"Woods." El spoke, behind the blind fold in Mikes basement.

"Woods?" Lucas questioned.

"He's with...Wills mom." El confirmed slowly.

Will gave an odd look. "My- my mom?"

"What are they doing?" Max asked her with an odd look.

"Ill....annoy." El spoke, earning odd looks.

"Ill and annoyed?" Peter asked honestly. "They go pretty good together."

"They're going to ill annoy." El said after he did.

"Mike! Breakfast!" Karen yelled from the other side of the door, hitting it.

"Not now, Mom!" Mike yelled over his shoulder before facing El again. "Illinois? Like the state?"

El pulled the blind fold off with a innocent shrug. "Ill-annoy."

El touched her bruised neck in the mirror while Max whipped her bloodied nose, Peter following them to lean on the wall. He gave a cringed look. "It hurts still, yeah?"

"Only when I talk." she met his eye with a single nod.

"Well, it's a good thing you're not Mike, then." Max added in as the pair looked over at her. "Blah, blah, blah, blah. And you'd be in constant pain."

The trio laughed together as Max put the rag in the trash. El reached her finger out and poked the scar from Peters eye to the corner of his mouth. "Hurts?"

Peter shook his head. "It's just a scar."

"What happened?" El asked him in a low tone to protect her voice.

Max senses the sudden look of discomfort across Peters face. "It's not really any-"

"I tried to sneak out of my window one night. It was last christmas so there was snow and ice. I slipped and cut my face on the side of the gutters." Peter said with an exhale, his face heated up slightly. "Not so cool after all."

"We never thought you were cool." Max joked as Peter cracked a grin.

"It hurt?" El asked, she cringed at the thought.

"Oh, yeah. Then I had to go to the hospital because I fell off the side of the house after that. Had a concussion and stitches all in one night." Peter gave a shiver at his most painful memory. "Very eventful christmas dinner with the extended family."

"Did you tell them you fell on gutters?" Max rose her eyebrows.

"God, no." Peter shook his head with a smirk. "Everyone outside of my brother and parents thinks I got in a fight with a bear."

El then laughed. "A bear?"

"What? You don't think it's possible?" Peter faked a hurt look her way, a hand on his heart. "El, that really bruised my ego."

"What are they still doing in there?" Mike asked in disbelief from the other side, the trio sharing an odd look. "I don't like that guy."

"I don't know. Girls just, like, hang out in bathrooms." Lucas said with his mouthful of cereal.

"Peter isn't a girl." Mike pointed out, basically being able to see the eye roll. "I can't stand that guy."

"He saved El's life." Will added in. "I think he's cool."

"Cool? He isn't cool." Mike argued with him. "They're conspiring against me."

"That's what you're concerned about?" Will asked in disbelief. Peter held back a laugh at his tone.

"It's not my main concern." Mike defended himself quickly. "It's just a sub-concern."

"I thought it was already over." Will pointed out again.

"It's not over, okay? We're just taking a break." Mike added in quickly, and desperately at that.

"She said she dumped your ass. That doesn't sound like a break." Will pointed out once again in the same comical tone, that had Peter holding back a string of giggles.

"It wasn't!" Max yelled from the other side of the door. "You guys do realize we can still hear everything you're saying, right?"

"It was the same thing, the exact same thing that happened to Will last year:" Nancy Wheeler, after Peter introduced himself, spoke to the party, plus Peter, just a few moments later. "And look at this. Look at the body temperatures."

Will leaned over the sheet she laid out before looking up. "He likes it cold."

"Okay, so this crazy old lady who was eating fertilizer-" Mike began.

Peter wacked him in the leg. "Mrs Driscoll."

"Right, yeah, Mrs Driscoll. What time was this attack?" Mike looked toward his sister and Wills brother.

"Last night." Nancy repeated herself.

"Right, but what time last night?" Mike asked her with a curious look.

"Around nine." Nancy nodded her head.

"You waited all night to call?" Jonathan asked in disbelief. Peter looked back and forth between the couple.

"I was waiting for the doctors to run some test." Nancy side glanced his way.

"You weren't there?" Will asked his brother in disbelief.

"Well, i'm here now, aren't I?" Jonathan rose his hands with a shrug.

"Hallelujah!" Nancy scoffed. Peter let out a laugh, hiding it with a cough and a fist over his mouth. El wacked him in the back to help the cough.

"Um, so, what time was your sauna test?" Nancy recalled the explanation Mike gave when she arrived.

"Around nine." they all said on sync.

"Well, that proves it. That proves my theory." Nancy's face lit up slightly as she looked at each of them.

"She's flayed, just like Billy." Mike nodded his head in agreement.

"Flayed?" Jonathan gave a questionable look.

"The Mind Flayer. He flays people." Mike explained quickly. "Takes over their mind. Once they do that, they basically become him."

"If there are two flayed-"Lucas began.

"We have to assume there are more." Will cut him off from the other side of El.

"Heather." El spoke up, looking at Max and Peter. "Billy was doing something to her. She was scared. She was screaming. Bad screams."

"What's a good scream?" Lucas gave an odd look.

"Max said-" El began before Peter started to clear his throat loudly and abrupt.

"Doesn't matter." Max added.

"I'm sorry, i'm lost. Who's Heather?" Nancy spoke up with a questionable look.

"The pretty life guard." Peter nodded his head. "She works with Billy."

"Heather Holloway?" Nancy's eyebrows went up. Her and Jonathan shared a look. "Tom."

"Not a fan of this wallpaper." Peter said honestly as he looked at the walls, walking through the house with the party and Nancy and Jonathan.

"Peter." El spoke to shut him up.

"Or the lamp shades." he still went on,
looking at them with frowned eyebrows. "God, these people have no clue what an interior designer is."

"Tom?" Nancy called down the hallway. "Heather?"

"Jesus, it's freezing." Max commented. Looking back, El grabbed Peter wrist to drag him away from looking at the terrible wood work on the walls.

"Do you guys smell that?" Nancy asked as they all paused in the living room, taking a sniff of the air. Walking into the kitchen, they all held their noses at the strong smell. "God, more chemicals."

"You think they're guzzling this shit?" Jonathan asked her as he picked up one of the bottles.

Peter knocked it out of his hand, getting a look of disbelief. "Flayed juice can be on that."

"Oh my god, that's not how it works." Mike squeezed the bridge of his nose in disbelief.

"Either that or they just went on a hell of a cleaning spree." Nancy looked at the empty bottles across the counter.

"But last year, Will didn't eat chemicals." Max pointed out from the other side of the Byers boy. "Did you?"

"No. This is something new." Will confirmed.

"Mr.Clarke, fifth grade. Posit." Mike spoke up, getting Peters attention. The Wheeler boy sighed but looked his way. "Your uncle, he always talked about chemicals."

"Like what happens when you mix them together." Peter nodded his head as he looked down at the empty bottles. "You get a new substance."

"What if they're making something?" Mike asked out loud.

"In themselves?" Max questioned. "I mean, come on, if you drink this crap, it'll kill you."

"Yeah, if you're human." Lucas shrugged. Nancy began to walk toward the dining room, the rest of them following after the girl in purple.

She leaned down to the stain on the ground. "Blood. Yesterday Tom had a bandage on his forehead."

She grabbed the wine bottle, looking at the blood smeared across the side. "He was attacked."

Nancy followed the bunched up carpet, opening the door closest to it. Peter put an arm across El as the door squeaked open.

"They must have tied them." Jonathan looked at the loose cords across the floor. "They must have taken them somewhere."

"Mrs Driscoll." Nancy spoke up once more, getting their attention. "She kept saying 'I have to go back.' What if the flaying, it's taking place somewhere else? There must be a place all this started, right? A source."

"Somewhere he didn't want me to see." El went along with her words.

"If we can find the source, then maybe we can stop him." Nancy nodded her head. "Or at least stop it from spreading or do whatever the hell he's doing with these chemicals."

"How could we find it?" Peter frowned his eyebrows from next to El.

"Mrs Driscoll." Will spoke up from behind the pair. "If she wants to go back so badly, why don't we let her?"

•

kylie speaks

love my little interiors
designer sm.