▶️ Gypsy by Mercyful Fate
My cover gets blown, quite fast. I'm surprised how smart the kids are. I pull my Saint Christopher medallion out of my shit and rest it on top so I can play with it. We do introductions, I learn that the toothless kid is named Dustin and he has cleidocranial dysplasia, which is why he's missing teeth. I learn that the feisty girl is Robin, and she worked in the mall with Steve. I learned that the store manager's name is Joyce, and she has two kids: the little boy, Will, and the bigger boy, Johnathan. Nancy, the fourth teenager is Johnathan's girlfriend, and Mike's sister. Then Billy and I are bombarded with questions.
"Did you die?" They ask Billy.
"Yes." I say, grimly, remembering how I blinked back in time to save Billy from the jaws of the monster. That seemed like so long ago.
"No." Billy says at the same time, scoffing.
We look at each other.
"WHAT?" Billy's face pales.
"You died. Twice." I say.
Billy looks at his hand, turning it over and everyone else is silent.
"The first time, my first world, is what happened if I didn't time blink. You sacrificed yourself to save your sister. The second time was in my first blink, I got to you too late." I say.
"Shit." Says Johnathan.
"Next question!" Says Dustin, excitedly, as Billy pales more and leans against the counter. I rub his back.
"Don't think about it baby." I say.
"Let me as you guys a question." I turn to the welcome party.
"Sure." Says Joyce.
"What happened here? What is going on?" I ask.
"You want the long version, or the short version?" Asks Mike.
"Short." Billy grits his teeth.
The welcoming party runs through the events of the last three months and we meet it with silence. To be honest, it's a lot to process and the names get mixed up in my mind. They use a lot of code names and quite confusing.
"There's monsters in this world?" I ask.
"Well yeah, there's people like you so there's gotta be people like 'them.'" Says Steve with mega attitude and I glare at him.
"So where have you two been?" Asks Dustin to me and Billy.
I give them the rundown how I met up with Billy and where we've been. I only cover the important stuff. Gotta keep my secrets too you know.
"What happened to you Billy?" Asks Nancy.
"That thing was in control of me." Says Billy, gritting his teeth and looking ashamed. "I was powerless and I was in there, but I couldn't do anything until that girl brought up that stuff about my mother."
"How did it get in you?" Asks Will.
"I was uh..." Billy looks visibly uncomfortable. "I was driving by Brimborn steel works and something hit my windshield, I got out to check it out and it just dragged me, dragged me in."
Silence.
Billy squeezes me close to him.
"Now I need to know what happened to my sister." Says Billy coldly.
I'm already starting to piece everything together.
Everyone goes from looking sorry for him to looking uncomfortable around him.
"Maxine comes limping in, you know, on that day," Joyce motions towards me and I nod. "I was just going through the security cam footage. Yes, I did see you 'Blink' right in front of me. Also you gave me $50 for a 40 cent soda so that was kind of weird."
I shrug. "I promise I was a lot smoother the first time through."
"Then she called a meeting in my basement." Says Mike.
"Where she insisted that you were alive." Lucas points to Billy. "And that you, Seven, saved him like you saved her."
"Seraphina." I say.
"What?"
"It's not 'Seven' anymore, it's Seraphina." I say. "It has been for awhile."
"Got it punks?" Billy looks around threateningly.
"Yes."
"Yes sir."
"Okay."
"It's alright B." I smooch his jawline.
"Okay, so she thinks you're alive and we look for you, both of you for weeks. No sign. We figure out you Seraphina, have teleportation powers." Says Will.
"The Blink."
"Yes, the Blink, and finally, something changed about her. Max was obsessed, it was weird. She wouldn't stop talking about it. She was always hurting herself skating because she was being careless and..."
My heart falls.
Hurting herself. Skating. Careless.
"Do not talk about my sister like that." Billy clenches his fist. I look around. The kids look kind of confused but the other teens just look at the ground.
"We're going to find her Billy." I say.
"Continue." Billy growls.
"So her and El, they always said they were going to go look for you two in California, but we never thought they were going to do it. And then they just disappeared. We've been looking all over for them, we can't find either of them." Says Mike.
"Billy, your parents are frantic." Says Joyce. "They've called almost every single house in Hawkins looking for Max. They said she stole a bunch of money from them, they thought she was running away again."
Billy scoffs and puts his head in his hands. "Fucking Maxine. If that little shit gets into trouble I'm going to..."
"Billy."
He turns to look at me.
"We're going to find her." I say.
"That girl she's with, is she the one who...?" I lift my arm up and point to my tattoo.
"Yeah, although her powers haven't been working recently." Says Mike.
Memories from the rainbow room come back to me and I step away as I start to tear up, turning so no one can see me. Just the thought of being with someone, someone like me again...someone who escaped...
I turn to look at Mike and Lucas. "Lets go find some pictures."
*
The boys don't follow my instructions very well, when I tell them to close their eyes and remember the place we want to go as best as they can, they both don't close their eyes. And that results in both of them throwing up in the bushes of Lucas's house the first time.
"I told you specifically to close your eyes." I say.
"I wanted to see what would happen!" Mike says.
"Go find the pictures and meet me here in five." I tell Lucas, before grabbing onto Mike and blinking with him to his house based on his memories.
Mike runs in to find his pictures, and when he runs back out I blink to Lucas, then blink back to the store where everyone is waiting.
Nancy runs over to Mike, and hugs him, Mike pushing at her all the while and saying "I'm fine!"
We lay all the pictures out, and I look them over. I already know what Max looks like, but I've only seen a couple glimpses of Eleven before at the mall with the shadow monster. Or the 'mind flayer' as everyone seems to refer to it as.
I close my eyes. I hear whooshing sounds, and feel bumpiness.
"I think they're in a car." I say. "Or maybe a bus. Something with wheels."
"A car? I swear I am going to kick her..." Billy starts.
"Billy." I say, opening my eyes. He grumbles.
"Can you get them?" Asks Johnathan.
I shake my head. "If they're in a vehicle I can't blink to them, there could be people around."
"Well then what do we do?" Asks Robin.
"When did you say they went missing?" I look around.
"Two days ago." Says Steve.
"Well then they should be nearly there." I say. "I'll keep an eye on them."
I reach up to touch my nose as I feel something wet, and my fingers come back wet with blood. The feelings of paranoia creep in as well as the feeling that something is watching me back, but I push them away. For the sake of the mission, I have to do this.
"Babe you're bleeding." Says Billy.
"I know." I say. "Can you get me a tissue or something?"
I open my eyes and kill the illusion to deal with my nose, Johnathan hands Billy a box of tissues.
We sit around for a couple of hours, me checking up on the girls every so often.
Billy walks around impatiently.
"B. Stop." I keep having to tell him.
He sits down next to me and leans into me, I run my fingers through his curls as I try to locate the girls.
Finally, the rolling motions stop. I see a wide blue sky, a flash of red hair.
"We're here." Says Max, her voice is distorted.
"How do we find them?" Asks a second voice, which I'm assuming must be El.
"I don't know. I didn't actually think we'd make it this far." Says Max.
I open my eyes. "I know where they are." I say.
I turn to Billy and hold out my hand. He helps me up.
"Can you get to them?" Mike asks.
I float back mentally to the scene I just saw and I pick a spot that isn't too crowded.
"Definitely." I smile devilishly and I look at Billy.
"You got all that...from a picture?" He asks.
I press my lips together and nod.
He furrows his brow and looks to the side, like he's thinking.
"You coming?" I nudge him.
"You bet." He wraps and arm around me and I take his hand, he squeezes his eyes tight and suddenly we're back in California.