𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓 : 3.6k

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𝐍𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐘 𝐇𝐀𝐃 𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐃 𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐍 𝐖𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐄 𝐒𝐇𝐄 was at work, inciting a whole rant from Flo about clogging up the non-emergency line. Unsure of what Nancy could be calling about, Owen gave Flo a falsely heartfelt look and reminded her that it could be an emergency. Once Flo begrudgingly passed the phone to Owen, Nancy asked for her to accompany her and Steve to a dinner at Barb's house that night. More specifically, a dinner with Barb's parents. A heavy pause hung in the middle of their telephone call, Owen left unsure about how to respond on such short notice.

"I'm still in my clothes from school," Owen supplied as an excuse to buy herself more time to think.

"That's totally fine. They'll understand," Nancy instantly replied, her voice squeaky and overly optimistic. But when more silence followed the response, Nancy's tone shifted into something more soft and genuine. "Please, Owen. I really just can't do this without you."

Owen's mind was trying to pull itself in a million different directions, all at once. Maybe if she thought hard enough, her brain would just explode and she wouldn't have to act normal over a meal with the Hollands. All of this thinking just created more nerve wracking silence on Nancy's end. Flo shooting Owen an impatient look, silently urging her to hurry up and end the call, finally pushed a response from her lips.

"Okay, fine. I'll be there. I get off work at 5:30."

"Perfect. The dinner's at 6. See you there," Nancy murmured, a flood of relief evident in her tone even through the phone's speaker. "Thank you so much, Owen," she added, just before the phone was handed back to Flo. The older woman snatched the technology from Owen's hand and hung up before she could even acknowledge Nancy's words.

Owen's eyes peered at the clock that had been hung over Flo's desk.

5 o'clock.

She heaved a sigh to try and calm her hammering heart, turning around to face the pile of police reports again. She had thirty more minutes of mindless comfort in front of her. And she planned on cherishing it.

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Night had fallen over the town of Hawkins by the time Owen, Nancy, and Steve arrived at the Hollands' for dinner. A mixture of cool moonlight and warm lights from within the house illuminated the group's path inside. The grass in front of the house was freshly trimmed. Even the bushes lined up against the brick house had been shaped up recently, it appeared. All of the landscaping was nice, but it also just made the "For Sale" sign in front of the house stand out like a sore thumb. Nancy must have seen the sign at the same time as Owen, as she cast a confused look to her friend from over her shoulder.

"Okay... You guys ready," Steve asked the girls with a hefty sigh.

"Yeah," Nancy nodded.

"Okay," Steve breathed, almost as if he had forgotten Owen was standing right behind him. Without a single word from her, he leaned forward and rang the doorbell. Once again, Nancy glanced back at Owen, checking to make sure that she was doing okay. But Owen was too busy studying each grain of wood on the door in front of them.

No going back now. No matter how much she didn't want to do this.

Barb's mom opened the door shortly after the doorbell chimed, a bright grin transforming her features the moment she saw the group of teenagers on her doorstep. For a split second, Owen thought that she could see a ghost of Barb's smile reflected in her mother's face. It was equal parts comforting and unsettling.

"So happy you three could make it. Come on in, come on in," Mrs. Holland greeted, waving the group inside. Owen was the last of the group to step through the threshold, tugging her bag from off of her shoulder once she saw Nancy and Steve hanging their jackets up on the coat rack. She stood idly in front of the coat rack longer than the others, trying to decide if she wanted to shed the corduroy button-up layered over her other clothes. That decision had become oddly and unnecessarily large in her mind. It was likely her brain's attempt at drowning out any thoughts surrounding what had happened to Barb. If Mrs. Holland could plaster on a smile and continue on, so could she. Owen crumbling under the weight of her friend's death would just be–

"You coming?" Steve's voice floated into Owen's consciousness.

"Hm?" She hummed in question, glancing up at him. He was standing just a bit further into the house, waiting on Owen despite Nancy having wandered on without them. If she wasn't so preoccupied with worries surrounding this dinner, Owen may have found this endearing.

"Just makin' sure we don't lose you," Steve chuckled lightly. But his eyes held more concern than what showed up in his words. He couldn't help but notice that Owen was acting even more weird than usual. He watched closely as Owen wordlessly slid her arms out of her button-up and hung it next to his on the coat rack. Then, in a few quick strides, she passed him and followed the sound of Nancy's voice into the dining room.

Okay, so she wasn't acting like herself. But at least she wasn't just blankly staring at a coat rack. Steve counted that conversation as a win in his book.

"I'm so sorry I didn't get to cook," Mrs. Holland apologized as the entire group settled around the dining table. She opened the bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken that had been sat in the middle of the table. "I was going to make that baked ziti you guys like so much. But I just forgot about the time, and then before you know it, 'Oh my god, it's five o'clock'," the older woman explained, forcing a short chuckle over her own forgetfulness.

"It's fine. It's great... actually," Nancy nodded, head turning to look at Owen and Steve. The two had already begun shoveling all of the different sides onto their plates, filling every square inch of the dish with food.

"Right. I love KFC," Steve agreed, trying his best to say the right things at the right times. Owen hoped that Steve's blind optimism would be enough to distract the group from the fact that she had barely said a word since arriving. But as she leaned forward to retrieve a drumstick from the iconic red and white striped, greasy bucket, she suddenly felt everyone's eyes studying her. Owen froze mid-chicken-grab, peeking nervously at all of the eyes on her. Oh, they were expecting her to actually talk.

"Oh yeah, KFC's the best," she echoed Steve's sentiment, eyes darting around to each individual at the table to gauge their reactions.

"So, I noticed a 'For Sale' sign out in your yard," Nancy mentioned, saving Owen's ass by redirecting the group's attention elsewhere. Owen just grabbed the first piece of chicken she could get her fingers on and hurriedly brought herself back down into her seat. "Is... is that the neighbors' or..." Nancy trailed off, brows dipping downward.

Mrs. Holland cast a hesitant look sideways at her husband. Owen took a slow bite of her chicken as she watched a cautiously optimistic smile upturn the corners of the older woman's lips.

"You wanna tell them?" Mrs. Holland checked.

"Go ahead," Mr. Holland nodded, eyes focused downward toward his plate. His approval had his wife's head spinning back around to look excitedly between the three teens.

"We hired a man named Murray Bauman," Mrs. Holland announced. The familiarity of the name caused Owen to suck in a shocked breath of air, despite the bite of chicken in her mouth. A loud, unflattering cough interrupted the news, forcing everyone's attention to dart towards her yet again. "Have any of you heard of him," Barb's mom continued, trying her best to ignore the coughs coming from the end of the table.

"Um, no..." Nancy said with a shake of her head.

"No, I don't think so," Steve added, still talking despite his mouth being full.

"He was an investigative journalist for the Chicago Sun-Times," Mrs. Holland explained, not even waiting for a word from Owen. It probably wasn't a response she wanted to hear anyway.

"He's pretty well-known," Mr. Holland reported, pulling a somewhat crumpled business card from his front pocket. Owen leaned closer to Steve to get a peek at the card. Nothing stood out about the card, besides an eerie black and white photo of Mr. Bauman himself printed next to the words: "Investigation today is a complex science."

Whatever that means.

"Anyway, he's freelance now, and agreed to take the case," Mrs. Holland declared with a big, toothy smile. Owen tried her hardest to mask the dreadful look on her face. She really did. But as much as she tried, the auburn-haired girl could hardly fight the downward sloping of her lips and the horror in her widened eyes. Owen's head dropped to face her plate, physically turning away to hide any reactions that she couldn't physically stop.

"Oh... That's... That's great," Steve commented. Even Owen could hear the feigned optimism in his voice. "No, that's really... That's great, right?" His statement morphed into a question as he glanced between the girls on either side of him, just begging silently for someone to agree with him.

"Um, what exactly does that mean?" Nancy inquired with a nervous laugh.

"Means he's gonna do what that lazy son of a bitch Jim Hop-" Mr. Holland started caustically, before his wife rested a comforting hand on his shoulder. For what felt like the millionth time that day, Owen bit her tongue to hold herself back from blowing up on Barb's father. She just had to keep reminding herself that he didn't know the full truth. For all he knew, the local police had just given up their search for their daughter. Owen was aware that she would be angry too if she was in his position.

"Sorry..." he murmured after a couple calming breaths. "What the Hawkins Police haven't been capable of doing. Means we have a real detective on the case," Mr. Holland finished.

"It means... we're going to find our Barb," Mrs. Holland said, her voice quivering. Owen's eyes finally dragged up from her plate, her stare immediately connecting with Barb's mother's. Her light eyes were so full of hope that it made Owen sick with guilt. Suddenly, all of the food that she had shoveled onto her place looked far less delectable.

"If anyone can find her, it's this man," Mr. Holland testified. Except Owen knew that wasn't the case. All three of them knew. One look at Nancy revealed just how guilty she was feeling, too. Her watery lash line had faltered away from Barb's parents' and retreated to the safety of her plate, instead. "He already has leads. By God, he's worth every last penny," he continued, a proud smile appearing beneath his thick mustache.

"Is that why you're selling the house?" Nancy wondered aloud, looking up from her plate in disbelief.

"Don't worry about us, sweetie. We're fine. More than fine," Mrs. Holland assured her, able to read the concern written all over Nancy's face. "For the first time in a long time, we're hopeful."

The guilt sitting upon Owen's chest just began getting heavier and heavier, weighing her down until she felt like she could barely breathe. The Hollands were selling their home to pay for some conspiracy theorist to help find their daughter. And yet, Owen, Nancy, and Steve were sitting right in front of them with a plethora of information about their daughter's whereabouts – legally binding information that they couldn't tell them about without astronomical consequences.

"E-Excuse me. I'll be right back," Nancy stammered, the shakiness in her tone sticking out like a sore thumb to Owen. She couldn't have hurried away from the table fast enough, with both Owen and Steve's eyes longingly trailing after her. Once she was out of view, both of them turned to each other with a helpless look in their eyes. What the hell were they supposed to talk to Barb's parents about? An awkward silence fell over the group, filled only by the sounds of chewing as everyone continued on with their meal.

"Uh... thank you both so much for this dinner, by the way," Owen said in hopes of dissipating the uncomfortable feeling in the room.

"It's finger-lickin' good," Steve agreed with a goofy smile, talking around a bite of chicken yet again. Owen braced herself for another extended pause from Mr. and Mrs. Holland, but Steve's comment surprisingly brought a genuine chuckle out of the two adults. Owen let out a sigh as the tension in the room lightened, just allowing herself to ride on the coattails of Steve's dumb luck in life.

Once the pressure to talk melted away, Owen was reminded of Nancy's quick departure. Not allowing herself even one moment without worrying about something, Owen's eyes trailed down the hallway to which her friend had escaped. She knew that if the guilt felt like it had been crushing her from the moment they arrived at the Hollands', Nancy's world was likely caving in on itself. And yet, Owen couldn't force herself away from the dinner table. She knew that there was nothing she could say that would ease Nancy's worries, even attempting it felt useless. Which, of course, just caused even more tension to build itself atop Owen's shoulders.

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The rest of the dinner went by at a tragically slow pace. At some point, Owen stopped trying to stifle the exhausted yawns that tumbled from her lips after the long day she had had. The way that Owen saw it, eating dinner out of a bucket really shouldn't take so long. But finally, after a string of rather meaningless conversations about plans for college and shit like that, the Hollands began cleaning off the table for the evening. This gave the three teenagers the perfect opportunity to make their exit.

"Thank you for inviting us, Mr. and Mrs. Holland," Nancy acknowledged sweetly, despite feeling just as much of a rush to leave as the two with her.

"Yeah, thanks again," Owen nodded in agreement.

"It was delicious," Steve commented with a toothy smile.

"Well you three can come over anytime. We just love seeing some life in this house again," Mrs. Holland explained, causing a pang of sympathy to ripple through Owen's chest. The older woman set the stack of dirty plates in her grip back down on the table, brushing her hands off on her apron. "Here, let me walk you out," she offered, newly free hands ushering the group towards the front door. Everyone swiftly shrugged on whatever articles of clothing they had left on the coat rack, said another round of thank yous, and then stepped out of the suffocating cocoon that was the Hollands' house. The "For Sale' sign still loomed out in their front yard, illuminated by the nearest streetlight and the crescent moon overhead.

"I can't believe they're selling their house to pay off that investigative journalist," Nancy sighed, clearly thinking the same thing that Owen was.

"That guy came into the police station recently. Powell and Callahan said he's a total quack. Apparently he believes in, like, aliens and shit," Owen muttered, her cold palms coming up to rub at her tired eyes.

"Hey, with everything we saw last year... aliens may not be totally off the table," Steve mentioned with a shrug. Stopping in front of their respective cars and giving him matching deadpan expressions. Nancy's eyes softened when she turned to look back at Owen, a small smile quirking up the edge of her lips.

"Thanks for coming tonight, Owen. I really appreciated it," she confided. Though, Owen could see the fakeness behind her friend's smile. Fake, not in a vindictive or manipulative way, but an attempt to cover up an underlying ache. An ache that they couldn't talk about freely at that moment. So, Owen nodded and returned the gesture with a lopsided grin of her own.

"Anytime, Nance."

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Sleep fell easily over Owen's mind that night, even though she knew she had a whole list of shit she needed to do for school. Readings for her British Lit class, some unfinished problems for her Stats class... hell, she hadn't even done any preparation for her Debate Club meeting that week. But the exhausted burning beneath her eyelids forced her to shove all of those worries into the next morning. She would worry about due dates like that once she was more well-rested. Unfortunately, the deep sleep that she allowed herself to sink into was anything but restful.

It wasn't long into her sleep that she found herself within a dream. Or something like a dream. The darkness that always sat behind her eyelids had shifted in order to become her surroundings. Every direction in which she looked was shrouded in shadows, giving her zero hints about where she was within this dream. When Owen peered down at the floor in hopes of grounding herself, all she saw was her bare feet standing in shallow water. One look at the rest of her body revealed the navy, long-sleeve shirt and flowy, heathered shorts she had worn to bed that night.

"Hello?" she called out into the void, only to hear her own voice echoed back to her. It rang around inside of her ears for a moment before it dissolved into the air around her. Owen began wading through the empty space, hands blindly outstretched in front of her as if she would run into something. Her heart had started thumping loudly in her ears, a result of the unsettling nothingness surrounding her. Some small part of her knew that this wasn't just a bad dream – or even a dream at all.

A ringing telephone broke up the silence.

Owen's head immediately whipped around towards the direction of the ringing. Directly behind her sat a payphone, looking as though it had always been there.

She had just come from that way, though... right? She couldn't tell.

Still, something within her compelled her to creep towards the ringing phone. Just as her own voice had done, the ringing echoed about the space, not allowing for her to ignore it. Her hands shook as she reached for the receiver, picking it up and finally putting a halt to the endless toll.

"Hello?" Owen hated how small her voice sounded all of a sudden.

The silence on the other side of the phone was unnerving. Owen's head swung to each side of her, checking over her shoulder for some reason. She hadn't seen anyone else in this dream. But how could she? She couldn't tell where the darkness began – meaning anything could be lurking beyond.

"Hello."

The gravelly voice over the phone somehow managed to ease Owen's worries momentarily. If nothing else, she wasn't alone in this void anymore.

"Do you know who you are?" the voice continued, not giving Owen a chance to reply.

The words hung in the air, making Owen feel just as suffocated as she had at Barb's house. Two truths existed at once in her mind. She both knows herself and she doesn't, all at the same time.

"I'm Owen Webb," she stated, deciding to travel down the easier path at that moment. Although, the "easier" path still caused a bead of nervous sweat to slither down the back of her neck.

"Are you sure?"

Then, three familiar beeps filtered through the phone's speaker, followed by a woman's voice rattling off a pre-recorded message.

"We're sorry. You have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. If you feel you have reached-" Owen slammed the phone back into place, brows knitted together in confusion and concern.

However, she had only a moment to process the taunting tone that was wrapped around the deep, rumbling voice before her consciousness was suddenly ripped from the binding grasp of the void, forcing her awake. Owen bolted straight up in bed, a gasp tearing past her lips as she did. A cold sweat sat above her brows as heavy breaths rushed in and out of her mouth, heaving her frame as they did.

Beams of moonlight snuck in through her window, granting her freedom from total darkness. Still, her eyes darted all around her room, completely confused about how real that dream felt. Finally, her gaze drifted to the clock beside her bed.

The face of the clock showed that it was just past one in the morning. Which meant she had been tucked away in that dream for hours, despite it only having felt like minutes when she was there. Owen sunk her face into the palms of her hands, eventually dragging her fingers through the copper strands of her hair.

The short conversation she had had in her dream just kept replaying in her head, leaving her with more questions than answers. Her mind drifted to that picture of her as a child with a buzzcut, to Eleven, to her unknown past before she arrived at the adoption center, and all the way to the tattoo on her wrist. Owen pulled the sleeve of her navy-colored shirt back, studying the black ink etched into her skin.

Just as quickly as Owen had awakened, she tugged her sleeve back over her tattoo. If she still had no idea who she really was, the voice of this man in her dreams sure as hell didn't. Perhaps some part of Owen's subconscious was still holding onto hope. She fell back against her pillow, her eyes staring up at the popcorn ceiling overhead. Her eyebrows knitted together, frustrated that the dream had left her with more questions than answers. The longer time went on, the more Owen needed answers about it all, about everything. And maybe it was time she actually started seeking them out herself.