CHAPTER THREE
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     SHE WIPED down the desk diligently and organized a few things that were out of place, putting a few pencils back in the holder. The phone rang yet again and Flo raised her eyebrows at Lexie.

     "I am not getting it again," she persisted, looking down at some of the paperwork that she was filing rather than at Lexie directly.

     "Flo, I have to go to school," Lexie protested with a challenging look.

     "So one phone call won't hurt you."

     Lexie rolled her eyes and picked up the receiver, answering brightly with, "Hawkins Police."

     "Please, I need you to get in touch with Hopper," a very familiar voice over the phone begged. "Tell him Joyce Byers is calling."

     "Mrs. Byers?" Lexie questioned, her demeanor now tense with concern. "This is Lexie, Emily's sister. Is everything okay?"

     "Everything will be okay if someone would just hand the phone to Hopper!" she responded loudly, clearly frustrated with something. "I'm sorry, this has just been a stressful morning."

     "I promise you the minute he comes in, he will get the message," Lexie assured, writing down a note while Flo stared her down condescendingly as if she hadn't already thought to do that. But she ignored the older woman's stares. "He just is running late."

     An audible sigh sounded from the other end. "Thank you, Lexie," Joyce told her, before the line went completely dead. Strange.

     "There you go, Flo," Lexie told her, ducking into Hopper's office to put her note on his desk. When she came back out, Flo was trying the radio that should have been going directly into Hopper's car once again.

     "...deal with her so I don't have to," she was finishing in an annoyed tone. Lexie quickly signaled for her to hand over the radio and she leaned over in order to be properly received.

     "And this is Lexie. Just finished all the morning stuff, but I'm headed to school. Donuts are in the break room and I'll see you tomorrow," she explained quickly and Hopper made sure to tell her how grateful he was. For some reason now he would show up late on certain days and have to leave even earlier others. Stress? She wasn't sure. Maybe that would explain the unreal amount of donuts he ate and seemed to take home each day.

     Grabbing her school bag, Lexie headed for the door, waving goodbye at Flo to which she received her usual response of nothing.

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     The autumn chill lifted the pages of her book ever so slightly as her eyes scanned over the words patiently. Heat radiated from her coffee cup as she took another sip, closing her eyes at the warmth that spread across her mouth. One of her favorite things to do on her lunch period was sit outside and read quietly. No one else enjoyed doing that as much as her, so it made for a nice and isolated activity.

     A few more minutes passed as Lexie read her book in silence, a few people passing her on their way in and out of the building. As usual, she went mostly unnoticed and invisible but that was what she was used to.

     "Hey, Lexie," someone said, causing her to jump slightly at the sudden intrusion. Nobody had ever bothered her here once. Not ever. And it was even more confusing to her that Steve Harringotn was standing in front of her, awkwardly shifting at her reaction. "Sorry, I, uh, didn't mean to bother you."

     She quickly closed her book and shifted her position in the seat. "Oh, no, you didn't bother me," she dismissed, waving her hand at him. Swallowing, she looked around before looking back at him. It seemed that he had noticed her lack of company and was staring around with a look that she couldn't quite figure out the meaning of. "What's up?"

     He appeared to snap out of whatever he was thinking. "I just wanted to say thanks for the other night," he told her, Lexie not understanding why he was going out of his way to thank her. If she was being honest, she didn't really expect him to speak to her again after the encounter.

     "There's no need," Lexie told him with a smile. There was a small pause before Steve sat down across from her at the table she was sitting at and looked down at her book.

     "What are you reading?"

     Lexie froze and was unsure what to do. Friends weren't her strong suit.

     "Well..."

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     Emily was not a quiet girl. Almost always was there some sort of fast paced series of words streaming from her mouth. That's why when Lexie got home, finding Emily there completely quiet in the living room was particularly worrying.

     "Is everything alright?" she asked her sister, who broke her trance from staring at the wall to look at her sister with a shrug. "Okay, so something's definitely wrong."

     "Well, no. It's just -- it's Will," she answered softly, her expression visibly bothered. Lexie furrowed her brows and sat down next to her sister on the couch, abandoning her school bag near the door.

     "Is he okay?"

     "He had another attack at school. I think he's just getting worse," Emily elaborated, wrapping her arms around herself in near defense. "We're all worried."

     This was something Lexie never knew how to fix, but wanted to desperately. Ever since Will went missing, things were different and it felt like there was much more to everything than Emily was saying. But Lexie never pushed because she knew that wouldn't help.

     "I'm sorry," Lexie sighed, rubbing her sister's shoulder lightly. Emily nodded absently before glancing at the clock, the door, and then Lexie.

     "I think I'm just gonna go to Mike's," she announced finally, pulling herself off of her feet and heading for the door. "Can you tell mom and Iris?"

     Lexie nodded and watched her sister leave the house, an unsettled feeling setting in the further away she got.

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     Christine and Iris were running late getting back, apparently. They didn't leave a note or call, but Lexie knew that this must have meant that they were swamped at the bakery and wouldn't be back for a few hours.

     Suddenly, the echoes of the phone ringing interrupted her as she looked down at her book, throwing it on her bed to rush down the stairs. She grabbed it just in time and yanked it from the receiver.

     "Hello?"

     "This is Flo. Is Lexie there?"

     "This is Lexie," she responded, her brows furrowing at why Flo would want to be calling her at her house when she wasn't even supposed to be in at the station.

     "Have you heard from Hopper?" Flo asked, a slight tinge of worry in her voice and also a dash of mild irritation. "Any time within the past few hours?

     Lexie shook her head and then remembered that she was on the phone with someone and that Flo couldn't see her shaking her head. "No, I haven't. Is something wrong? He did come in today, right?" she questioned, bombaring each one after the other.

     "Yes he did," Flo responded in that irritated tone she used that was so passive aggressive that it wasn't exactly downright rude. "But he never came back and isn't responding to any radio calls. So I'm calling around. That's all — thanks."

     And the other line went dead. Lexie pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at it for a moment before putting it back on the receiver. Well, that was strange. She walked back up to her room and tried to contemplate all of the reasons why Hopper wouldn't show back up and why he would go radio silent. But none of them were good.

     There had to be more to it, but she decided that thinking about it too much was probably just going to send her into a pointless worry. She didn't have to be in tomorrow, but she made a mental note to stop by anyway to see if he was in.

     Things were starting to remind her of last year all over again.