Tʜᴇ Fʟᴀʀᴇ ꕥ Lɪᴢᴢɪᴇ Jᴏʜɴsᴏɴ

sᴇʀɪᴇs ᴛʜʀᴇᴇ ꕥ 7

"We need to find Hopper," Mike said urgently.

"Yeah, no shit," Lizzie said. "The question is, how?"

They where in Mike's basement, the day after the sauna test. El was still drained, and Max still a bit shaken, but everyone else was just trying to come up with a plan.

"I could do it," El said, for she had been listening to Lizzie and Mike.

"What? No!" Mike said. "You need to rest up-"

"No, I don't," El interrupted him, then she repeated. "I could do it."

So, that resulted in Mike having to find El a blindfold, and everyone crowding round her as Lizzie used her supercom to get the static sound. She had already decided not to go in on this one.

"I found him," El said, after about five minutes of being in the void.

"Where is he?" Max asked, frowning.

"Woods," El answered.

"Woods?" Will raised his eyebrows.

"He's with... Will's mum," El said, after a second.

"My- my mum?" Will sat forward.

"What are they doing?" Max got back to the point.

A few seconds. "Ill... annoy," El suddenly said, blood slipping out of her nose. "Ill-annoy, they're going to ill-annoy."

"Mike! Breakfast!" Karen was suddenly heard from upstairs.

"NOT NOW, MUM!" Mike roared up the basement stairs, before turning back to El. "Illinois? As in, like the state, Illinois? The state of Illinois?"

"Ill-annoy," El shrugged, confused.

Lizzie sighed. "Come on, let's get you cleaned up," she said, smiling, leading El over to the bathroom.

"This brings back some memories," Lizzie grinned, making El do the same. They were both thinking of the same moment. The moment that happened on the night when the Party had first discovered El. The first time she spoke to them.

"Hey... I'm sorry about my friends. They've just... always been very blunt."

"I... remember," El smiled, as Lizzie ran a cloth under the water. "You told me your friends were... blunt?"

Lizzie laughed, running a cloth under warm water and washing the blood off El's face. "Blunt, yeah, that's what I said."

But, of course, this moment was over because, the next second, Max barged in. "Are you guys nearly finished?" She asked them, as Lizzie put the cloth down and noticed El, who was looking at the mark on her neck where Billy had choked her.

"Does it still hurt?" Lizzie asked, as she and Max moved either side of El in the mirror.

"Only when I talk," El said, softly touching the mark.

"Good thing you're not Mike then," Max said, nudging Lizzie. "Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you'd be in constant pain!"

The three girls laughed then fell silent as they heard Mike from the basement.

"Something about this isn't right. I can't get Hopper off my back all summer then all of a sudden he's hiking with Will's mum to Illinois?! And Dustin's MIA too? I mean, this can't be a coincidence!"

"Who cares where they are? Point is, they aren't here," Lucas said plainly. "It's up to us!"

"Up to us to do what, exactly?" Mike sounded very worried.