Daisies || Max Mayfield

38: Hopper

El and Mike were set up in the middle of the basement when I woke up. Will and Lucas were whispering in the corner, and Max sat at the table, scowling.

The radio was blasting static as El's nose dripped on a napkin below her. She was blindfolded, a colorful tie wrapped around her head.

"I found him." She said suddenly.

"Where is he?" Max asked.

"Woods. He's with, Will's mom."

"My mom?" Will muttered, glancing at Mike.

"What are they doing?" Max added.

"Ill-annoy." She said. "They're going to Ill-annoy."

A loud rapping came from the door, and his mom shouted down the stairs. "Mike! Breakfast!"

He whipped around quickly. "Not now mom!"

I jumped a little, still not having gotten used to his shouting.

He turned back to El, who was lifting the blindfold off her. "Illinois? Illinois, the state? The state of Illinois?"

She frowned, then repeated. "Ill-annoy."

"Okay, clearly she doesn't know." Max stood up. "Come on El, let's get you cleaned up."

Eleven nodded, following Max to the bathroom. They didn't acknowledge me on the couch.

"What was that?" I asked, pulling my blanket off.

Will jumped, scooching closer to Mike.

"Jesus-" Mike groaned. "She was finding Hopper."

"And he and Will's mom are  going to Illinois?" I found myself a seat in their circle. "Why?"

"We don't know," Lucas explained. "What we also don't know, was what you and Max were arguing about now?" He opened a coca puff box from the table, and began eating them one at a time.

"What?"

"Last night, you almost woke Will up because your bickering was so loud!" He said.

"What bickering?" Mike and Will asked.

"She and Max were talking about something last night after Will went to sleep," Lucas said. "And they were very loud."

"What are you fighting about now?" Mike asked.

"Nothing."

"See, this is why we shouldn't have had more people join!" Mike complained. "This doesn't help the group, with more shit between everyone. We need to find Hopper, which we can barely do, and we need to stop Billy. I mean, something is clearly wrong. I haven't gotten Hopper off my back all summer, and now he's hiking to Illinois with Will's mom. And Dustin's MIA too? I mean-"

"Way to change the subject." I pointed out.

He rolled his eyes at me. "Anyways, Billy is clearly the mind flayer! And what are we supposed to do?"

"It doesn't matter what we do now, we just need to stop Billy," Lucas said. 

"And if we do find him?" I asked.

"Then we burn the shit out of it and make sure it doesn't escape this time." Lucas took a handful of cocoa puffs from the box, holding it in his lap.

"And then what?" Mike shouted. "Then what do we do?"

"Then we win!"

"No! No, we don't win! We got the mind flayer out of Will before and he just came right back. We don't just have to stop Billy, we have to stop the mind flayer."