HEART FLAYER | b. hargrove

CHAPTER 029.

July 1st, 1985

The sound of the bedroom door swinging open caused Arwen to jolt awake and she squinted to see who interrupted the sleep that she'd only just slipped into a few hours ago. Sunlight peaked through her window and she internally groaned. It was already morning. She sat up when she realized El and Max had entered, looking serious and troubled.

"Something is wrong." El said.

"Huh?" Arwen sat up in bed now, her heart rate picking up as she tried to wake up fully. "What do you mean?"

The two younger girls went on to explain how they used El's powers to spy on Billy last night. He'd been acting very strangely and there was a girl with him who appeared frightened.

Arwen immediately proposed that they go over to Billy and Max's house. She threw on some clothes and they all clambered into her car. They arrived and thankfully no one was home. She really didn't want to have to deal with Neil and his shit right now. But Billy wasn't here either and that was slightly concerning.

They decided to investigate and went into Billy's bedroom. 

"Why do I get the feeling we're gonna find all kinds of wrong in here?" Max said quietly as they entered the room and glanced around. 

"Uh, yeah... maybe just... let me go through his room and you guys look around elsewhere." Arwen instructed a bit awkwardly, not wanting these girls to be exposed to whatever inappropriate shit was in his room. 

Max and El went off to do their own looking while Arwen started to dig around. She opened the drawer in his nightstand to find Playboy magazines, which she rolled her eyes at before shutting it. His cigarettes were left atop of the stand which she thought was odd... he never went anywhere without them. But other than that, his room looked pretty much like it always did. 

"Arwen!" Max's voice called to her from another room.

The elder girl followed the sound of her voice, finding the girls in the bathroom. The bathtub was filled with water, an empty ice bag floating on top. But the odd thing was the slightly bloodied lifeguard fanny pack and whistle they'd found in the trash. They didn't belong to Billy. His whistle had an 'A' carved into it and he always left his fanny pack in his car.

"El..." Arwen said slowly, looking at her sister. "Describe the girl you saw when you spied on Billy."

"Pretty." El explained. "A lifeguard. With curly brown hair and brown eyes."

"Heather." Arwen realized out loud, her eyes glazing over and her brows furrowing as she thought about it. 

Was Billy... cheating on her? Is that why he was acting so weird? But what about the blood? No, it just didn't add up.

"Can you find her again?" She asked, finally coming back to reality and gazing at her younger sister.

Eleven nodded, so they turned on the shower for some white noise and Arwen ripped off a strip of cloth from one of Billy's shirts (it's not like he wore them much anyway. At least not usually) for her to use as a blindfold. Once El was in the Void, with a bit of blood beginning to form at her nostril, they asked her what she saw.

"A door. A red door." El answers wistfully. 

Arwen and Max shared a quick look before turning their attention back to El. She sat there completely still as she delved further into the Void, searching. Over a few minutes, her breathing begins to pick up before she suddenly gasped and ripped the blindfold off. She reached up to hold her head in her hands as she appeared terrified.

"El?!" Arwen panicked, her eyes wide as she moved to bring her sister into her arms. "El, what's wrong?" 

The sisters held onto each other for a long moment as the younger one tried to calm down. Eventually, her breathing became even once more and she pulled back, looking Arwen in the eyes with a deathly serious expression.

"We have to find Heather. Now." 


-

The three girls drove around town until they spotted the red door that El saw in the Void; the Holloway residence. It was a nice home on the richer side of Hawkins. Arwen felt anxiety gnawing at her as they stepped out into the pouring rain and approached the house. 

Eleven opens the lock on the front door with her powers and they enter. Arwen's lighter is held tight in her shaky hand. Who knows what the hell they'll find in here.

The house is just as nice and well-kept on the inside as it looked from the outside. Family photos including Heather were all over the walls. Voices and laughter were heard from the other room and the girls gave each other a quick glance before following the sound.

When they round the corner, there's Billy. Sat at the kitchen table with two older adults, presumably Heather's parents.

He looked so... normal. Absolutely nothing like how he appeared yesterday. He was cleaned up and wearing a short-sleeved dress shirt, his hair groomed and nice like usual. What the f-

"Max!" Billy's expression lit up at the sight of his step-sister. His smile was so big that it was almost unnerving. It looked unnatural on his features. His intense blue eyes landed on the other two, the grin faltering just slightly and a strange emotion flickered in his gaze. "And El and Arwen."

"Sorry to barge in," Max said politely, though she looked as confused as Arwen felt. "We tried to knock."

"I'm sorry, but who is this dripping all over my living room right now?" The man at the table asked. Billy began to laugh loudly and started to introduce them to the Holloways, standing up to walk over to the young intruders in this expensive home.

"I'm sorry! Janet, Tom... this is my sister Maxine. And her friend El... and her sister Arwen." He then turns to the girls, that false smile still on his lips as his brows pulled together. "What on Earth are you doing here? Is something wrong?" 

His tone is so off. It's so fake. So forced and polite. Arwen has never once heard him sound like that before. 

"We just wanted to make sure everything was okay..." Max explained, looking puzzled as she peered up at her brother. 

"Okay?" Billy repeated, his head tilted to the side slightly with a concern that also seemed very fake. "Why wouldn't it be okay?"

"Where is she?" Arwen blurted out, her brown eyes narrowing slightly as he met her gaze.

"I'm sorry..." His overly friendly tone drops and so does his smile. "Where is who?" 

It was then that Heather entered the dining room from the kitchen with a tray of cookies in her hands. She'd started to explain that the cookies were a little burnt when she noticed the three girls and stopped talking. 

Arwen felt a glare take over her features as she looked the girl over, trying to detect any sign of distress or injury on her. But Heather looked completely and utterly fine. Her eyes then moved down to observe the way that Billy was standing; his hands were clasped in front of him in a polite, reserved way. 

This was wrong. This was very wrong.

And yet... familiar? 

Paired with that subtly unhinged look in his eyes even when he was coming off as 'nice.' Even when that boy was so filled with rage he looked like he might kill someone in the past, he'd never looked... like that. 

Billy continued to introduce them to Heather, but all Arwen could hear was the ringing in her ears. She snapped out of her daze at the sound of his voice being directed at her.

"Now what was it you were saying, Arwen?" Billy turned to her and his way of speaking suddenly came off as vaguely intimidating. "You were... looking for somebody?"

Max began to explain that they were worried when Heather's manager had said she hadn't come into work today and Billy waved it off as the girl simply not feeling well. 

"We decided to take the day off to nurse her back to health, but she's feeling just fine now." Billy informed as he turned to look at Heather with a big smile. "Aren't you, Heather?"

"I'm feeling so much better." Heather confirmed with a sweet grin and lifted up the tray of cookies. "Do you girls want a cookie? They're fresh out of the oven!"

Arwen scowled at her before turning back to Billy, taking a step towards him so that she was now extremely close to him. Her face was mere inches from his as her eyes searched his for a moment. He looked healthy and unharmed... he looked like Billy. But the way he was acting... was not Billy. At all. She maintained this steady eye contact with him for a moment as if she could somehow peer into his soul and figure out what the hell was going on. 

There was a flash of something in his eyes. Some emotion that she couldn't quite place.

"I've been meaning to speak with you, Arwen." Billy said suddenly with a very pronounced frown, his voice dropping to a much quieter volume. "I don't think we should continue to see each other. I'm sorry. We're just not right for each other with you and your... special talents. I'd only be holding you back." 

Arwen blinked at him, completely caught off-guard by his words. She took a step back, her eyes narrowed once more. Aside from the fact that he'd just broken up with her out of nowhere, there was something else extremely strange about all of this. Her name. He kept calling her Arwen. Billy never called her that. It was always either Ari or Firecracker. Never Arwen. None of this was right.

But she said nothing. She stormed out of the house and back outside into the rain. She could faintly hear El and Max following behind her, but all she could focus on right now was the confusion and the rage consuming her mind. 

With a wave of her hand, she ripped the small tree out of the earth using her powers in front of the Holloway house and threw it a few yards away. She raked her fingers through her hair with tears pricking her eyes that she tried to fight off. Everything was fucked up. It was all wrong. 

That was not him... that was not Billy Hargrove in that house. 

It was not her Billy.

"Arwen..." El said softly and placed a hand on her sister's arm.

Arwen took a deep shaky breath and forced herself to calm down before turning to El.

"That is not Billy." she said quietly. "And he is in danger."