LIVE.LOVE.DIE...REPEAT.

El

Catching my breath I walk into the driveway of the Wheeler home. Man I didn't realize how out of shape I was until now, I guess it makes sense since I haven't gone biking or anything like that in a while. I haven't had a need to ever since I got my car.

I knock on the front door waiting for Mike to answer. Maybe his plan actually worked and he's at school right now. He doesn't answer for a while so I decide to turn around and start to head home. Though before I can leave the door step I hear the door swing open behind me.

"Psst, Charlie come on get inside." Mike calls out to me just above a whisper.

From behind him I see the mystery girl slowly peeking over his shoulder. Crap.
***
"So, I'm guessing your plan didn't go as, well, planned?" I ask the Wheeler boy now grabbing one of his toy dinosaur figures and plopping myself down on his bed.

"Not exactly. But I did find some things out."

"Like what?"

"I found out that her name is actually Eleven, El for short." Mike says quickly while directing his attention towards the mystery girl sitting next to me, I'm glad that at least now we know her name, but I could tell Mike had something else he was eager to say.

"Eleven?" I turn to the girl sitting next to me and she looks offended, I didn't mean to come off as rude but I guess looking back I did seem that way. I was just purely curios.

"That's a really cool name El. It's pretty" giving her a genuine smile I hope that she understands that my intentions were not to make fun of her name.

For the first time since I met her last night, I see her smile, a real smile.

"Pretty?" she seems surprised that someone would say such kind things about her

"Yeah, pretty." I nod at her, confirming what I had said before.

Mike cuts in, still carrying the same urgent energy as before

"That's not all I found out. She knows about Will."

"What? How?" the mention of Wills name catches my attention and I'm all ears.

Mike goes to answer but a knock is heard from down stairs, we all tense, not sure whether it's one of Mike's parents or the boys. Mike is quick to act as he tells El and I to wait in his room when he goes to see who's at the door.

I hear some mumbles from down stairs followed by the sound of footsteps coming up the steps. We have to move quick, "El come on we gotta hide."

We're almost in the closet when Mike's bedroom door opens. Turning around I'm relieved to see that it's only Mike, Dustin, and Lucas.

"Hey guy", they walk into the room and close the door behind them.

"Hey Charlie, what-" Lucas starts to say before I go to sit back on Mike's bed, revealing El standing behind me.

Dustin has a look of shock on his face and Lucas's face contorts into disbelief before he continues

"Are you guys out of your mind?"

"Just listen to me." Mike replies

"You two are out of your mind!"

"She knows about Will." Mike finally states, and Lucas takes a momentary pause from his rant

"What do you mean she knows about Will?" Dustin speaks up. Finally someone else asks the question that I've been wondering since they got here.

Mike walks over to his night stand that held all of the boys science fair trophies and grabs a picture that was taken after their last years win, he shows it to the boys and turns around to show it to me.

"She pointed at him, at his picture. She knew he was missing. I could tell."

"Did she say exactly that she knew he was missing?" I know that El didn't seem like much of a talker, I found that out last night. But if there was a chance that she did say she knew he was missing and she knew where he was then it was worth a shot.

"No, not exactly. But she didn't have to I could tell."

"You could tell?" Lucas speaks up again, obviously not buying what Mike was telling us.

"Just think about it. Do you really think it was a coincidence that we found her on Mirkwood, the same place Will disappeared?"

"Wait but I thought we found her near Cornwallis? What's Mirkwood?"

"It's a made up name, it doesn't matter. What does matter though is that she told me that "bad people" are after her. I think maybe these bad people are the same ones that took Will. I think she know what happened to him." Mike answers, brushing off my question.

"Bad people?" What type of bad people, like the ones that scam old ladies or the ones that will kill somebody in a heartbeat? Again I find myself reaching for my necklace, man I really gotta stop doing that.

"If you think she knows what happened to him then why doesn't she tell us? Do you know where he is? Do you know where Will is?!" Lucas is getting clearly more irritated by the minute as he turns and walks over to El. Loudly asking her the last question as he strongly grips her shoulders.

"Hey! Hey, calm down Lucas, she's not going to help us if you keep on acting like that!" I yell at him. There's no reason that he should be that aggressive with her.

"Stop it, you're scaring her!" Mike yells and goes to pull Lucas away from her.

"She should be scared! If you know where he is, tell us!" Lucas responds again turning back to El

She has tears forming in her eyes and I quickly make my way around the boys to comfort her and I can hear Lucas still speaking behind me.

"This is nuts. We have to take her to your mom."

"No! Eleven said telling any adult would put us in danger." Just by the look on Mike's face I could tell that he was serious.

"What kind of danger?" Dustin asks,  with fear evident in his voice.

"Her name is Eleven?" Lucas questions unamused. Really Lucas, Mike just told you we were in danger and you think it's the right time to question her name?

"El, for short." Mike answers

"Mike, what kind of danger?" Dustin calls out trying to get Mike focused on the subject at hand.

"Danger danger." He answers with an urgent voice as he slowly raises his hand up to Dustin's head while making a gun sign. He goes to point the fake gun at Lucas's head, but Lucas smacks his hand away clearly not amused by Mike's claim. Despite Lucas's disbelief of what Mike was telling us, Dustin and I are left with looks of fear on our faces at the new and very present awareness of how in trouble we were.

"Oh shit this is bad. This is so very very bad"

"No! No! No! Charlie calm down, Mikes just being ridiculous. We're going back to plan A. We're telling his mom." Lucas is now yelling and he goes to walk out the door.

"Where are you going?! Did you not just hear him Lucas, we're in danger!" I call out to him as I get up to block them from leaving.

Lucas goes to open the door, it barley cracks open an inch before it's slammed shut. Maybe Lucas changed his mind about leaving? He goes to open the door again, the same thing as before happens once again and then again, this time the door locks itself.

Mouth agape we all turn around to face El standing behind us she has a small amount of blood coming out of her nose. "No." she states with a strong sense of seriousness and intimidation in her voice.

Shocked, scared, and slightly intrigued I'm unable to say anything, well there was one thing I could say

"Holy Shi-"