Eddie's mind was a faulty radio. The buttons weren't calibrated correctly so no matter what dial you tried to put it on, the loose turner would creak back to one channel.
That's how it felt; trying to listen to everything and stay focused was like trying to focus on five different radio channels at once. He wondered how everyone else here seemed able to cope, because he was drowning in too much, all too fast.
There was the channel that was Nancy and Steve. He'd come to recognize them as the leaders of this little group. Steve had the personality to reign everyone in and Nancy had the practical know-how. He was watching them carefully because their reactions and ideas were likely to be the most reasonable. They were able to cut down ideas with a single look, a skill that Eddie was impressed with.
Another channel was the rest of The Party; watching them (after a few moments of respectful silence for what Chrissy had been through) clamor over each other, eager and furious and ready to spill some preverbal blood and make this right.
The third channel was thinking of Gareth.
He'd arrived home late last night. He'd gone and hit the hay and never thought twice to check the counter for a message Wayne left him. He'd awoken to find his uncle bent out of shape about his friend appearing looking like the devil had been on his tail. The way Wayne had spoken had unlocked some primal fear; some deep knowledge, a sense of 'this is that other shoe' that just washed over Eddie and he knew, fuck, he knew something was going very, very wrong.
Gareth had already left for school by the time Eddie's car screamed into the driveway. He'd tried Chrissy on the radio first, but no answer. That was never a good sign. However, it wasn't unusual for her to close the channel when she was worried someone might be around to hear. So he tried to temper his worries and focus on figuring out what Gareth so desperately needed to tell him last night.
He'd had to pull Gareth outside just before school started. Of course, he'd looked for Chrissy, but in the short two minutes it had taken to find his (former) best friend, she hadn't been in his sight lines.
"Midge knows," Gareth had said, whole body shaking, "Midge fucking knows that Chrissy is seeing someone behind Jason's back."
Eddie had pressed him against the brick wall, "Tell me."
So Gareth had; worried out of his mind about what would happen.
"-And I didn't know what to do! If not me, someone else! Someone else would have told her and maybe you couldn't have been saved and-,"
Eddie had given a harsh laugh, "You think me? You think I care about being saved?" He'd asked, shaking his head in horror and disbelief, "You think that I'd pick me over her?"
"You would?" Gareth whispered, eyes wide, and he could see something clicking in his brain. A flash of understanding, "I thought…"
"It was like Midge?" Eddie asked, staring at him with wild eyes, "Just a fuck for fun before the year ends?"
"Yeah!" Gareth shoved Eddie off, "Why would I think otherwise? You don't talk about her and though I can tell she's moony over you, you don't act like it's anything more!"
"Because we're trying to be on the down-low!" Eddie groaned, grasping at his hair, "Because we're being secretive!"
"But I'm your best friend."
Eddie spun, "Excuse me? Clearly, you can't be trusted. If I would have told you this, well...I'm glad I didn't!"
"If I'd known…" Gareth licked his lips, "I would have never…I mean, I just thought…all cheerleaders were the same, you know?"
Eddie gave a dark laugh, "You have a particularly bad case study of that," He pointed out, "Midge is the worst."
"I don't know if she'd tell. She said she didn't care."
Eddie gave Gareth a pitying, frustrated look, "When have you ever known Midge to just let go of a piece of gossip so juicy it could rock the entire school?" He asked, "She needs to tell someone. I'm terrified that person is Jason."
"Shit," Gareth whispered, "I fucked up. I really, really fucked up."
Anger bubbled in Eddie, so violently that he spun and lashed out before he could help it, his fist colliding with Gareth's nose. The cracking sound as bone splintered mixed with the painful pleasure of the blow to Eddie's hand was as close to satisfied as he could get at this moment.
Gareth buckled, crouching down to grasp his nose as blood erupted between his fingers.
"I deserved that, fuck," He agreed, sucking in the air over his teeth at the pain.
"If you really were my best friend, you would have seen how much I…" Eddie trailed off, "How I feel about her."
"I guess I was caught up in myself." Gareth mumbled, sliding to sit against the school wall, "No excuse, but, yeah."
"No shit."
Eddie stared down at Gareth, trying to hold in all his anger, the screaming he wanted to do right now.
"I don't think you comprehend the danger she could be in," He said quietly, "So…fuck you, man."
"Look, let's just talk about it at the next practice. Come early and-,"
Eddie's sharp bark of laugh broke him off, "You think the band's staying together? Fuck, no. Shit. You messed that up too." He said.
His next goal was to figure out what Midge knew and who she told, but as he was walking back inside, someone must have fucking snitched from a window because the principal was coming out with an angry look on his face, hauling both of them in for in-school detention for fighting.
Eddie had been crawling out of his skin with worry.
That was station three.
Station four was Chrissy. He was so acutely aware of everything she did; exactly how she shifted sitting next to him, her soft sighs as she watched the group talk, the ugly bruises all over her skin that made his throat close up and just want to steal her away and put her somewhere safe forever, and the way her eyes kept flickering to him, as though to make sure he was still there.
Station five was the most satisfying station. That was the station that he kept sliding back to, unable to turn his mind off it.
It was the station where he was brutally planning Jason's murder.
He trusted The Party…to some extent. But Jason deserved the fiery pits of hell and if Eddie met him down there for his actions, well, he could live with that.
He thought about dissolving Jason in acid. In taking out his entrails and hanging them around Jason's own neck like a necklace. He considered chopping him in half first, and then everywhere else slowly, and spreading him everywhere. He considered just pummeling him until he was no more.
He hoped Chrissy couldn't read minds, because his mind was a dark, gory place right now.
The Party was all talking over each other and Eddie would be shocked if anyone could hear any individual plan. Eddie, pulled astray by these five separate thoughts, could hardly focus on one.
He was right that this was mayhem.
Steve stood on his coffee table and wolf-whistled.
"Hey! Everyone!" He said, clapping his hands like a camp counselor, "What the hell? We need order in the House of Harrington, or we're never getting anywhere! One. Speaker. At. A. Time."
He jumped down and found a CD case laying partially tipped over showing 'The Talking Heads'. "Here's are talking object. Who wants it first?"
Dusting grabbed it out of Steve's hand, "Jason needs to go down!"
Nancy grabbed it back, "I don't think that's something we need to agree on. I think we're all in agreement there." From the nods of the circle, she was correct. Lucas raised his hand, waving it around and Nacy tossed him the CD.
"Yeah, but like, to what extent? Are we…killing him? Getting him kicked out of school? Just getting Chrissy out of his relationship, what?"
This had less of a universal agreement. It didn't take long for the group to dissolve into arguing again; Cheryl and Lucas were seriously on the killing or at least serious maiming side (and were roping Eddie in, not a wrong assumption) while Nancy was in more journalism 'get him banned from every college and restraining order' lesser approach.
"We can't kill a teenager!" Steve agreed, wincing.
"He's hardly that. More like Hitler reincarnated," Cheryl huffed, picking up the CD, "Look what he did to Chrissy!"
"Speaking of that," Max said, "No Steve. The CD idea is dumb I'm not using it. But speaking of that, maybe we should ask…what Chrissy wants to happen?"
Eddie felt stupid for forgetting that she was the most important voice.
"You don't have to answer if you don't know yet," Nancy assured, "This is a complicated issue."
"Uhm, I don't think I want more death than this town already has," Chrissy said, to the disappointment of Lucas and Cheryl, "But it needs to be serious…if I break up with him, I don't think I'd be his last…victim. He'll do this again to his next girlfriend. There needs to be real repercussions." She pointed out.
"Well whose to say he hasn't done it to others?" Dustin pointed out, "You're right, it's not like this springs up out of nowhere. Do you know his exes?"
"They were mostly middle school girlfriends and then one from freshman year to right before we started dating. I have to think a bit, but I can remember their names." She said, "I just want to help."
"Of course, you'll help," Eddie assured, "But I also don't want you to overexert yourself-,"
"I'm not a piece of fragile china, Eddie Munson!" Chrissy snapped, and Eddie winced, knowing that her anger wasn't precisely at him, "I can do things."
"Okay, sure," Nancy said, eyes widening before she forced herself to not seem shocked, "Yeah, whatever the plan is, you'll be a part of it."
"I have a concern?" Mike raised his hand, "The town loves Jason. Like…worships him. I only heard what happened while I was visiting El, but he sounded insanely persuasive."
"It's true. He has the whole police in his pocket, plus teachers, and my parents," Chrissy agreed, "I'm worried that whatever we do would just be ignored. If I go and show the police these bruises, that they'd find a reason to think I'm lying."
"You know, people thought Eddie was weird but he wasn't disliked until people thought he killed Chrissy. Attempted murder really gest people upset; even if it was…I dunno, Steve, I think you'd have a mob after you," Dustin pouted, "Too bad he was nowhere near Chrissy that night," He said with a long sigh.
"Well, wait, what if he was?" Lucas said, sitting up straighter.
"But he wasn't," Max frowned, shaking her head.
"Okay, we know that, but the town is clearly easily swayed. And if we have enough 'evidence'..." Lucas stood up, grinning ear to ear, "Think about it! It's always the boyfriend. Before he gave the Eddie story, the cops totally thought it was him when they questioned him. They were sure it was an easy case. And hell, no one really knows where he was that night. We all talked about it as a team that there were about two hours he was just gone. Logically he was probably barfing his guts out on the toilet, but hell, maybe he went to Eddie's trailer? It would explain why he was so insistent on pinning it on Eddie. He set him up to be the fall guy!"
"Why would he have tried to kill me that night, though?" Chrissy said, "Our relationship was…" She paused, "It wasn't great, but it wasn't like now."
"I dunno, he's a shithead abuser," Cheryl shrugged, "Maybe he found out you were buying drugs. Maybe he did assume you were cheating? We can use his own paranoia against him as a motive."
"So what?" Robin rubbed her chin, "We just stroll up to the cops and say, 'hey, we actually have a different story of what happened that night' and expect them to believe us?" She snorted, "They'll laugh us out of the precinct."
"No, no, we need proof." Nancy agreed, "Or the illusion of proof." She looked at Chrissy, pursing her lips together, "If you consent, we should take photos of all of that…" She said, "And start building a case for violent behavior."
"Hey, you have the pictures, right? And the baseball bat from when he attacked me?" Eddie said, mind totally focused on this, because for the first time…some sort of a plan was actually coming together.
"Mhhm, of course, I do," Nancy said, "I mean, he does have a temper and a tendency for violence. That's actually not a lie. Clearly."
"I'll let you take pictures," Chrissy whispered, "Because I know it will help."
"One of us can take them-," Robin started, pointing between the girls, but Chrissy turned to Eddie.
"Can you?" She asked quietly. Swallowing hard, Eddie nodded.
"Yeah, sure. Now?"
"In a bit," Nancy said, "When we break to start putting it into action. So we have my evidence, this evidence…we should get his hands size and shoes to prove it was him that night…" Nancy trailed off, eyeing the sharp contrast of his fingerprints on her neck.
"Well, if we're building a case, we talk to his exes. And others?" Dustin scratched his head.
"I always fucking hated him. I can certainly attest to the fact he's always been shitty," Cheryl snorted.
"There have to be others that would jump for joy to see him go down," Mike said.
"Oh!"
Everyone looked at Chrissy. She gave a wide, pleased grin, "I can help!"
She jumped up, went to her backpack, and started rummaging for a notebook. She flipped to the back and slid it across the floor to the middle of the circle. Eddie didn't miss how she winced as she stretched and as she returned, but kept a brave face.
"What's this?" Steve said, on his hands and knees, examining.
"Well, I figured as much. That there are people that don't love Jason. Maybe not a majority, but we can't be alone. So I started cataloging who I think would probably be on our side, or who might offer a story of some violent or worrying behavior."
"What luck," Dustin said, laughing, "Wow, this is great!"
The team descended, starting to pick apart the list and move other names between the categories.
"With this side," Steve said, tapping the farthest lane, "They'll probably help us if we tell them we just want to see Jason get what's coming for him. They'll keep quiet and give us stories and that will be fine. The middle might, but we should play it by ear…but this category…this needs to be our golden goose."
"The people on Jason's side?"
"Yeah," Steve grinned, "Think of how amazing it would be to get like half of the basketball team and all those girls that fawn over him to admit he's sort of a douche and sort of scary."
"He's right," Nancy said, "It's easy to get people that dislike him to talk, but it will be taken more seriously if Josh is coming forward and admitting he's seen shit."
"Maybe you're doing a hard-hitting journalism piece about male bravado in sports or something?" Robin said, "A cover."
"Yeah, perhaps. I'll think about that. We can use my equipment; video and recorders to get it."
"Okay, but I still think we need better evidence. Like… proof he was at Eddie's trailer that night. The team already confirmed he was missing, but the cops clearly just abandoned that. I mean, obviously, we know it wasn't him, but we can't just remind them of this…we have to make them go 'oh, yeah, I guess that's where he was'."
The group sat in confused, stumped silence for a long time. Occasionally someone would start with a 'what if' but then trail off quickly as they worked through their own issues in their minds.
"Wait!" Mike jumped up, "Jason has a car, right?"
"Yeah," Chrissy said, frowning, "Why does that matter?"
"Well, Dustin, can you call Suzie?"
Dustin frowned, giving Mike a withering look, "What are you going to ask her to do now, man?"
"It's for a good cause, remember this. Maybe Max took a picture that night."
"But I didn't."
"Shh…Max, you took a picture. Of Jason's car outside of the trailer. You didn't know whose car it was and you were confused and didn't want trouble or to be part of attempted murder when the cops asks you stuff. Maybe you took another picture of Jason coming out of the trailer but when you realized it was him because he has a violent history, you didn't want to bring him up as a suspect with fear of retribution." Mike said, weaving the story.
"I can see why you're a DM," Eddie snorted, "But hell, it's almost so ridiculous, it might work."
"Can Suzie do that? Fake photos?" Robin asked Dustin.
"I don't know, honestly."
"It's far less intrusive than changing your grades," Mike teased and Eddie burst out laughing. He didn't know that part, "It's just…manipulating some photos and all."
"I can probably help her a little," Nancy said, "There are ways to manipulate photos physically, but the cops would probably be on the lookout for fakes. So if Suzie can help me mesh it all together somehow, this might actually work."
"We need the photos. Jason's car. Eddie's trailer at night. We should figure out where the moon was to make sure that's accurate…Jason coming out of a room looking shady…" Nancy said, opening a fresh page in Chrissy's notebook, "We can contact Hopper."
"Wasn't he on the police department before?" Eddie asked, the name ringing a bell.
"Yeah, until Russia and shit," Dustin waved a hand, "He's, uhm, working through some stuff in California. But he knows people and he'd help us."
"Are we sure?" Eddie said, "He has no reason to. He doesn't know me or Chrissy."
"He knows us, though," Steve said, "Mike is basically his son-in-law. And he likes justice. Even if it's done…unconventionally. Jason's not getting anything he doesn't deserve."
There was a resounding agreement to that point.
"Okay, Chrissy and Eddie, take the photos of the car and Jason. Take a lot, so we have lots of choices. If you could get the shoes he used, Chrissy, that would be great, but if you're not up for it-,"
"I am," Chrissy cut Nancy off, "Anything to help."
"It will. Steve, you're on photo duty with Max to create the fake photos. Dustin, Mike, Cheryl, and I will be on the interviewing team. And then Dustin will call Suzie once we have photos to work with." Nancy started dolling out roles, "Once we have it all, we go to Hopper to present it to the police."
"And if they don't believe him? If Jason has the town just too around his finger?" Chrissy asked fearfully.
"Indianapolis reporting news teams will also be getting a copy. No matter what, this news will break and someone somewhere will be furious." Nancy assured with a serious expression, "Hawkins will be pressured. If they do nothing at first, they'll be expected to arrest him. If they do their jobs right, they might expedite the process because of Indiana's outrage." Nancy said, "And we'll send it to the places he's been accepted. Even if he somehow manages to get away with murder, I doubt any college basketball team wants someone like him representing their school."
"Damn, that's cold, Wheeler," Eddie said, surprised by the thoroughness of The Party. Steve was grinning like crazy, and winked at Eddie.
"Told ya, we like making plans here," He said with a fist punch, "We can do everything here. Sleep here for all I care until we do this. I have like twenty guest rooms."
Cheryl choked a bit, "You're joking, right?"
"He's exaggerating," Dustin said, patting Steve's back, "He only has eight."
"Maybe that's for the best. So Jason can't find you after school and your parents don't see this," Nancy said to Chrissy, "If you can think of a reason to not come home."
Chrissy frowned, "I'll think of something. I think my parents won't care half as much as Jason."
"Thank god for state-of-the-art security systems, then," Steve assured, "He steps one foot on here and we can arrest him for trespassing. Maybe we just add to his laundry list of crimes," He added with a laugh to himself, "But seriously, between all of us? He places a toe on the driveway and he'll wish he didn't."
"Thank you, really," Chrissy said, standing, "I know I don't deserve any of this-,"
"Don't deserve? You don't have to earn the right to be treated like a person," Dustin said, looking concerned, "And besides. We protect our own. We always have and always will. No one else does in this town. Jason won't even know what the hell hit him before he's behind bars, crying over his rescinded college acceptance letters."