Chapter Twenty-Seven: Mastermind

They arrived at the pool and hid behind a bunch of cars. Lucas pulled out his binoculars, the same ones from last year, and everybody took a turn to look at Billy up in his lifeguard chair.

When Annie got the binoculars, she took in how Billy was wearing a shirt, had a towel over his lap, had a visor on, and was eating something (assumedly ice) from an Icee cup. Then she passed the binoculars over to Max.

"I don't know, he looks pretty normal to me," Max said after a second of looking.

"Normal?" Lucas asked. "How many times have you seen him with a shirt on?"

Max removed the binoculars and shrugged. "I mean, it's a little weird," she said.

"More than a little," Mike interrupted. "He was in a tub with ice. The Mind Flayer likes it cold. Plus everything else."

"But he's lounging at the pool, which is like, the least Mind Flayer thing to do," Max argued.

Annie nodded. "She's got a point, that's not really a spot the Mind Flayer would choose to hang out." Max shot her a quick smile before Will spoke up.

"Not necessarily," he said. Everyone looked at him as he continued, the insider information being helpful. "The Mind Flayer likes to hide. He only used me when he needed me." Annie reached around behind Lucas to give Will a comforting rub on the shoulder. "It's like... like you're dormant. And then, when he needs you, you're activated."

Max nodded along and Annie turned her attention back to her. "Okay, so we just... wait until he gets activated."

But Mike was already shaking his head at this. "No. What if he hurts someone?"

"Or kills someone."

"Calm it down, guys," Annie said. Will glanced at her, then at Max, who had a pained expression on her face.

"Still, we can't take that chance," Mike said. "We need to find out if he's the host."

As soon as he was done talking, Mike pushed himself off the car and walked off. "Where are you going?" El called after him.

"I have an idea. Boys only!" he called back.

"Are you kidding me, Mike Wheeler?" Annie yelled as the boys followed after him.

"Just trust me on this one!" With that, the boys ran off.

Annie sighed and decided to sit on the curb rather than lean on the car that wasn't theirs. "This better not be some sort of misplaced payback for the other day," she grumbled when she sat down.

Max and El sat on either side of her. "I hope it's worth it. Whatever they're doing," Max said. The other two nodded and sat in silence. Max let out a sigh and moved her head to lean on Annie's shoulder.

She tried her best to stay calm but oh my gosh Max was leaning on her. These past few days have definitely been awesome for Annie and continued to feed into her crush on Max. Hanging out with her always made her so much happier.

And honestly, so did hanging out with El. Annie really wished that she could introduce El to Meghan and Holly. She thought they'd like her and take her in like they did Max. The thought of the five of them made Annie smile.

"What's making you smile?" El asked.

Annie carefully turned to look at the other girl and used her unoccupied shoulder to shrug. "Just thinking about how I wish I could introduce you to my friends from school, Meghan and Holly. They're pretty cool."

Lifting her head, Max nodded. She leaned her elbows on her knees to look at El. "They are. I feel like they'd like you. We'll have to find a way to convince Hopper once day. Maybe even convince him to let you go into public school."

That made Annie laugh. "Yeah, just in time for high school. We'd be there to help you the entire time, though."

El smiled, thinking about her going to school with Max and Annie. Even Mike and the others. It might be fun. "I think I would like that," El said. She nodded at the others. "I don't think Mike would like it at first."

"But... then he'd realize he gets to see you every day at school. I think he'd be okay with that once he figures it out," Annie said.

Max nodded along. "He can't control you anyway. He needs to realize that," she muttered, her voice getting quieter. Annie was confused at first until she followed Max's eye-line and saw the boys coming back.

"Well? Can we know the grand idea now?" Annie asked, standing up along with Max and El.

Mike nodded. "Yeah, we want to try and trap Billy in the sauna in the men's locker room. It goes up to 220 degrees so we can see if he's the Mind Flayer or not."

Annie immediately looked over at Max to see what she thought. "Would that hurt him?" Max asked. She was all for seeing if Billy was the host (and hoped to god he wasn't), but she didn't want to send him to the hospital.

"It'll make him sweat a lot, but they wouldn't set the sauna that high if it hurt people," Lucas reassured. Annie forgot, he still felt the boyfriend responsibility of helping Max. Something that made Annie's nose scrunch up in disgust.

Max nodded, and El jumped in. "What is the plan? How do we get him in?"

With a sigh, Mike said, "That's what we've got to figure out."

They all stood in silence as they thought. Annie glanced over at the pool as she thought out loud. "We'll have to do it after the pool closes, just hide out in the locker rooms or something."

"We could taunt him," Will offered, and Annie looked over to him. "I mean, taunt is probably a rude word, but we should try and get his attention to lead him to the sauna. You know, he is a lifeguard who has to make sure the pool's empty and stuff."

Everyone was nodding along as Will spoke. "Get one of the CPR dummies," Max said. "Put it in the sauna to draw his attention. One of you guys can talk or... make noise or something to get him to walk that way."

"But then how do we keep him in the sauna? I doubt there's a lock on the outside," Annie mentioned.

Silence covered the group once more. "No, there's not..." Lucas mumbled, thinking. Then, with a snap of his fingers, he straightened up. "But the handle is one of those that you can stick your arm through, you know what I mean?" They nodded. "So, we could stick something through it to act as some sort of lock and just make sure the other side is secure."

Annie found herself smiling. "That's good! We just have to make sure all of this is in the pool and stuff."

"We can start trying to get stuff gathered up during the last few minutes of open pool time and get it all set up before Billy enters the locker room," Mike said.

Nobody spoke for a second, running through it all again. "I think we have a plan," El said. The group nodded and looked around at each other. This would be bad if something didn't go right, or if Billy wasn't the host.

She really didn't want to think about how pissed Billy would be if he weren't the host. A double negative outcome. In all honesty, she couldn't pick one she wished it were. Both sucked.

The group waited out in the parking lot for a second longer, then put their plan under way. Each person went to different places, trying to find the supplies they talked about needing. Will and Lucas decided to check out the shed out in the parking lot, El going into one of the supply closets (Mike totally not following her), which left Annie and Max as lookout.

"You okay?" Annie asked softly. "I know if we were all going after Steve I'd be a total mess so... I just want to make sure you're kind of okay."

Max smiled, nudging Annie's arm with her shoulder. "I guess so. I mean, I don't know." Her smile fell and things felt serious. "Sure I'm not super close with Billy or anything, I just... he's still my stepbrother. I don't want anything bad to happen to him."

Annie grabbed Max's hand and squeezed it. When they made eye contact and smiled, Annie tried her best to act like she didn't feel her heartbeat quicken. What she didn't know, was Max was trying to ignore the same thing.

"Remember when you ended up in the hospital?" Max suddenly asked.

Annie was a bit thrown off from the question at first, but nodded anyway. "Yeah, what about it?"

"Well... Billy, he... I think that's the day things sort of changed. He became a nice person and actually cared for a second. It was nice... not saying you being in the hospital was nice!" Max nearly panicked at the implication she thought she was making.

Instead of being annoyed, Annie just burst into laughter. "I know, I know. Trust me when I say I know you weren't happy with me being in the hospital. But I'm glad to know Billy was a good guy," Annie said, her laughs dying down.

After another second of staring, Annie cleared her through. "Should probably... make sure everyone's good," she said, trying to avoid the awkwardness she felt all of a sudden.

Their hands let go of each other and Max nodded. "Yeah, yeah sounds good." She picked up the walkie and pressed the button. "Mike, are you there?" Max asked into the walkie.

"Yeah!" He was clearly in a bad mood.

Annie took the walkie so Max could keep lookout. "Where are you guys?" she asked.

"I'm coming, just...hold on a second," he said. With that, he turned off his radio. Annie resisted an eye roll and put the walkie down on the hood of the car. It became their unofficial car, in a way.

Max mumbled something to herself, and Annie wanted to ask what she said, but decided against it. If Max wanted Annie to hear, she would've. That wasn't meant for her ears.

What felt like hours later, they were in position to catch Billy. The whole thing made Annie feel like her heart was going to rip itself out of her chest with how hard it was beating. She tried to focus on something else, like the fact that crouching in the same position for so long was killing her knees.

Billy had just finished his post-work shower, so the plan was being put in motion. After a couple seconds, Annie could hear Billy yelling at the "intruders" coming to the closed pool. This meant the door out was locked. No turning back now.

What she didn't expect, or at least forgot to expect, was Billy slamming his fists on to the locked door. She nearly let out a scream at the first one, but covered her mouth in time that the shriek she did let out got drowned out by the noise Billy was making. It echoed all throughout the locker rooms and caused her to shake.

"Billy!" Mike called in almost a sing-song voice. "Billy!"

The second one was met with a, "Who's there!" Billy had the same sort of sing-song type tone, his was just less taunting and more ready to kill. Everything better pan out the way Mike hoped, otherwise he might not come out in one piece.

Mike continued to laugh and taunt Billy. The way everything echoed around made Annie think of horror movies. She didn't particularly like horror movies. She'd seen a few on her own accord, sure, but only for who was in the movie, or because the others wanted to go.

Not because she liked the feeling of dread wrapping around her.

"I find you, it is your funeral," Billy answered Mike. Man, the latter was really having too much fun with this. Annie supposed he was overly confident the plan would work.

Mike came into the weight room where the sauna was and where everyone was hiding. He was quiet, but then made sure the door made noise as it shut. He ran over to his spot, making sure to be out of the light the sauna gave off.

Here's to hoping Billy was dumb enough to think a CPR doll was a child.

Annie felt her entire body freeze when Billy came in the room. His eyes focused in on the sauna and completely ignored the rest of the room.

"Got you." The way he spoke made Annie's skin crawl.

Billy cackled as he approached the sauna door, clapping his hands at the joy of finding the taunting child.

"Come and get me you piece of shit," Mike's voice echoed.

Billy threw the sauna door open and paused. At first, Annie was worried he wasn't going to walk in any further. But then he did, grabbing the dummy's neck and hoisting it into the air.

"Hey. Behind you." Billy turned around and saw El standing there.

"Hi."

When he ran toward her, she just jerked her head up to send him crashing into the tiled wall. Several pieces came off and the others finally revealed themselves.

Everyone hurried out of their hiding spots. The lights came on and El slammed the sauna door shut so the boys could put a pole through the door handle and some pipes on the wall next to the door. They added on a chain and padlock for extra protection.

No matter how hard Billy slammed into the door, it wouldn't budge.

El stood at the front and center of the group, everyone gathering behind her. Max was right beside Annie, so the brunette grabbed her hand and squeezed it once. This wasn't going to be pretty.

He continued to pound at the door but it refused to move. After a second, he finally stopped and looked out on the group. His eyes went to everyone, but stopped on Max.

"Max," he whispered. Annie's grip tightened on Max's hand.

Annie turned to someone she would call a best friend and saw the conflicting feelings in her eyes. "Max, we don't have to do this," Annie said in a low voice. "It's okay."

The redhead turned and looked at Annie, holding eye contact for a while. Then she looked over at El. "Do it," she said. But Annie didn't miss the way Max's grip on her hand tightened as she spoke.

Will ran up and cranked the sauna's temperature up. There would be no coming back from this. This moment would forever change everything. Annie just never realized how much.

A/n: next chapter is gonna be so epic!!