Rhiannon // Max Mayfield

11: Corruption

Everyone was eventually in Hoppers cabin, Alex had got out of the woods, pushing the voice in her head down and trying to ignore the feeling in her head, like someone else was in her mind, slowly creeping in.

The others were trying to to find Billy in the void, hoping it would lead them to the source. Alex wasn't paying enough attention to the conversation, trying to focus on the fact that she may have just been flayed.

El had locked herself in her bedroom to do it, then she would have no distractions. Everyone else was lounging around, Alex was sat on a chair alone, eyes closed as she tried to sleep. Her ankle was in imaginable pain, the monsters tendril had cut in deep, sure Mike had bandaged it but the blood was still pouring out. Max couldn't help but watch her, she thought they had made a breakthrough in the hospital but now it was back to Alex pretending she never existed.

"It can't be good for her to be in there this long," Mike stressed, pacing the small area, he was overprotective of El, everyone knows it but this was getting ridiculous.

"How long has it been?" Alex asked, turning away from the chair to face him, still curled in on herself - not ready to face the fact the sleeping away her problems would solve nothing.

"Half an hour," He responds to Alex, making the blonde girl understand his concern, turning to face him directly.

"Mike, you need to relax,"  Max told him, rolling his eyes as she sat on the floor with her knees pulled into her chest.

"What if she gets brain damage or something?" Mike said, still pacing as he looked to El's bedroom door in distress. Sure it's cute how much he cares about her but right now it was stressing everyone out.

"Oh, shit," Lucas says, now worried for the girl, "Is that, like, a real thing?"

Max sighed loudly, "No, it's not," Max tells him as Alex huffs and leans back into the chair, "Mike made it up. He doesn't know what he's talking about."

"Oh, and you do?"  Mike asks, turning to the girl exasperated.

"Mike, stop being a dick," Alex called from her chair, it's not like either of them were in control of El's powers anyway.

"I'm not! I'm just saying Max doesn't know everything."

"No, i trust El to know her limit," she said back to mike, "At least i can admit it unlike you," she said snidely under her breath.

"What's that supposed to mean?!" Mike said back offended, Alex groaned and closed her eyes again, her chest and ankle were burning and pulsing, like they were connected.

"Can you guys settle an argument for us?" Max asks Will, Johnathan, Nancy and Lucas who were in a separate group from the rest of them. She gestured to herself and Mike angrily, "Who do you think should decide El's limits, Mike or Eleven?"

"The way you frame that is such bullshit," Mike snaps at her, angry that they were even having this argument to begin with.

"It's not bullshit Mike," Max shouts back, equally as annoyed with Mike, "This is your whole problem, as it's also precisely the reason she dumped you ass,"

"Yeah, because she is conspiring against me," Mike retorts, pointing at Max accusingly, "She's corrupting her!"

Alex toned out, walking to the small bathroom while the others argued. Her chest was pulsing and it felt like the moster was inside of her still, like it was latching itself onto her insides. She looked into the mirror shaking slightly. She would never show it in front of her friends but she was slowly breaking and she has no idea how to fix it.