The New Girl

chapter thirty six

chapter thirty six - july, 1985

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 "I found him."

Eleven was sitting blindfolded in the woods the next morning as they were all sitting in Mike's basement. They were all wearing the same clothes as yesterday, but Alex had a dark purple bruised line around her throat, a white bandage around her stomach and a plaster of her forehead. Ever since the incident with Billy, Alex has been silent.

"Where is he?" Max asked.

"Woods," Eleven said as the TV static was hissing.

"Woods?" Lucas asked.

"He's with. . . . Alex's brother and sister and. . . . Will's mom." Alex looked at El confused.

"J-Jesse and Izzy?" she asked, her voice weak and soft. 

"My mom?" Will asked, just as confused.

"What are they doing?" Max asked.

"Ill. . . . annoy," Eleven said slowly, not understand what it meant. "They're going to Ill-annoy." Before any of them could speak, there was knocking on the basement door.

"Mike!" Karen called, "breakfast!"

"Not now, Mom!" Mike yelled, making Alex smiled weakly at him. He turned back to the others and Alex looked away. "Illinois?" He asked as Eleven took off her blindfold. "Illinois, like the state? The state of Illinois?" 

Eleven looked confused as she stammered, "Ill-annoy."

Max and Alex went into the bathroom with Eleven while the boys stayed outside. Max was wiping the blood from Eleven's nose while Alex was changing her plaster on her forehead. Once she was done with that, she ran her fingers over the bruise on her neck.

"Does it. . . . hurt?" Eleven asked, looking at the bruise. Alex looked at her sister and shrugged.

"Only when I talk," the blonde said, her voice weak.

"Well, it's a good thing you're not Mike, then," Max said as the blonde looked at him, "blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." And you'd be in constant pain." The three girls chuckled as they carried on fixing themselves up as they listened to the boys.

"Something's not right," Mike was saying, "I can't get Jesse off my back all summer, now all of a sudden, he's hiking with Will's mom, his girlfriend and Hopper to Illinois? And Dustin's MIA, too? I mean, this can't be a coincidence."

"What does it matter?" Lucas asked as the three girls listened in, "the bottom line is, they're not here. It's up to us."

"Up to us to do what exactly?" Mike asked.

"Find Billy and stop him," Lucas said.

"Okay, yeah," Mike said, "that's a really nice sentiment, but even if Alex or El could find him again, and that's a pretty big if, then what?"

"We burn the shit out of him and make sure he doesn't escape this time," Lucas said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Okay, then what?" Mike asked.

"Then we win," Lucas replied with.

"No, see, that's the problem," Mike said, "we don't. We don't win. We got the Mind Flayer out of Will before and he just came right back. We don't just have to stop Billy, we have to stop the Mind Flayer."

"How in the hell do we do that?" Lucas asked.

"I don't know," Mike admitted.

"Maybe Al and El do," Will said as the three girls looked at each other.