Chapter Seven: The Moment I Knew

The next morning was the weekend, Saturday. Annie and Steve slept in for a bit until Steve got her up. "What, what do you want?" she grumbled into her pillow, fighting off Steve's attempt to pull her out of bed.

"Come on, Annie, we're going out!" he replied and finally just pulled the covers off her bed.

Annie gasped at the sudden cold air and curled up into a ball. "Asshole," she muttered, still not opening her eyes. "Why do I have to go out with you? What are you even doing?" she asked, finally accepting she wouldn't be going back to sleep. "I swear if it's for some dumb errand I'll shave that glorious head of hair of yours."

Happy with his results, Steve set the covers back on the foot of her bed. "Please don't touch the hair. As for the day, well, I'm starting out by getting flowers for Nancy and going over there-"

"If you say to apologize I'm going to sock you in the jaw," Annie interrupted.

"What's wrong with that?" Steve asked, offended.

Annie sighed and got out of her bed, pushing past Steve. "Many things. Let's start with you have nothing to apologize for. Another is that she treated you like sh- crap," she explained as she went over to her closet to pull out her outfit for the day.

Steve sighed and sat on Annie's bed, putting his head in his hands. He ran a hand through his hair then looked up at his sister. "But shouldn't I anyway? I mean, I feel like I still love her..."

There it was. Annie, who has never been in a relationship ever, moved back over to Steve and sat next to him on the bed. "Steve, I know you do, but she doesn't. It's hard but you need to let her move on and stop hurting yourself. I feel like that's the only thing that will happen if you try and apologize to her."

For a moment, no words were spoken as Steve let her advice sink in. "Damn, since when did you become so wise?" he asked her.

Annie got back up and smiled at him. "I've always been wise, I have no idea what you mean," she answered and went back to her closet. "Now get out, I'll be down in fifteen."

Steve left and let his sister get ready. While he was waiting for her, he decided to get her some snacks for the road since she wouldn't have time to eat breakfast. Would it be breakfast or lunch at this point?

About fifteen minutes later, Annie came down and the siblings went out to the car. Annie happily ate her snacks as they drove off, still going to the flower shop. Steve avoided her glare as he went in then came back with a bouquet of roses in his hand.

"Really?"

"Shut up, I've got a plan."

Annie sighed and rolled her eyes, holding onto the bouquet for Steve. Her mind was itching to talk about Max but she didn't want to bother Steve when he clearly had his own dilemma with Nancy. Maybe that kind of conversation wasn't what he needed at the moment.

Instead, she thought about the rest of the day. "So, what's the plan for the rest of the day? Or is there much of a day left after your plan with Nancy?"

Rather than rolling his eyes, Steve just laughed. "Yes, there will be day left after I talk to Nancy. I'm thinking we go have an actual meal at that diner, not just the snacks you've had this morning, and then rent a movie or two."

It's not that Annie hated this plan, in fact it sounded like an awesome day with her brother, but she was a bit confused. They have a good relationship but it's not like they hung out that much that often. The other night watching the movie and eating take out was more their speed, not hanging out for half the day.

"Any reason for this sudden sibling-bonding?" Annie asked, trying not to sound rude or anything, just curious. "You all good over there?"

Steve nodded, unsure of how to explain it. Part of the reason was because of his recent break up and he was still hurt, so he wanted to do things to make him happy and that included hanging out with his sister.

Another reason, though, was because he felt like he had done something to make Annie not trust him. When it took her so much effort to tell him she like girls, he thought she couldn't trust him with such information. In his mind, the solution was to hang out more so she knew that she could.

What he ended up telling her: "Don't make fun of me here, but I'm still kinda heartbroken and just wanna do stuff that's fun for a while, and you're the best person to hang out with," he explained. That second bit was for him and him only.

They drove down to the Wheeler house, a spot Annie didn't miss. She used to hang out there with the Party a lot, down in their basement. She hadn't been there since the very last time they hung out, the night before Will disappeared.

Annie snapped out of her thoughts when she saw Dustin walking away from the house just as Steve exited the car. "Dustin?" Annie asked herself, and then watched as Steve and Dustin interacted.

Dustin suddenly grabbed the flowers from Steve and started walking towards the car Annie was watching them from. She could hear Steve yelling something, but couldn't make out what it was.

Suddenly, the boy opened the passenger door. Dustin smiled at Annie and asked, "May I?"

Annie nodded, getting out and pulling the seat forward to let him in. Steve sighed and gave her an annoyed look, to which she just shrugged back. Steve ran back to the car and got back in to drive.

"Where the hell am I going?" he asked, pulling it out of park.

"My house," Dustin answered, then added on his address. Steve nodded and drove off. It was clear that Dustin wanted to tell him something and Steve wanted an explanation. Of course, Annie picked up she wasn't to be a part of this conversation.

What Dustin asked was her tipping point. "Uh, do you mind dropping Annie off first...?" he asked, rather awkwardly and quietly.

"Seriously?" she yelled back, and she turned to face Dustin. "I am tired of being left out of all of this! I was one of your friends once, why can't you trust me? I haven't done anything to betray that trust- not one thing! It was you guys who kicked me out and ignored me! It was you guys that suddenly decided I couldn't be around anymore! Here's something for you, did you ever think about how I felt when Will disappeared? Except, for me it wasn't just Will, it was all of my friends! And even when he came back, you guys ignored me! I don't get it! So for the love of god would you please just tell me what the fuck is going on and stop leaving me out of this?!"

The car was dead silent for a couple minutes as Annie stared Dustin down. Even Steve couldn't find the words to scold his younger sister for swearing. Annie was breathing hard, coming down from the burst of anger.

Dustin finally nodded. "Yeah, yeah sure we can explain it to you," he said with a shaking voice.

Annie, satisfied, nodded and turned back to sit in her seat. But one of the words he said struck her. "Wait, 'we'? Steve you were in on this too?!"

He knew this accusation was coming, and sighed. "Yeah, I did, but this is some dangerous shit, Annie. Like, the 'government is monitoring our asses' dangerous. I didn't want to tell you because you didn't need to know as rude as that sounds."

She knew her brother was right, he seemed to be right a lot. "Okay, but I should definitely know now! I mean, after I saw Will in the field the other day and I looked around for the strange slimy thing, I definitely think I'm at least a little involved."

"And you're right. We'll tell you all about it," Dustin butted in. "You just have to promise that you won't tell anyone else."

~~

It was completely silent. "Woah," Annie finally said. "That's, uh, that's a lot." She didn't have a hard time believing them after seeing Dart, Will, and knowing her brother would never lie to her like that.

She was still as they drove, listening to the final notes of Hammer to Fall on the radio.

After a second, things clicked. "Wait, so that's why Eleven- El is your mage? Because she has powers?" she asked the car.

Dustin shifted a bit. "Where'd you hear that?" he asked, knowing the others haven't told her anything, and Steve didn't really know or care about Dungeons and Dragons.

Annie shrugged and explained. "Mike sort of let that slip when he was talking to Max and I. It was a whole thing, but he just said she was someone you guys used to know before she moved away..." Annie realized that this random girl they knew for like, a week, was closer to them than the girl they knew for nearly a year and a half.

Dustin didn't comment on it, knowing just a bit more about Mike and El that he chose not to explain. It didn't really feel necessary, especially since Mike wasn't there to explain himself.

Steve pulled up and parked in front of Dustin's house. "Let's go," Dustin said, slightly urgent to get Annie moving.

Nodding her head, she got herself out of the car and made way for Dustin to get out. They moved around to the trunk and Steve got out a baseball bat with nails sticking out of it. According to him, that's what he used to fight against the Demagorgan last year.

She stayed quiet, following the boys over to the doors of an underground shelter that had a chain with a lock to keep it closed. They stood over it, listening for anything. Steve leaned forward a bit then announced, "I don't hear shit."

"He's in there," Dustin confirmed.

Steve then tapped the doors with his bat, getting nothing in return. He turned to the younger boy, shining the flashlight in his face. "All right, listen kid. I swear if this is some sort of Halloween prank and we just put my baby sister in danger for nothing, you're dead."

Dustin, who was flinching away from the bright light in his face, shook his head. "I'm not. It's not a prank." He then swatted at the flashlight saying, "Get it out of my face."

"You got a key for this thing?" Steve asked, not quite removing the light from his face yet. It was only when Dustin gave him the key that he respected his request and moved to unlock the doors.

Annie had her arms wrapped around her middle, scared. If everything they told her was true, especially about this monster, she didn't want it to be in there. She wanted this to be a prank with really poor taste.

"Be careful," Annie called out weakly to Steve as he made his way down. He looked at Annie and nodded, then started to descent down the stairs.

It was silent for what felt like forever as they waited. For him to say there was nothing, for the monster to coming running out, for any kind of noise to confirm something- anything.

"Steve?" Dustin called down there, and Annie inched closer to the opening with him. She rationalized with herself, figuring that if there was a monster down there attacking her brother, neither would be very quiet. This was a good thing, right?

Yet he still didn't respond, and Annie didn't like this. "Steve, what'g going on?" she called, inching closer and looking down into the shelter.

He popped out and flashed the light at the two kids, causing Dustin to jump a little. "Get down here." It wasn't a question, and the way he said it severely concerned Annie.

The two kids looked at each other, very concerned, then carefully made their way down the stairs into the shelter. When they were at the bottom, Steve held his bat up and shone his flashlight at something hanging off of it. It was slimy and looked like the skin from a reptile that's just shed. She couldn't believe it was Dart, however, because it was so huge compared to the thing that jumped at her two days ago.

"Oh, shit," Dustin groaned. Then, Steve moved his flashlight over to a giant hole in the wall. "Oh shit!" They all creeped up to it carefully and saw a deep tunnel, going way further than Steve's flashlight could show.

"What do we do now?" Annie asked quietly, almost afraid of the answer.

And she was very right to be afraid. "We gotta find Dart," Dustin replied

A/n: And she's in on the action! I cant wait for you guys to read the rest of the book, it's taking so much willpower to not just post the entire thing here and now! (But, that wouldn't be as fun, now would it? So, see you tomorrow!!