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CHAPTER FOURTEEN
β€” science project β€”




















the school let mrs. wheeler take the girls early. she noticed how distracted the two were after the interview and actually needed to talk to them. well, more like yell. "you both lied to the police!"

"we didn't lie!" nancy argued in defense of her and amelia. mrs. wheeler scoffed. "how naive do you think i am?!"

amelia was already leaving the conversation, making her way up to the stairs. nancy surprisingly followed. she wanted this fight with her mom to be over as soon as she could end it. "you and steve were 'just talking' in his room while poor amelia was waiting in wet clothes... on his couch?!"

"we slept together!" nancy shouted. amelia was already half-way up the stairs when nancy said that. "is that what you wanted to know? it doesn't matter!"

"no! it does matter!" mrs. wheeler argued. "no! it's all bullshit!" nancy shouted. "it has nothing to do with barb and she's missing, and something terrible happened to her! i know it! i know it, and no one is listening to me!"

lia was listening. "sweetie, sweetie, i'm listening." mrs. wheeler tugged on nancy's sleeve. "i'm listening to you–"

"no! you're not!" nancy softly pushed her mom away and began going upstairs. she dragged amelia with her. "nancy!" mrs. wheeler shouted. amelia turned her head to mrs. wheeler. "nancy!"

"just leave us alone!" nancy yelled back.

she ran up the stairs to her room with amelia following to avoid talking to mrs. wheeler. as they both entered her room, nancy slammed the door, making amelia jump.

nancy then threw her books on top of her desk and ran crying to her bed. lia noticed the tears in her own eyes, almost ready to stream down her cheeks. why?

the noirette slowly walked to nancy and sat with her. she sat quite awkwardly as she doesn't really know how to comfort someone yet. amelia already knows that she won't be good at it...

"i'm sorry you had to see that." nancy sniffled with her face turned away from her.

amelia shook her head. "it's fine. i just..." she felt weird saying this, but she also felt that she was compelled to. "i never got to experience that."

a quiet moment happened between the two. amelia felt a question brewing for her. "lia?"

amelia gulped before answering, "yeah?"

nancy slowly pulled her backpack closer to her. there was another short pause. "you knew that jonathan was there that night."

the noirette froze, not having a clue of how nancy knew. eventually, amelia just nodded. "yeah." she murmured.

nancy wiped her nose and pulled out the torn photographs. she held up a torn piece of amelia. it was of her making a face because of the intruding flash before the camera started to act up.

amelia averted her eyes away from the photograph and straight into nancy's eyes. "i'm sorry i didn't say anything–"

"don't worry about that." nancy intercepted. "steve handled it."

as soon as she finished her sentence, amelia felt a rush of guilt from her end. she knew jonathan didn't deserve his camera to be smashed.

"that's the last thing on my mind." nancy shrugged. boys? the last thing on nancy's mind? amelia couldn't relate. "they're gone anyways. it's just that.." her voice faded as she pulled out some more pieces to other pictures. one of the pieces was a small photo of barb, sitting on the pool dive. "i've been so paranoid," amelia felt nancy lie to herself when she said that aloud. "but maybe you and jonathan were the last ones to see her."

we were.

"when you told barb to go home," amelia sighed softly. "i thought she was actually gonna go home. i walked out to go get some air from all that tension and i heard" amelia's brows twitched into a furrow. "noises."

nancy's expression tensed up. "and i kinda..." she read nancy's expression and learned something.

lying is unethical. leading nancy on like this, on such a sensitive topic like barb, is straight up wrong.

"i lied about my parents." amelia abruptly blurted.

nancy's once tense and brooding face faltered. her brows furrowed. "what?" she let out a small giggle with her retort to let out some tension.

amelia immediately regretted saying that out loud, but the truth would set her free. knowing she was going to spend time with nancy, she had to come clean. but she wondered, setting herself free with the truth would only put nancy in danger.

well, that was until amelia recalled mike hiding eleven in the basement.

"i don't exactly.." amelia didn't even know how to start. "have parents."

nancy still looked lost. "what do you mean?" she almost looked scared.

amelia stood up from the bed. she paced around the space, just like nancy did the day before. "gosh, i don't know how to explain it!"

"explain what?" nancy asked. amelia wanted nancy to trust her. not be scared of her.

suddenly, a common thought came up in her head. she trailed her gaze to her sleeve. amelia raised her hand and picked up the sleeve of her jacket.

009.

nancy wasn't as phased since barb has talked about this before. "nice tattoo?"

"it's not a tattoo." amelia clarified. she walked back to her spot next to nancy, slouching a bit. "it's a serial number."

nancy looked up from the mark on amelia's wrist. "what are you talking about?" nancy fretted, her lips barely moving but her eyes full of anxiousness.

amelia explained, and it wasn't easy. nancy has hundred and hundred of different questions, in which amelia answered as nancy was taping the scraps of barb's photo back together.

like jonathan, she was cautious and tried to not ask anything too sensitive. amelia was sure to hint that what happened in the laboratory is something that she doesn't even want to think about. it's part of her cleansing of living this whole new life outside of the building. well, with will and barb in this case, it's as if her nightmares can't stop following her.

the two decided to meet with jonathan. amelia felt that with his better vocabulary and more active common sense, she would be able to get her thoughts clearer.

may i remind you, amelia drank alcohol for the first time that night, and was practically drunk in infatuation with steve harrington. she doesn't remember much to be honest.

the two teenagers walked into the one funeral home hawkins has. amelia, never being in one, drew her eyes around the different coffins. she didn't know what they were and what was their purpose.

nancy looked over her shoulder to see the noirette gawk at the boxes. her brows furrowed loosely as she wondered why amelia was fascinated, but she remembered that this is all new to her.

nancy turned back forward and didn't waste a second looking for jonathan. when she found him, she raced to him.

"can you just give me a second?" she stammered. amelia looked away from a specific, black coffin and sped up to nancy, who already found jonathan.

he eyed nancy nervously, not even looking away from her when amelia came rushing in.

"hey." he murmured.

"hey." nancy said back. there was a short pause.

amelia missed her beat as she was too caught up in the awkwardness of this all. she cleared her throat, "howdy?"

jonathan looked away from nancy to amelia. he nodded at her. "uh, what's going on?" he asked, sliding his hands in his jean pockets.

amelia glanced at nancy, expecting her to take the lead, but the brunette chose to stay quiet. amelia sighed pressingly before saying, "we gotta talk about tuesday night."

jonathan flickered his eyes at nancy. "about barb." amelia added.

˚⁎⁺˳✧༚

"it looks like it could be some kind of perspective distortion," amelia had no idea what that meant. "but i wasn't using the wide angle." jonathan explained as he held the taped photograph. "uh, i don't know." he gave the picture back to nancy. "it's weird."

"and you're sure you didn't see anyone else out there?" nancy asked him. jonathan nodded. "she was there one second and then, um–" jonathan didn't want to finish his sentence. amelia didn't know why he didn't, so she did for him. "gone." she mindlessly spoke up.

jonathan scoffed silently and nodded. "yes. gone. we figured she belt."

nancy shook her head profoundly and met eyes with amelia. "the cops think that she ran away, but they don't know barb." she looked down to the picture. "i went back to steve's, and i thought i saw something. some.." her voice tended to trial off between words, but that was because she didn't want to be found outrageous. "weird man or.. i don't know what it was."

nancy looked back up to jonathan. from a third perspective, she found herself to come as rude to be talking about a missing friend when jonathan's brother was just found dead.

nancy stood up from her chair. "i'm sorry." she apologized. "i–i shouldn't have come here today. i'm so sorry." she grabbed her bag and started to make her way out. amelia leaned off the wall and uncrossed her arms, following the speeding brunette.

"what'd he look like?" jonathan asked quickly as the two girls were walking off. nancy turned. "what?"

"this man you saw in the woods." to nancy's surprise, jonathan didn't have that confused look in his eyes. it was similar to amelia's when she first spoke about the demogorgon and it's smiley figure. "what'd he look like?"

nancy glanced at lia, expecting her to answer his question. this time, the noirette stayed quiet. she looked almost scared to talk about it.

"i don't know." nancy quavered. "it was almost like he.." she didn't want too sound too off beat. "he didn't have–"

"didn't have a face?" jonathan finished.

amelia arched a brow, finding the description almost spot on. jonathan looked away from nancy to see amelia's expression. nancy did the same, trailing her gaze to the noirette.

"it has a mouth for a face." amelia croaked. "i actually got a pretty good look at it the night i left the labs."

nancy stepped out of amelia's side and faced her. "pretty good look?" nancy scoffed. jonathan walked up to them. "what is it?"

amelia wore the most bugged expression. her brows were still strung up and her eyes was stuck in a tiny twitch. "something not of our world."

˚⁎⁺˳✧༚

the three teenagers snuck into school and into the photography production room. jonathan had to try to improve the photo for a better look at the mystery shadow in the picture.

"and you're..." nancy wanted jonathan to finish her sentence for her, not really knowing the terminology of what he saw doing. "brightening. enlarging." he did exactly what she thought.

"hmm," amelia nodded as she looked around. "did your mom say anything else about the thing?" she asked. she picked up something off the table, but immediately dropped it.

amelia knew these were some questions that nancy wanted to ask, but something was holding her back from asking. amelia couldn't tell yet, but with her small amount of common sense, she guessed it was the pictures that he took of her. guess nancy wasn't really over it.

jonathan shook his head in reply to amelia's question. "no, just that it came out of the wall." and suddenly, the machine made a ding.

jonathan put the new picture to moisten and work it's magic. "how long does it take?" nancy asked. "not long."

amelia looked down to her nails, thinking if she should paint them like how carol does. she did the most to distract herself, as at times, she'd catch her mind drifting to the memories of the laboratory.

nancy drew her eyes away from the noirette to jonathan and his work. "have you been doing this a while?" nancy wondered. "doing what?"

"photography?" the petite brunette nodded down to the picture. "yeah," jonathan did the same nod as her. "i guess i'd rather observe people than, you know–"

amelia chuckled lightly, "talk to them." she dropped her arm and faced jonathan, wearing a laughing smile.

"i know, it's weird." he shook his head and put on a small smile himself.

"no!" nancy said.

jonathan scoffed, "no, it is. it's just, sometimes.. people don't really say what they're really thinking." amelia smirked to herself, knowing that that's very true. with her ability, she knew somewhat of what people thought, or wanted to do. a mix of body language and tone in voices.

"but you capture the right moment, it says more." jonathan finsished. nancy held a gaze on him as he explained. "well, what was i saying?" she quizzed. "what?"

"when you took my picture." she reminded him. jonathan sheepishly looked down and cleared his throat.

"i shouldn't have taken that." he glumly admitted. "i'm, uh... i'm sorry."

amelia chewed on her bottom lip and looked down to the edited photo. "it's just–"

"that's it." amelia blurted, ruining the moment. nancy tore her eyes from jonathan and drew them to the photograph. her eyes widened.

"that's what i saw." nancy murmured.

"my mom," amelia felt jonathan's body tremble lightly, as she saw standing right over his shoulder. "i thought she was crazy." he scoffed.

"she never was." amelia whispered. "she said that that's not will's body. that he's alive." jonathan told her. amelia finally looked away from the scrawny image in the corner of the photograph and up to jonathan. "i believe her."

"if will's alive," jonathan added up and turned to nancy. "then barbara."

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