Thunder rumbled in the distance, the storm outside getting worse.

We were all in the basement, the girl sitting on the couch with me and boys standing in front of her. Everyone looked a little anxious, expectually the girl, who was breathing heavily and jumped every time the thunder went a little louder.

The girl was wearing a dirty yellow shirt that was way too big for her and a brown jacket that Mike had given her so she could stay warm.

"Is there a number we can call for your parents?" Mike asked fastly.

"Where's your hair?" Dustin questioned, eyes wide, "Do you have cancer?"

I jabbed the curly haired boy in the side and I heard him let out a small wheeze.

"Did you run away?" Lucas asked but in a calm voice unlike Mike and Dustin.

"Are you in some kind of trouble?" I say, trying to get to the bottom of this.

"Is that blood?" Lucas asked as he leaned forward to touch a red spot on her yellow shirt.

I slapped his hand away, "Stop it! All of you! You're freaking her out!"

"She's freaking me out," Lucas snapped back at me.

"I bet she's deaf," Dustin said right before he clapped his hands. The girl jumped at the noises, eyeing Dustin afterwards, "Not deaf."

"Idiot," I mumbled to myself.

"All right, that's enough,?" My brother said, taking charge, "She's just scared and cold."

I felt like that was my cue so I turned around and walked over to one of the laundry baskets that was full of clean clothes. I looked through all the clothes and decided with my blue sweater and a part of Mike's pants.

I walked over to the boys to see that they were just watching the girl with cautious looks on their faces.

"Here," I say as I gave the clothes to her, "These are clean."

The girl cautiously took the clothes from my hand. She looked at them for a second before she slowly rubbed them against her wet face.

She put the clothing down beside her then got to her feet, which slipped off the jacket. She grabbed the bottom of the yellow t-shirt and that when chaos broke loose.

"No, no, no!"

"Oh, my God! Oh, my God!" Dustin mumbled to himself.

Lucas and Dustin were standing with their backs turned, mumbling stuff to themselves. Mike, being the most mature, had stopped her from getting naked before I could. I just stood beside Mike, with nervousness written all over my face, what happened to his poor girl.

"See over there?" Mike stammered, pointing over to where the bathroom is, "That's the bathroom. Privacy. Get it?"

The girl looked from me to my brother, with hard cautiousness written on her face. But she still grabbed the clothes that I gave her and she handed, with Mike, over to the bathroom.

Mike and the girl only talked for a couple of minutes and when that was happening, Lucas and Dustin were still acting like they saw something that can't be unseen. But Mike came back over to us and explained that she could talk, then we started discussing a plan.

"This is mental," Dustin murmured.

"At least she can talk," Mike tells him, giving him a look.

"She said, 'no' and 'yes." Lucas said flatly, "Your three-year-old sister can say more."

"She tried to get naked."

"There's seriously something wrong with her," Lucas tells us, "Like wrong in the head."

"She just went..." Dustin said before mimicking what the girl did but he knocked his hat off in the process.

"Oh come on guys," I said bitterly as I rolled my eyes at the two boys.

"Listen Mandy," Lucas tells me.

"Don't call me that."

"Listen Amanda," Lucas said, popping the 'd' in my name, "I bet she escaped from Pennhurst."

"No way, you asshole!"

"From where?" My twin asked, annoyance in his voice.

"The nuthouse in Kerley Count."

Dustin grinned, "Got a lot of family that?"

I gave a small laugh at Dustin's comment which made Lucas roll his eyes, "Bite me. Seriously though, think about it. That would explain her shaved hair and why she's so crazy."

"She's not crazy," I hissed, mostly to myself.

"Why she went like..." Dustin said, mimicking again what the girl did only moments ago.

"Your point?"

Lucas sigh and continued, "She's an escapee is the point. She's probably a psycho."

"Like Micheal Myers?" Dustin asked, eyes widening again.

I rolled my eyes when Lucas said, "Exactly! We shouldn't have brought her here."

"So you just wanted to leave her out there in the storm?" I asked, giving the boy a long look.

"Yes!"

"Wow, that's so nice of you."

"You don't get it, Amanda, " Lucas snapped, "We went out there to find Will, not another problem."

"I think we should tell your mom," Dustin said, looking from me to my brother.

"I second that."

"Who's crazy now?" Mike said, looking just as annoyed as I felt.

Lucas gave him a look, "How is that crazy?"

"'Cause, we weren't supposed to go out tonight, remember?" Mike tells his two friends.

"So?"

"So if I tell your mom and she tells your mom and your mom..." Mike says before getting trailing off.

"Oh, man."

"Our houses become Alcatraz," Lucas mumbled.

"Exactly," My twin says, "We'll never find Will."

Dustin looked at Lucas and for the third time, mimicked what the girl did. Lucas just shook his head at his friend.

"All right, here's the plan," Mike says, looking somewhat confident, "She sleeps here tonight."

"You're letting a girl--" Dustin asked, but Mike interrupted.

"Just listen," Mike said before continuing, "In the morning, she sneaks around my house, goes to the front door and rings the doorbell. My mom will answer and know exactly what to do. She'll go back to Pennhurst or wherever she comes from. We'll be totally in the clear. And tomorrow night, we go back out. And this time, we find Will."

I nodded my head, somewhat proud that my younger brother by two and a half minutes was able to come up with a pretty good plan to save the girl and get her away from here.

After we came up with the plan, Lucas and Dustin grabbed their backpacks and started towards the stairs as Mike and I helped the girl get comfortable in one of the forts that the boys made.

"Here you go," Mike said sweetly, "This is my sleeping bag."

The girl grabbed it and put it beside her. She seemed to be a little more comfortable now, a lot less cautious and not jumping at everything.

"Hey, we didn't ask your name," I said, looking at the girl.

The girl rolled up her sleeve to show a small tattoo on her arm that read O11.

"Is that real?" Mike asked, leaning forward to touch it.

The girl quickly moved her arm away then she gave him a look.

"Sorry, I've just... never seen a kid with a tattoo before," Mike said, smiling at the girl.

"What does it mean?" I asked her, "Eleven?"

"Is that your name?" Mike asked.

The girl nodded.

"Eleven. Okay," Mike said, "Um, well, my name's Mike. Short for Michael. This is Amanda, my sister, we sometimes call her Mandy. But maybe we can call you 'El.' Short for Eleven."

She nodded, still not cracking a smile.

"Um, well, okay," Mike said, "'Night El."

"Goodnight El," I told her as me and my brother got to our feet.

The girl looked up at us and said, "'Night Mike. 'Night Mandy."

Mike sighs as he flipped the blanket over the fort, making everything look normal.

Me and my brother started towards the stairs, I started up them as Mike waited a second, looking back at the fort before handing up with me.

I opened the basement door, with Mike right on my tail, no one was in the kitchen but I could hear tv playing from a distance.

"How the heck did we get into this mess," I said out loud even though I wanted to say it in my head.

"Yeah, tell me about it."

We stood in silence for a moment then I mumbled, "Well hopefully this will all be over tomorrow."

"Yeah," Mike said, "Hopefully."

~~~~

I heard the toaster pop which brought me back to reality.

I didn't sleep at all last night, my mind was racing, thinking of so many different things. I was thinking about the girl, El, and all the different things that she could have been involved in or if Lucas was right about her being from Pennhurst? Or what if she doesn't go along with our plan?

But I pushed those things out of my mind as I got up to go grab my Eggos from the toaster.

Mike was already standing by the toaster when I got there. He put one of the Eggos into his jacket pocket, trying to be sneaky but he wasn't, at all.

"Wow, Mike, you're so sneaky," I whispered to him.

Mike immediately rolled his eyes at me, "Shut up, Mandy."

A small grin came onto my face as I took my Eggo and started back over to the table.

Mike and I walked back over to the table and immediately started eating our breakfast, knowing we had to get downstairs to the girl that was still in our basement.

I finished my Eggo in about a minute since I had one but Mike was taking a lot longer.

As Mike ate his Eggo, he was getting eyed by Nancy, who was just picking at her food.

"Slow down, Mike," Nancy sassied, "That's disgusting."

Mike turned to look at our older sister with a blank face, his mouth still somewhat stuffed with food but he said, "Do a lot of studying last night?"

"Yeah, actually, I did."

"What was your test on again?" Mike asked, "Human anatomy?"

I let out a snort after he said that, remembering that me and Mike both saw Steve struggling to get Nancy's bedroom.

That's when the two started kicking each other under the table but they immediately stopped when Mom said, "Hey, what's going on here?"

"Nothing," We all said together.

The rest of breakfast was pretty much in silence, none of us really wanting to talk. But once Mike finished off his Eggo, we came up with an excuse for both of us to leave then started towards the basement door.

The first thing I heard was the sound of a supercomm. The device that helped Mike talk to Lucas and Dustin, since apparently they don't want to use a phone. But I still had one, but it was somewhere in my room, not wanting to be found.

Mike flipped down the top of the fort to reveal El holding his supercon.

We both got down on our knees so we were knee-level with the girl and I looked over at my twin to see that he had a smile on his face.

"Hey, you found my supercomm," Mike grinned, "Pretty cool, huh? I talk to my friends with it."

"Since apparently they can't use phones," I butted in.

"It's cooler to use the supercomm," Mike tells me before turning back to El, "But I mostly talk to Lucas, 'cause he lives the closest. Signal's pretty weak."

That's when Mike takes the Eggo out of his jacket pocket and he says, "Got you breakfast."

El didn't hesitate to take the food from it, she immediately took a bite. I couldn't blame her for being hungry, we didn't know the last time she ate.

Me and Mike looked at each other and then nodded, knowing that it was time to start the plan.

"So, listen," I started, feeling a little nervous, "this is gonna sound a little weird."

"But I just need you to go out there," Mike interrupted, stealing my thunder a little bit, "Then go to the front door and ring the doorbell."

"Our mom will answer," I tell her as she eyed both me and my brother, "and you'll tell her that you're lost and that you need help."

"But whatever you do, you can't tell her about last night or that you know me or Mandy," Mike explained El, as she continued to eat her breakfast, "Understand?'

The girl didn't say anything, she just looked at us with a very hard look on her face, and it was making me nervous.

"Really, it's no big deal," I tell her, trying to convince her more, "We'll just pretend to meet each other again. And my mom, she'll know who to call."

There was a moment of silence between the three of us. Those moments made me more and more nervous, the negative thoughts were flooding my brain.

El slowly looked from Mike to me, her face still wearing that hard expression. That's when the answer slipped out of her mouth.

"No."