence was shoulder Will in passing in the hallway. Will had smacked into a locker but it hadn't hurt too much. The next day James came in with a bruise across his nose and eyes.
Veronica supposedly bashed his face into a locker. He didn't think that was the real story. He was just glad the two bullies were finally leaving he and his friends alone.
Will's things were already tucked into his bag so he continued to watch the girl in the field. The bell would ring in a second, but he was too focused on her face to care.
"I don't know. I was hoping she was like a super secret ninja or something." Will could tell that Dustin was punctuating his words with random punches and kicks but he wasn't paying attention. He was too focused on Veronica. "Kicking ass and standing against the forces of darkness."
The girl's eyes shot open and she whipped her head around so that she was staring right at them. Will jumped back at the sight of her eyes narrowed in his direction. For a second they seemed yellow instead of their normal brown, until she blinked and they were once again dark.
"Forces of darkness? Really?" Lucas stepped in front of the binoculars, blocking Will's view. "She's an eighth grader. Not a Jedi. What is wrong with you?"
Will shot up, binoculars still in hand hoping to catch a glimpse of her again. The others fought behind him.
Will searched the field and she was gone. The bell rang signaling the end of lunch. He gave the binoculars to Mike, who then tucked them into his backpack.
"What's wrong?" Mike waited for Will as the others had already headed inside.
Will looked at his friend and then back to the empty field. "I don't know yet."
Mike followed his gaze. "Where did she go? I didn't even see her move."
"I have no idea."
Will kept playing that last glimpse of her in his mind. Her yellow eyes.
And Dustin's words.
Standing against the forces of darkness.
For some reason that phrase felt right. Felt a lot better than and more true than anything about a tournament.
Will shook his head to clear his thoughts. He didn't need to be focusing on that at the moment. He had a math test next period.
That's what he should be focused on.