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chapter eleven
a few months later

"I DON'T KNOW WHY WE BOTHER PLAYING WITH YOU," Max groaned, throwing down her cards.

Diana smiled victoriously, but shook her head. "I swear I wasn't cheating this time."

"She was," Steve staged whispered to Max and Lucas who sat across the table from them.

Diana rolled her eyes, and Lucas gave a scoff. "Of course she was, but what do you know?"

She gave him a glare. She'd thought he'd gotten over his slight aversion to Steve Harrington, but sometimes she noticed it still festering within him.

She and Steve were nothing more than friends, but Lucas refused to believe as much with all the time they'd been spending together.

Her brother stood from his seat. "Max and I have plans."

"Right now?" The red head asked, looking up at him.

"Yes now," he nodded, and reluctantly, and a bit agitatedly, the girl stood too. Diana didn't object because she knew he was telling the truth. With Dustin coming home from camp today, Lucas and his friends had planned to surprise the boy.

"See you, Di," the girl murmured as Lucas pulled her out the front door. The older girl never got the chance to reply.

Steve sighed. "I think your brother hates me."

"Well he should, you're a terribly awful person," Diana teased.

"Ha ha ha," Steve deadpanned, but his brown eyes glittered with amusement.

"Lucas doesn't hate you. I think he actually admires you a little," Diana said, collecting the cards on the table. "But he used to be the only one who I let know about the shit going on in my head. Now I tell you too."

"Hardly," he murmured.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "What does that mean?"

He shrugged and turned his head, but she forced herself back into his line of sight, and he sighed. "I notice you staring off into space sometimes."

"Daydreaming isn't a crime, Harrington." She'd tried to keep up her teasing tone, but she failed—miserably. She could feel the uneasiness creeping up on her.

"You only call me that when you don't like what I have to say." Steve rested his hands on the hardwood table, seeming to debate his next words. "You and I both know that you don't daydream. If anything, I'd call it a goddamn nightmare, you look so terrified, Di."

Diana frowned and slowly got up from her chair. The cards had gone forgotten as she faced away from Steve, gripping the nearby countertop tightly. The brown skin of her hands stretched with the movement. "Don't."

"What are you afraid of?" He asked anyway. His voice was closer now, and he gently grabbed her elbow, turning her toward him. "Something you're seeing?"

She found her words slipping carelessly from her lips under his gaze. "Something I can't see." Diana let out a shaky breath and rested her forehead on his chest. She felt his hand gently squeeze her shoulder. "It's watching—"

"What are you two doing?" A voice came. Diana's eyes fell onto her little sister, and she and Steve darted away from each other.

"Steve was just going to work," Diana muttered.

"Di..." He trailed off. She looked away.

"That's good. Your ice cream scooping could use a little work," Erica said, obviously not sensing the tension in the room.

"Erica, really?" Diana chastised.

The younger girl shrugged, the strap of her overalls slinking slightly off her shoulder. "Someone had to say it."

"Hey, I'm good at—" Steve raised his hands as if to stop himself. "Y'know what? It doesn't even matter. Diana—"

"We can talk when your shift is over."

Steve looked liked he wanted to say more, but he just shook his head and placed a chaste kiss at her temple. Without another, word he left.

"Ew. He's in love with you," Erica grimaced.

Diana rolled her eyes. "Don't you have something better to do?"

"I'm going to the mall actually." She too rolled her eyes, swinging her braids in a dismissive motion. The young girl spend most of her summer days in that new mall, so it was no surprise that she'd be going again today.

"Have fun then," Diana said, pushing herself from off of the counter. The girl turned but halted when her sister tentatively called her name. Erica Sinclair wasn't one for tentativeness, so she immediately had the older girl's attention. "Yeah?"

"Are you okay? You don't look okay."

Diana squinted at her, taking in her brown skin and wide, curious eyes. "I'm the same as I've always been."

The girl obviously did not accept this. "Which must mean that you're not okay—and aren't you usually at Grandma's house this late in summer?"

"I decided not to go," she said truthfully. She couldn't exactly see what was coming next, so she refused to leave the town with so much uncertainty in the air. These days all she had was meaningless flashes (and a stack of sketches to go with them), crippling headaches, and mounting paranoia. She couldn't see anything that really mattered.

That scared her—maybe even more than the idea of being watched.

"Oh." Erica shrugged. Then she sauntered off to the living room, ending the conversation.

Diana sighed and disappeared upstairs.

Later, she found herself being shaken awake from a sleep she hadn't meant to fall into. Lucas's voice rang in her ear. "Diana, wake up."

She blinked back the grogginess from her eyes, but didn't lift her head from her pillow. "What time is it?"

She saw Lucas shrug in the dimness of her room. "Like 8:30 or something. You promised you would show me the sketches," he reminded her. He walked over to her desk and turned on the light near it. His hands instantly went to the haphazardly strewn papers there, gathering them in his hands. She winced at the sudden illumination and sat up.

Diana watched him skim through the pile, a feeling of agitation flooding through her. "I don't know why you think you would be able to make something of them if I can't."

Lucas paused and pulled a paper from the stack, facing it to her. "Who is this?"

The paper was filled with smudges of black, and shaded entirely. She remembered running her charcoal to a minuscule piece trying to get the image on paper. The figure at the center had been drawn with unsure strokes, a direct reflection of her uncertainty regarding their identity. A boy, perhaps, but that didn't mean much. He was seated on a bed, and his head was hanging low, hiding his features.

"I don't know," she whispered.

Lucas stared at the paper again then continued through the stack. He stopped once more. "You were talking in your sleep just now."

"What did I say?"

He flipped the new sketch her way. It was a forest, but the view was of the tops of trees, and they were leaning in an unnatural position "You kept saying, 'The trees are moving'. What does that mean?"

She cleared her throat, looked him right in the eye, and lied. "I don't know."

hi! thanks for reading!
-syd