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SEVEN. NOVEMBER 3RD, 1984
⁺‧₊˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺ 

"Oh, yeah. Yeah, this'll do. This'll do just fine."

Jude wishes she could see whatever Steve is seeing, because all she's seeing is a yard full of abandoned cars—and a school bus.

"Good call, man," Steve tells Dustin as he passes him, and the younger boy is practically vibrating with pride and excitement.

They wander down to the middle of the yard, and begin to dump out everything remaining in their buckets. Jude tries to cover her nose with the sleeve of the flannel she's wearing. This whole experience has made her seriously consider vegetarianism.

"I said medium-well!" An adolescent voice calls out. Their three heads snap to look for the source, and Jude's relieved to see it's just Lucas Sinclair. Well, Lucas Sinclair and some ginger girl she's never seen before.

She glances over at Dustin, hoping to maybe find some kind of hint as to who the girl is, and sees he's wearing a nasty glare.

"Who's that?" Steve asks, and the question just seems to upset Dustin even further. Steve and Jude exchange a sort of ohhh look.

It's Dustin's special girl.

"Shit, I thought you were kidding!" Lucas barks out a laugh as he and the girl approach. "Steve Harrington I could kind of imagine, but Jude Monroe? It's like if Princess Leia showed up in Lord of the Rings."

"Okay, nerd," the redhead rolls her eyes. Then, she stops to give Jude a hard look.

"Lucas, can I talk to you?" Dustin asks between gritted teeth.

He and Lucas walk away to go chat behind some old car, leaving Steve, Jude and this other girl.

"I'm Jude," she decides to introduce herself, holding out a hand towards the girl.

She eyes her hand suspiciously. "I know," she replies. "You're like a Hawkins celebrity," she throws up some jazz hands to pair with fake enthusiasm. "I'm Max."

Finally, Max accepts the handshake.

"I heard you punched my brother, by the way."

Steve perks up at that.

Jude sighs, "I didn't punch him, I just slapped him—wait, did you just say your brother?" Her face suddenly pales, and she retracts her hand away from Max.

The redhead laughs. "Step-brother, don't worry. He's an asshole, he probably deserved it," she shrugs, and Jude feels relief wash over her.

"Wait, you punched someone?" Steve cuts in with furrowed eyebrows.

"Slapped," Jude reminds him. "Don't worry about it, it's not a big deal."

Yeah, Jude wants to get out of this conversation, now. The group of people around her keeps growing weirder and weirder. First, she's got her brother's friends, then Steve Harrington, and now Billy Hargrove's little sister—step-sister, she reminds herself. She slips the pink rubber gloves off of her hands and tucks them into the back pocket of her jeans as she turns to walk away.

On their walk up here, Steve mentioned something about creating a barricade, so she starts to search for scraps they can use. Max is close behind her, and Jude hears Steve start to scold Dustin and Lucas. "We lose daylight in 40 minutes! Come on, let's go!"

"Alright, god! Asshole!"

"Okay, stupid!"

As the boys curse back at Steve, Jude shakes her head as the hint of a smile graces her lips. Listening to all of them interact fills her with a weird kind of joy, but at the same time, it makes her miss Quinton. All she can do is hope that they're right, that he's with the Byers, and he's going to be okay.

"So, what do you think of all this? You think it's bullshit or no?" Max appears next to Jude, and together they pick up a large, heavy sheet of scrap metal.

"What do you mean? Like, The Upside Down?" Jude scrunches up her eyebrows, and absentmindedly pokes her tongue into her lip as they carry the piece.

Max nods. "Yeah, that. Lucas told me about it, I kind of think he's just full of it."

Jude shrugs, and they drop the metal in front of the school bus. "I don't know... I've never seen any of it myself, so I can't really be sure. But I did find a huge, molted reptile skin in Dustin's cellar last night..."

Max wrinkles her nose. "Gross. Well, I'm glad I'm not the only one that hasn't gone completely insane," she tells Jude with a tight-lipped smile before walking away to join Lucas and Dustin.

Huh. Yeah, Jude would never in a million years guess that Max is related to the human equivalent of a dumpster fire. She actually kind of likes Max.

"Judy, can you give me a hand?" She glances off to the side to see Steve lifting some scrap metal over one of the windows of the bus. "Just get the hammer and nails from my backpack, and then hold this up for me while I nail it in," he instructs.

Jude does as she's told, digging into Steve's backpack then moving to hold the piece for him. He's weirdly tense around her, but to be fair, Jude is also weirdly tense.

He sticks a few nails between his teeth as he starts hammering the first one into place. "So, you punched Billy Hargrove?" He asks her, his words a bit hard to decipher since he's unable to move his jaw. Jude manages to understand him easily, though.

"Why does everyone keep saying I punched him? I just hit him," Jude replies, shaking her head and making a small tsk.

"Right, whatever, you hit him. You gonna tell me what happened?" Steve pulls one of the nails out and begins to hammer it into the bottom corner.

"Are you gonna tell me what happened with Nancy Wheeler?" Jude counters, lifting one of her eyebrows.

Steve shrugs. "Alright, touché.. Um, as I'm sure you saw, she got wasted on Halloween."

"Oh, I think everyone saw," Jude teases, until she notices Steve isn't laughing. "I mean... sorry."

"Y'know, if the rest of the night didn't happen, it probably would have been a little bit funny," Steve takes the last nail from between his teeth and hammers it in. "But, she, like... I was trying to get her to slow down, and we were fighting over a cup and it spilled all over her shirt."

Jude winces, recalling that part of the night. She steps away from the bus, brushing the bits of rust off of her palms.

"And I followed her into the bathroom and she was all pissed off, telling me it's all bullshit, and that we're just, like, pretending to be in love. And, I don't know, man, I know I should have stayed to make sure she got home safe, but I was just so..." He sucks in a breath, and reaches up to run a hand through his Farrah Fawcett spray filled hair. "I don't know. The next day at school, she found me—actually, that was right before I ran into you—and she was pissed I didn't pick her up in the morning... She kept being like, 'I was drunk! I didn't mean it!', but then I asked her if she loves me, and she couldn't say it."

He leans back against the bus, his lips pursed and eyes squinted as he becomes lost in thought. Jude frowns, chewing the inside of her lip, then reaches out to rub his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Steve. That sucks. If it makes you feel any better, Sena ended up getting her home that night," she gives him a soft smile, and he furrows his eyebrows.

"I thought Jonathan took her home?" Jude shakes her head, and Steve nods slowly. "Huh. Well, yeah, I'm glad she got home fine... Just sucks that she lied to me for months and told me she loves me..." He sighs, letting his head fall back.

"Yeah... It's probably not your fault, though," Jude tells him.

"Probably? So you think there's a chance it is?" He accuses her dramatically.

She rolls her eyes, and leans back against the bus next to him. She watches as the three kids work, shooting occasional, suspicious glances in their direction.

"Okay, well, I told you about Nance, so you get to tell me about Billy, now." Steve informs her, and Jude wants to protest, but she supposes it's a fair trade.

She sighs, pressing her lips together. "I don't know what overcame me, honestly... But he caught me in the parking lot yesterday, and he was trying to get me to go eat with him, and then..." Her voice trails off, as memories of the interaction violate her thoughts.

"Then what?" Steve asks, his voice cold.

"Well, I told him I'm really not interested, and he told me I've just been playing hard to get, and to just admit I want him, and—"

"And so you slapped him? Good." Steve glares out into the distance, his jaw tightening.

"Well, yeah... After he grabbed me, though..." She admits to him, her green eyes flickering down to the dying grass beneath their feet.

Steve pushes off the bus. "Grabbed you how?"

Jude blinks rapidly—she really, really does not want to cry in front of Steve Harrington. "Just... Somewhere he shouldn't have..." is all she's able to say.

He scoffs and runs a hand through his hair again—wow, he does that a lot. "Fucking asshole, I should go kick his ass right now," he practically growls, as he starts to pace around.

"No, no, don't do that," Jude shakes her head. "I've got it under control, I think... For now, at least..." She realizes that on Monday, she's going to have to face him again, and her eyes widen. Does she have it under control? Sure she does. She's Jude Monroe. And Monroes can handle it.

Steve gives her a long, hard look, his eyes narrowed. Finally, he huffs out a deep breath. "Fine. I won't... But if he ever lays a finger on you ever again, ever... Call me, and I will come kick his ass." He turns to grab her shoulders, forcing her to look at him.

She nods. "Yeah, sure, I'll call you..."

"Promise?" He holds up a pinkie finger.

She's reminded of their "marriage" with rings made from dandelions on the elementary school's field. A smile tugs at the corner of her lips, and she nods, linking her pinkie together with his.

"Promise." She confirms.

He's still visibly angry about it all, but he manages to give her a small smile. "Okay. Good. Jesus, you know, I should have punched that dickhead the day he was talking about you in the showers..." He mumbles the last part, and he begins to rub his fingers over his knuckles, like he's imagining how they would feel against Billy's jaw.

"Hey, asshole! I thought we've only got 40 minutes to sunset?" Dustin barks at them, the sudden shout causing Jude to flinch in surprise.

"Yeah, 30 minutes now!" Lucas tags on.

"Little shits," Steve mutters under his breath, earning him an amused huff from Jude. "Hey, adults are talking! Mind your own business!" He snaps back at them.

Dustin holds up a middle finger in response, and of course, Steve's reaction is to throw up two middle fingers.

"I guess we should probably help them out," Steve sighs to Jude.

She shrugs, and as they walk away to scavenge for more parts, Jude's pinkie finger tingles.

⁺‧₊˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺

Shocking as it may be, sitting on the rusty seat of a school bus that's been out of commission for god knows how long is not comfortable.

Jude's glad she stole her mom's clothes, though, because being in a skirt right now would make the whole experience so much worse than it already is.

The sun's gone down, and now all they can do is wait for Dartagnan to fall for their bait. Lucas is on top of the bus, keeping look out, while the four others remain below. Steve keeps flicking his lighter open and closed, and at first it was entertaining, but now it's starting to drive Jude crazy.

"So, you've really fought one of these things before?" Max pipes up, her question directed to Steve. He glances over at her and nods. "And you're, like, 100% sure it wasn't a bear or something?"

"Shit, don't be an idiot," Dustin cuts in, scoffing at the question. "Okay? It wasn't a bear. Why are you even here if you don't believe us? Just go home."

Max's eyes widen, and she pushes herself to her feet. "Jeez, someone's cranky. Past your bedtime?" She shoots a glare at Dustin, then climbs the ladder up to the roof of the bus to join Lucas.

Once she's gone, Steve starts to nod. "Yeah, that's good. Show her you don't care."

"I don't," Dustin snaps.

Steve winks at him.

"Why are you winking, Steve? Stop."

Steve shrugs, and looks over at Jude with a smile. She shakes her head at the ridiculousness of this, laughing to herself.

Dustin groans, and sits down next to Jude. "Hey, Jude—woah, that's like—"

"—the song, yes, I know," Jude cuts him off, a bit exasperated.

"I said it to her first, though!" Steve reminds them.

"Yeah, the song... But, I was gonna say, uh, you're a girl..."

"Obtuse observation, Henderson,"

"Shut up, dickhead! And it's astute... dumbass.." Dustin shakes his head, ignoring Steve's taunts. "As I was saying, you are a girl, and I was wondering if you think Steve's right. Like, does that shit really work on girls?"

Jude's lips part as she glances over to Steve, then back to Dustin. "Oh, I don't really know... I'm not really the person to ask about romance," she laughs nervously.

Dustin hums in thought. "What if Steve demonstrates on you, and then you tell me if you feel anything!" he gasps, like he's just figured out the answer to some complicated equation.

Immediately, Jude's eyes dart over to Steve, who is staring back at her with eyes that are as wide as she imagines hers are. Oh, and he finally stops flicking his lighter. "Um, no, you really don't need to do that," she reassures Steve, shaking her hands frantically.

"Yeah, Jude doesn't want that," Steve pshes, shaking his head. "I've had several girlfriends, just take my word for it..."

"But I want a girl's opinion, and Jude is the only girl here that I can ask!" Dustin insists, and Jude thinks a bit of spit flies out of his mouth.

"Why can't you just wait and ask, like, Nancy or something?" Steve retorts.

"Because, what if I don't have time to wait?" The curly haired boy groans, hitting the back of his head on the seat behind him.

"Okay, okay! Let's just do it!" Jude cuts in, standing up. She's glad it's nearly pitch black, so neither of them will be able to see the heat that creeps up its way into her cheeks.

Steve raises his eyebrows. "You sure? Because I can just tell Dustin to chill the hell out—"

"She said to do it, Steve!"

Steve groans loudly, and Jude's almost offended that he's this opposed to flirting with her. She sits down next to him, clearing his throat and glancing at him expectantly. For a second, she wonders if Dustin's pollywog appeared behind her, because Steve looks terrified.

"This is so stupid," he mumbles beneath his breath, and just like he's done probably a hundred times that day, he combs his fingers through his dark hair. "Okay, alright. Um... Hey, Jude," he begins, shifting slightly so he's facing her.

Jude fights back the urge to laugh. "Hey, Steve," she replies, mocking his cadence. "I saw you at the movies yesterday. Why didn't you say hi to me?"

Steve glances at Dustin out of the corner of his eye, like an actor who's forgotten his line. "Oh... You were there? I didn't notice," he shrugs.

"Oh, you didn't? I could've sworn you looked right at me, but..."

"Hey, if you want me to notice you at the movies, maybe I need to go with you."

Jude raises her eyebrows. "Oh, really?"

He nods. "Yep," he makes a pop on the 'p'. "Next time you wanna go, you should ask me. And I'll think about joining you."

"Alright, maybe I'll think about asking you."

They go quiet, and the silence is quickly filled with Dustin clapping. "Wow, just wow. Did you feel anything, Jude?" He asks, though based on his tone, he already knows the answer.

Jude avoids looking at Steve. "Uhh... Not really, to be honest..."

Steve scoffs and stands up. "It's not going to work because Jude knows me, so she knows my tricks."

She thinks about reminding him that she doesn't really know him, since he underwent such a drastic change and they haven't been friends for years, but... All of their interactions today kind of make her think maybe she does.

"You are so unhelpful," Dustin slumps into his seat.

"What are you talking about? I'm helping you right now, aren't I?" Steve gestures over to his bat, which is perched near the bus's door.

Jude glances over at Dustin, who's staring at the ladder longingly. Oh. Max and Lucas.

She looks back at Steve and coughs, getting him to look at her, then gestures toward Dustin. He scrunches up his nose, shrugging his shoulders, and Jude nods to the ladder. Steve still looks lost, looking between Dustin and the ladder, then he seems to realize.

"Alright, alright," Steve huffs, and walks back over. Dustin snaps up. "You said a golden retriever, Jude?" He asks with a sigh as he sits back down next to her.

She nods. "Yeah, golden retriever."

"Okay... Hey, Jude," he repeats the same opening line, though this time he's wearing a smile.

"Hi, Steve."

"I didn't mention before, but you look good today. The whole 'country girl' thing you've got going on, it looks good on you. Suits you," he tells her, gesturing to her outfit.

Oh. She wasn't expecting that. "Oh, thanks. I stole it from my mom."

"Well, she should let you keep it, because I doubt it'll look as good on her."

Jude laughs, her gaze drifting up to meet Steve's, and for a moment, she forgets they're just role playing for Dustin.

"Hey, there's that movie that just came out, Terminator?" He leans in a bit closer to her—not enough to invade her personal space, but just enough to make her heart beat faster. "I was thinking about going to watch it this weekend, you should come with me."

"Sure, yeah," Jude nods. "It's a date."

They go quiet again, but it's different than before. Jude can't bring herself to say anything more, because all she can think about is whether or not there's any truth to what Steve said.

"You did not do any of the things you told me to do," Dustin scoffs, and before Steve gets the chance to reprimand him, an eerie roar tears through the air.

All three of them are on their feet immediately, peering through the small openings they have to look into the fog-filled junkyard.

"You see him?" Steve asks.

Dustin and Jude both shake their heads.

"Hey, what's going on, Lucas?" Dustin calls out.

"Hold on!" Lucas answers, his voice strained. It's quiet for a minute, as they all carefully survey the landscape, then Lucas calls out, "I've got eyes! Ten o'clock! Ten o'clock!"

Jude looks to ten o'clock and sure enough, she sees something moving in the darkness.

"There," Steve breathes out, and Jude is suddenly very aware of how close he is to her. "What's he doing? He's not taking the bait, why isn't he taking the bait?"

Jude shakes her head. "I don't know, maybe he's not hungry?" She suggests.

"Or maybe he's sick of cow," Steve replies. He straightens up, and once he's out of her space, Jude realizes what he just said.

"Wait, what are you doing?" She furrows her eyebrows as Steve walks over to the door to the bus.

"Steve?"

Steve pulls his lighter from his pocket. "Just be ready," he tells Dustin, then he tosses the lighter to him. He turns around and pushes the door open.

Jude panics. "Woah, what? You can't go out there! What if—what if it hurts you? Didn't Dustin say it killed his cat? And it's grown since then! It's dangerous!" She starts to ramble away, scrambling after Steve.

He turns around and sighs. "I told you, didn't I? I've fought one before. I can take it." He picks up the bat and tosses it in his hands like he's getting a feel for it.

She tries to come up with some reason why he can't, some reason why he needs to stay there with them—with her, but she can't come up with anything fast enough.

"I'll be fine, Judy." He disappears out into the junkyard.

Jude curses under her breath, and she rushes to join Dustin near the makeshift viewpoint. She watches as Steve inches into the fog, whistling for Dartagnan. Idiot. He is such an idiot. Just when he's starting to earn his way back onto her good side, he throws himself into danger. Idiot.

There's a clamor behind her, and she looks over her shoulder to see Max has returned. "What is he doing?"

"Expanding the menu," Dustin replies, and Jude resists the urge to smack him upside his head for that comment.

Max squeezes between them so she can look outside too. "He's insane."

"He's awesome."

"No, he is not awesome. He's stupid. He's going to get himself hurt. Not awesome." Jude snaps at Dustin, who holds his hands up in surrender. She shakes her head and looks back out, and a bit of movement near one of the old cars catches her eye. She runs over to the door and flings it open.

"Steve! Look out!" Lucas cries out from above.

"Little busy here!" Steve retorts, his focus remaining on the creature in front of him.

"Three o'clock!"

"Steve! Get in here now!" Jude shouts at him, and wow, she can't remember the last time she yelled that loud. The crazier part is, she can barely hear it over the sound of her own blood pumping in her ears.

He stops and looks around, and realizes more creatures appear around him. Now all of the kids are down there with her, screaming at him to come back. One of the monsters starts to run at him, and Jude feels her adrenaline spike as he swings his bat at it, landing a clean hit.

But another one jumps at him, and he has to roll over the hood of one of the cars to avoid it. Finally, he starts running back to the bus.

"Watch out!" Jude shouts at the kids, stretching out her arm to try and push them back. Steve makes it inside, and they slam the door shut behind him. The monsters start slamming against the bus, and Jude helps Steve lower a piece of sheet metal in front of the door to barricade it.

"Are they rabid or something?"

"They can't get in, can they?"

Suddenly the bus lurches to the side, and all of the kids start screaming. Jude and Steve exchange a look, and suddenly there's a crash. Their attention darts to a hole in the side of the bus, and it takes a second for Jude to realize she's looking at a head of one of those things. Now, she and Steve are screaming, too.

Steve whips out his bat and begins to beat in the monster's head, while the rest of them rush to the back of the bus.

"Is anyone there? Will? Q? Mike? Anyone!!" She hears Dustin frantically shouting into his radio. Her eyes dart around frantically for some kind of weapon, and relief washes over her body when she spots an old crowbar on the floor. "We're at the abandoned junkyard, and we are going to DIE!"

Jude drops to the floor and scrambles to grab the crowbar as quickly as she can. When she stands, Max is screaming, and she turns around to see one of the creatures is trying to invade through the roof. She rushes over, and jabs her crowbar toward the monster.

"Get back! Get back!" She screams, like it's going to understand her and leave her alone. Steve is right by her side in seconds, poking his bat up the same way she does.

"You want some?! Come get this!"

Jude watches in horror as the creature's entire face starts to open up, revealing probably hundreds of little teeth. For a second, she wonders if this is really how she's going to die. She didn't die last year, and she's going to be really pissed if she's put in all this work since then just to die now. In an abandoned school bus with her brother's friends, Billy Hargrove's step-sister, and Steve Harrington...

But then... it just stops. It looks away, like something is calling to it, and it runs away. Jude furrows her eyebrows, knuckles white from how tight she holds the crowbar, and her guard isn't down just yet. The screeches and the growls seem to get further and further away, though.

Jude follows Steve back to the front of the bus, where he pushes the door back open. "Stay here," he warns her.

Fuck no.

She ignores him, and slowly steps out of the bus behind him. He turns around, and starts to say something, but cuts himself off, settling instead on rolling his eyes. Strangely enough, the junkyard is empty now. She barely catches sight of the last of the monsters retreating into the fog.

"What happened?" Lucas asks.

"I don't know." Steve replies.

"Steve scared 'em off?" Dustin suggests.

Steve shakes his head. "No. No way." He slings the bat over his shoulder, and turns to look at them. "They're going somewhere."

And immediately, Jude's reminded of her dad's phone call she listened in on. She turns around and runs back inside of the bus, dropping the crowbar somewhere along the way. She can hear them all calling after her and asking what she's doing, but she wants to confirm her suspicions before she says anything.

With a labored grunt she reaches the top of the ladder, and climbs up on top of the bus. She squints, her eyes darting around the vast landscape around her. Then, she sees it, and it turns out her intuition was right.

"Jude! What is it?" Steve calls up to her.

All she can think of now is Quinton—where he is, what he's doing, whether or not he's okay...

"It's the lab," she's barely able to get out between shallow breaths. "They're going to the lab."

omg! another update! woah! who is you...