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sleepovers and spies
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. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧
The day had faded into night, but Max, El, and Alina were still together, in the bowels of the woods where Hopper's cabin lay. As the trio had picked their way through the brush hours earlier, Max had noticed the telltale signs of Alina's lessons—the targets still hanging by the trees, of the blackened trunks, the demolished rocks and figurines Alina had blasted through—and found herself begrudgingly impressed. Alina didn't really have much cause to use her powers these days, other than annoying her friends, so Max didn't really see the full extent of them. But the truth was, Alina was definitely a force to be reckoned with.
Right now, though, she was just a girl, dancing around the room with a hairbrush as a microphone, singing along to the music pumping out of the stereo on El's dresser. Max was doing the same thing, while El sat on her bed, flipping through magazines. Thunder rumbled in the distance, a warning of a storm approaching, and it felt surprisingly comfortable in El's room. And Alina was still smiling.
One fact about Alina Fairgrieves-Byers: she did not sing. After being forced through three years of singing lessons as a child, she'd locked up her vocal cords, determined not to even sing happy birthday. For the longest time, every time she even started humming a tune from a commercial or the radio, she'd immediately stop herself, eyes wild, looking around to make sure nobody had heard her. But she was different now, and, for possibly the first time, Alina was actually singing.
El looked up from her magazine-flipping at the sound of Alina's high, clear voice, rich with emotion, and Max stopped dancing for a moment, stunned. "I didn't know you were so good at singing," she said, raking a lock of red hair out of her eyes. Alina stopped, too, her face flushed, her heart automatically twinging with guilt and embarrassment before realizing Linda wasn't here. Then she shrugged.
"I didn't know either. I guess those three years of lessons paid off."
Max let out a giggle, and the two high-fived, singing in unison to the next song that came on. "You must be an angel... I can see it in your eyes... full of wonder and surprise." Laughing, they stopped at El's bed, where the girl was eyeing an incredibly attractive boy in the magazine.
