I walked towards Richie and Stan who were leaning against their bikes outside the apartment. My hands were raw and wrinkled from spending so much time soaked in water.

"I've been sitting here on my ass for the last couple of hours with no other entertainment than hearing Mr and Mrs Crackpot argue over which stolen credit card they should use to snort their next line of coke. I think I deserve to be pissy." Richie complained to his sullen friend.

"It must have been absolutely terrible." I grinned, placing my hand on Silver.

"What even happened in there? Stan said you guys spent that whole time cleaning up Beverly's period blood." Richie said, pushing up his glasses.

"I did not." Stan gave him a light shove, blushing.

"Yeah, well, we were cleaning up a bunch of blood. It came from the sink, though, not Bev's vagina." I replied with a snicker. "She said hair came out of the sink and grabbed her and then blood just exploded everywhere. Trust me, her bathroom was not a sight for sore eyes."

The sound of voices came from behind us and I turned to see the rest of the Losers making their way down the stairs. Eddie was still wet, but his shirt was rid of any sign of blood.

"Have fun, R-Richie?" Bill asked, walking towards me and Silver. I moved away so he could grab his bike, and we started walking down the street.

"Yeah, you know, I love being your personal doorman." Richie said sarcastically, mounting his bike and riding circles around us. "I mean, could you idiots have taken any longer?"

"Alright, shut up Richie." Eddie snapped, wobbling as he struggled to keep his bike balanced as he rolled it beside him. I grabbed the other end of the bike to steady it and he gave me an appreciative smile.

"Yeah, shut up Richie." Stan added.

"Okay, trash the Trashmouth, I get it." Richie retorted, the circles he made around us making me dizzy. "Hey, I wasn't the one scrubbing the bathroom floor imagining her sink went all Eddie's mum's vagina on Halloween."

"She didn't imagine it." Bill said, stopping in the middle of the road. The rest of us stopped as well, looking at him curiously. "I s-s-saw something too."

"You saw blood too?" Stan asked. I already knew the answer was no.

"No, not blood." Bill said, shaking his head. "I saw Guh-guh-Georgie." My mind went to last night at Richie's house where I saw Patrick, and I felt my stomach drop. Richie and I stared at Bill with wide eyes while everyone else avoided his gaze.

"It seemed so real." Bill continued, his eyes glazed over as if recounting a memory. "I mean, it seemed like Georgie, but there was this.."

"The clown." Eddie finished, and my head snapped towards him. "Yeah, I saw him too."

Bill looked at Ben who nodded, along with Stan and I. I felt Ben's eyes widen and look to me as he realised what I was referring to.

"Wait, can only virgins see this stuff? Is that why I'm not seeing this shit?" Richie asked and Ben looked away. Eddie gave him a dirty look.

All of a sudden, we heard shouts coming from the Barrens. Our heads snapped towards the painfully familiar blue car which was parked next to a large bike.

"Oh shit, that's Belch Huggin's car." Eddie breathed, taking a step back and almost toppling over with his bike. "We should probably get out of here."

"I agree." I said, taking a step back as well.

"Wait, isn't that the homeschooled kid's bike?" Bill asked, pointing to the old bike with a basket full of packaged meat in it. My heart dropped as I remembered the boy the Bower's Gang had been beating up on the last day of school. I prayed that he was still alive.

"Yeah that's Mike's..." Eddie trailed off.

"We have to help him." Beverly said, looking us each in the eye expectantly.

"We should?" Richie asked unsurely.

"Yes!" Beverly replied as if it was the only logical thing to do. She dropped her bike and ran towards the path that led to the Barrens. It only took a brief moment before everyone dropped theirs too.

"So we're just gonna leave our bikes in the middle of the road?" I asked, standing still as everyone ran off. "I guess so, then."

I ran behind Ben and only just reached the water when I saw Beverly pick up a rock and throw it, hard. It hit its target, which happened to be a furious-looking Henry Bowers who was holding a rock above Mike's head. I noticed the raw meat underneath the boy and almost gagged as I imagined the stench.

Henry was knocked back off of Mike and fell on his back, blood already oozing out of an open cut on his forehead. The rock remained clutched in his hand.

"Nice throw." Stan said, his eyes wide as he looked at Beverly.

"Thanks." she replied, her eyes glued to the boys on the opposite side of the water.

I beckoned for Mike to come to us and he scrambled up and splashed through the shallow water of the Barrens. I patted his back as he came to a stop beside me, sweat beading on his forehead. He gave me a brief, appreciative smile of relief.

My friends bent down to pick up rocks and I followed suit, grasping one in each hand.

"You Losers are trying too hard." Henry smirked, standing up. "She'll do you. You just gotta ask nicely, like I did." he grabbed his crotch and his friends laughed. I gave them the meanest death stare I could muster, but faltered when I heard an angry yell from beside me.

I turned to see Ben step forward and piff a rock with all his strength, which was a lot, and it hit Henry in the head again. I almost laughed at how surprised I was at his outburst.

"What the fuck?" Henry and his friends stepped back in shock before bending down to pick up rocks of their own.

Beverly threw another and the rest of us sprung into action. I threw both of mine at the same time, neither of them hitting a target.

"Rock war!" I heard Richie yell, followed by a thud and a grunt as he was hit by a rock from Victor.

I bent down to pick up more ammunition, narrowly missing a rock the size of my head thrown by Belch. I stumbled back in surprise, dropping the noticeably smaller stones I had collected. I bent down to pick them up again, but another rock whizzed by my ear and I looked up to see Henry staring at me furiously.

"Oh, bring it on." I said, closing my fingers around the cool surface and throwing the two rocks at the same time in his direction. One missed by a mile, but the other hit his shin and caused him to jump backwards with a hiss. Despite my lack of rock-throwing skill, I felt myself grin.

That was, until a rock hit me in the shoulder. I saw Eddie glance at me apologetically from the water in front of me. "Sorry!" he called out, sheepishly.

"How the fuck did you manage to throw a rock backwards." I shook my head in disbelief before scanning the ground for more ammunition.

Screams of pain and rage were heard from all directions and my vision was flooded with flying rocks. I threw the ones in my hands but neither of them hit a target, unless my targets were the trees way out of the line of action.

Suddenly, a dark object started whizzing in my direction and I held my hands up in front of my face to protect myself. Time stopped when I felt something hard come into contact with my hands. Everyone turned in surprise to see the rock clasped in my fingers and I looked up to see Belch's with an expression of fury.

Holy shit. I had just caught a rock thrown by one of the largest guys in Derry.

"Fuck you, bitch!" Belch yelled, but got knocked back when a rock thrown by Beverly hit him in the head, knocking off his baseball cap. I gave her a smile, which she returned, before springing back into action.

A wave of adrenaline rolled through me as I picked up more rocks, throwing them as hard as I could without waiting to see if they hit anything meaningful. Eventually, Victor and Belch fled after copping a few more hits, leaving Henry lying motionless on the ground. His eyes were wide as he stared at us in shock at being defeated. I could almost see the humiliation rolling off him.

I looked to Bill, who was looking at Beverly. She gave him a small smirk of triumph before turning back to Henry, who was starting to get back up. We took that as our cue to leave and I placed my hand on Mike's back, pushing him towards the way out.

"Go blow your dad, you mullet wearing asshole!" Richie yelled from behind me. I turned to see him give Bowers two middle fingers before hurrying after us. I shook my head and laughed, relieved we had come out of the encounter relatively unscathed.

"Thanks guys, but you shouldn't have done that." Mike said, sweat dripping off the back of his neck. "He'll be after you too now."

"Oh, Bowers? He's always after us." Eddie replied from in front of him, even more drenched than when he had come out of Beverly's house. He had gone crazy during the rock war, throwing rocks without caring where they went and even going as far as splashing in the Barrens' water which he used to so carefully avoid.

"I guess that's the one th-th-thing we all have in common." Bill said.

"Yeah Homeschool, welcome to the Losers Club!" Richie called from behind me.

As he spoke, I felt the earth shift. And I knew, as clear as if someone had whispered it in my ear, that we were complete. These were my friends, and with the eight of us together at last, we were ready to take on what we were brought together to do.

Whatever that may be.