dis·tract·ed

adjective

unable to concentrate because one's mind is preoccupied.

Emilia woke up on the couch to a cold house and stiff joints. Rolling off of it and glancing at the windows that were boarded up, she knew the draft had come inside over the chill of the night. She was too cold to move, and seeing that nothing had changed, she knew that neither Hopper nor El had come home. A sadness seeped deep inside of her as she finally got up, making herself a hot pot of coffee with a blanket draped around her shoulders like a cape. She realized as she sat there staring at the drip coffee, that she was feeling too sad, too depressed for the situation. But without Hopper or El around, she was also terrified of what was happening with them.

She wrote it off as Hopper and El went somewhere together, there was no other explanation.

After making herself half-decent, Emilia left the house and headed to Hopper's actual place, hoping to find him there. Maybe since the windows were busted, Hopper brought El there instead. But she found no evidence that anyone had been there in a few days. Sighing, Emilia changed into something warm because the day was brisk, and she stared at the phone.

Tapping her finger over the receiver, she contemplated her idea, her stupid idea.

But what did she have to lose now?

She grabbed the phone book, which she found underneath the coffee table, and flipped through it until she found Harrington. Dialing the number, she nervously held the receiver in clammy hands. It was ten o'clock, a perfectly acceptable time to phone someone. To her surprise, a woman answered.

"Harrington residence," she said curtly.

"Hi, is Steve home?" Emilia asked with an unwanted waver in her voice.

"Nancy? How are you?"

"Uhm, this isn't Nancy," Emilia replied awkwardly. "This is Emilia, a friend of Steve's. We're working on a science project together."

Emilia didn't know why she felt the need to lie, perhaps to protect Steve from his mother who perhaps frowned upon his jump from girl to girl, even though that was not the case at all. Different messages would be conveyed and interpreted, so it was best to make sure Steve's reputation with his mother remained neutral. A few moments later, Steve's voice carried through the receiver.

"Emilia? Why are you calling?" He asked, not in an aggravated way, though.

"I... I need a distraction from all this. Are you up for coffee?"

"I hate coffee," Steve replied. "'The Brew' in an hour?"

She laughed, glad he was still open for a chat and a hot beverage even if he didn't like it. They agreed to meet at the local café in an hour, and Emilia was there ten minutes early. She ordered her drink and stirred it with a long metal spoon for too long, by the time Steve arrived -fashionably late- her drink was cold but she didn't mind. He joined her at the table when he spotted her.

After the typical small talk, Emilia realized she couldn't contain something inside of her. It spilled within minutes of Steve's arrival. "El's missing."

"What?" Steve asked, then racked his brain to remember El. Emilia had not so long ago told him that Hopper had found her and was giving her a place to stay safe. He had forgotten, until Emilia brought it up again now. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure. She's never left the cabin, and I went there last night. She wasn't there, Hopper wasn't there... no one came home by this morning. I'm really scared... After what happened with Will, I think, I think it's back." Emilia blurted it all out almost as one long word.

But Steve heard her. "Alright, well if Hopper is gone too, then maybe he took her somewhere. Maybe that place wasn't safe."

"I checked his house to, no one has been there."

"Go to the station? Ask if Hopper has been in."

Emilia blanked; she hadn't thought of that and now she felt like a moron. A laugh escaped her lips, "Wow, I didn't even think of that."

"I was thinking," Steve started, changing the tangent of the conversation. "I'm going to buy Nancy flowers, apologize. And I want you there too."

"I really don't think that will help," Emilia said too quickly. She had her own relationship to fix, she didn't want to be in the middle of Steve's. Besides, she had a bad feeling she would find Jonathan and Nancy together. Since they had both disappeared from school, no one had seen either of them. No missing persons had been filed, so they had both lied to their parents about where they were. But part of Emilia knew that they could be at the Wheeler's house, and if Jonathan was there, Emilia wanted to know.

Part of her wished to turn a blind eye and pretend like nothing bad was going on.

But she wasn't that kind of person.

"But, if you insist... I can be there for, moral support or something," she said at last.

"Great, do you think she'd like roses?" Steve asked.

Emilia smiled, she was never the type to like flowers -except for the Heather that Jonathan had plucked from the Earth and silently left for her in the hospital. She killed every living thing she tried to grow, from succulents to vegetables in the garden when she was younger. Flowers simply fell apart, and she always forgot to tend to them, to give them the packaged food and trim them. They would just wilt and then fall apart, sitting there for weeks before she dealt with it.

They picked up some roses, a bundle that Emilia never would have been able to afford, and she held it in her hands carefully as Steve drove. Emilia left her care in the café parking lot, knowing it would be safe. They pulled into the Wheeler's parking lot by the time the sun started to dip. How time had slipped away from them like this, Emilia didn't know, but her plan to remain distracted had worked, and she enjoyed the time spent with Steve.

"I still don't get why you want me here," Emilia said as he parked the car.

"I want Nancy to know that just because I kissed you, doesn't mean I'm going to pretend like you don't exist. I still want to be friends with you," Steve said.

Emilia's eyes nearly bugged out of her head, and then her expression softened and she smiled. "Go get 'em."

Emilia leaned against the window as Steve checked his hair in the rear-view mirror, and then took a deep breath to cool himself down. Quickly, before he changed his mind, he got right out of the car and began walking briskly towards the large home. Emilia looked away, not wanting to impede on whatever might unfold. What she didn't expect, moments later, was for the passenger door to be yanked open and to be facing a young toothy Dustin.

"Oh, Emilia, good, we'll need you too," Dustin announced.

"Need me?" Emilia looked at Steve who got into the driver's seat after grabbing something from the trunk. In his hand was an all-too-familiar baseball bat with giant nails spiked through it. "What the hell for?!"

"Monster hunting," Steve said with a sigh. 

Dustin and Steve are a great duo, adding Emilia into the mix was also a ton of fun through these upcoming chapters! 

Question of the Day: What would you do if your parent(s) and sibling(s) disappeared?