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In the end, Lucas lied to the police, saying Jason was the one behind the killings all along. The man in question wasn’t able to defend himself, on account of being dead. Small blessings, Lucas supposed.
The town was cracking apart by the seams; the last thing they had time to do was to look deeper into the story offered to them, and instead focused on saving a very broken young girl’s life.
Lucas rode in the ambulance the whole way to the hospital, right at Max’s side. He desperately wanted to grab her hand, to gather her up and hold her close just to feel the steady beating of her heart, and make sure it never, ever stopped. But the fear of hurting her kept his aching arms at his sides. He touched his fingertips to hers. Warm skin met cool. “She’s alive,” the paramedic reassured him, trying to figure out what, exactly, was keeping her from waking. Lucas couldn’t tell him what it was even if he wanted to. What Vecna was able to do was beyond anything he could imagine. Any words, suggestions, died on his tongue. He winced every time the ambulance drove over a particularly large crack in the earth, but Max’s face remained placid and pale under the blood that streaked down her cheeks like tears.
Using his shirtsleeve, he started wiping off the blood. Her freckles were stark on her pale face. He had told her, once, that he liked her freckles. "My freckles?" She'd asked, scrunching up her nose in the way she always did when she thought he was saying something ridiculous. Lucas had grinned then, and just smacked a kiss to her freckle-y cheek. "Yes." She rolled her eyes, but he had caught her smile before she walked away.
Twice, the ambulance stopped, faced with an angry red gash in the road, too large to safely cross. He had to get out to help build a makeshift bridge, and then help guide the vehicle to the other side.
Once they were on the road again, he practically threw himself into the back of the ambulance, desperate to see her, to make sure she hadn’t gotten worse. Her eyes were closed, but he couldn’t stop seeing the glassy stare. Couldn’t stop feeling the way she gripped his arms and cried in a voice thick with terror, “I’m so scared. I don’t wanna die, I’m not ready!”
“I’m still here,” he promised, just like he had only a few days before. He carefully, oh so carefully, smoothed a hand over her hair. Her braids were coming undone. “I’ve got you.”
The paramedic sent him a sad, sort of half smile, and pretended not to notice when a few more tears slipped out of his eyes.
All in all, he was fairly composed right up to the minute they burst into the ER. Sure, his heart was hammering so hard, he was sure it was about to beat right out of his chest, but they were at the hospital. Surely someone would catch his heart if it did decide to go on an out-of-body trip. His hands were slick with sweat, but he kept his fingers on Max’s. Just barely touching.
The ER was already packed with people, the first rush of Hawkins residents affected by the earthquake. Max’s gurney became priority, though, once the hospital staff took note of her distinctive injuries. More than one person whispered in disbelieving tones, “She’s alive?”
Yes, Lucas thought, she is. And I’m going to make sure she stays that way.
He had a hand on the gurney right up to the point where they passed through a set of swinging doors, headed straight for the back, saying something about x-rays and scans.
His fingers felt so tightly glued to that gurney that when the security officer unexpectedly gripped his shoulder, Lucas’s arm nearly popped out of its socket. The wheels squeaked in protest, and it was more on instinct and a desire to see her through those doors that Lucas allowed his numb fingers to open, and to let her slip away. Immediately, he felt the loss, a hollowed out pit in his stomach that grew wider as Max was pushed farther down that hall. There were doctors swarming her, her body, but Max was alone.
He wrenched himself out of the man’s hold, intent to follow, but the guy got a better hold on his arm, and Lucas whirled around to face him. The man was nearly his height, but had close to 50 pounds on him. A security badge glinted in the fluorescent light. “What the hell are you doing? Let me go!” Lucas tried to free himself, but the man’s grip was ironclad. He turned back to the doors, where through the glass he could see Max being rushed down the hall.
“Max! MAX!! I’m right here!” He screamed. He was making a scene, he knew, but at the moment, he didn’t care. “You’re not alone, Max, I’m right here!” He screamed her name again, and then her team turned down a hall, and she was out of his field of vision.
Somehow, the security officer managed to drag him over to a waiting room chair, and unceremoniously shoved Lucas’s head between his knees, telling him in a surprisingly soft voice to take deep breaths before he fainted.
“You’re no use to your friend if you end up in a hospital bed yourself.” He reminded the boy.
Lucas wasn’t so sure. If it meant that Lucas could be by her side, he’d gladly pass out right here, right now.
Eventually, Lucas lifted his head and scrubbed his cheeks. They were crusty with a mixture of sweat, and tears, and yes, a bit of blood. He didn’t care. To his surprise, the security officer hadn’t left his side.
“When can I see her?” He asked in a flat tone.
The officer, Dubois, his name tag read, shook his head. “I barely got a good look at her, but with those kind of injuries…” he shook his head, and Lucas’s stomach plummeted. “Even if there hadn’t just been a massive earthquake, it’s going to take time. A lot of time.” The unspoken “if she even survives” hung between them like a dark, terrible cloud. “She your girlfriend?” Dubois asked, his voice clearly trying for levity.
Lucas scrubbed his hands against his cheeks again, trying to collect his scattered thoughts. “Uh. She and I were… we broke up, but… I started thinking we might have a chance.” A bitter laugh escaped him in a huff. His heartbeat was finally starting to slow. "We were going to see a movie this Friday."
A heavy silence followed his statement.
Finally, the officer cleared his throat. “That Eddie kid didn’t finish her off,” Dubois mused. “Didja scare him off, or what?”
Lucas could feel the officer taking in his appearance, the eye that was quickly swelling shut, and the split skin on his fists and blood that was just generally everywhere. At the mention of Eddie, though, the room stopped spinning, and Lucas had one moment of crystal clarity. It was important, he realized, to get this story exactly right. To get in front of it before anyone else got their say in it.
“It was never Eddie.” Lucas focused on the split skin on his knuckles. He’d told enough lies during his life. He could do this. The best lies begin with the truth, after all. “Jason was the one on the murderous rampage.” He looked up at Dubois, and said, “Jason showed up trying to kill me, but when he saw Max…” Lucas grit his teeth. “He did this to her. Eddie was nowhere near us when he…” Lucas pressed a fist to his lips. There. He did it.
Dubois had switched into a mode Lucas was all too familiar with. Cop protocol mode. “Where is Jason now, Lucas?”
Images of Jason’s body flashed in his mind, and he pressed his fist harder to his lips, now trying not to throw up. Once he had gotten himself under control, he finally managed, “He didn’t make it. He was standing across a fault line. He, uh.” Lucas drew a hand across his own midsection, unable to say it.
The officer’s eyebrows scrunched together in confusion, and then shot up once he understood Lucas’s meaning. Lucas nodded, turned to the side, and threw up in the garbage can beside him.
His parents arrived the same time the police did, and Lucas didn’t hesitate to fold into his mother’s waiting arms. She would have questions, he knew. Questions he wasn’t sure he would be able to answer. But for now, he let her clutch him tightly and heard her instruct their dad to fetch a wet washcloth. She waved off the police, her voice sharp and brokering no room for an argument. They could speak to him later. Then she sat Lucas down to gently wipe his face free of the grime that felt like it had settled on his very bones. He let her. She didn't ask any questions, and he loved her for that. The adrenaline had completely left his body, and he felt nothing but numb all over. All that remained was that thrumming beneath his skin of Max, Max, Max. Erica grabbed his hand, and he looked down at their joined hands. “You were shaking.” Erica murmured.
Oh.
Eventually, Dubois came back, and apologetically let him know that the police needed his statement while it was still fresh in his mind. Max was the only person to survive Eddie- sorry, was it Jason? Yes, Jason’s murder attempt, and Lucas’s witness statement was invaluable.
Lucas rose, and gave Erica a look. She understood in an instance, kicking her bag where her SuperComm lay. He had set the story up, and the others needed to know which rules they would be playing by.
It was like… like he was the DM, and the others were the party, learning the story as they went. Even at the end of the world, it always came back to that stupid game that seemed to have started it all.
He gave the police as coherent a story as possible, sticking to the truth when he could. When he got to the part where Jason started acting more erratic, more unhinged, he started shaking again, and one of the policemen brought him a blanket. That simple gesture told him enough. They were believing him. The fact that Eddie had been nowhere near that house only helped his case.
“Now I have to ask,” Callahan asked, leaning forward on the table. Lucas tried not to lean back. “What were you two doing in that house?”
“Uh,” Lucas’s mind was spinning, trying to find a plausible answer that wouldn’t get him sent to the loony bin. “Ghost hunting.” No, try harder. “For my little sister. She’s afraid of ghosts, and with everything going on, we figured we’d prove the house wasn’t haunted. Give her one less thing to be scared of.” Sorry, Erica. “Guess that didn’t really work the way we wanted.”
Callahan must have been really tired, or simply ready to believe an easy answer, because he didn’t press him any further, saying only, “Sorry about that, kid.”
Lucas shrugged, clutching the blanket tighter around his still-shaking body. “Can I go now?”
Callahan gestured to the door, and Lucas walked out on surprisingly steady legs. He nearly bowled over Erica, who had been crouched by the door, quietly relaying all of Lucas’s story to Dustin. No one was paying her any mind.
Lucas sank to the floor, letting his head thud against the wall. Dustin’s voice crackled through the SuperCom. “Copy. We'll stick to that story.” His voice sounded weird and choked, even through the static.
He looked over, and saw that Erica’s face was somehow even more drawn and somber than before. “What happened?”
His sister just handed him the walkie, and Lucas jammed his finger down on the Talk button. “Dustin, what happened? Are you okay?”
A pause. Then, the static. Was that a sniffle? No, no, no. Was it Steve? Steve, who got bitten by zombie bats, and was still bleeding through his bandages? Or Nancy, Vecna must have gotten her too, and -
“Eddie’s dead.”
Fuck.