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WHEN Veronica leaned away from Steve, she felt the static electricity still lingering on her lips. She touched them, immediately turning away from him as she contemplated her decision. Her mouth practically burned from a simple kiss, and the butterflies in her stomach wouldn't fucking cease. It was so annoying.
"Oh, god," Steve muttered, facing away from her and running a hand through his hair. "I knew I should've put on chapstick."
Veronica glanced to him with a confused expression. "What?"
"Were my lips chapped or something?"
She wrinkled her nose. "No, I just ..." She exhaled heavily and folded her knees to her chest. "I think I like you, and it's making me feel ... yucky."
Steve's mouth opened, but no words emerged for a moment. "Yucky?"
Veronica's hair covered her face, and she was fine with it. Now Steve couldn't see the blush creeping onto her cheeks. "Yes, yucky."
Before he could question her once more, Chief Hopper and Edward Moreda burst through the door, followed by Joyce, Jonathan, and Mike. Veronica and Steve shot up from their spots on the kitchen floor, sprinting after the adults that crowded around the dining table. The kids in the living room soon followed. "What happened?" Dustin asked with interest.
"Something weird," Edward muttered, handing Chief Hopper a pen and paper when he sat at the table.
Hopper tapped his pen and began to scribble. "We think he's talking. Just not with words."
Veronica narrowed her eyes as Hopper dragged his pen across the sheet of paper. Her head began to hurt as she squinted her eyes to read his handwriting. God, she could use a cigarette right now. As Veronica leaned in, she noticed that Hopper wasn't writing words; he was writing symbols. He made four dots, a space, and then another dot. He paused for a moment, and then made another space for a dot, long dash, and one more dot. There was another space, followed by another dot.
"What is that?" Steve asked with a scrunched brow.
"Morse code," the children answered together.
Veronica peered over Hopper's shoulder. "But what does it stand for?"
Hopper wrote down the letter that each symbol stood for. "H-E-R-E ..."
"Here," Mike whispered. Joyce sent Jonathan a worried glance before turning back to Hopper. The police chief scratched his chin as he said, "Will's still in there. He's talking to us."
"Then that's good news, right?" Veronica asked when Jonathan ran out of the room. She watched him grab a few tapes and a stereo from his room. Her brow furrowed as he walked out of the door with Joyce, all the while Veronica repeated, "Right?"
