Ionna Vasileva//Stranger Things fanfic

CHAPTER 2 - TRICK OR TREAT, FREAK

Ionna sits at home. Her home - a little cabin near the end of Hawkins. It's old, but for her, it's the safest of all the places she's ever been. No experiments, no training, no killing. But the daily reminder in the form of a tattoo on her wrist will ever stay. Just a simple number, but with a big meaning behind it - 017.

She glances down at it and wonders if she will ever find peace. If she ever will live a normal life. Probably not, she thought. So she sits there, glancing at her Mirror in front of her. Thinking, what she could wear on the Halloween party at Tina's tonight. She never got to go on a Halloween party before, and she needed some time figuring out what Halloween even was. She decided for herself that she would love Halloween.

She changes her costume frequently just with a little gesture of her head. She was one of the Grady Twins from 'Shining', one of her favorite movies these days. The creepy thing is that she looked absolutely identical to the original. That's her power. To morph into another person and adapt everything the person has. Their voice, their height, their powers, everything.

Maybe it would be too much to go like that, she thought sarcastically. Now she knows as to whom she will go.

At Tina's house, all teenagers are cheering. "Yeah! Forty-two! We got ourselves a new Keg King!"Everyone is chanting the name of Billy Hargrove.

"That's how you do it, Hawkins!"

The minute Steve Harrington got in, and he wanted to go. He heard the cheers and Tommy H. didn't make anything better. "We got ourselves a new Keg King, Harrington. Eat it!"

But Steve didn't really care. Sure, he was a bit pissed that someone like Hargrove got so much attention, but he wasn't jealous. Last year, he probably would have been, but now, now he thinks he knows what's more important in life. And that doesn't include 'being the Keg King'. Right now, he's just plain worried about his girlfriend, who's about to get really drunk, really fast.

"What's in this?"she asks as she points to the red cups.

A random guy shouts: "Pure Fuel!", but more in a 'i'm already drunk and don't care anymore' Tone.

"Whoa! Whoa! Take it easy, Nance!"Steve tries to stop her from drinking too much.

"We're just being stupid teenagers for the night. Wasn't that the deal?"she slurres, as she reminds Steve of the conversation they had before the party.

He agrees and chuckles as they both take the next cups.

"Wow, nice costum."A random girl compliments Ionna.

"Thanks, you look nice too."She tries to be as social as she can be.

She looks at herself. She loves her costum. She decided to go as Carrie, with a simple rosé dress, hair open, and a flower on her wrist. But the real eye catcher was that she was full of dry artificial blood. She really looked like Carrie White, and she surely felt her role in the full crowd of teenagers.

As she goes in, she is slightly blinded by the bright light. When she goes further, she starts chattering as she follows the noise of different voices, she found Billy, dressed in a leather jacket and smoking a cigarette. The people there noticed her stare and turned to her, slightly horrified by the best cosplay of Carrie. Billy noticed now, too, and his eyes were magnified by her intense stare. "Hey..uh.. you look really scary."He didn't mean to say it in a mean way. He just couldn't deny that the sight was terrifying.

"Thanks, you look normal."she knew how he meant what he said.

Billy just chuckles at that: "Wanna go somewhere else?"he asks her genuinely without any flirty remarks.

"I would love that."she responds, visibly uncomfortable in the full house with all these drunk teenagers.

"Alright, come on, we go to my car."

The sight was really 'take a picture' worthy. A tall guy with a mullet, a leather jacket with nothing under that and a short girl, wearing a prom dress, completely full of blood, walking next to each other to a blue Camaro.

After a while driving, with quiet rock music in the background, Billy halts at the forest, where Will and Barbara went missing a year ago.

"So, Ionna, wanna tell me something about yourself?"Billy asks as he pulls his cigarettes out and offers her one.

Ionna takes one and waits till Billy lit it on fire. "Well, what do you want to know?"

"How about the sexy accent of yours, comin' from Russia?"

She snickers at his flirty remark and answers: "I grew up in Russia, but i was born in Ukraine. I just caught up with the accent from living there, i guess. Have you been born in Hawkins?"

"No, i come from California."

"Wow. I always wanted to go there. It looked so beautiful in magazines or films."she stares at him in awe. She dreamed of going there at least once in her life. Maybe she will someday..

"It is beautiful. Like you."he says as he looks at her.

"Yeah. Especially with the blood on me -"she comments.

"No, i mean it. I've never seen a girl before, who could wear green hair so good like you."

"Thanks. You're pretty, too."

"Pretty? Come on, really, pretty?"he laughs at her compliment. But not because he found it ridiculous. No. He had to hide his blush. No one ever called him that, and he must admit that he liked the way Ionna made him feel. He already thought that he could tell her anything. He can be himself in the honest way he can be. She wouldn't judge him, and he knows that.

They laughed together till Billy saw something on her wrist. "Hey, what's that? You have a tattoo?"

Ionna slightly panics inside, but tries to hide it: "Yes."

"Zero-seventeen. Has it a meaning?"he asks, honestly interested.

"Uhm..It's just..i live here in America for one year now, seventeen is the age i've got here, so -"

"Big life change, so, huh?"

"Boy, you have no idea."she says as they smile at each other. The thing is, he really has no clue. Nobody here knows that she practically grew up in a lab in Russia. Nobody knows, that she was trained to be a weapon, that she worked as a spy, that she can go into the void, that she has powers, that her whole family is dead, that she's finally free from all the torture, since she's here in America.

"Hey, everything okay?"Billy asks, concerned about her sudden silence.

"Yes, sorry, just memories."She smiles her Secrets away, as if they were nothing.

They talked and laughed hours, as they grew more comfortable with each other. "How about i drive you home and we meet after school again?"he asks, kinda anxious, scared of her reaction, because he really wants to know her.

She smiles at him and answers: "Sure do. I give you the directions. We can go to mine after school, if you want to?"

"Yeah, i would like that."

Both are happy, that they get to know each other better. For Ionna, something special. The first time, someone came home with her, and she was more than nervous.