Chapter Fifty-Five: End Game

"Steve!"

The chorus of kids yelling got Steve's focus back on the road, but he glanced in his rearview mirror to look at Max. "You stole her office keys? You were supposed to get information on Chrissy and what she might've told Ms. Kelly!"

She sighed. "Yeah, well, it's kind of her job not to tell random people about one person's private information. So, I improvised. Annie thought it was a good idea."

He nearly swerved again when his sister got mentioned. "You knew?!"

Annie, holding onto the car door handle for dear life, sighed. "We kind of planned it on the way here. As a 'plan B' of sorts. But now we can go straight to the source! Er- as close to the source as we can, really," Annie said.

The car was silent. Steve was processing how they were about to be criminals once more, while Dustin was more impressed. "That's... actually kind of smart."

"Don't encourage this!" Steve scolded. "How much illegal shit have we done in the past two, three years? Why do we want to add more!"

Max shrugged. "Why not add more? I mean, what else could hurt at this point," she pointed out, using Steve's point to turn it back on him.

"Plus, now we can maybe see if there are any patterns. Then, look to see if we can predict the next victim," Dustin brought up.

Steve was going to respond when a voice came crackling over Dustin's radio. "Dustin. It's Lucas. Do you copy? Dustin."

"Lucas," Dustin greeted, but he wasn't exactly thrilled. "Where the hell have you been?" Nope, was definitely not happy.

"Just listen. Are you guys looking for Eddie?"

"Yeah! We found him no thanks to you," Dustin answered. Annie didn't stop the eye roll she felt coming.

"You found him?" His lack of faith almost hurt Annie.

"He's at a boathouse on Coal Mill Road. Don't worry, he's safe."

But Annie could tell that's not the part Lucas cared about. He sounded like he had much bigger issues to share.

"You guys know he killed Chrissy, right?"

Max and Annie both sighed in frustration. Max didn't want to keep repeating the same story over and over again.

Plus, Lucas hit Dustin's soft spot. "That's bullshit! Eddie tried to save Chrissy."

"Then why do all the cops say he did it?"

Max moved, snatching the walkie from Dustin's hand and taking over. "Lucas, you're so behind, it's ridiculous, okay? Just meet us at the school. We'll explain later."

"Again," Annie mumbled under her breath.

There was a small pause before Lucas answered. "I... I can't. I think some real bad shit's about to go down."

"What are you talking about? What 'bad shit'?" Max asked.

They never got a response. "What the hell...?" Annie said, grabbing the walking from Max. "Lucas!" No response. Even when Max tried to call out, there was nothing.

"Do you think he's okay?" Max asked. "He was about to tell us something- about the shit going down."

Annie shook her head, and Dustin replied. "What are we going to do? We have no idea where he called from! Maybe... maybe Erica or his parents are bothering him now. Maybe he's messing with us! But he knows where we're meeting, so he can come warn us if he needs to."

He bought up some good points. "Yeah... yeah that makes sense," Annie said.

She didn't dare voice her doubts out loud. No need to make the others paranoid for no reason. So, she kept them to herself. All the ones about how he might be on the other side of this fight. In all honesty, if she hadn't found out about Chrissy and Eddie through Max, she probably would be looking for him, too.

No one really spoke as they arrived at Hawkins High. At this point, the sun had long since set, so at least they were entering the school under the cloak of night. If anyone was passing by, which was unlikely already, they'd be fine.

With Max's incredible lock-picking skills, the group made it into the school without breaking anything. Annie was thrilled- smashed glass wouldn't be a good thing to come back to at the end of break, especially if they were discovered as the culprits.

They hustled down the hallways, flashlights handy, and were making good time when Dustin's radio crackled again. "Dustin, do you copy?" This time it was Robin.

"Yeah, I copy."

"So, Nancy's a genius. Vecna's first victim's date back all the way to 1959. Her shot in the dark was a bulls-eye."

"Okay, that's totally bonkers," Dustin started, voice still low and slightly out of breath, "but I can't really talk right now."

"Wait- what are you doing?"

"Breaking and entering into school to retrieve some confidential and extremely personal files," he explained.

Annie scoffed. "Way to be subtle about it, Dustin. Might as well stare into a security camera holding a sign with that written on it," she said.

He rolled his eyes as Robin's reply came in. "Can you repeat that?"

"Just get your ass over here, stat! We'll explain everything." With that, they hurried down the final hallway.

Max and Annie went first, Max being the one to unlock the door. With one last look to make sure no one was watching who wasn't supposed to be, the girls walked into the office, the boys not far behind.

They moved their beams of light around the room, all landing on the file cabinet. "Here," Annie said as she hurried over to the drawers.

Dustin said something about Watergate (?) while Max unlocked and opened up the drawer labeled 'Ten-Vic.' The girls looked around while Steve and Dustin argued, finding Chrissy and Fred's files.

"Holy shit," Max said, pulling the files out of the drawer.

"You found it?" Steve asked, walking over to the cabinet.

"Yeah, but not just it. Fred was seeing Ms. Kelly, too. We have both of their files," Annie said, and held out Fred's file while Max held onto Chrissy's.

They moved over to Ms. Kelly's desk, Annie sitting on one side and Max the other. Steve and Dustin stood on either side of Annie, but they weren't paying much attention.

Max started by looking at Chrissy's file, and not even a moment into looking a certain look crossed her face, one that got Annie's attention.

"Can I see Fred's file?" Max asked.

Annie nodded and handed the folder over. She could feel the boys next to her turn around to look at the desk and what the girls were finding.

While the words were upside down, they could all read them just fine as Max looked them over.

Max was reading them out loud, but Annie was having her own moment as she read the words.

Severe headaches.

Nosebleeds.

Nightmares.

Past trauma.

There were words being said around her, but Annie wasn't focusing on any of them. She could go over the past few days, trying to remember anything about hallucinations, about Chrissy- anything.

"Annie..."

The deep, growling voice was the first clear thing Annie could hear. She turned to look over her shoulder, when there voice had come from. There was another sound, coming from the hall.

With her flashlight in hand, Annie stood from the desk and went to investigate. She moved quietly, he footsteps making no noise as she moved down the hall, closer to where the sound was coming from.

Now that she moved toward it, she could tell what it was.

A ticking clock.

A chime startled her, causing Annie to gasp and turn to it.

The ticking bounced off the school walls, haunting her mind. As Annie came around a corner, the sound became much clearer than before. Turning toward it, she saw a shadow agains the wall on the opposite end of the hallway.

She slowly walked to it, moving her flashlight to see what it was.

In front of her, a grandfather clock was embedded in the wall. It let out another loud chime, causing her to jump and chills to run down her back. She walked closer. She didn't know why, but she just couldn't stop her feet from going to the clock.

Another chime rang out.

Annie got so close, she could touch it, so that's what she did. Her arm slowly moved up from her side, finger extended and ready to touch the grandfather clock.

Another chime.

"Annie..."

"Annie!"

Annie gasped and blinked dozens of times. She was back in Ms. Kelly's office. The desk was in front of her, with Fred and Chrissy's open files still there. Max was still sitting across from her, the boys still on either side. But now, they weren't reading.

They were looking at her.

"Annie, what was that?" Dustin asked.

She could feel Steve's hand on her shoulder. "Wait..." she breathed. "What... I..." Annie gently shook her head, unable to get her thoughts together. Unable to decipher anything about what the hell just happened to her.

"Guys?" Everyone turned and saw Nancy and Robin entering the room. "What the hell is going on?"

That's when Annie thought about the clock. "The clock!" she yelled, standing up from her chair. Steve tried to slow her down, but she didn't have time.

Annie pushed past Robin and Nancy and hurried out where she remembered the clock to be. The footfalls behind her told her the others were following.

But when she got to the spot, it was gone. "No, no, no, no," Annie mumbled, walking right up to the wall. Her flashlight lit up the empty space.

A few other flashlights joined Annie's. "Why are we staring at a wall?" Robin asked.

"It was right here! This... this clock- one of the old, grandfather ones. And it was... it was, like, in the wall. Like it was growing out of it or something. And it was ticking and chiming and... it's gone," Annie explained.

It was too quiet behind her. That is, until Nance spoke up. "A... grandfather clock?" she asked.

Annie nodded, and the memory of it's chimes echoed in her mind. "It was so real," she whispered. "And then I got so close I could just reach out and touch it. Then I was waking up back in Ms. Kelly's office."

Someone came up behind her, and when they grabbed onto Annie's arm, she knew it was Max.

"It was like... she was in a trance or something. Just like how Eddie described Chrissy," Dustin brought up. The grip on Annie's arm tightened.

Annie shook her head and turned around, Max letting her go. "It gets worse."

"How much worse?" Steve asked.

They went back to the office, with the files. "Fred and Chrissy were both seeing Ms. Kelly. They both wanted help. The symptoms... the same ones we were reading out together..."

It hit Max. "You're nosebleed in history a few days ago, your nightmare last night and the every night for the previous week, the literal bottle of Tylenol you keep between your backpack and your desk!"

"And the visions?" Dustin asked, his voice small. Annie couldn't even begin to think how Dustin was feeling, let along her goddamn brother.

Annie swallowed. "It starts out as nothing big, just something scary and from their past... but then they get worse and worse until..." She couldn't finish the sentence.

But Robin could. "Everything ended. Vecna's curse."

"Chrissy's headaches stated a week ago. Fred six days ago. Mine started five days ago- that's when I first grabbed the bottle from our parent's bathroom," Annie continued.

The room was dead quiet. Tears were filling Annie's eyes to the point where the world was blurry around her. Her throat tightened with impending sobs.

"I'm next."

A/n: I know y'all probably already saw this coming, but still- I am so excited that we got here! Anyway... I hope y'all are ready... next is episode four... (predictions for her favorite song start now!)