Owe Me - Steve Harrington

chapter 08

"So, is your sister coming or what?" a girl Natalia doesn't know the name of asks, seeming annoyed.

Billy checks his watch and sighs, getting irritated, "she's not my sister."

There's a moment of tense silence before Talia speaks, "you know what, I'm gonna go find Max, make sure she's okay, why don't you just go Billy?"

Billy watched her for a moment to check she's sure and then nods and gets into the car with his girl for the day and drives off with one glance back at his twin as he sees her walk towards the middle school.

Natalia walks into the school and begins to walk round the halls in search for her sister, who was a lot later than usual, until she hears a familiar voice.

"Guys, what's going on? Come on," Max is sat on her skateboard on the ground banging on a wooden door that must be locked.

"What're you doing?" Natalia catches the redhead's attention.

"I-shit, I'm late," she realises. "Sorry, has he left?"

"Yeah," she sees the look of guilt on Max's face so she continues, "it's fine, he had a girl with him anyway so it wouldn't have been an enjoyable drive for either of us."

Max just nods.

"So, what did you say you were doing?" she asks, still confused.

"The guys are in there having some meeting about something and won't let me in," Max grumbles.

"I taught you how to picklock, didn't I?" Natalia smirks as she watches the redhead route around in her bag for something. She brings out a paper clip from one of her books and picks the lock on the door.

When she opens the door, a small and slimy lizard-type thing scuttles through the open doorway and slides around the floor and down the hallway as the boys rush out of the room after it, effectively knocking Max to the floor.

"What the fuck?" Talia mutters to herself.

"What was that?" Max asks them.

"Dart!" the boy that Max described as Mike yells. "You let him escape!"

The boy with a baseball hat over his curly hair, Dustin, points at Mike, "why did you attack him?"

"Who's this?" another boy, Lucas, points at the older girl.

All eyes turn to her as Max introduces her, "my sister, Talia."

The blonde merely gives them a small wave before Mike speaks up, "come on."

He begins to run off in the direction that 'Dart' ran in as Dustin yells after him, "don't hurt him!"

Mike goes East, Dustin goes West, Will goes South, and Lucas goes North whilst Max drags her sister off to look their own way.

The pair are in the empty boys changing room when Mike comes in, telling Max to go home.

She follows him, "Why do you hate me?"

"I don't hate you," he storms off. "How can I hate you? I don't know you."

"But you don't want me in your party," Max tells him.

Mike turns on his heels to face her and the two eighth graders stop to talk but Natalia keeps walking towards the door, speeding up her steps a little to give the two some privacy.

"Correct," Mike agrees.

"Why not?" Max pushes.

"Because...because you're annoying. Also, we don't need another party member," Mike tells her. "I'm our paladin, Will's our cleric, Dustin's our bard, Lucas is our ranger, and El is our mage."

"El? Who's El?" Max asks as Natalia reaches the door.

The blonde teenager lets the door close and walks down the hall to give them some privacy.

She sees a teacher leaving their classroom so spins around to walk back in the direction she had come. When she reaches the gym to see someone with brown curly hair stood by the door.

She twitches her head to the side and Natalia hears a bang followed by Max groaning in pain.

When the person turns round, they freeze in their spot for a moment upon seeing the older girl before moving again.

As they pass the blonde, the teenager says in a soft, worried voice, "you didn't see me."

Natalia looks at the hope and anxiety in the child's eyes and, after all the weird things she's seen in the last ten minutes, she shrugs and says, rather confused and dazed, "yeah, okay."

A small grateful smile makes its way onto the girl's face before she disappears into the hallway.

Mike comes bursting out the door just a moment later, looking round until his eyes land on Talia, "was there anyone else here? Did you see anyone?"

The older girl shakes her head, "I didn't see anything."

The boy sighs and Natalia can't help but wonder if she might've just met this El that Mike seems so hung up on.

Before anyone can say anything more, a voice, who she assumes is Will seeing as he's the only one Natalia hasn't heard talk, comes through Mike's walkie-talkie saying Dart's been found.

Whilst the trio leave to head towards the toilets, Natalia catches sight of someone's feet running around a corner.

Thinking it might be the girl she saw earlier, she splits off from the group and follows them.

Whilst the eighth graders run towards the toilets to find Dart, Talia follows the person who turns out to be Will.

"Will?" she calls after him, confused at the fast pace the boy was sprinting at, but she follows him nonetheless as he runs onto the field.

When she reaches him, he starts muttering 'go away' under his breath and she's about to listen until she sees his face. His eyes are closed but his pupils are fluttering behind his eyelids.

She grabs hold of his cold shoulders, "Will, are you okay?"

She turns around when she hears people running and she sees Mike.

"Get help!" she yells to the boy, who is frozen in place, but he snaps himself out of his momentary daze and quickly nods, running back towards the school.

The unresponsive boy's arms begin to tremble under her hands causing her to rub her hands up his arms slightly in an attempt to comfort him and warm him up, as he feels unnaturally cold.

She moves out of the way when an adult, assumably his mother, reaches the pair and places both hands on his arms like Natalia had previously done.

"Is he having another episode?" Lucas asks, only to be elbowed in the side by Mike.

"Will! Will, sweetie, wake up! It's mum!" the woman speaks to her son, but he shows no sign of hearing her. "Will, wake up! Can you hear me! Please, wake up! It's me!"

Suddenly, he gasps as his eyes shoot open, looking around frantically as if to check his surroundings.

The party, and the two girls, follow Mrs Byers and Will to the front of school as she takes him to her car.

"Okay, that totally freaked me out," Max says before turning to the boys, "did that not freak you guys out?"

"Two episodes in two days," Lucas comments.

"It's getting worse," Mike says.

"You think it's True Sight?" Lucas wonders.

"What's True Sight?" Max asks but Lucas tells her it's nothing.

"Cmon Max, let's get home," Natalia wraps an arm around the redhead's shoulder and leads her down the steps as the three boys stand still watching the Byers car drive away.