Risky Business ｡ Stranger Things

43 : Invasion of the Body Snatchers

The golden and feverish morning sunlight that filtered into the Wheeler's basement was not a relief. A maze of purple, blooming bruises marked Prue's knees but they were nothing compared to the bruise the shape of a handprint on Eleven's slender throat. It was a stark memento of the horror that had occurred last night at the community pool. It was safe to say that Prue had barely found any sleep and she didn't go home last night. The kids had convinced her to stay with them, for Billy knew where Prue lived, therefore the Mind Flayer knew where she lived. He had been there before, and Lucas had insisted that there was safety in numbers. She called home though to tell her mother that she was sleeping over at Ronnie's and then told Grey to lock all the doors and windows, just as a precaution.

Now, Prue was folded up on an old couch next to Lucas, listening to Mike Wheeler nag on about Hopper—who was stomping through the wood of Illinois with Joyce Byers and a Russian—as he paced the basement floor, burning a hole in the shaggy carpet. "I haven't been able to get Hopper off my back all summer, and now he's hiking with Will's mum to Illinois? And Dustin's MIA, too? I mean, this can't be a coincidence?"

"Dustin's probably with Steve," Prue pointed out, rubbing circles into her temples to soothe the headache pounding in her mind. She knew what the headache was about, for her heart also ached. She just kept seeing Billy struggle to rise from a pile of debris, black blood tainting his skin. He shouldn't have been able to stand, let alone do anything else. Surely he had broken bones from when El had forced him through a wall, but the monster was pushing him hard, pushing him to breaking point.

"What does it matter?" Lucas droned out, snacking on dried breakfast cereal. "The bottom line is, they're not here. It's up to us."

"Up to us to do what exactly?" Mike rebutted, air quoting his friend.

"Find Billy and stop him," Lucas stated: easy and simple. That idea sat like a stone in Prue's stomach.

"The Mind Flayer," Prue corrected but none of the teenage boys acknowledged the difference between Billy and the Mind Flayer that had invaded his body and mind. It made her blood simmer in her veins.

"Okay yeah, that's a really nice sentiment, but even if El could find him again, and that's a pretty big if, then what?" Mike asked outright as he continued to pace back and forth.

"We burn the shit out of him and make sure he doesn't escape this time," Lucas said around a mouthful of Coca Puffs. It was a plan that Prue could get behind. Using heat to burn the darkness and strangeness out of Will had worked last year, so ideally, it should work the same with Billy.

"Okay, then what?" Mike questioned.

"Then we win!" Lucas remarked, hand digging into the cereal box again.

"No, see that's the problem. We don't. 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." Mike was reeling like a spinning top, going around and around as words tumbled out of his mouth. Yet his words hit Prue like bullets.

"You mean kill the Mind Flayer, right? And what about the boy he's in?" Prue rose from the couch, moving to stand before Mike with crossed arms. "Have none of you—even just for a second—thought about Billy?" Her words were sharp and bubbling with ripe anger and hurt that was akin to guilt. "He didn't know about the Upside Down before. He didn't know about any of this a few days ago. Which means he probably doesn't have a clue about what's happening to him or why this is happening to him." Her voice was rumbling like thunder in the distance as her eyes flashed to Lucas then Will then back to Mike. "He fought that monster last night... he broke through to us because he hoped that we could help him. The only people that could understand what was happening to him, but we attacked him. Instead of helping him, El threw him through a fucking wall!" Her voice was cracking as one of her hands flew outwards, mimicking El's powerful movements from last night.