Risky Business ｡ Stranger Things

51 : Ladyhawke

The air in her lungs didn't nip with the cruel sting of winter, cold as snow as it turned her nose pink. Didn't burn with the catastrophic heat of summer, so thick and sticky with sweat beading along her collarbones. Prue Owens had done a good job of convincing herself that she didn't miss either.

Her inhale was deep and measured as she lined up her target, the fresh air of spring expanding her lungs. The sports fields at Hawkins High was dressed in afternoon light, sneaking through the trees in the distance and ricocheting off the metal bleachers. She was the last one practising out on the field today, but that wasn't unusual for a Tuesday afternoon because the Hellfire Club always ran late.

There was a gentle hum through her recurve bow as Prue notched another arrow, settling it onto the bow's rest, which looked like a tiny little arm of the side of her weapon that helped hold the arrow in place.

Making sure the odd coloured fletch—the feather-like stripes at the end of an arrow—was facing away from her face, Prue lifted her bow. Across the field was a row of targets, all littered with stab wounds from the other members of the small archery team, which mainly consisted of teenagers with fathers that hunted wild turkeys and innocent deer for fun on the weekends.

The air in her lungs soared as Prue drew her arrow to the corner of her mouth—her anchor point—and stared down the straight line of her arrow. A few of her other teammates preferred to anchor their arrows underneath their chins with the sting resting against the tips of their noses, but Prue liked the feeling of the taunt string resting against her lips.

She exhaled softly and released her shot. It zipped through the air, and quicker than a blink stuck the target. Prue sighed, seeing the arrow sitting in the black; she'd been aiming for the yellow centre bright like the rind of a lemon.

It had taken a great deal of convincing and persistent nudging for Caroline Owens to agree to let Prue join the archery team. Prue had overheard a hushed argument between her parents early one morning, all snipping and hissing over the boiling kettle.

"She just wants to learn how to protect herself," Sam Owens had said. "We can't blame her for that. Not after everything she's been through."

"I don't blame her," Caroline had retorted. "I blame you." The kettle had screeched on the stovetop. "None of this would've happened if you hadn't taken that job in the first place." The job he'd taken at the Hawkins National Laboratory nearly two years ago, a job that seemed to mark the doom of the Owens family. Grey had once even joked about how the family was now cursed, had been cursed the moment they had crossed into the once-safe and dead-end town bordered by forests and farming fields.

"I was fired," he'd whispered, placing down two teacups and reaching for the sugar jar. Sam didn't have sugar, but he knew Caroline liked two heaped spoons.

Caroline had merely scoffed bitterly. "And yet your work continues, doesn't it?" Metal jarringly clicked against porcelain. "Darling little Nina."

Prue still didn't know what her mother had been referencing that morning months ago, and she had stomped down her curiosity ardently, biting her tongue the whole time. Her curiosity had only ever gotten her hurt, so she'd locked it away deep within her, hiding it under the floorboards of her bones and tucking it underneath the pillows of her heart.

Eventually, Caroline had buckled about Prue learning archery, but only if she rejoined the cheerleading squad. It hadn't been a hard decision, and Ronnie Marra had enthusiastically agreed that both extracurricular activities would bulk up college applications. Prue was anxiously awaiting news from West Coast universities, though she'd already gotten her rejection letter from Stanford. Though, Berkley and Caltech were still in the mix. She'd even be okay with going to Lenora Community, away from dark forests and closer to the bright desert.