CHAPTER TWENTY
ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ ROSIE 'SHERLOCK HOLMES' GRY
A RESTLESS NIGHT OFTEN GUARANTEES A FATIGUED MORNING, however, Rosie awoke to feel surprisingly refreshed. The brunette had opened her eyes to find a still sleeping Max facing her, and suddenly the sleepless night had escaped her. Red hair was sprawled out over the pillow she rested her head on, mouth parted slightly as she snored with the ferocity of a bear. Rosie had fought the urge to laugh rather valiantly, deciding not to bring up Max's loud sleeping habits when she would eventually wake up.
Once the three girls had all finally woken up (Rosie assisting by aggressively poking both El and Max until they shot up in surprise), they had briefly discussed the happenings of the night before. What El had seen was the elephant in the room, an elephant the trio tried ignoring despite its size.
"We should go see him," El had insisted, to which Max seemed hesitant, "Please."
Max turned towards Rosie, silently asking if she agreed, while simultaneously pleading that she didn't.
"I don't see the harm," Rosie concluded slowly, and Max's posture slackened, "We'll go in and out right El?"
El nodded, and that's how they found themselves walking to Max's house on Cherry Road, thunder rumbling above their heads as rain threatened to spill from the darkening clouds. Rosie found it strange how the weather could immediately switch from scalding hot to cool skies and showers, however, Max and El didn't seem too bothered.
"It's gonna start pouring soon," Max stated, voicing Rosie's thoughts almost exactly, "We should be at the mall or, like, watching a movie or something."
"You don't believe me?" El asked, eyes softening with hurt.
Max glanced in Rosie's direction, before continuing, "I believe you saw some super weird stuff, totally, but you said Mike has sensed you in there before, right? So maybe it was just like that. Maybe Billy just... sensed you somehow."
"But the screams?"
"Yeah, I know, but here's the thing," Max began, and Rosie cringed to herself in preparation for what Max was about to explain, "When Billy is alone with a girl, they make, like, really crazy noises."
"They scream?"
"Yeah, but, like... happy screams."
"Happy screams?" El repeated, brow furrowing in confusion, "What is 'happy screams'?"
"It's like..." Max paused, as if she were buffering, "I'm just gonna lend you my mom's Cosmo."
"Let's not do that," Rosie shook her head, attempting to rid the thoughts of El being exposed to freaking Cosmo before the three of them landed in front of Max's house.
It was a humble abode, similar to Rosie's house further down the street, with a few spindly trees scattered here and there, but aside from an empty driveway, everything looked normal. Everything was almost abnormally in place.
"His car's not here," Max observed, and Rosie recalled the blue 1979 Chevrolet Camaro with an understandable lack of fondness.
"Hey, are you sure you wanna do this?" Rosie asked kindly, eyeing El who had been staring down the house as if it had personally wronged her, "We don't have to."
El just nodded, not bothering to even look at her in response.
The Mayfield's house was just as Rosie remembered it every time she had slept over. It was all old furniture and abstract paintings on the walls, and the occasional magazine tossed randomly on different surfaces. An aforementioned Cosmo sat dejectedly on the kitchen counter.
But they weren't there to investigate a middle-aged mom's reading habits. They were there for Billy.
Billy's room smelled like what Rosie could only describe as 'Billy Juice', aka the combined stench of cigarette smoke, sweat, toxic masculinity and unwashed gym shorts. Beer cans were scattered on just about everything, his desk, the floor and even on his bed. A stereo blasting heavy metal music next to a cigarette dish complimented the scantily clad posters of women plastered on the wall. Old workout gear covered a small, burnt orange couch, and his unmade bed just about completed the picture-perfect image of what Rosie had fully expected.
"Why do I get the feeling we're gonna find all kinds of wrong in here?" Max pondered aloud, mostly to herself, and Rosie couldn't help but agree.
Rosie gave the room yet another once-over, trying her best not to inhale the rancid smell while attempting to find anything suspicious.
If she was honest, this just seemed like your standard bedroom of a teenager with a mullet.
"Ugh, gag me with a spoon!" She heard from Max, who just slammed shut a drawer.
Rosie gathered there was most likely some... unsavoury content in there.
The bathroom was next, and El flicked on the lights to reveal the familiar blue seashell wallpaper and bright yellow shower curtain. Rosie glanced towards the mirror, taking in her cropped pink shirt and black sports shorts before she turned back towards the bathtub, which El was now staring at.
What made her stomach turn anxiously was that the bath was full, with not only water but the remnants of ice packaging floating atop it.
"Max?" El said quietly, and the girl in question quickly joined her and her girlfriend, peering into the tub curiously.
"Ice," Max wrote her off quickly, reaching it and grabbing one of the flimsy pieces of plastic, "It's just ice. Probably for his muscles or something. He works out like a maniac."
Rosie just nodded, finding her reasoning completely logical. And yet, something deep inside her was screaming at her to find something incriminating, to prove that Billy was bad news.
El's gaze swept over the bathroom before her dark eyes locked on something near the sink. When Rosie looked closer, an icy chill travelled down her spine.
There was blood on the cabinet handle.
The brunette was astutely aware of her own heartbeat and El's trembling breaths as she maneuvered towards the cabinet, bending low and fishing something out of it. A trash can, small enough to fit under the sink.
And yet large enough to fit an unmistakably red first aid bag and blood stained yellow lifeguard whistle.
•. ° . * .·. . ✧:. ·.
IT WAS FULL ON POURING NOW, and yet Rosie couldn't find it in her to care. The blood scattered around the bathroom had been on her mind consistently, even as they went to get rain jackets and investigate further at the public pool. Sure, Billy was some racist jerkwad with a bad haircut, but Rosie still couldn't comprehend the fact he could possibly be a murderer too. This was the evidence she wanted to find, and yet something about it felt unsatisfying.
Kids were leaving as they were entering, and Rosie found that to be a sufficient warning sign for them to leave (plus, Rosie was drenched to the bone and rainy weather sucked, especially in summer). However, Max and El kept trucking on, so Rosie just wrapped her orange raincoat tighter around herself and quit complaining.
Thunder boomed throughout the depressingly dark skies as Rosie hurried towards the front desk, occupied by two bored-looking teenagers who vaguely resembled plastic dolls. There was a girl, sipping a cherry coke and a guy, flipping through a magazine, and the both of them looked utterly uninterested, not even looking up at them as they approached.
Rosie flipped down her hood and gave the two a small smile as a greeting, "Excuse me?"
Safe to say they didn't smile back.
"No one in the water until 30 minutes after the last strike," The guy droned, as if he had repeated this same sentence over and over (which he probably had), "And don't try and argue with me. You wanna get electrocuted, go climb a tree."
"Yeah, we don't care," Max rolled her eyes, and Rosie shot her one of her signature 'be nice!' looks, "We're not here to swim. Or get... electrocuted."
"We found this," El whipped out the first aid fanny pack, and the two's workers' interests didn't shift whatsoever.
The girl sipped obnoxiously on her coke.
"We were wondering if it belonged to anyone here," Rosie finished for her, smiling yet again.
The guy eyed the three of them, before glancing at the pack in recognition, "Oh, yeah. That's Heather's. I'll get it back to her."
"Or...we could give it back to her," Rosie suggested, and the guy shook his head.
"You could. 'Cept she's not here," The guy told them disinterestedly, "Bailed on me today." The three girls looked towards one another, suspicion etched on Rosie's face, and the manager looked at them expectedly, "What is this? You girls want a reward or somethin'?"
"No," Max shook her head, smiling phonily, "We're just... Good Samaritans."
The girl smiled sarcastically, and the two unenthusiastic workers went back to their magazines as if nothing had ever happened. Rosie resisted the urge to scoff at their unprofessionalism, "Thanks for your time."
She was promptly ignored.
Rosie sighed to herself, giving the two workers a slightly dirty look before she caught up to Max and El. They had stopped in front of a notice board, with six pictures of smiling, red-clad teenagers beneath 'MEET YOUR '85 SWIM SEASON LIFEGUARDS' in bold yellow letters. One stuck out to her, however.
Heather.
She was smiling a big, toothy smile, and clutching a whistle slung over her red swimsuit.
The picture made Rosie's heart pang.
"Heather," Max observed, voice strained, "Do you think you can find her?"
El didn't respond, instead, she looked back at the girl and guy, who were laughing, probably at something in their magazine. She turned back, now reassured of the fact they weren't watching before she snatched Heather's photo down and nodded.
Rosie was about to object, citing the moral code inside of her that was screaming, 'We shouldn't steal!'. However, she didn't really get a chance to, because before she knew it El and Max had raced off towards the girl's locker rooms. Rosie paid another glance at the manager and employee before she rolled her eyes and followed.
She was always getting left behind these days.
Rosie and Max had been tasked with switching on the showers, creating a white noise that worked as a substitute for static, while El worked on a blindfold (scuba eye gear she covered in duct tape).
The final shower turned on with a satisfying shriek, and Rosie joined El on a changing bench, watching as the brunette covered her eyes. Anxiety clawed at her insides, much like the first time she had witnessed El do this, and she grabbed Max's hand.
Max squeezed her hand in comfort.
Rosie's eyes traitorously found the empty ones of a forever-smiling Heather. It was almost ironic, seeing such a happy girl in a photo that would help them find her if she truly had been kidnapped.
El hadn't had any visceral reaction yet, and Rosie naively saw that as a positive sign.
"Do you..." Rosie cleared her throat nervously, "Do you see anything?"
"A door," Her answer was sharp, quick, and slightly hesitant, "A door. A red door."
Blood trickled down to her lip.
There was more silence, egregiously loud silence.
Until El threw off the eye gear, breath heavier than Rosie had ever heard it. Deja vu hit Rosie like a tonne of bricks, recalling the first encounter El had with Billy in the dream world. She panted harder and harder as she attempted to ground herself, and Rosie immediately flew to her side, rubbing her back comfortingly as she tried to disguise her worry.
"You're safe, El, you're safe," Rosie repeated over and over until El's breathing began sounding normal again.
"What happened?" Max tried to ask, however, no answer came. Rosie wasn't sure if it could come, "El!"
•. ° . * .·. . ✧:. ·.
NIGHT HAD FALLEN, and the rain still persisted, causing a rather slippery bike ride that involved attempting to fit three full-sized girls on a single bike belonging to Max. It was a strenuous, uncomfortable ordeal, and Rosie left the experience with one takeaway: she needed to learn how to ride a goddamn bike. But despite being cold, clammy and her braids being drenched in rainwater, Rosie could only focus on one thing: where they were going.
El had described a red door and had found the location of where she had seen it. Heather could be there, they decided. And hopefully alive.
Rosie welcomed the easy feeling of dread that filled the pits of her stomach with unopen arms. Something strange was afoot, and Rosie 'Sherlock Holmes' Gry was going to figure out what it was.
Max stopped in front of a house, your standard suburban, upper-middle-class home with a perfectly maintained garden and noticeably bright red door. Rosie stared at it before she turned to El expectedly.
"Is this the one?" The brunette asked, and El nodded, brown eyes locked on the blood-red door which seemed to be staring back.
As if to mock them, lightning exploded throughout the night sky.
Rosie slipped off the bike, walking towards the house slowly. She took several breaths, each one done as an attempt to calm herself and settle her nerves. It was probably just Heather's house, right? Everything was going to be fine. Maybe El had gotten something wrong. She sure hoped so.
The door squeaked open, thanks to El's mind powers (that Rosie still quite didn't understand!) and the artificial warmth engulfed her face, making her shiver.
Everything looked like your average, family home. A patterned rug rested softly underneath her feet, and a tapestry hung from a wall near them, creating an environment that screamed, 'a middle-aged woman decorated this!'. What sounded like string music created a low hum throughout the house, bouncing off the beige walls with lighthearted ease.
They made the quick trip down the hallway, which had been lined with gold-framed family photos. On a closer inspection, Rosie recognised one of the smiling faces. The same smiling face that had been pinned up at the public pool.
Heather.
"This is her house," Max realised, turning to El and Rosie, "Heather's house."
Like clockwork, a bellowing laugh coming from the dining broke Rosie's trance.
A hideously red wallpaper came into view, and just as Rosie suspected, it was plastered around a dining room. What Rosie didn't suspect, however, was to see a couple at least in their fifties and Billy sitting around a table, laughing in between sips from fancy glasses and clearly enjoying the classical music being played. Heather was nowhere to be seen.
The energy seemed to falter when the girls entered the room, the squeaking of cutlery suddenly stopping as three pairs of eyes tracked to them.
Billy stopped eating, seemingly surprised to see them but smiling eerily nonetheless, "Max."
Rosie was suddenly hit by a massive wave of self-consciousness at the judging eyes of the older couple, who were self righteously sizing the three girls up. She felt embarrassed, the type of embarrassment one is put through when you dream about going to school naked, considering the fact she had quite literally just broken into someone's home and interrupted a peaceful family dinner. The other part of her screamed in utter confusion. Billy sitting there, in a smart blue shirt, playing the role of a diligent young man wasn't right, it didn't feel right.
"We're so sorry, we didn't mean to barge in!" Rosie apologised profusely, attempting to draw understanding from the rather tough crowd.
"We tried to knock, but..." Max swallowed, who was clearly equally as puzzled as Rosie, "Maybe you didn't hear us over the storm."
"I'm sorry, who is this dripping all over my living room right now?" The man scowled. He must've been the husband of the woman, clad in a striped tie and brown vest. Everything about him dripped with 'superiority complex', not even bothering to address Rosie, Max and El.
Rosie winced, glancing down at her raincoat and tried in vain to catch some of the droplets flying off her orange coat.
"I'm sorry," Billy chuckled through chewing, setting down a fork that he had been using to cut steak, "Janet, Tom, this... is my sister, Maxine. And that is her...best friend, Rosalind." He pointed to the Gry girl herself, and she tried her hardest not to shrink under his strange, gentlemanly gaze.
She decided not to mention the fact it was 'Rosie'.
"Oh!" The woman gasped, a smile that Rosie couldn't decide whether it was fake or not appearing on her face.
Billy stood up from his chair, waltzing towards the girls with a concerned expression, "What on earth are you doing here? Is something wrong?"
Max frowned, looking up at her brother as if he had said something gratuitously offensive, "We... just wanted to make sure everything was okay."
"Okay?" Billy's brow furrowed, his voice soft, curious, and all-around very Un-Billy like, "Why wouldn't it be okay?"
"Where is she?" El butted in, ever the blunt one, forcing Billy to meet her cold gaze.
"I'm sorry," Billy responded, his voice almost cartoony polite, "Where is who?"
Rosie felt herself slightly gravitating in front of El, attempting to gage whether Billy was going to get violent. No matter how disorientated or fearful this little dinner party was making her, Rosie knew she had to protect her friends. She had fought Billy before, and she would fucking do it again.
Before things could possibly get out of hand, however, a young woman around Billy's age burst through the door, a sheepish smile on her face and a high, curly brown ponytail. Rosie knew that face. She knew that face from a small picture found in the Hawkins swimming pool.
"Well, they're a little burnt, I'm sorry—" Heather stopped in her tracks, clutching a tray of dessert cookies when she found three, fourteen-year-old figures in her living room.
"Heather! This is my sister, Maxine, and her friend Rosalind," Billy introduced, his voice returning to the phony, picture-perfect voice he had used with Janet and Tom, "And, I'm sorry, I did not quite catch your name." He stared at El expectantly.
"El."
"El," Billy repeated, his voice hardening, "Now, what is it you were saying, El? You were looking for somebody?"
The brunette seemed to falter, looking between Billy and Heather, briefly stammering, "I— I saw... I saw you—"
"—Your manager. At the pool," Max quickly finished for her, subtly nudging Rosie in her side to follow along.
"Mhm!" Rosie nodded enthusiastically, "Very nice guy, he said that you didn't come in for your shift, and he was wondering if everything was alright?"
"We got worried," Max continued, and Rosie internally sighed in relief.
"Heather wasn't feeling so hot today, so we thought we'd take the day off to nurse her back to health," Billy spoke to them as if he were talking to kindergartners, "But you're feeling just fine right now, aren't you, Heather?"
"I'm feeling so much better," Heather assured them, almost robotic in her cheeriness, "Do you girls want a cookie? They're fresh out of the oven!"
Rosie glanced toward Max and El, who didn't seem keen, so Rosie immediately answered on behalf of the group, "No, thank you, but they smell delicious! We're so sorry for intruding— glad you're feeling better Heather!"
Billy decided to walk them out. He stood at the door, watching as the three of them clambered onto a single, rickety bike, and they rode off.
It should've been as simple as that, really.
It was as simple as that.
And yet, Rosie couldn't wrap her head around it.
As the rain slammed down on the hood she had pulled over her head, Rosie kept thinking about the darkened tone Billy took when he addressed El. The dangerous look in his bright eyes she recognised when he had stared up at her last year, before flipping her over and literally punching her lights out. It unnerved her, because despite the fact nothing was out of the place and everything she questioned had a reasonable explanation, it didn't sit right with her.
None of this sat right with her.
•. ° . * .·. . ✧:. ·.
ೃ⁀➷ NINI SPEAKS !
hey...how y'all doing? OKAY LOOK, IT MAY HAVE BEEN LIKE,, TWO MONTHS SINCE I UPDATED, BUT I CAN EXPLAIN. let's just say, there's been a wedding, a funeral, and a not very slay mental health crisis. but!!! i'm back, and feeling a lot better than i was two months ago. i feel like this chapter is so boring but the plot must proceed ig 🙄🙄🙄 anyways stan ariana debose for clear skin xxx