Chapter Twenty Three: Jump Then Fall

After quick pit stops at Annie and Max's houses to pick up their things and some explaining, the girls were having their first sleepover together at El's house. After some thinking, they figured that would be the best for El tonight, but they might be able to get Hopper on board for a sleepover at Max's the next night.

Annie parents were actually in town this week, and she wanted to avoid them as much as possible.

El sat on her bed with Annie, the latter showing the former a bunch of magazines that she liked. Max danced around the room singing to Angel with a hairbrush as a microphone. All Annie wanted to do was stare at her, but that'd be weird and El would ask questions making it even more weird.

Annie looked over at Max for a second, then back to El as she opened up and looked at a page in the magazine. "Ralph Macchio, huh?" Annie asked. Max started to settle down and set her brush down to join the other two girls on the bed.

"Macchio?" El asked. It was a funny name, in her defense.

"Yeah, he's the Karate Kid. Hai-yah!" Max shouted with a hand-chopping motion. El jumped back and Annie just laughed. "He's so hot, right?" Max then asked. "You agree, right Annie?"

Annie felt a stop in her heartbeat but smiled through it, shrugging. "I mean, yeah. Especially for his age he doesn't look too bad," she said, worming her way out of any possible accusations. Of course she didn't really think he was that hot, but no guys were for her. Maybe a couple exceptions, but for Annie, it was always girls that caught her attention.

"I bet he's an amazing kisser, too," Max continued. El looked shocked and Annie's face went red. What a topic. "Hey, uh, is Mike a good kisser?" Ah yes, boy talk. Annie had seen it in ever teenage movie with a girl. This would be a fun one.

El thought for a second. "I don't know," she concluded. "He's my first boyfriend."

Annie held up her finger. "Ex-boyfriend," she clarified. That's when she saw the fated regret on El's face. Annie wasn't surprised, given her history with and without Mike.

Max must've seen it, too. "Hey, don't worry about it. Okay? He'll come crawling back to you in no time, begging for forgiveness."

"Guaranteed him and Lucas are totally wallowing in self pity and misery right now," Annie butted in. "This just gives you a chance to change the boundaries of your relationship cause now he knows he can't control you and you're your own person."

Max smiled, adding, "I bet they're sitting around, whining like, 'I hope they take us baaack'!" This caused them all to laugh. "God, what I wouldn't give to see their stupid faces."

Then, still smiling, El looked off to the side in thought. "What?" Annie asked.

"We can, I just need the right stuff," she answered. Annie and Max smiled wide, ready to do what needed to be done.

They found a static station on the radio, got her something to use as a blindfold, and El got seated and ready to go with something from Mike in her hands.

Annie sat on the floor in front of El while Max sat up on the bed beside her. "Is this really gonna work?" Max asked. El nodded. "Holy shit, this is insane!"

"Max."

"Yeah, quiet, sorry."

The girls sat in anticipation as El took deep breaths and a bit of blood started coming out of her nose. "I see them."

Max instantly moved to the floor, right next to Annie. "What are they doing?" she asked.

"Eating," was the short response. Then, silence as she observed more. Annie found herself picking at her cuticles as she waited for something else. "They say we are a 'species'."

"What?" Annie asked.

"'Emotion, not logic,'" El quoted.

"What?" Max asked, angrier than Annie's had been.

The two shared a look, realizing what the boys had been talking about. "So glad I wasn't dating either of them," Annie mumbled, and Max frowned.

After another second, El took the blindfold off and looked between Annie and Max. "What happened?" Max asked.

A smile started overtaking El's face, along with giggles, before she broke down into a laughing fit and collapsed to the ground. "What?" Annie asked, smiling and laughing, too.

The sound of a car outside broke away their train of thought and El sat up. "Hopper's home," she said. "We have to clean up."

So, they did. El's cleaned the blood up, Max turned the radio back to a different station, and Annie got some magazines in each pair of hands so they could act like that's what they had been doing the whole time.

A minute later, the front door opened and closed rather loudly. Annie looked over at El, confused, and the girl looked at her with a shrug.

"Hey! When I say three inches, three—"

The door flew open and an angry Hopper rolled in. But then he froze in his steps, looking at the three girls reading magazines. Very confused.

"Do you knock? Jeez!" Max said, trying to bring him back down to earth.

"Yeah, jeez," El added on.

He put his hands up in surrender and that's when Annie saw he was holding a very fancy bottle of wine. "Oh, hey. I'm sorry. I thought that uh..."

"Mike's not here," Annie said, finishing his thought. She could piece together exactly what Hopper was thinking and then couldn't blame him for the angry intrusion.

"Max and Annie wanted to have... a sleepover," El explained. "Is that... okay?"

A few 'yeahs' later and he asked, "Do your parents know about it?" He looked at Max and Annie.

"Yup."

"Mhm."

"Uh, yeah, it's cool. Yeah. That's really cool." Annie had to cover her mouth to stop from laughing. He was so drunk.

They all looked at each other in silence for a moment. Hopper just stood in the doorway, nodding. "Did you need something?" Max finally asked.

"No, no. Uh, I'll leave. I'll just let you... I'll leave you..." He turned around and closed the door behind him, then they heard his heavy footsteps walk away.

Annie finally removed her hand and laughed. El and Max followed in suit, breaking down in laughs. "That was so... awkward... God I can't believe he thought it was Mike..." Annie said in breaths between laughs.

When they calmed down, Max grabbed some cardboard, paper, and a marker. It was spin the bottle, but with a fun little twist. "Holy shit, I can't believe we're doing this," Max said.

They had written a bunch of names down and put them on the cardboard with an empty coke bottle in the middle. Whoever it landed on, El would "spy" on and see if it was anything funny.

El spun the bottle, landing on the first victim. "Mr. Wheeler..." the three of them said in unison.

"Ugh, boring."

"Yeah, boring."

"Spin again," Max said. This was supposed to be fun, they didn't want to land on someone who was probably sitting on the couch sleeping.

El put her hand on the bottle, then paused. "Against the rules?" she asked.

"We make our own rules," Max countered. El smiled and spun again, this time landing on Billy. El and Annie looked at Max, waiting to make sure she was okay with it.

The redhead got up to grab the radio and blindfold while saying, "Okay, look, I should just warn you, if he's with a girl or doing something gross, just get out of there right away before your scarred for life."

"Max—"

"No, I'm just saying, I'm serious. He's really gross!"

"Max!"

"Okay, shutting up now." El chuckled as Max put the radio on static. El tied the cloth around her eyes and got ready to find Billy. Based on what Max was saying, Annie was worried they might ruin El for forever. Hopefully he wasn't... with anyone tonight.

Annie and Max sat and waited for longer than they did last time before El said something. Annie was worried for a second, and then, "I found him."

Max and Annie leaned forward in anticipation. "What's he doing?" Max asked. She didn't sound as excited as last time, either.

"I don't know."

"Something feels wrong about this," Annie whispered, looking at Max.

"He's... on the floor... talking to someone." She didn't say anything else.

Annie looked at Max, seeing the worry on her face, too.

Suddenly El tore the blindfold off with heavy breaths, tears in her eyes. Annie reached out to comfort her with Max. Max asked, "What is it? What happened?"

"Hey, El, you're okay, take your time. It's okay," Annie said. She rubbed El's arm and tried to get her less freaked out. Max got up and grabbed the washcloth El used earlier to wipe her face and handed it to the girl. El took in gladly and wiped the blood off.

They sat in quiet like this for a while, El getting more and more calm. "El, what did you see?" Max asked, quieter this time. Less panicked.

"Something was wrong. Billy... there was a girl screaming. She sounded... scared. I don't—"

Annie kept up her comforting tactics. "Hey, it's okay. You're okay. Let's go to bed, okay? Get some sleep."

El looked worried. "But something's wrong."

Max shook her head. "We can check it out in the morning. Does that sound okay? If something bad happened, it's too dark and dangerous for us to do anything now. Annie's right, we should sleep and see in the morning."

And that's what they did. After figuring out the sleeping arrangements (El's bed was big enough for all three of them to fit on there), they fell asleep. The next morning, they'd figure out what scared El so bad.

A/n: welcome to the action of season 3 😁 idk if y'all are ready for the things I've got planned 👀👀