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━━━━  " 📂 "

𝙋 𝘼 𝙍 𝘼 𝘿 𝙄 𝙎 𝙀

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"THE IDEA OF GENETIC DISORDERS was only proved earlier this year, a link between a genetic marker and Huntington Disease was found on chromosome four. However this of course doesn't mean that it is the first case of a hereditary genetic disease being transmitted through generations." Sadie took a breath, deciding to ignore the mutters she could hear from the corner of the classroom.

"Gregor Mendel is known as the 'father of genetics' and used pea plants to test his theory, which gave light to things as ginger hair being a recessive gene - it can hide away for generations, and that things like brunette hair is a dominant gene making it more likely." She continued. "With the discovery of not only hair colors but life-altering diseases being passed down through-"

The door swung open and she was cut off, Mrs Bixby frowning as she saw Principal Murphy stood there. "Apologies." The woman's eyes glittered in a way that showed she wasn't sorry at all. "Sadie Henderson, can you follow me please?"

The blonde girl's eyes darted over to Nancy and Barb, who only shrugged and watched as their friend pulled her bag over her shoulder and followed the principal out.

"I'm sorry for cutting your explanation short." The woman actually attempted to make conversation as they walked down the empty halls, her heeled shoes clicking against the flooring. "What was it that you were talking about?"

"Oh, um, our current focus is on genetics and we were talking about inherited genes and I was just talking about the recent discovery of genetic diseases and disorders being heretic as well." Sadie replied, stood a little behind her as she followed her down the halls.

"I see you're as knowledgable as always." Principal Murphy nodded, leading her into the office area of the school and down a corridor, pushing open the first door they came to. She stood to the side, arm out stretched. "In you go."

"Thanks." Sadie swallowed. She knew she had done nothing wrong - but she felt incredibly nervous. And that feeling only worsened when she stepped through the doors and saw Chief Hopper and Officer Powell sat in the two arm chairs opposite of the sofa in the office. "Hi.."

"Sorry to take you out of your class, Sadie." Officer Powell offered her a grim smile. "She's babysat the twins once or twice." He explained to Chief Hopper and Principal Murphy as she sat down at her desk.

"It's fine... I already know about genes anyway." Sadie sat down on the sofa, knitting her hands together in her lap.

"Alright, alright." Hopper clearly didn't care whether Sadie had babysat the young Powell twins or whatever she already knew about her class. "Sadie, this morning Will Byers was reported as missing. This is not accusatory, it is simply a formality as you have been listed as one of his friends."

"Will's my brother Dustin's best friend." Sadie confirmed this. "I babysat him as well when Jonathan couldn't..." She swallowed. "Thats a lie I'm friends with a bunch of kids. Talking of Jonathan though, have you talked to Lonnie yet? He might he a deadbeat but when 99/100 kids go missing they've probably run away to another parent."

"It is thought, as of now at least, that Will is the one on the other side of that statistic." Sadie wasn't the first one to suggest that statistic; earlier that day Hopper had said the same to Joyce.

"Okay.. but the last person in Hawkins went missing in 1923 and the last person to commit suicide was in 1963 - so it's highly unlikely that he's..." Sadie cut herself off, head dropping down to her lap. "Kidnapped or dead." She added quietly. She had been trying to forget about the looming thought of Will being in actual trouble and the admittance of it made her feel almost sick with worry.

"Sadie, we are running this investigation." Hopper interrupted her. "I would like to confirm a few things that we already know. What route does Will usually take home from the Wheelers?"

"Oh that's easy, he takes Mirkwood."

"Ah yes.. the road from Lord of The Rings."

"The Hobbit." Sadie corrected quietly. "Will isn't very rebellious, so I really doubt he's run away. There's only so far a kid can ride on a bike. If he was my age with a car then it would be different. At the very most he's probably gone about twenty miles if he's at a consistent speed, which in the darkness would be impossible plus he would be tired after a ten-hour campaign."

"A what?" Officer Powell leaned forward.

"Mike, Dustin, Lucas and Mike are obsessed with this game called Dungeons and Dragons. It's actually pretty good.. but have a member of the party create these campaigns where you defeat monsters and stuff and it can take ages. When they had a sleepover at mine and Dustin's I swear I heard them play all the way through until midnight." Sadie explained, sitting back in her seat. "It would be hard to ride a bike constantly in the dark."

"Why would that be?"

"The lamp on the bike would make it harder for his eyes to adjust, especially if it kicks in at some point. If he was in full darkness the rhodopsin is able to regenerate and reactivate and improvise our night vision but it would never work." Sadie was essentially explaining how Will couldn't have run away through scientific means.

"What the hell is rhodopsin? Some kinda drug or something?" Hopper asked, eyes drawn to Sadie as she shook her head.

"It's a biological pigment found in the rods of the retina.. sensitive to light... so no, not a drug."

"Great, so the babysitter was no help." Hopper sighed, scribbling something down in his notepad. "He didn't come to you asking any weird questions or anything, questions about cities or something?"

"He asked me about Babylon the other day." Sadie shrugged. "But that's an the old capital of the Babylonian empire which was originally founded in 2300 BC... so no.  Nothing of interest."

"Great. Well thanks-" Hopper moved to get to his feet when he was interrupted by the crackle of his radio, Flo calling through about some woman coming into the station with concerns about her neighbors. "Tell her to talk to Callahan about it. A kid is missing." He turned back to Sadie. "As I was saying-"

"The battery in your radio is dislodged." Sadie cut him off.

"What?"

"It's dislodged." She shrugged, looking up at him. "I'm a little familiar with the radio you're using and it shouldn't be that grainy... give it here."

Hopper glanced at Powell, who shrugged and encouraged him to do it, watching as she took the radio and dig around in her bag until she pulled out a small bag.

It was like that for a few minutes, the three adults watching as Sadie unscrewed the back of the radio and got to work.

"I don't have all day-"

"Do you have a pen I could borrow?" Sadie took one from Powell and scribbled a couple things down on a scrap of paper from her bag before reattaching the back. "It should be fine now."

"Thanks... what's on there?" Hopper took back the radio, a little confused on how this entire interview had gone.

"Oh.. it has a different wiring to my brother's and he broke his recently and I spent yesterday fixing it but i thought it might last longer if it's a little different." She said.

"Your brother is Dustin, right?"

"Yeah, did you speak to him earlier?"

"Yes." Hopper felt an odd surge of gratitude to the girl. "Make sure he gets home. Drive him or walk with him. We don't know what happened to Will, but we are going to find him."

"I will do, thanks." Sadie stood up. "I'm sorry I couldn't be of any help."

The two officers watched as Sadie made her way down back to the office, they could hear her voice as she asked one of the secretaries to call the middle school and tell them to let Dustin know she would be picking him up.

"That kid's a genius." Officer Powell stood up besides Hopper.

"Yes, Sadie Henderson is one of our star students. Highest GPA of her grade, an intelligent girl the school is proud to accommodate and please to have with us." Principal Murphy nodded.

"Yeah, she's the kid in the newspapers always winning competitions, right?" Hopper recognised her, having seen pictures of her with trophies for winning chess tournaments or special science competitions in Indianapolis. Once or twice it has even been about a few clubs she was in at school.

"Is it true that she taught herself how to speak like five different languages?" Officer Powell couldn't believe he was asking the rather stupid question, but Principal Murphy nodded.

   "I believe she speaks several others.. French, Spanish, Italian, Russian and some Chinese. She has what someone would call a photographic memory. She remembers everything she sees to the exact detail, and once you tell her something she will almost never forget."

✧

Sadie knew the rest of the day would be a nightmare as soon as she left the office. Despite knowing she had done nothing wrong, she had let her nerves get the better of her and ended up spewing a load of facts to the Hawkins Chief of Police; a curt, straight-to-the-point man who refused to be messed around with by anyone.

She couldn't even keep her mouth shut when it came to his radio and fixed it for him. Whilst he could've been looking for Will.

And that was a whole other thing that plagued her day. Where had Will ended up in the distance between the Wheelers' home on Maple to the Byers' home between Mirkwood and Cornwallis. It was no short journey, but at the same time it was Hawkins, where the most interesting thing for a long while was Eleanor Gillespie being attacked by an owl who thought her hair was it's nest.

Nothing happened there. But now, Will Byers had gone missing and all of a sudden it wasn't so safe anymore.

When the day finally came to an end, Sadie was out of her seat and pulling the strap of her bag over her shoulder. "Barb? Tell Nancy I say goodbye if you see her?" She asked the girl sat a seat in front of her.

"Going to pick Dustin up?" Barb replied with her own question, turning around to face her. Sadie nodded, fiddling with the rubik's cube key ring attached to the zip. "Be careful alright? And sure, I'll tell her."

"Thanks Barb. I'll call if I get the chance but if not... I'll see you tomorrow." Sadie smiled before stepping away from desk and heading out of the classroom.

In no time at all she had slipped into her car and backed up out of the parking lot across from the high school, making her way down the road to the middle school and pulling up just outside.

She got out, resting against the hood as she fiddled with her fingers, awaiting her brother to appear through the surge of pre-teens exiting the building.

"Sadie Henderson, this is a surprise." The girl looked up to see Mr Clarke coming to a stop in front of her. "I'm guessing you're here to pick Dustin up?"

"That would be correct." Sadie swallowed as she nodded, crossed her arms over her stomach. "After.... well now that Will's gone missing and we've both talked to Chief Hopper I thought it would be best if he didn't cycle home, just in case. And my mom would worry otherwise."

"I'm sure he'll be out soon." Mr Clarke smiled back at her. "And Will is going to be just fine, I know you're particularly close with him."

"Yeah.. I am." Sadie fiddled with her chunky rings. "We finally started learning about genes in biology. I can't say that Mrs Bixby lives up to your attempt of teaching it to my class ages ago."

Not only was Mr Clarke Dustin's biology teacher, but he was also Sadie's, and it seemed to be a rather strong coincidence that both siblings ended up loving science and ended up with the man as their favourite teacher.

And Mr Clarke would argue that they were his best students, but that was for another day.

"I do remember that being a particularly hard unit to teach. You weren't too happy to miss out though, with your attempt at recreating the pea flower experiments." Mr Clarke replied, musing on the memory. "I also heard that you fixed Dustin's walkie-talkie."

"And the chief's radio." Sadie interjected. "As it turns out, I'm pretty good at it. Not so good at keeping my Walkman in a place that I actually know though." The science teacher already knew exactly what she was talking about; Sadie had quite the habit of losing things.

"It'll turn up eventually." Mr Clarke replied. "I must be off though. Dustin should be out soon, and I promise to look extra hard in the search tonight."

"There's a search tonight?"

"Of the woods, see if we can find Will." The man replied, before mock saluting her as a goodbye - an action that she returned - before making his way to his car.

The conversation with her former teacher had forced a small smile of distraction onto her face, one that could only turn into something fake and encouraging as she saw Dustin, Mike and Lucas trudged out of school.

Lucas was the first to spot her, and the three boys made their way over to her, Sadie slipping her arm around Dustin's shoulders. "How are you guys feeling?" She asked, although it was a stupid question.

"I don't know." Dustin answered first. "Worried." He shrugged.

"Don't worry. Chief Hopper seems confident that he'll be found, and if I'm honest I think he's right - Will can't have gone very far." Sadie was lying through her teeth; she was incredibly worried about the Byers boy but it just wouldn't do for his friends to do the same. They were so young still, and needed to see that hope.

"The chief came to see you too?" Mike asked.

"Well I'm Will's babysitter and friend, just like you guys are. Mrs Byers must have mentioned me, because the Chief and Officer Powell came in to see me to ask a few questions." Sadie replied.

"And?" Dustin pushed her to continue, under the impression that because Sadie was older she would be able to be told more about the other thing.

"I ended up fixing his radio." Sadie looked between the three. "Come on, let's go get your bikes, I'll give you all a ride home."

"You don't have to-" Lucas protested, but he was quickly shushed.

"What sort of person would I be to make you guys bike home whilst Dustin gets a ride?" Sadie grinned, messing up Dustin's hair and ignoring his cries of him being her brother and that was the reason she was driving them home.

And in no time at all, the three boys had retrieved their bikes and haphazardly piled their bikes into the trunk of Sadie's car, and all three of them got into the back seats and Sadie set off.

Glancing up in rear view mirror, Sadie let out a sigh. "Don't look so worried." She said, watching as they talked in quiet mumbled to each other. "Hopper will find him, he can't have gone far." The words were repeated, but they were reassuring herself just as much as they tried to reassure the boys behind her.

"If he can't have gone far then when can't we look for him with everyone else?" Mike asked, anger and exasperation threaded through his words.

"Listen, I'll be honest with you. I'm just as worried as all three of you are. But there are just certain things that adults have to deal with." Sadie swallowed. "There's always the possibility that Will didn't get lost in the woods and something dangerous is out there - but I doubt that, it's Hawkins - but if that is the case then it's too dangerous for you guys to go out."

"But-"

"Think of your parents." Sadie said quietly. "Think of how upset they'll be if you go out at night and get hurt. Besides, it's supposed to storm tonight, so you won't get anywhere."

✧

The storm thundered and drowned the town in rain, and whilst the world around her was so chaotic, Sadie was sat at her desk, lamp turned on and a plate of warmed-up pizza in front of her.

She wasn't focusing really, chewing mindlessly on the leftovers from the night before as she sifted through old newspapers from the Hawkins archive.

The phone was balanced between her ear, listening to some music playing as she was left on hold.

Sadie had forced herself to avoid diving into theories, but after just glancing at the map pinned to the back of her door one thing became rather strikingly clear.

Hawkins Lab - whilst mostly quiet and keeping to itself - was relatively near the area of woods that Will would've been most likely to go missing in - near Mirkwood and Cornwallis.

It wasn't that she suspected the lab, but she has consumed way too many mystery books to know that a government-run lab always had something to do with whatever happened in the books, and she grew curious.

So curious that she ended up ringing the Hawkins Post offices. They were open until seven on weekdays and it was no wonder that Sadie had been left on hold; she knew the entire place was filled with sexist jerks.

But finally, a click sounded in her ear and she sat up, pushing away the newspapers and swallowed her mouthful of pizza.

"Hawkins Post, how can I help you?" A woman's voice droned in her ear, clearly not appreciative of such a call given that it was so near closing time.

"Hi, I was wondering if-" Sadie's words died in her throat. She was about to say 'you had any reports made about Hawkins Lab' followed by something about mistakes or interference or cover-ups.

But her ears focused on something else: a static in the background. Which was unusual. She had called the Hawkins Post on several occasions and there had never been any type of interference before.

Perhaps it was the storm, but Sadie didn't want to take any chances.

"Hello?" The woman on the other end of the line asked.

"You know what, never mind. Sorry." Sadie promptly hung up. She needed to stop reading mystery novels because being that paranoid wasn't normal.

Why would anyone ever bug the phone? It was almost definitely the storm just messing with the signal and the phone lines, and with that Sadie forced herself to put the newspaper away and catch up on her biology work.

Time ticked by quickly, the left over pizza quickly finished and the box with some leftover Halloween candy retrieved from the kitchen and the wrappers scattered over the floor.

Her mom came in to check on her and Dustin before going to bed herself, and when Sadie finally decided it was time for her to change into her pyjamas and settle in for the night, she went to check on her brother as well.

"What the fuck?" She muttered to herself. It wasn't like Dustin to be asleep so early, but a quick check confirmed he had stuffed several spare pillows under his covers and used his old teddy bear as a replacement for his hair. "The little bastard."

She exhaled, shaking her head and returning to her room. Sadie had decided to stay awake, but was slipping off into sleep when she finally heard the door click shut, and footsteps pass her bedroom door minutes later.

It was too late for her to say anything, but decided to quickly go to bathroom and consider it. She would talk to him in the morning.

She stared in the mirror as she brushed her teeth, eyes slowly drifting over her own shoulder, gaze landing on a mass of material hung up over the shower rail, the curtain pulled back.

It was Dustin's raincoat. And it was sopping wet with rain - not as if he had just biked to and from the Wheeler house. So soaked through it would've stuck to his skin like plaster

Where the hell had her little brother been?