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CHAPTER TWO, tiptoe through the tulips
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SOMETHING WAS WRONG.
The chilling emotion had snuck up on her again, grazing its claws against her cervical spine where it tauntingly dragged its sharp talons against every perimeter of every disc, creating a series of goosebumps along her body that were incapable of being rubbed off by the sweaty palms of her shaking hands. And then suddenly, after having underestimated its proximity, she felt its presence shoot upwards from her lumbar spine until it was back at her neck, its hot breath colliding with her skin as it unleashed a sinister laugh that scarcely echoed around her head until it reached the interior base of her skull, a sudden pounding emerging as it sought an escape. When unable to locate an exit, it imploded, releasing the anxious girl from the chokehold in the process.
Anahí gulped loudly, watching from a distance as the chief's car alongside a single police car pulled into the Hawkins middle school parking lot, rubber tiles brushing across the asphalt until both vehicles parked in front of the main office building. She pressed her body against the trunk of her car, the cold breeze brushing past her as she pulled the corduroy jacket closer to her figure to discard of the bumps riding along her skin, careful to not create a burn mark from the lit cigarette between her fingers.
Her eyes narrowed, her poor eyesight preventing her from making out the expression across Hopper's face as he stepped out from the driver's seat of his Blazer, a cigarette of his own hanging off the side of his lip with a trail of smoke polluting the atmosphere before he took one final hit from it. He proceeded to throw it against the ground, the outsole of his boot pulverizing the burning stick with remnants affixing themselves to the crevices.
The scene mirrored the one from fifty-six days ago; the weekend after the mysterious disappearance of Kiara Solarío when Hopper, alongside officers Powell and Callahan, carried out their so-called investigation that involved interrogating a bunch of twelve-year-olds that her sister was acquainted or friends with. She remembered being advised to remain calm—that despite it having been forty-eight hours since Kiara had last been seen, it was unlikely that she was in harm's way. Hopper had explained how common it was for kids to run off only to appear at the most a week later. So, she waited a week. And that's when she concluded that she'd been fed a bunch of bull.
