Tʜᴇ Fʟᴀʀᴇ ꕥ Lɪᴢᴢɪᴇ Jᴏʜɴsᴏɴ

sᴇʀɪᴇs ᴛʜʀᴇᴇ ꕥ 9

El had seen Billy, sitting in his room in Max's house, doing nothing but staring into the distance. She had now gone to get a drink whilst the others discussed.

"And that's not normal, right?" Nancy asked.

"Billy staying in his room on the fourth of July? No, that's not normal," Max said definitively. Lizzie shrugged; in all the craziness, she had forgotten that today was even the fourth of July.

"He wants us to find him," Will realised.

"Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of," Nancy said. "If we go to Billy, then the rest of the flayed know where we are."

"It's a trap, I agree, we'll be ambushed," Mike nodded.

"We won't be surprised," Lucas shrugged, saying they should go for it. "We'll know that they're coming, and we'll kick their flayed butts."

"You mean El will kick their butts," Max corrected.

"No, we're not doing that, it's too risky," Lizzie said, imploring them to agree.

"Yeah, and unnecessary," Nancy said. "Killing the flayed won't stop the Mind Flayer."

"We have to find out where it's spreading from," Lizzie nodded. "We have to find the source."

"Billy knows it," El came back into the room. "Billy's been there. To the source."

Mike shook his head. "Yeah, but-"

"It's a trap, I know," El agreed. "We can't go to Billy, but... I think there's another way. A way for me to see where he's been."

Then she explained. She was going to go inside Billy's head. Last year, El had told them all about how she had found out she had a sister, and had travelled to find her, and her mum. Then she had gone into her mum's head to find out more.

She was going to do the same with Billy.

Lizzie sighed and turned on the TV, making it go to the static sound. She handed El her blindfold and sat beside her. She was in on this one, because she wanted to help El get through it.

She sighed as Mike knelt down beside his kind of girlfriend. "El, I know you think you have to do this, but you don't," he murmured. "It's just- you've only done this once before and- your mum- she loved you, and wanted you to know what happened. But Billy's different. The Mind Flayer is in him."

El turned to him. "He can't hurt me, not in there."

"We don't know that-"

"Mike," El leaned forward and took his hand. "I need you to trust me."

Seeing that made Lizzie yearn for Dustin.

Meanwhile, Mike gave Max a quick glance (she nodded firmly) then turned back to El. "Yeah, yeah, totally."

He sat back on his chair, and as everyone else sat down around El and Lizzie as well, El pulled the blindfold round her eyes and tightened it around her head.

A few seconds.

"I'm in."

Lizzie gave a shaky breath, turning to the group. "If things get bad... pull my hand off her shoulder. I'll hopefully be able to get her out."

They nodded as Lizzie slowly moved her hand from the floor to El's shoulder. Her head shot up.

And the living room disappeared.

"He's... there," El said as Lizzie's eyes focused.

In the blackness, there was only two things. Billy, and the bed he was sitting on.