▸Things Can Only Get Better - Howard Jones

T H E  C A S E  O F  T H E 
M I S S I N G   L I F E G U A R D

Earlier the next day, I went over to the Hargrove household in the car. I had convinced Danny to allow me to drive it while he and Dustin and walked over to the front door. Of course, Dustin didn't let me hear the end of him coming home only for him to ride his bike around town. Exiting the car, I walked to the front door and opened it. They had oddly kept it unlocked. I went to straight to Billy's room and knocked on the door twice. There was an incoherent grumble from the inside of his room.

"You decent?" I tapped on his door again.

"Yeah." Billy grumbled out.

I pushed opened his door to see Billy siting up on his bed. His room was messy, as usual, and the curtains were drawn shut. The cool air sent goosebumps down my arms.

"Wow, it's cold in here today." I muttered to myself.

"What's up, babe?" Billy yawned.

"You ignored me for a couple days now, you ass." I walked over to him and sat on the edge of his bed. "What gives?"

"Sorry babe, been busy and then yesterday I felt sick." Billy uttered, his eyes starting to close again as he went to lay back down.

A frown etched its way onto my lips. Billy rarely apologizes to me unless he was being a huge asshole. It was progress compared to how he was when we first became friends.

"You still feel sick?" I placed the back of my hand against his cool forehead.

"What are you doing?" Billy quickly grasped my wrist tightly and glared at me.

"Checking to see if you have a fever, idiot." I rolled my eyes and yanked my wrist away. "Which you don't. Maybe it was some bug or something."

"Babe, my immune system has never failed me before and it won't start now." Billy smacked my hand away.

"Okay, okay." I held my hands up. "You sure you're okay?"

"Mm-hmmm, can I go back to sleep now?" Billy shoved me off the bed.

"Rude!" I stumbled to my feet.

"Tired!" Billy closed his eyes.

"You need to start getting ready for work anyways, asshole, get up." I lightly kicked his leg.

"Later shift today." Billy only shifted, turning his back to face me.

"Get up, asshole!" Huffing, I grabbed his ankles and started tugged him out of bed.

"Go away!" Billy kicked his feet away.

"Fine!" I started to stomp out the door, slamming it behind me. "Talk to me when you feel better!"

▷

It was my turn to try and decode the transmission. Robin was taking care of the customers and would open the window every now and then to check on me. The boys were out in the mall scouting for anyone who looked like an "evil Russian". I sat on the chair with one of my legs propped up. A pencil was in between my lips and one of my hands was tapping a beat to one of the band's songs.

"This may be a personal question, but, uh, why did the FRE break up?" Robin questioned.

I looked away from the whiteboard to face her. Robin had her elbow on the windowsill and her hand was lazily cupping her chin.

"It kinda happened after Rebecca and Danny broke up." I frowned, removing the pencil from my mouth. "At first, the tension wasn't so bad. The two had put aside their feelings and we just played our music. Then....then Rebecca started to question me over one of the reasons why she broke up with my brother. She got upset and involved Amanda when I didn't tell her. Chad wasn't having it with the drama the band had and told us if we weren't going to resolve that then might as well quit. Rebecca was the first to drop of of the band blaming Danny."

"Woah, that's low. Everyone knows that you two always stay by each other's side anyways." Robin scoffed.

"Yeah and I probably didn't help the case when I punched her." I meekly stated.

"No." Robin gasped with a grin. "You? Punch someone?"

"Shocking right?"

"Not really. I saw you slap one of your exes once."

"You saw the incident with Thomas, didn't you?" I chuckled.

"Oh yeah," Robin grinned and nodded her head, "that was my freshman year, could never forget that. I had a front row view to that baby. Seeing Danny punch a guy, wow."

"Eh, Thomas had it coming." I shrugged.

"What did he do?"

"Cheat on me with Peggy Walters." I informed her.

"No way." Robin laughed out. "Her? I remember her bragging about sleeping with some upper classman, but I just thought that was Tommy H."

"Wouldn't be surprised if she did that, too." I looked behind her to see a young group of teenagers. I pointed behind Robin. "Customers."

"Ah great." Robin glanced over her shoulder. "Continue decoding, I should be done in a few and then I'll come to the back and continue translating."

"Hey, if you need help, I can scoop ice cream." I offered.

"Next round." Robin told me as she closed the window.

Licking my lips, I grabbed the pencil and stared at the board again. The piece of paper placed on the desk was still blank. I sighed and drummed my fingers on the table.

"Alright, anything?" Robin walked in.

She opened the window to see if there would be any customers coming our way. Robin grabbed the book and started to flip through the pages.

"Nada." I ran a hand through my curls. "These could mean anything."

"Just think about stuff here in Hawkins. If they are here, then it has to be with stuff related to Hawkins." Robin suggested, placing the headphones that was connected to the player over her ears.

"Alright." I bit my lip.

Rereading the first line, I hovered the pencil over the paper. I stared at the first line. With pursed lips, I rewrote the sentence and made three bullet points underneath it. Week could symbolize the amount of days? On the first bullet point, I wrote seven days with a question mark. To the side, I made a dash a a side note stating "time frame".

Ding!

"Your turn Henderson." Robin muttered, flipping another page and pressing the side button of the player.

"Gotcha." I placed the pencil down and walked to the front.

In front of the counter was Rebecca and Amanda. What shocked me even more was that they were talking to my ex Thomas. Taking a deep breath, I grabbed the spare ice cream scooper and walked towards them.

"Welcome to Scoops Ahoy, would you like to try the flavor of the month?" I asked.

My stomach tightened with nerves as they turned their attention towards me.

"Dawn?" Rebecca blinked in confusion. "You work here?"

"Uh, no." I sent her a sheepish smile and shook my head. "Just helping out."

"Doesn't Harrington work here?" Thomas placed an elbow on the counter with a perked brow.

"Yeah, where is he and that other chick?" Amanda added.

"Other chick is back here being busy." Robin stated from the back, waving an arm without looking up from the book.

"Where's-"

"So, what do you guys want?" I cut off Thomas from asking anymore questions.

"Uh, I guess I'll try the flavor of the month." Amanda muttered.

"Cup or cone?"

"Cone."

I gave her a nod and reached for the cones. Grabbing one, I went to the gallons of ice cream and dug the scooper into the dessert. Scooping it up, I placed the first scoop into the cone.

"I'll have the sundae." Thomas pointed to the picture.

"Okay, Rebecca?" I finished with Amanda's ice cream and handed it to her.

"Oh, um..." Rebecca frowned. She looked at the ice cream flavors and pointed to a random one. "I'll have that one."

"But you hate cherries?" I stared at her in confusion.

"I'm starting to like them." Rebecca sent me a nervous smile.

"Okay, cone or cup?" I started to work on Thomas' sundae.

"Cup." Rebecca looked over her shoulder.

I quickly finished with Thomas' dessert and went to work on Rebecca's.  Amanda and Thomas went to go find a seat while Rebecca waited. They had given her their money to pay. There was an awkward tension between the both of us as I finished her ice cream.

"Here you go." I handed it to her and went to the register. Glancing over my shoulder to the board that held the ice cream prices, I entered the correct price for the ice creams. "Total is ten fifteen."

"Right, uh, here you go." Rebecca handed me over fifteen dollars. "You can keep the change."

"Thanks?" I examined the money in my hand before typing the amount into the register. 

"So...are you and Danny busy on the fourth?" Rebecca asked.

"Not really." I shook my head and hit the button to pop out the money drawer. "Why?"

"Well, Chad, Amanda, and I are planning on seeing that new movie Back to the Future. We were wondering if maybe you two would like to join us? Steve and, uh, Billy can come too of course." Rebecca but her lower lip.

"Uh, if we're free sure." I shrugged and placed the money into the correct slots. "What time?"

"Around eight maybe?"

"Okay." I took out the change and placed it in the tip jar for Robin and Steve. "I'll tell them."

"Great, uh, see you later I guess." Rebecca gave me an awkward wave before heading to the others.

Chad later walked in and sat next to his girlfriend. I watched with a frown as the four of them whispered amongst each other and glanced over at me. Chad gave me a grin and an enthusiastic wave. My heart warmed that he still treated me nicely and waved back to him. Amanda gave him a raised brow.

"Hey, I think I got some more translations." Robin stated, moving one side of the headphones away from her ear.

"Alright coming." I walked to the back.

"So-" Robin was interrupted by someone continuously ringing the bell.

"Excuse me." Erica, Lucas's little sister, called out with a forced smile. Robin only ignored her, opening her mouth to talk. "Ahoy!"

Robin shared an irritated look with me. With a sigh, she turned around to face the customers. She took out the headphones. Erica tapped the bell one last time.

"I'd like to try the peanut butter chocolate swirl, please." Erica stated with a smile.

"No. No more samples today." Robin told her.

"Why not?" Erica asked.

"Because you're abusing our company policy." Robin explained.

"Where's the sailor man that Dustin's older sister is dating?" Erica demanded.

"Not here." I shrugged.

"Sorry. He can't help you. He's busy." Robin grinned.

"Busy with what?"

"Spycraft." Robin raised both of her brows with amusement.

Erica scoffed and left the parlor with her small group of friends. Robin smirked and grabbed her book. She walked to the side that held the ice and decided to stay there when more customers came. A few minutes, and customers, had passed by.

"How do you think the boys are doing?" Robin hopped onto the counter and grabbed her cup of water.

"Knowing the three of them, who knows." I chuckled. "For all we know, they could be stalking the wrong guy."

"If only we had finished translating and decoding this earlier we could have gone and help." Robin breathed out as she swung one of her legs lazily while the other was brought up onto the counter.

"We could have found the Russians." I nodded in agreement.

"Okay, let's get down to business. I finished the translations." Robin picked up the pad we had written the translations on. "The silver cat feeds when the blue meets yellow in the west. A trip to China sounds nice if you tread lightly."

Robin took a sip from her cup and placed it back on the counter.

"Tread lightly." Robin mumbled to herself and she picked up the book.

"You know," I lifted my feet onto the table and threw my head back to stare at the ceiling, "if the music that's in the background is similar to the kids ride here in the mall, wouldn't that mean that the Russians are a lot closer than we think?"

"Could be." Robin turned to glance at the back door behind me when a knocking sounded. "I got it."

Robin jumped through the opened window and entered the back room. She opened the door to reveal a delivery man.

"Delivery for you." The man handed Robin a box.

"Thank you." Robin breathed out and placed the box in front of me.

I angled my head to see the man's uniform. The logo LYNX was written in red across his breast pocket. An image of a lynx popped into my mind, one of a silvery grey fur coat.

"Oh, did you guys know that lynxes have different shades of fur?" I quickly blurted out. The man and Robin stared at me in confusion.  "Brown, white, a beige sort of color, and at times like a silvery grey. Pretty cool huh?"

Robin's eyes widened. She went back to sign some paperwork. The man handed her a clipboard that held the documents. Robin signed them and glanced at the man curiously.

"Have a nice day." The man told her.

"Yeah, you too." Robin uttered.

The man walked off. On the back of his uniform was a logo of the head of a lynx cat encased in a circle. The logo was silver. Robin entered the back hallway and stared at the man. She walked back into the room and closed the door.

"Silver cat. Silver cat." Robin repeated.

"We got it." I grinned.

"C'mon." Robin rushed out towards the food court. "Grab the pad."

I snatched the pad and quickly followed after her. The both of us shoved passed Steve and my brothers. We stopped in the middle of the mall.

"A trip to China sounds nice." Robin muttered as she jumped onto a bench. We scanned our surroundings for anything that resembled China. "A trip to China sounds nice. A trip to China sounds nice."

"Chinese food?" I suggested, pointed at the Chinese restaurant in the food court.

"Yeah, yes." Robin nodded her head. "Next line?"

"If you tread lightly." I glanced down at the pad.

"If you tread lightly." Robin repeated and glanced above the Chinese food to see a shoe department. She pointed to it. "If you tread lightly. Then it's...when blue and yellow meets in the west."

"Uh." I bit the inside of my cheek and looked around searching for the two colors.

"When blue and yellow meets in the west." Robin patted my shoulder and nodded towards the clock above the entrance of the mall. "It's a time."

"We got it." I beamed.

"Dawn, Robin, what the hell?" Danny stated as the boys stood next to me.

"What are you two doing?" Steve questioned.

"We cracked it." Robin told them.

"Cracked what?" Steve asked.

"We cracked the code." Robin hopped off.

"Hell yeah we did." I high fived her.

▷

The five of us were on the roof top of the mall. We were overlooking the area where the whistling delivery man that was dressed in a yellow rain jacket would deliver the boxes. The pouring rain pounded on top of us as we looked over the ledge. Dustin was currently holding the binoculars to see what what going on below.

"They're with that whistling guy, ten o'clock." Dustin informed us, pointing towards the guy.

"What do you think is in there?" Steve questioned.

"I doubt it's Chinese food if they are bringing it here instead of the actual food place." I said, eyeing the panda on the boxes.

"Seems like a lot of guards just for Chinese food, too. Has to be something dangerous." Danny eyed the guard with the gun.

"Guns, bombs?" Dustin assumed.

"Chemical weapons." Robin added.

"Whatever it is," Dustin started, "they're armed to the teeth."

"Great." Steve wiped water away from his eyes. He shared a look with me and nodded. "That's great."

"Hey, what's in there?" Robin questioned Dustin.

"It's just more boxes." Dustin informed.

"Let me check it out." Steve reached for the binoculars.

"No, I'm still looking." Dustin tugged the binoculars back towards him.

"Guys." Danny warned.

"Lemme see it." Steve reaches for them again.

"Hang on!" Dustin yanked them back, the binoculars banged against a metal pipe. We all froze at the loud metallic sound. "Duck!"

The five of us ducked, turning our backs against the wall and slouching. My hand quickly grasped onto Steve's. His hold tightened around mine. I breathed heavily as fear flooded through my veins. Steve peered at me with worry.

"We got to go. Now." Danny let go of Robin's hand.

We all scrambled towards the door and ran downstairs. Steve led the way through the back hallways. His hold on my hand didn't lessen. We finally stopped running.

"I think we found your Russians." Robin spoke up once we were at a safe distance.

Sadly, Billy won't be mentioned as much as I had planned. Part 3 mainly revolves around the Russians rather than the Mind Flayer:/

Btw, the face claim for Thomas is Cole Sprouse.