21. wonder women

WONDER WOMEN

✧･ﾟ: * El is riding on the back of Nora's light pink bike while Max rides beside them on her yellow one. The rain is still pouring down and Nora still wants to be at home, under her covers, preferably with Max.

As the girls pull up to Heather's house, they drop their bikes in the lawn and walk up to the front door. El narrows her eyes at the doorknob and it clicks unlocked and slowly swings open. They then lower their raincoat hoods as the step into the house.

Soft music fills the girl's ears and they slowly make their way through the foyer, past hallways of pictures of Heather and her family.

"This is her house," Max confirms. "Heather's house."

A faint laugh is heard from the other side of the hallway, and the girls don't even have to share a look before making their way to that part of the house.

They walk into what seems to be the dining room, and Nora instantly freezes in embarrassment.

Billy's sitting with who must be Heather's parents, laughing and pouring wine.

The room goes silent except for the music as the trio walks in.

"Max," Billy's weirdly real looking smile only drops a little.

"We didn't mean to. . . barge in," Max starts, clearly as surprised as Nora and El. "We tried to knock. . ."

". . . Probably hard to hear. . . over the storm," Nora tries to finish as Max stutters over her words.

"I'm sorry," Mr. Heather's Dad speaks up, voice loud. "Who is this dripping all over my living room right now?"

Billy chuckles a little, "I'm sorry. Janet, Tom, this. . . is my sister, Maxine."

"Oh!" Janet smiles.

Billy stands from the table, keeping his creepy eyes on the three girls. "What on earth are you doing here? Is something wrong?" Max stiffens under his close stare.

"We just wanted to make sure everything was okay," she answers.

Billy's smile drops, "okay? Why wouldn't it be okay?"

"Where is she?" El responds instead.

"I'm sorry," Billy turns to her. "Where is who?"

The door to the kitchen suddenly burst open, and in walks the girl from the photo El had snatched up. Nora furrows her brows as Heather carries in a tray of cookies, completely healthy looking.

"Well, they're a little burnt, I'm sorry-"

"Heather!" Billy exclaims. The four girls look between each other, all confused. "This is my sister, Maxine," he then trains his gaze on Nora, making her shift a little. "Her friend. . . Eleanor, and. . ." he pauses, looking at El. I'm sorry, I did not quite catch your name?"

"El."

"El," Billy nods. "Now, what is it you were saying El? You were looking for somebody?"

El turns to Heather and slowly points, "I- I saw. . . you-"

Nora's eyes widened and she interrupted El, "your manager! At the pool."

Max nods along, "He said you guys didn't come to work today, so we got worried."

"Heather wasn't feeling so hot today, so we thought we'd take the day off to nurse her back to health," Billy calmly explains. "But you're feeling just fine right now, aren't you, Heather?"

"I'm feeling so much better," Heather nods at the still suspicious girls. "Do you girls want a cookie? They're fresh out of the oven."

Everyone stares awkwardly in a moment of silence before Nora takes the lead. "We would love to," she smiles politely. "But we should really head home. . . the weather. . . and stuff."

"Well," Janet smiles. "It was nice meet you girls."

"I'll walk you girls out," Billy offers.

El just turns instantly and Nora and Max follow after while Billy trails behind them. He stands at the front door and watches the girls get on their bikes (El on Nora's) and sees them off. Nora frowns as she thinks about the interaction.

Something's off.

—

✧･ﾟ: * The girls decide to crash at Nora's place with Steve locked in his room, hanging out in his own little world.

They're sitting in Nora's room at the moment all doing their own thing. El is flipping through Nora's various comic books, half of which she stole from Dustin, on Nora's bed; Max is painting her nails with Nora's mom's clear nail polish by Nora's dresser (just trying to pass time); and the hostess herself is going through every radio channel trying to find a good enough song to drown out Steve's Whitney Houston.

"Come on, Eilee-"

"It's the final count-"

"Here comes the-"

"Sweet Caro-"

"We didn't start the fire-"

"Nor," Max looks up at the frustrated girl.

"Yeah?" Nora asks, looking up for a second while The Rolling Stones play.

"I like this song."

"If you start me up. If you start me up I'll never stop-"

"Okay," Nora gives in and turns the volume up before sitting next to El.

Max also comes over, dropping in front of the other two. She picks up to two magazines from the ones in front of El. Holding them up excitedly she grins, "which one?"

"I've been running hot-"

"I don't know," El sighs, opposite to Max in emotion.

"Hey," Nora tries comforting. "There's nothing to worry about anymore."

"It doesn't make sense," El shakes her head.

Max looks confused, "what doesn't make sense?"

"Heather," El answers. "The blood. The ice."

"Heather had a fever, so she took a cold bath, but she's better now," Max explains using the information the girls know. "That has to be it. I don't know where that blood came from, but. . . we saw her. We all saw her. She's totally fine."

"What about Billy?" El questions.

"What about him?" Max asks.

"He seemed. . . wrong."

Nora knows what El's talking about, but she doesn't know how to answer. Her brain isn't in the right place for this.

"-I walk smooth, ride in a mean, mean machine-"

"Wrong is kinda his default," Max starts joking. "But it's nice to know he's not a murderer, because that would've totally sucked."

Nora and El softly laugh along and Nora smiles at El calming down a bit.

"Kick on the starter give it all you got, you got-"

El looks down at the comics again and points to one, "who. . . is that?"

Max mock gasps, "Eleanor Harrington. You've never told Eleven about Wonder Woman?"

"Don't blame me! She would spend all her time with Michael," she fake scolds.

"No excuse," Max shakes her head and eagerly turns to El. "Wonder Woman - A.K.A. Princess Diana - she's from Paradise Island which is, like, this hidden island where there are only women Amazon Warriors. Mike would never tell you this stuff-"

"Start me up."

a/n:

😩