• 𝙵𝚛𝚎𝚎 𝙵𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗' - 𝚃𝚘𝚖 𝙿𝚎𝚝𝚝𝚢 •

The next day, Mike radioed for both Bea and Dustin to come over. When the two walked into the basement, it didn't go unnoticed that Eleven's makeshift bed was taken down. Practically demolished.

Beatrice has yet to tell anyone about her drawing of the kid who looked their age. Or the newest addition to her art book. This time it was an older boy. Possibly an adult. What was she supposed to say? "Oh, yeah, by the way, I drew a picture of these two random guy's I've never seen before. What does it mean?"

That'll end smoothly.

Not.

As soon as Bea sat on the couch, Mike started to talk about Eleven as he paced the room, "I just— I just can't believe she didn't come back."

"She's gotta be close." Dustin assures. He was across from the boy.

"She said it wasn't safe." Mike turns towards Beatrice. "Did you feel any 'gut feelings' about things not being safe?"

"No. Maybe because we weren't actually going in the right direction." She suggested.

Mike was getting riled up. His words came out faster and louder than he intended. "She just messed up the compasses because she wanted to protect us. She didn't betray us. You get that, right?"

Bea smiles and nods, "Yeah."

"Mike, calm down." Dustin warns, only to be ignored.

"I shouldn't have yelled at her. I never should've done that."

"Well, I did tell you to stop yelling at her." Bea reminds, which resulted in Dustin giving her a look that says, 'not the time'.

Dustin grabs Mike's attention from Bea, "Mike, this isn't your fault."

"Yeah, it's Lucas'."

"Wasn't his fault either." Dustin shrugs as Beatrice stands from the couch and placed herself next to Dustin.

"It wasn't his fault?" Mike asks the two friends in front of him.

"No." They reply in unison.

"So, you're saying he wasn't way out of line?" Mike questions, growing irritated.

"Totally, but so were you!"

His eyes go as wide as saucers, "What?"

"So was Eleven." Bea adds.

"Really? Isn't she like your best friend now and you say she was out of line? Give me a break!"

"No, Mike, you give us a break. All three of you were being a bunch of little assholes! Bea and I were the only reasonable ones. While you and Lucas were wrestling and El was screaming and crying — Bea tried to calm her down, while I tried to pry you off each other." Dustin argues, pointing in Mike's face. "But the bottom line is..." He starts calming down, "...you pushed first. And you know the rule. You draw first blood..." Dustin trails off.

Mike shook his head in disagreement. "No. No way! I'm not shaking his hand."

"Mike," Bea groans. She shut her eyes tightly out of annoyance. This boy is too stubborn.

"You're shaking his hand," Dustin orders.

"No, I'm not!"

"This isn't a discussion. This is the rule of law. Right, Bea?" Dustin tilts his head to the girl.

"Yes. You have to shake his hand or you will be banished from the party. Do you want to be banished?" Bea quirks, walking up to Mike like Dustin had previously done.

He tilted his head down and mumbled, "No."

"Good." Dustin walks away to the coat rack, grabbing their jackets.

Mike watches him with confused eyes. "Where are we going?"

"Where do you think?" Bea snaps, annoyed with the boy's behavior.

"We're going to get Lucas. And then we're gonna find Eleven." Dustin plans, handing his friends their jackets.

"Finally!" Bea exclaims as they get their bikes and quickly ride to Lucas' house. It wasn't too far since him and Mike have been neighbors since what seems like forever.

Dustin rings the doorbell as the three wait a bit before Lucas opens the door. It's clear on his face that he doesn't want to see Mike, but he smiles at Beatrice and Dustin in greeting.

"What do you want?" Lucas sasses. Mike just stands there, so Bea makes the executive decision to slap his chest for him to put his hand out to shake.

Instead of shaking his hand outside, Lucas lets them in as Dustin whispers to Bea, "Do you, like, get paid to hit people?" He asks, which caused Bea to softly chuckle, "Oh, yeah. It pays well."

Once inside, Lucas slowly walked around the living room as he thought. Whatever he decides is vital. "Okay, I'll shake." He crosses his arms as he made up his mind, "On one condition. We forget the weirdo and go straight to the gate."

"Then the deal's off!" Mike declines, bringing his hand down.

"Fine!" Lucas throws his arms up in the air.

"Fine!" Mike shouts back.

"No, no," Bea shakes her head, annoyed.

"Not fine! Guys, seriously?" Dustin asks, "Do you even remember what happened on the Bloodstone Pass?" He earned no answer to his question so he continued talking, "We couldn't agree on what path to take, so we split up the party and those trolls took us out one by one. And it all went to shit. And we were all disabled! So we stick together, no matter what!"

"Preach!" Bea praises.

"Yeah, I agree." Lucas starts, ignoring Bea's comment, "But this is the party, right here in this room."

"Plus, Will." Bea reminded them.

"El's one of us now." Mike includes.

Lucas did a double take, "Um, no, she's not. Not even close!"

Beatrice ignores the boys arguing and walks around Lucas' house. All the boys seem to do lately is fight. Maybe it was because Will was still missing and everyone is going crazy. Who knows? Bea just doesn't want to listen to their fighting anymore.

As she steps into the kitchen, she spots Erica. Lucas' little sister was sitting at the kitchen table drawing.

The strawberry blonde takes the seat next to her, "Hey, whatcha drawing?"

"Rainbow Dash from My Little Pony." Erica responds, still focused on all the colors.

"Can I draw something?" Bea asked politely, receiving a nod from the younger girl.

When Bea's drawing, it's like time stops. She doesn't pay attention to the world around her. Her and Will used to hang out just to draw. So many crayons became broken, and their hands smelled like wax.

But, Erica's voice pops her out of her little bubble. "Wow. Your drawing is amazing." The younger girl complements.

Bea blushes at the kind words. "Oh, um, thank you, Erica."

Erica leant over to get a better view, "When did you learn how to draw cars like that?"

"Cars?" Bea mumbles, looking down at her drawing. There is in fact a car on her paper, but she doesn't even remember drawing it. The craziest part is that it was colored in. She doesn't remember grabbing a blue colored pencil. What makes even less sense is that there seems to be a crack in the windshield. Why would she draw a broken car?

"Uh, sorry Erica, but I have to go. You can keep the drawing if you'd like." Bea spoke fast as she jumped from the table and walked to the front of the house.

"Where were you?" Mike asks, picking up his bike. He and Dustin had no luck in convincing Lucas to join them.

"Erica. Kitchen. Blue car." Bea stammers, not turning her attention from the ground.

Dustin shared a confused glance with Mike, "Huh? Bea? What happened?"

"Um, no— nothing. I'm A-Okay. Let's just go find Eleven." Bea dismisses.

It seems as if they never have time for her. They need to find Will. And the only way to find him is finding Eleven first. She can't bring her freaky drawing problems onto them.

Not until she understands what it means, herself.

•••••

Bea, Dustin and Mike rode their bikes back to the junkyard in hopes to find El. Beatrice trails behind the boys as they converse. Dustin was informing Mike on how Lucas must be feeling about the new girl in the group.

The girl swatted around her ear. She had thought there was a bug, but then she remembered how she has been hearing nonstop buzzing all day. So she decided to break her silence.

"I've been drawing."

"That's great, Bea. Um, why are you telling us this?" Mike asks, confused at why they need to know about her art ability at a time like this.

"Well, uh, I drew these two guy's. One was very young and the other had a cigarette in his mouth. I've never seen them before. And— and today I was drawing with Erica (while you guys were arguing with Lucas) and I drew this blue car that I've also never seen before. But, the weirdest part of it was that I drew a crack in the windshield and I don't know why."

"Yeah, that is weird." Dustin agreed and Bea glared at him, "Yeah, I know, dingus. That's why I wanted your guys' input." She sassed. Maybe she shouldn't have told them.

Looking over his shoulder, Mike asks, "Well, do you think it could be what we think you are?"

"The banshee stuff? I mean, yeah, I thought about it, but could I really be a banshee? Do I look like a banshee?"

"You don't have to look like one to be one." Dustin reminds.

She takes a deep breath before dismissing, "Well, whatever. Let's just save this discussion for later. After we find El and Will. Okay?"

"Okay." The boys agree unsurely in unison. They've noticed how Bea pushes her problems aside for all of them. They want to be there for their friend and not have her feel the need to harbor all of this by herself.

They continue down the road. "Woah." Mike says out of breath, astonished as the three of them stop by a supermarket.

"You don't think?" Dustin trails off.

"Definitely." Bea confirms as they ride their bikes past the scene of crowded people.

•••••

Trailing the woods, the trio shout El's name over and over and over again. They were hoping she would be somewhere in here since she was hiding from the 'bad men' as she called them.

"Hey, stop. Do you hear that?" Mike asks the two who are just as out of breath as him.

"What?"

"El?" He shouts into the unknown. Just as Bea turns her head, she spots Troy and James crouching up to them with a pocket knife.

"Hey there, Frogface." "Toothless. Ginger." Troy and James taunt. Hey, they finally found a name to call Bea! Though, now is not the time to think about being included in bullying.

"Not El. Not El!" Bea repeats as she drops her bike and starts to run off with her two friends following right behind her.

"Shit! Run, Mike!" Dustin shouts at the kid frozen in place.

"You're dead, Holland!" It seems like Troy is still pissed at when he... pissed (for lack of a better word) at school.

As they run for their lives, Dustin begins slowing down. He needed a moment to catch his breath. Mike continuously yells for his friends to 'keep going' as Bea tries to control her breathing. The pit in her stomach and the noise in her head is not helping.

They slid to a stop once they saw James running towards them from the other side. They're surrounded now. Instantly, Dustin picks up a stick as Mike picks up a rock to defend themselves and warns, "Stay back! Don't come any closer!"

Mike throws the rock towards James and misses completely. Has this boy never played baseball? Dustin goes into attack mode and swings his stick at Troy, only to be put in a head lock by him. His pocket knife near the boys throat.

With Troy holding Dustin, James takes the opportunity to grab Mike while he is distracted. This leaves Bea, in the middle.

"Let him go! Let me go!" Mike yells in protest to free Dustin. He could care less that he's unable to move since Dustin is the one with a knife to his throat.

"Stay back, or I cut him!" Troy threatens.

Desperately, Bea shouts, "What do you want?"

"I wanna know how you did it."

She quirked an eyebrow, "How I did what?"

"I know you did something to me. Some nerdy science shit to make me do that." He struggles to stay still as Dustin moves around in his grip.

"You mean piss your pants? How's that my fault? You probably just forgot to wear your diaper that day." She sassed. He tightened his grip on Dustin as James begins to twist Mike's wrist.

"One more remark out of you and he'll be getting a lot of money from the tooth fairy." Troy seethes at Bea, causing her to clamp her mouth shut.

"Let us go!" Mike shouts as he struggles in James arms.

"I'll let him go, sure." Troy agrees, turning to face Bea. It won't be that easy. He wants to be even. "But first it's your turn." He points at her with his knife.

"My turn for what?" She looks bewildered at the vague order.

"Wet yourself."

She went to the bathroom before they left.

"What?"

"Jump," Troy jerks his head towards the quarry, "..or Toothless here gets an early trip to the dentist."

Bea looks out to the quarry as her friends try to squirm out of the bullies arms. She turns back to Troy. She's sure he's bluffing, but she doesn't want to risk that intuition on her friends lives.

"I'll cut him right now!"

"All right, just hold on! Don't get your diapers in a twist." Bea mumbles the last part to herself, making sure the big baby won't hear her.

"Bea, don't do it! I don't need my baby teeth!"

"Bea, seriously, don't!"

Her friends yell at her to not go as she walks closer to the cliff. She could die. An impact from that high up could kill her. "Bea, don't do it!" They shout at the same time, "Don't do it!" Their eyes were wide with panic as they tried to frantically loosen their bullies grips.

"Troy, I don't think this is a good idea, man." James mutters to him, trying to knock some sense into his friend as he starts to loosen his grip on Mike.

Rocks fall from the edge.

Troy ignores his friend and taunts Beatrice. "Dentist's office opens in five!...

four!...

three!...

two!..."

"Bea!"

"One!" And down she goes. Stepping off the cliff with her eyes clamped shut out of fear.

Only, she doesn't go all the way. It's as if she's frozen in time and space. Levitating in one specific spot high above the water. The boys all run to the edge to see her floating in mid-air.

Beatrice then gets pulled back up. Almost as if a force is pushing her. She's then brought to the ground, right in front of the boys. Turning her head to the left, she sees her newest friend.

Eleven pushes James down and breaks Troy's right arm just by tilting her head. "Go." She orders them as James stands up and runs away with Troy.

"Yeah, that's right! You better run! She's our friend and she's crazy! You come back here and she'll kill you! She'll kill you, you sons of bitches!" Dustin screams at the top of his lungs.

"El!" Mike screams as he runs to her fainting body.

Bea grabs Dustin's attention and they go to where El is laying and Mike kneeling. They crouch next to them as they huddle around.

"I'm sorry." The bald girl begins to cry.

"Sorry? What are you sorry for?"

"The gate... I opened it. I'm a monster."

"No, El, you're not the monster." Mike assures the girl.

"You saved me. Do you understand? You just saved me. You're my best friend." Bea promises, smiling down at the girl, pulling her into a hug. Mike and Dustin then join in and it becomes a group hug. All of them already feeling better now together.

After their small moment, they all get up to look for their bikes. They ride out of the woods. As they grow closer to Mike's house, they jump off their bikes and walk down the back roads.

Not noticing the labs van right in front of them.

•••••

(🕰) T TIME!

i guess you could say bea was free fallin'

•••••