Chapter Twenty-Six: This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

Annie groaned as the voice wouldn't shut up. "Go away," she mumbled in her sleep, pulling the blanket over her head to drown it out.

She wasn't the only one to wake up. El and Max had woken up to the voice as well. Max finally had enough and picked the discard walkie off the floor- where the voice had apparently been coming from.

"Shut up." There was a couple clicking like noises before the walkie was dropped back to the floor. Annie finally felt peace and she snuggled back into the blankets, hearing Max and El lay back down, too.

It was short lived, however. The phone in Max's room started to ring causing Annie to groan in protest and put a pillow over her head. Max sat up and sighed at the ringing phone.

She got out of bed with a, "You've got to be kidding me." El just stayed, only turning her head to watch Max answer the phone.

"We're sleeping. Go away."

She was about to slam the phone down until Mike started talking, saying something bad had happened. They needed to get over to his house fast so they could talk about it.

El sat up, hearing that it was Mike on the other end. "What did he say?" she asked. At this point, Annie was sitting up, too, having given up on going back to sleep.

There was a moment of hesitation, then she turned and faced the two other girls. "He said it was bad, that we have to get to his house as soon as possible. It definitely sounded bad," she explained.

El sat up all the way, nodding and starting to get out of bed. "Then we should go," she said. Max nodded, and Annie reluctantly got off of the floor. Like last night, El took the bathroom first and was getting dressed in another one of her new outfits.

"Hey, do you mind if I borrow something to wear? I don't wanna wear the same outfit two days in a row," Annie asked, picking up her hairbrush and getting started on that.

Max shook her head. "Not at all. I'll find something just for you, Barbie," she said, and both girls laughed.

"I'd be shocked if you had anything like that in your closet," Annie joked back.

The redhead smiled and looked around her clothes for two outfits. Max pulled out a denim skirt with buttons all the way down and a brightly striped t-shirt.

"Hey, does this work?" Max asked, turning around and showing off the two pieces to Annie.

Annie nodded, catching the clothes as they were tossed to her. The white converse she'd been wearing the past few days would work well. When Max turned back to the closet, Annie went ahead and got dressed. She tied her hair up in a pink scrunchie, coordinating with the others.

When they were all done, Annie shoved most of their stuff into their bags and they were off. She figured she and El would pick up their stuff from Max's later, after dealing with the code red.

The girls hopped onto their bikes, El riding with Max this time, and made their way to Mike's house. Annie led the group, knowing the path better out of the three of them.

When they got there, Mike ushered them into his basement where Lucas and Will were waiting.

"What's going on?" Annie asked, sitting on the ground. El sat in the chair next to her and Max sat on the ground to the other side of Annie. "Where's Dustin?" She noticed the boy was missing.

Mike sat back down on the couch, in between Will and Lucas. "We don't know. He hasn't answered our code red," Mike answered.

Annie thought it was weird, but shook her head and moved on to why they were there. Will took in a deep breath and looked around at everyone before settling his gaze on the table in the middle of the group.

"Something's very wrong and it has to do with the Upside Down," he started.

Annie felt frozen. Not this again, anything but this again. She had hoped this was just a way to bamboozle the other two girls into forgiving their respective ex-boyfriends. Not a warning of the return of the monsters.

A hand grabbed onto Annie's. At this point, she didn't even need to look to know it was Max. The brunette squeezed her hand once, a thank you for the comfort. The redhead squeezed back.

She cleared her throat. "How do you know?" Annie asked, curious how he can just suddenly know something's wrong.

"I didn't think it was anything at first. I mean, I think I just didn't want to believe it. The first time I felt it was at Day of the Dead."

"Power went out that night, too," Mike said. Annie remembered that happening a lot in November whenever the Demo-dogs were near, or when El used her powers to close the gate.

Will nodded. "And then I felt it again at the field near the Nelson farm the next day."

"When we were with Dustin," Annie mumbled.

"Then again yesterday, outside Castle Byers." When he told the other boys.

Max sat up. "What does it feel like?" she asked. Her thumb absentmindedly traced circles on the back of Annie's hand.

"It's almost like..." Will started, struggling to find the words at first. "You know when you drop on a roller coaster?" he asked.

"Sure."

"Yeah."

"Mhm."

"No."

If it were under different circumstances, Annie would've laughed at El's delivery. Her deadpanned responses always made the brunette chuckle. But not today. Today was too serious.

Will tried again to explain. "It's like... everything inside your body is just sinking all at once, but... this is worse. Your body... it goes cold and- and you can't breathe." As Will described it, Annie felt chills race down her own back and arms.

"I've felt it before... whenever he was close," Will explained.

Max's eyebrows drew together. "Whenever who was close?" she asked.

But Annie knew. There was nothing else it could be. When Will answered, her eyes screwed shut. "The Mind Flayer."

A shaky breath came out of Annie as she remembered. She remembered how scared she had been, how her life can never be the same after going through all that. Flashes of the Demo-dogs in the junkyard came into her mind. When she was on the bus, falling off when one opened it's mouth and screeched at her. Chills continued to run down her back with every thought Annie had.

Max squeezed the girl's hand again, causing her to open her eyes. She had spaced out completely, missing bits of the conversation. Her eyes flicked around to the others before landing on Max last.

"You okay?" Red mouthed the words at Annie.

When Annie wanted to lie, she couldn't. It was obvious something was wrong. "I don't know," she mouthed back.

They turned back to Will and tried to get back with the conversation, only to see everyone standing. Max helped Annie off the ground as Will rushed away to grab something.

He came back and slapped a piece of paper on the table, then used a black crayon to drawn a huge blob. "This is him. All of him. But, that day on the field, a part of him attached itself to me." Will added on some legs to the Mind Flayer then brushed across the page to get the crayon on his hand.

He carried on, flipping the paper over. "My mom got it out of me, and Eleven closed the gate. But the part that was still in me, what if it's still in our world?" He ended the sentence by stamping his hand on the paper. "In Hawkins."

Max shook her head. "I don't understand. The Demo-dogs died when El closed the gate. If the brain dies, the body dies," she said.

Annie nodded her head, but Mike shook his. "We can't take any chances," he said. "We need to assume the worst. The Mind Flayer's back."

"And if he is, he'd want to attach himself to someone again. A new me."

"A new host," Lucas concluded.

Annie's head turned to Max. "How can you tell if someone's a host?" Annie asked, making eye contact with Max the whole time.

The redhead knew exactly what she was referencing. "You really don't think..." she mumbled.

But Annie really did. Everything lined up with what El was seeing, and they saw how Will acted last time.

"I do," Annie whispered. She felt hurt at the way Max's shoulders dropped, but could tell Max didn't disagree.

"I'm sorry, do you mind catching us all up here?" Mike asked. Right, there were others. The boys didn't know about the escapades of the day before.

Annie knew Max wouldn't be able to tell this, so she went for it. "We think it's Billy," she started, moving her gaze to look around the group. "El saw some stuff and when we saw him last night he was... off. Had this creepy lack of consciousness behind his eyes. Like he wasn't really there."

"We thought he hurt Heather. I found her bloody whistle. And a tub full of melted ice," El said.

"He does like it cold," Will agreed, tracking their thought process. "But attacking Heather?"

Annie shook her head. "But see, that's the thing. Heather was fine except for the same lack of life behind her eyes. Something's happening."

The entire time, Max was dead silent. She didn't want to believe what she was hearing, no matter how much sense it seemed to make. They may not have a normal sibling relationship, because they weren't normal siblings, but Max had some care for Billy.

"Max, are you okay?" Annie asked quietly, letting the others hash out the plan.

Max looked over at Annie and shook her head. "I really don't want it to be him," she replied.

"I know. I don't either. We think we're gonna go to the pool and see if he's acting strange, come up with more of a plan there. Do you want to come or do you want to do something else? I mean, we could go to the mall."

Max was shaking her head. "No, if something's wrong with Billy I want to be there. I need to see it for myself," she said. Annie nodded, grabbing hold of Max's hand for some quick comfort.

"All right, let's get to the pool," Lucas announced. They all hurried up and out, shouting a very quick goodbye to Mrs. Wheeler, then got on their bikes. El decided to go with Max again, and Annie wondered if it was to make sure she was okay.

Thinking about it, Annie would go ballistic if Steve was the accused host. She felt awful for Max because she didn't have to imagine how it feels. If Billy was the host, Annie was at least confident they could get the Mind Flayer out of him. Like what happened with Will.

A/n: here we go!