The moment we all sat down after our miniature reunion more drinks graced our table, then food and more drinks to come. I honestly didn't think it would turn out this way– all of us just laughing and having a good time as we caught up on what went on in our lives for the last 27 years. I was sat next to Richie and broke the awkward ice with him the only way I knew how with as minimal questioning as possible, doing a shot. In fact, I couldn't remember how many shots the seven of us have had so far in the few minutes we've been together. Enough to where our laughter was loud enough to linger off outside of our little private room. Enough for Eddie to look like he was relaxed without popping a Xanax. And most definitely enough for Richie to start doing handsfree shots like he was right now.

"So wait, Eddie, you got married?"

Eddie's face twisted into his signature glare. "Yeah. Why's it so fucking funny, dickwad?"

"What, to like a woman? Richie added, as stone-faced as he could be.

"Oh my God, and I missed it?" My words slurred slightly as I leaned over the empty chair Stan had yet to occupy and put a hand on Eddie's shoulders. "I could have gotten you an a-amazing gift. I have this god awful toaster oven and you would've loved it."

"Oh God Dani, don't bring up the toaster oven," Richie groaned, leaning back into his seat. "Besides, have you ever heard of a staph infection?" He finished off in a well-done imitation of a pre-pubescent Eddie, sending the entire table into a fit of laughter.

Eddie pointed a chopstick at Richie, still as serious as the alcohol would let him be. "Fuck you, bro."

"Fuck you!"

I sat back up in my seat and smacked Richie on the arm with one of my chopsticks. "Don't speak to my cousin that way, Trashmouth."

Bill leaned forward onto the table and smirked at Richie. "Well, alright, Trashmouth, you married yet?"

"Married?" Beverly laughed, holding her orange chicken in front of her mouth. "There's no way Richie's married!"

"No, I got married." Richie proclaimed, looking around at everyone on the table.

"When?" Ben asked as everyone started to focus in on Richie, slowly starting to believe their immature old friend.

"You didn't hear this?" Richie looked at Eddie with concern. "Me and your mom got married last year, I can't believe you didn't know."

All at once, everyone either choked and spit out their drink or their food before bursting into laughter at Richie's joke. Well, all except Eddie. Hell, even I laughed and technically, I'm the one who married him. "Me and your mom are very, very happy together."

I sat back into my chair, taking bites out of an egg roll before making eye contact with Mike who looked a little confused. "Just roll with it," I mouthed before he nodded and joined back into the laughter that was torturing Eddie.

"Fuck you," Eddie said, taking a sip of his drink.

"She's very sweet. You know, sometimes she'll put her arm around me, and she'll whisper 'Jer wih tuster mo vey'" Richie's impersonation of Jabba the Hut caused the laughter to soar to a new height of loud as everyone tried to calm themselves down long enough to take another sip of their drinks.

"I get it," Eddie said, exaggerating his sarcastic facial expressions. "My mom was a great big fat person! Hilarious, hysterical!" He brought his drink to his lips and downed the rest of it.

"What about you Dani, did you ever get married after your whirlwind high school romance with Trashmouth over here?" Bev smiled, as a waitress came around and topped everyone's drinks.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Richie sort of tense in his seat before taking a big gulp of his fresh drink. "Actually, I did."

"What's his name?" Ben asked, pointing his chopstick at me. "Or she? Not that I'm assuming anything. But they must be a catch considering you were one of the coolest girls I knew when we were kids." He snuck a look at Bev and smiled. "Besides, you Beverly, of course."

It felt a little awkward that none of them knew Richie and I were married. I figured that when he ran into Bev and Ben and reunited with everyone before me...that he may be said something or that Mike had brought it up. I took a sip of my drink and sighed, nodding my head over at Richie. "You might know him as Trashmouth. Which makes me, Dani...Tozier."

As if it was a big shock, everyone just stared at us with either wide eyes or slacked jaws. Everyone except for Mike. "Wait," Bill sat back in his chair, holding a hand and waving it as if he was swatting a bug in front of him. "You two...got married?"

"Are you kidding? Their runaway bride act was the talk of the town for months!" Mike laughed, leaning forward on the table as he held up his beer. "All everyone talked about was how the town's rich boy, Christopher Walton got stood up at the altar and his delusional bride ran off with little Trashmouth Tozier."

"No shit, you two really did that?" Ben gawked in amazement.

Richie and I exchanged looks and I smiled at the memory. How he was all messed up in a suit and burst into the church hall. "Yeah, got hitched in Vegas with Elvis. It was a great ceremony, you guys should've been there. Dani popped out a kid nine months later too, looks just like my mom– total nightmare."

"He's a fucking liar," I smacked his chest and shook my head before looking out at everyone. "We do have two kids though. A boy and girl, Matthew and Madeline. Matthew is newly 13, and Madeline in 9."

Beverly eyed the two of us with a smile as she took a sip of her drink. "So I assume everything is going great? I mean, Richie, you're alive so it's apparent that you haven't driven Dani to murder you, yet."

Richie and I looked at one another, unsure of really how to approach her question without being asked a million and a bunch more. "Bev, I take offense to that because I am an amazing individual. So on that topic," Richie clapped his hands together and stared at Ben. "Let's talk about the elephant, not in the room. Ben, what the fuck, man?"

The smile took over Ben's face, fading just as fast as he put down his beer. "Okay, okay obviously I lost a few pounds."

"A few pounds?" Eddie scoffed.

"Yeah Ben, you look hot," I turned to Bev and nodded at her. "Bev, don't you think? I mean, holy shit dude I bet you have abs that could cut glass."

Ben blushed as he looked at Bev before looking back down at his drink and bringing it to his lips. Oh yeah, that little childhood crush was still in there somewhere.

"I've got to agree with the wife, man. You're like uh- you're hot!" He laughed and picked up his glass. "You're like every Brazilian soccer player wrapped into one person."

"Leave him alone," Bev chimed in as Bill and Mike started to laugh. "You're embarrassing him."

"Okay, okay, alright," Ben said, wiping his mouth with a napkin. "Please, come on. Is Stanley coming or what?"

I looked at the empty chair beside me as silence took over our table. In the time that we'd been joking around with one another and catching up, it was almost as if no one expected Stanley to show up...or at least no one noticed. "Stan, huh," Eddie said, sipping on his cup.

"Stan uh- Stan Uris," Richie mumbled, snapping his fingers and looking at Bill. "Stan Urine!"

"I was hoping he'd show up actually..." I turned towards the entrance to our room, only to see full tables and groups walking by. "I wonder if he's just running late."

"Stan Urine, no fucking way." Richie picked up his almost empty glass again and hook his head. "No, no he's a fucking pussy. He's not gonna show up."

"Why would Stanley save your ass anyway?" Eddie smiled, one arm resting along the back of Stans chair as the other waved at Ben. "Was I not the one who basically performed surgery on you? You know, after Bowers fucked you up." He tapped Ben on the shoulder and laughed. "Holy shit, that's right!"

Ben just grinned and shook his head as I looked at Beverly. "The great Pharmacy heist, I remember that! Bev, that's the day we became friends, remember? When we helped these dweebs practically rob Keene's."

"Is it really considered robbing if it was for the greater good of humanity?" Bill added in, crossing his arms and leaning back into his chair. "You two sure did have old man Keene's focus wrapped around your fingers though."

"Please tell me you ended up becoming a doctor, Eds." Beverly laughed, leaning onto the table.

Eddie sighed and sunk into his chair slightly. "No, I ended up becoming a safety analyst."

"What do you do?" I asked, turning my attention towards him.

"Yeah Eds, it sounds really interesting. Please tell us, what does that entail?" Richie added, tossing a napkin down onto his plate.

Eddie held his neatly folded napkin in his hands and nodded. "So basically I work for a big insurance firm and–"

Richie tossed his head back and started to snore obnoxiously loud. The kind of snoring that mimicked his own whenever he got severely congested during cold and flu season. Also, the kind of snoring that made me sleep on the couch most nights. Shit was so loud, I swear. Eddie cocked his head to the side and gave Richie and death glare. "Fuck you, dude. Fuck you."

"God, was this job invented before the word 'fun?'"

"What the fuck are you laughing at?" Eddie said, turning to Ben with his glass in his hand as he continued to laugh.

"Gee Richie, I guess not everyone can be a famous comedian can we now." Mike chimed in, shaking his head.

"Oh come on guys, I'm sure it's a lot more fun than it sounds. Cut him some slack," I said, taking a sip of my full glass of water and leaning back into my chair.

Bev, lost in her own world for a few seconds as the bickering between Richie and Eddie went on, soon snapped out of it and picked up her beer bottle. "I propose a toast, to the Losers."

I was the second one to raise my beer bottle, followed by the rest in quick succession as we met in the middle and clanked our glasses all together as we continued into our banter. I sat back in my chair and took it all in as everyone dwelled into their separate conversations. 27 years had passed and time took its toll on all of us. We were older, maybe a little wiser but yet the moment we all got to talking...it felt as if no time had passed at all. Like this reunion was everything that we never knew we needed.

I felt an arm slide around the back of my chair and someone press into my right side. Just by the whiff of the cologne, I knew it was Richie. "I miss this, is that weird?" He mumbled into my ear, partially hiding his face in my hair. "Us hanging out and just...being us. I fucking miss it. I miss you, Dani."

I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't feeling the same thing he was. Being with Richie, even just doing something simple like right now, just being with our friends...it felt right. "I...I miss it too, Rich."

"What are you two whispering about over there?" Ben piped, nodding at us and toasting a drink out.

"Oh God, they're probably planning on making baby number three," Eddie groaned. "Hey babe, let's plan on making trashmouth the third, huh? Hopefully, it turns out just like you instead of me with my shitty sense of–"

Richie threw a crumpled up napkin at Eddie as everyone started laughing and I turned beet red. "Your impersonations are total shit, Eddie. No wonder you're a shitty analyst."

"Safety–"

"Yeah, still don't give a shit." Richie sat up in his chair but kept his distance close to me as the waitress came in with fortune cookies. "But don't mind me, I'm just live-tweeting the insanity of our little family reunion."

The moment she left the bowl of fortune cookies on the table, everyone reached in all at once and snagged their cookie. "I mean it's weird, right? Now that we're all here everything just comes back faster and faster, all of it."

"Yeah, ever since I got the phone call from you, Mike," I added, crossing my arms across my chest. "It's like my brain has just been throwing these...blurred memories at me that I don't ever really remember ever well..stowing away."

"You know, when Mike called me, I threw up," Richie said, playing with his fortune cookie. "Isn't that weird? I got nervous, I got sick and then I threw up. we all remember." In true Richie fashion, he laughed off the fact that he was concerned. "But I feel fine now. I feel very relieved to be here with you guys."

Everyone's reaction to his statement proved that we all had similar reactions to when Mike had called, and it gave me an uneasy feeling in my stomach. "When Mike called me, I crashed my car," Eddie confessed.

"Seriously?" Bill asked, genuine concern written all over his face.

"Wait, you too?" I asked, looking at Eddie. "I mean, I-I didn't crash it. But I almost ran a red light and t-boned a car when I was taking the kids home..." I looked at Richie, whose eyes were about to bug out of his head. "Don't worry, they're fine. But it was like I had just...zoned out and was reliving a montage of moments and I just felt..."

"I hear ya," Ben added, shaking his head and motioning towards his chest. "My heart was pounding from my chest."

"I thought it was only me." Beverly sighed, sitting more alert in her chair.

Bill chewed on the inside of his cheek as he shook his head. "It was like pure f-f-f–"

My ears perked the moment my brain recognized his stutter. His stutter was back for the first time throughout our entire dinner, but why now? Why this moment?

"Fear," Mike finished, looking at us all, one at a time as if he wanted us to register just what was happening. "It was fear., what you felt."

"Why did we all f-feel like that, Mike?" Mike looked away from Bill and down at his plate. "You remember something we don't. Don't you, Mike?"

Mike sat in his chair, suddenly uncomfortable from all of our eyes glancing at him. He started to play with his hands as if he was trying to figure out what to say to us all. "Something happens to you when you leave this town. The farther away, the hazier it all gets." His stare went around the table, one by one. "But me, I never left. So yeah, I remember. I remember all of it."

Nobody dared to speak as Mike's solemn warning took hold of us all. As I looked around the table, I could see that everyone was trying to remember just what he had been hinting to us about. A past that we shared, but none of us could remember. When I looked at Bev, she broke out of her daze and her face went a little pale. "Pennywise."

Eddie let out a harsh breath and looked away. "Oh, the fucking clown."

"Aw shit," Ben added, shaking his head and leaning back into your chair.

"No," I shook my head, trying to get the images of the bloodied clown standing outside of Keene's Pharmacy, from that July 4th weekend, 27 years earlier, out of my head. "Hell no. I'm not dealing with that fucking thing." I felt Richie lay his hand on top of mine and when I looked at him, he looked scared shitless.

Bill looked at all of us before turning to Mike. "Mike,  you said you wanted our help with something, what was that?"

"There's an echo here in Derry, that bounces back every 27 years–"

"Wait, what are you talking about?" Eddie interrupted, taking the napkin out of his lap.

"Hold on, listen, listen–"

"No, Mike I don't–"

"We thought we stopped it back then. We-we thought it was done but," He pulled a notebook out of his bag and placed it onto the table, opening it and flipping through the pages. "A week ago, a man, Adrian Mellon was slaughtered–"

"Mike, come on." Bev pleaded, brushing his concern off just like everybody else.

"This is insane, we killed IT! It flaked away like Richie's 10th-grade volcano science fair project and fell down a damn sewer hole, Mike." I said, shaking my head and looking at him. "I'm sorry, but no."

"A girl, a little girl went missing the other night. Lisa Albrecht. There have been others and there will be more!" Mike started to get agitated as Bill tried to close his notebook and Ben reached out to calm him down.

Bill rolled his eyes. "Can we just get another drink?"

"Let him explain, just...let him explain," Ben said, looking at Mike before nodding.

"That echo?" Mike said, leaning back into his chair and looking around the table. "We might have changed it, just like IT changed us. But we didn't stop IT, because IT just bounced back. We made an oath, that's why I brought you back. That's why you're here. To finish IT...for good."

"Well that shit got dark fast," Richie said, so nonchalantly I nudged him with my leg. "What? It's true."

In silence, pondering our thoughts, we began to open our fortune cookies. Anything to deny Mike's claims and distracting ourselves from actually having to talk about the possibility of it all being true.

Eddie, in true denial, just shook his head and unfolded the paper. "My fortune cookie just says 'could.'"

Richie opened his and held it up. "They don't know how to do fortune cookies here. Mine just says 'guess.'"

"I've got you beat," I sighed, tossing mine down into the middle of the table. "Mine says, 'huh?' Real relatable right now, honestly."

Bill chewed on his last egg roll and reached out for my fortune. "You guys, pass them over here." He stood up from his chair and placed his fortune down beside mine.

One by one, everybody handed over their fortune as Bill lined them up in front of him. It couldn't have been a simple manufacturer error, no way. For seven people in the same party to have seven similar, one-worded fortune cookies? That's nowhere near a coincidence. "What do you have so far, Bill?" I asked standing up from my chair and walking over to him.

Guess, Huh? Cut, Not, Could, It.

"What the fuck kind of place is this, Mike?" Ben asked, glaring at our old friend.

"It's a message," Mike declared, pointing at the small slips of paper and looking at the group with a skittish expression. He was nowhere near the young boy I was starting to remember. Part of me wishes he had just gotten out of this shitty place as the rest of us had. Maybe he wouldn't be so...crazy.

"Guess it could not cut huh," Richie readout, looking at Bill. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

"That's not the correct order you moron," Eddie said, rolling his eyes as he reached in and rearranged the order. "There, 'It guess could not cut huh.'"

"No, that barely makes any more sense Eddie," I replied as Ben leaned in and moved 'It' to the end of the words.

"IT. Is this it talking about IT, IT? Is that It?" Eddie asked, reaching down to touch the paper.

"Eddie, I love you. But if you say IT one more time, I'm going to have to cuff you to a chair in the corner, okay?" I said, leaning back over the table.

Ben looked up from the words for a moment with a raised eyebrow. "You carry around handcuffs?"

"She's a Detective, dude," Richie added in, staying seated.

"I always knew you were a badass," He smiled, returning to the paper. "Now could this move here?"

"No, no that has to go here," Bill replied, shifting more of the paper.

"We already put that there and it didn't work," I replied, sliding the paperback.

"Did you fuck with the fortune cookies, Mike?" Richie asked as chaos ensued around us. "Is this your way of making us believe you?"

"This is not me," Mike said, pointing aggressively at the table. "This is what I-IT does."

"I need my fucking inhaler!" Eddie declared, digging around in his pant pocket.

I hung back and closed my eyes, taking a deep breath and trying to calm myself. We had six words that made absolutely no sense together. They didn't form a cohesive sentence and no one knew what they meant or where the hell they came from. When I opened my eyes, I turned to see the one person who hadn't added an input.

Bev.

I nudged Bill with my elbow and nodded in her direction. He followed my gaze and she sat there, staring down at her fortune cookie in her hand before placing it down in front of us with the rest of the slips of paper. When her eyes met ours, she had tears falling down her face. I looked down at her paper and it felt as if my heart dropped into my feet. "Oh my God."

Bill, trying to hide the fact that his hand was shaking, slowly moved the piece of paper into our formed sentence, for everyone to see.

Guess Stanley could not cut it huh?

I leaned forward, my hand resting on the back of Bev's chair as I stared at the piece of paper. Images of the curly-headed boy from my dreams...memories, started flooding my vision. His smile. His head wrapped in bandages. Giving his speech at his bar mitzvah.

A boy who will forever be 13 to me...to us.

"Why does it say 'Stanley'?" Eddie asked, his voice shaking. "Someone else fucking answer me!"

"He-He–" I started, only for a roaring sound of what could have been thunder, took over the room. Only, it wasn't thunder. It was our table beginning to violently shake in front of us. I immediately jumped back and stood against the wall, my eyes trained on the bowl of leftover fortune cookies at the center of the table.

They started to shake as the seven of us stared in a mix of awe and confusion, until one by one, the cookies started to jump out of the bowl. "What the fuck is happening?" I asked, looking at Mike. "What the fuck is happening? What did you do?"

"N-Nothing!" He said, still sitting in his chair as his eyes widened at the fortune cookie lying in front of him. "This isn't me guys, i-it's..."

"What the fuck is that, man?" Richie groaned, looking away from the hatching cookie.

A shriveled and goo covered fly body crawled out of the cookie, revealing a baby's head as it started to cry. "It's fucking hideous! That's what it is." I said, trying to push myself further into the wall as the thing started to move slowly, getting onto its legs.

It made a dash for Mike, who about fell out of his chair as he scooted away as the other fortune cookies began to crack. With each cracked cookie, another mini thing hatched out. An eye oozed its way into Richie's direction and he started to move around the room. "Hey, hey! That thing's looking at me!" He made it over towards Bev and me and tried to hide behind us. "Dani you're licensed, shoot the damn thing before it attacks me."

"I'm kind of trying to avoid the thing myself, Richie. Besides, I didn't bring my gun here, it's at the inn."

"Oh, and what good is that doing us right now, huh? We're under a-fucking-ttack with clown possessed fortune cookies! " He argued back, his tone dry as he continued to burrow himself in panic.

Chaos ensued around us as the fortune cookies kept revealing the hideous beings they held within them. On the opposite side of the table, Ben was protecting Eddie by swatting at whatever came their way. Bill was moving further away from the table, staring at the monsters in curiosity as they continued to crawl and move around the table. A lava-like substance erupted and oozed from the fortune cookie bowl, filling up and flowing out onto the table, seemingly burning the table cover as all of the monsters gathered towards the black colored goo. Bill suddenly ducked as a miniature bat flew towards his head, sending him in the direction of the fish tank.

"That's a head!" I yelled, pointing for Bill to look into the fish tank to his right. "That's a fucking miniature head in the water!"

"It's not real!" Mike yelled, stepping towards the table in fury and picking up a chair. "It's not real, it's not real, it's not real." With every time he said it, he slammed the chair onto the table, smashing the monsters and everything that decorated our dinner table.

The hostess who had led me into the room earlier, came rushing into the dining room with a concerned look on her face. We all looked at her, panting and in fear, expecting her to see what we were seeing. But the moment we all looked back at the table, the monsters, the goo...it was all gone. "Is everything all right?"

Richie, panting and still clinging to the wall nodded his head. "Yeah, yeah. And uh, can we get the check?"

Without questioning what our group was up to, she just subtly nodded her head and turned out of the room, disappearing from our sight. She probably thought we all belonged up the street in Juniper Hills, trashing a room over absolutely nothing. But if only she had seen what we all just experienced.

She came back in probably record time with seven separate checks, and everyone already had their cards ready just so we could get out faster. I helped Bev tried to clean up the mess we had left behind, not touching the broken dishes, but just making it looked like there was uh, an unfortunate incident and not a patron breaking dishes with a chair. When the woman came back with our cards, everyone immediately stood up and walked out of the room as fast as they could, putting the card in their wallets as they left. No one wanted to stay in that room any longer than necessary.

"I-I mean, that's what Pennywise does, right? Fucks with us, so Stanley's probably fine." Eddie rambled, leading the group and gripping onto his car keys.

"Hey Mike, do you have Stan's number?" Bev asked, reaching into her purse to grab her phone.

"Yeah."

As we neared the exit, I realized that I hadn't checked my phone the entire dinner. Melanie may have called with an update. Just as I was about to pull it out of my pocket, a kid walking by me caught my eye. "Hey, Richie!"

Our group stopped and I caught up with them, just as Richie had turned around to look at the little boy in fear. "Uh– how'd you know my name?"

The little boy stood there before a smile grew on his face. "The fun's just beginning. Right?"

"Is it just me or was that just...really creepy?" Eddie whispered, leaning towards the group. "I mean, it was really creepy, right? Right?"

"It can't be..." I looked at Mike and Bill who both looked uncertain. "No way, not twice, not so soon, right?"

"You think this is funny?" Richie asked, bending down on to the kids' level. "Y-You think this is some sort of game, huh?" He reached out and grabbed the kids arm, shaking him. "Well, fuck you!"

"Rich be careful!" Bill said, stepping forward a little bit.

"Fuck you! I'm not afraid of you!" Richie yelled, pointing at the confused kid. I looked up to see a family consisting of two parents and a little girl, standing at the counter ahead turning around.

"Uh...Richie? I think you should let him go." I said, stepping towards him.

"No, no fuck this clown! I'm not scared of this stupid, fucking–"

"The fun's just beginning." The kid interrupted, removing his arm from Richie's grasp. "It's a line from your act, dude. I'm a fan."

I pulled Richie back as the kid's family stepped a little closer, most likely investigating why their kid was being harassed by a 40-year-old man. "Are uh..those your parents?" Richie asked, standing up a little taller.

"Yeah."

"You want a picture?" Richie smiled, trying to smooth over the mini chaos he had caused.

"I think I'm good." He scoffed, turning back to face his parents as his Dad was waving him over.

"Congratulations Richie, you just verbally harassed a 10-year-old boy in the middle of a restaurant." I smiled, patting his shoulder as he turned towards the rest of us.

"Yeah, Jesus Richie. You don't remember a line from your own show?" Bill asked, leading the group out of the restaurant.

"I don't write my own material."

"Ha! I fucking knew it!" Eddie cheered, raising a celebratory fist in the air. "I fucking knew it!"

The temperature had cooled down significantly by the time that we reached the parking lot. Bev was getting Stan's phone number from Mike as everyone grouped together. Now was the best time to go ahead and check my phone for any messages. I pulled it out of my pocket to see that I had a few texts from Melanie, but nothing more.

From Melanie Vargas:

Hey Mrs. Tozier, I saw that you called. Did your mom ever pick up the kids from soccer?

From Melanie Vargas:

I keep getting sent to voicemail, but I got a text from Matthew. He said your mom was late, but picked them up!

I checked my other messages to see if I had any updates from my mom, but there was nothing. If my mom had the kids, she most definitely would have texted me. And if she was even going to be there earlier, she would have let me know. I immediately clicked on my mom's contact and called her. I tapped Eddie on the shoulder. "I'll be right back," I whispered, walking only a few short feet away from the group.

"Hello?"

"Mom, hi how are the kids?" I asked, pulling my jacket tight across my body.

A few seconds of silence from her side of the line made my stomach twist. "I assume they're good? Why?"

"What do you mean assume? Don't you have them?"

"No, honey. You texted me saying that you didn't need me to come down after all and your trip was canceled."

My heart started to race and it felt as if the world had just slipped out from beneath my feet. "No, Mom. I didn't text you and my trip wasn't canceled, I'm in Derry right now. W-When did you get this text?"

"This morning before I was about to leave. Dani, is everything all right?"

I pulled my phone away from my ear, my hands shaking as I went back to my messages and clicked on my mom's message. There was no message sent from me to her this morning, at all. I let out a shuddered breath and brought the phone back to my ear. "Mom, the babysitter texted me a few hours ago saying that Matthew had told her you picked them up from soccer practice. She was supposed to stay with them until you go there, but now you're still in Connecticut, I'm in Maine, my babysitter is probably at a college party– where the hell are my kids?"

"Has Richie heard from them at all?"

I looked towards the group to see Richie playing on his phone. I walked over and kicked his foot. "Have you heard from the kids at all?"

"Matt sent me some bus gif earlier and said they miss me, but no. Why? Is everything okay?"

"A bus gif?" I mumbled, shaking my head as I walked away from the group again. I stood there, biting my nails as the nerves were running through my body and my brain was going a million miles per minute. "Matthew fucking Tozier, I swear to God."

"Dani, language." My mom warned, pausing for a second. "Did Richie say anything?"

"He said Matthew sent him a gif of a bus and said that he and Madeline miss him." I sighed, resting a hand on my head. "We got in a fight earlier today because he didn't want a babysitter. I think he's coming up here to see Richie, and Madeline is tagging along."

"Have you checked your credit card? Maybe they bought bus tickets? Kids have traveled on greyhound alone before, you know. But why would Matthew–"

"Because he's his father's son and he's an intelligent pain in the ass, mom." I took a deep breath, my body shaking as I exhaled. "I've got to go."

"Do you need me to call Benny?"

"No, I've got this. But please, if I'm wrong and they somehow they end up at your house, don't let them leave and you have my permission to punish to the full extent."

"You are your father's daughter. It'll be okay Dani, I'm sure they're fine and just wanted to stay at home without a babysitter."

"Love you, mom."

"You too, kiddo."

I hung up and took a few deep breaths, trying to calm myself down as someone tapped me on the shoulder and scared me. "Whoa, hold on calm down," Richie said, holding up his hands. "It's just me. Is everything okay?"

"No, everything is not okay. The babysitter somehow got convinced that my mom was picking up the kids from soccer practice. My mom got a text from me before I even left the state saying I didn't need her to come help anymore. The kids are MIA and this fucking clown is trying to ruin our lives once again." I kept taking quick, short breaths as the reality of both situations started to set in.

Richie placed his hands on both shoulders, looking at me. "Hey, Hey Dani calm down, it's okay."

"I-I can't breathe," I tried to control my breathing, but with every breath I took, it felt as if my lungs were shrinking.

Richie placed his hand in the middle of my chest and got down to my level, looking right at me. "Look at my hand. See? It's moving, you can breathe Dani, you're breathing. Just...slow it down, okay? Follow me." He took three deep breaths, one after another and then smiled. "See? Easy."

I took another deep breath, nodding my head. "Thank you, really." I looked down at his hand and then back at him. "You can move your hand now, Richie."

"Sorry," he said, quickly removing his hand and then nonchalantly waving it in the air. "Just been a while since I got to touch some boobs, is all."

Bill looked over at us and nodded us in his direction. "Dani, Richie...Stan's...he's passed. He's gone."

I felt my chest ache as I grabbed onto Richie's arm for support. We knew this was a possibility when IT gave us the fortune cookie message. I felt like part of me knew when Stan was in my dreams last night. But no pre-warning or gut feeling...could ever prepare you for hearing the reality of it all.

We joined the group just as Bev hung up the phone. "Stanley," Eddie said, shaking his head and pacing. "Pennywise knew. He knew before we did."

"We have to stop him, I have a plan," Mike said, stepping towards the middle of the group.

"I got a plan," Richie echoed, clapping his hands together. "Get the fuck out of dodge before this ends worse than one of Bill's books. Who's with me?"

Eddie raised his hand, following Richie and Mike rolled his eyes. "We made a promise–"

"Well let's un-make the promise!"

"Richie, other people are going to die," Ben said, stuffing his hands into his jacket pockets.

"Other people die everyday man!" Richie yelled, waving his arms in the air. "We don't owe this town, shit! Plus, I just remembered that I grew up in this town like...two hours ago. So I'm fucking leaving!"

"Richie Tozier?" A familiar voice, asked.

"Oh for God's sake. What the fuck is it now?" Richie asked, turning towards the man who had stopped me earlier. "Are you a figment of my imagination created by a fucking killer clown too, Mr. Stranger man?"

The man pulled an envelope out of his jacket pocket and instantly my heart dropped. It was the same envelope that was sitting on my kitchen counter at home. How the fuck did it manage to find Richie so fast. "You've been served," was all the man said before walking away.

"Served? Served with fucking what? I'm already being stalked by a killer clown! I'm not sure how this could get much worse!"

"Richie, don't open it. You saw what happened when we opened the fortune cookies." Eddie said, shaking his head.

"No, this clown isn't fucking controlling my shitty Hollywood life, anymore." Richie ripped opened the envelope, bringing out a familiar stack of papers. "Oh fuck."

"What, Richie? What is it?" Bev asked, puffing off of her cigarette.

Richie just stared up at me as I shook my head. Eddie leaned over and read the papers over Richie's shoulders. His eyes scan the papers and I can see the moment that he reaches the beginning of the document before his face falls. "They're divorce papers..."

Everyone looks at me and I just shake my head, turning to Mike. "I really can't do this Mike, I'm sorry. I know we made a promise, but my kids...my kids are missing and I just, I can't deal with this clown right now. I have kids, I can't put my family in danger."

"But you can have the divorce papers served right in front of our friends?" Richie asked, scoffing as he shoves the papers back into the envelope. "Fuck this and screw you, I'm out."

"Fuck this, I'm out too!" Eddie added, following Richie away from the group and over to his parked car as Mike followed after his desperately.

"I'm going back to the Inn, I need to get my stuff and go home," I said, looking at Bev who was squatted down onto the ground. "Are you heading back?"

"Yeah," she sighed, looking at Ben. "You too?"

He just shrugged his shoulders and walked off, leaving us behind. "I'll see you there, I guess?" I asked, digging my keys out of my pocket.

She nodded and walked off towards her car. Richie and Eddie both pulled out of the parking lot like bats out of hell. Ben was already in his car and Bev was getting into hers. When I reached my own rental, I turned back to see Mike talking intensely to Bill, but I was too far out of reach to hear what he was saying. I unlocked my car and got in, shutting the door behind me before grabbing my phone and unlocking it. I swiped to the second page of my phone and clicked on the Life360 app. Matthew hated that I made him download it. In fact, he had tried to delete it multiple times. That was his one condition for keeping his phone– that he had to have the app. But, there was no doubt in my mind that maybe he had just stopped sharing his location with our circle.

I clicked on his name and there was no update on his location. I sighed and rested my forehead against my steering wheel until I remembered how Marshall was explaining Find my iPhone to me when I told him my struggles with Life360.

"People don't ever really turn off their shared location for that, especially teenagers, in case their phones do get lost or stolen. So if this Life360 fails, you could always use that as a backup"

I quickly opened find my iPhone and typed in Matthew's Apple ID and password. The screen loaded and then right there, on my screen, a state map popped up with his picture...moving steadily. I zoomed out and almost dropped my phone when I realized what direction he was heading. He was halfway through Connecticut and heading towards Massachusetts.

He was coming to Derry.