𝐀𝐏𝐎𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐘𝐏𝐒𝐄
𝟏𝟗. 𝐄𝐥𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧
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"OH MY GOD," Lorelei whispered under her breath.
It was as if someone had sucked the air out of the room and thrown it somewhere else. At the same time as everything felt insanely tense, the atmosphere had also changed to a safe one. For some reason, now that the girl was here, Lorelei felt protected - no matter how stupid she felt for cowering behind a thirteen-year-old child. But to the fair, this child did have powers.
Time stood still as no one made any move.
Lorelei ran her eyes over the girl's face; she had certainly grown based on the pictures Lorelei had seen. But it was still the same face. And the fact that the girl had singlehandedly opened the front door and killed a demodog with her mind was also a key giveaway.
The girl's nose was bleeding crimson red, but she made no move to wipe her face. Lorelei followed the girl's line of sight, and she raised her brows in slight surprise to see that Mike was at the end of that line.
"It's her isn't it?" Lorelei turned to Steve, her voice sounding just above a mere whisper.
"Yeah," Steve replied, his eyes not leaving the girl that was still standing at the door.
Granted, Steve had never actually met the girl - but he had heard about her, and he knew for a fact that there weren't many girls with mind-abilities roaming around Hawkins. Not many that any of them knew of at least.
Mike was the first person to make a move. It seemed as though the Wheeler boy walked in slow motion until he was standing right in front of the girl.
Lorelei wasn't able to make out what they were saying, but the next thing she knew, they were hugging. She swore that she had never seen two people hug each other in that way, and neither had she ever hugged someone like that - it seemed as though they had been waiting for that moment so long.
"Why wouldn't you tell me you were there?" Lorelei heard Mike ask. "That you were okay?"
"Because I wouldn't let her," Hopper spoke up.
As Mike stepped away from the girl in confusion, Hopper neared her. Lorelei turned to her father, and she noticed that his eyes were looking at the girl with familiarity. She supposed he had met her briefly, and it burned her that he had kept all this from her for so long.
"What the hell is this? Where have you been?" Hopper inquired firmly.
"Where have you been?" the girl countered.
He didn't answer though and instead hugged her close for a moment. Lorelei turned over to glance at Steve in search of some possible answers, but he seemed just as lost as she did.
"You've been hiding her. You've been hiding her this whole time!" Mike accused as he shoved Hopper's back.
"Hey! Hey!" Hopper grabbed Mike's arm, stopping him from shoving him any further. "Let's talk."
As they both headed out of the room, the girl followed them with her eyes before she took a deep breath. Her eyes ran over the rest of the people in the room, and a small smile came onto her face as she saw Dustin and Lucas.
They were hugging her the next second, eyes closed and arms wrapped tightly together as they reunited for the first time in almost a year.
"We missed you," Lucas spoke into the girl's shoulder.
"I missed you too," she replied.
"We talked about you pretty much every day," Dustin added, and Lorelei could hear the smile in his voice.
As they pulled away, the girl furrowed her brows at Dustin. Lorelei watched in amusement as she reached forwards and poked Dustin in the mouth - much to his surprise.
"Teeth," the girl murmured.
"What?" Dustin asked.
"You have teeth," she affirmed.
"Oh." He grinned proudly, turning to Lucas for a moment. "You like these pearls?"
He purred, which Lorelei instantly winced at before stepping backward with a grin still etched on his face. As he did so, Max stepped forwards confidently with a smile on her face.
"Eleven?" she asked. "Hey. Um - I'm Max," she reached her hand out for the girl - Eleven, to shake. "I've heard a lot about you."
Lorelei hung her mouth open in surprise as Eleven simply brushed past Max without so much as a glance her way. Eleven headed over to where Joyce and David were standing, enveloping the woman in a hug first.
"Hey. Hey, sweetheart," Joyce comforted.
Eleven sniffled slightly and then turned to David, who had a small smile on his lips. He reached out and offered his fist to her, and Lorelei simply watched with her arms crossed as Eleven fist-bumped him with a tear-filled smile.
"Hey, kid-" David spoke up. "How've you been?"
The girl shrugged in reply, and her head snapped over to where Lorelei and Steve were standing. Lorelei gulped as she made eye contact with Eleven, and she felt Steve stiffen beside her.
"Oh, that's Lorelei - she's my daughter," David clarified. "The one I told you about - remember?"
Eleven nodded her head slowly, and Lorelei hesitantly stepped forwards. She reached her hand out, scared that she would be rejected just like Max had been, but she tried to keep her composure.
"It's nice to meet you - I um, only found out about you a few days ago," Lorelei admitted sheepishly. "But you seem really badass," she added, not missing the look her father sent her at the badass comment she threw out.
"Badass?" Eleven inquired softly.
"Yeah - it's like being cool and a fighter, I guess," Lorelei answered as best as she could, her hand still reaching out for the girl to shake.
"Bitchin'," Eleven smiled.
"Yeah, bitching'," Lorelei grinned back.
She felt pride surge through her as Eleven shook her hand. As the girl turned back to look at Joyce, Lorelei walked back over to Steve, a small smile on her face.
"Can I see him?" she asked Joyce.
The woman nodded instantly, and she took Eleven over to Will's room so she could visit the boy. As Lorelei had no relation whatsoever to the boy, she merely planted her feet and stayed still.
There was an impenetrable silence that echoed in the room after Joyce and Eleven's receding footsteps. It was the kind of silence that made you move around in your spot and bite the inside of your cheek. The type of terrible silence that made it feel as though something bad was about to come - as though this was only the beginning.
Lorelei hated that silence.
She had never been one for it. Especially not in these tense situations. Normally, silence would be good - it meant that she could think without the constant fucking nagging from people. But when she was anxious, this silence killed her inside. Because then the nagging didn't come from anyone else - it came from her own mind. And that terrified her to no extent.
Her arm brushed against Steve's, and it was then that Lorelei noticed just how uncomfortable things now seemed between them. Maybe if she hadn't grabbed his damn hand - then things wouldn't feel this suffocating. But she had and they did.
"So - what happens now?" she asked, wanting to break the silence that was clawing at her mind and making her think of things that she shouldn't be thinking about.
"I don't know," Nancy replied.
"Do you think there's a way to stop all this?" Lorelei pushed, looking around at those still in the room - which now included Steve, Dustin, Lucas, Max, Nancy, and herself.
"If anyone can stop this - it's Eleven," Dustin shrugged.
"Well - it's a good thing she's here then," Lorelei replied. "Then my life can go back to being normal and I can forget about all this crazy, fever-dream crap."
"I don't think you'll be forgetting this anytime soon, Lora." Dustin winced.
Lorelei crossed her arms with a frown at his words. "A girl can dream, Frizzy."
The wait was excruciating. Lorelei paced around the room as she heard the muffled sounds of Eleven and Joyce speaking in the other room. She would turn around to see the other faces and everyone else seemed stuck in their own little world as well.
After a few moments, Mike had come back out of the room he and Hopper had gone into. Lorelei had furrowed her brows at his tear-stained cheeks, but out of all the kids in the room, he was the one she had fewer interactions with - due to this, Lorelei decided to simply sit still and let the issue resolve itself.
She had dreamed about the warmth of her bed for a few moments as she stood there waiting for a resolution. But every time Lorelei envisioned herself falling asleep, all she could imagine was the terror of leaving herself at the mercy of those things.
Sure, once they finished up with this they would hopefully be out of her life for good. But deep down, Lorelei knew Dustin was right when he said that she would not long forget this entire experience. So she pushed down the thoughts of sleeping every time a yawn came up.
Despite her best efforts to disguise it - and really, they were good efforts - Lorelei would also glance over at her newfound friend, Steve Harrington.
Friend - it felt odd to even think of him in that light. A few days ago he had been the boy outside her window; the one with whom she had argued and called an asshole countless times. But now he was her friend. A person with whom she could share her thoughts - because it seemed as though he brought out that open side of her, no matter how much Lorelei tried to push it down.
But he was also the person she had asked to spend the night in her house with her, and the person she had shared not just her thoughts, but a few of her secrets too. And he was the boy whose hand she had held when she thought that she was about to die - that they were about to die.
And it seemed trivial at best, to worry about a thing such as holding Steve Harringtons' hand when the very world was about to end - when it felt as though an apocalypse was awaiting them on the other side of the brown front door that belonged to the Byers' house.
It seemed trivial because it was trivial. Holding Steve Harrington's hand was of little importance. They were friends - that was if they continued to have their little chats once all this was over. After all, the urge to shut herself off and push him away - no matter how much she enjoyed his company, though she would never admit it, not even to herself - seemed much too tempting.
Hawkins was a pit stop on the way to the rest of her life. The town was an inconvenience and a massive one at that. Lorelei didn't want to worry about having friends, or anything else for that matter. Not when she wanted to leave so badly.
And it was especially trivial - her relationship with Steve Harrington, that is - because he was head over heels for Nancy Wheeler. And Lorelei had a feeling that would not be changing. How could it? When only a while ago he was nearly crying about her and bringing flowers to her front door.
It sure seemed as though Nancy herself was above the entire relationship though; after all, she had seemingly given Lorelei the green light for being with Steve. As if Lorelei even wanted to be with Steve in the first place - as if he even wanted to be with her.
It was trivial.
So Lorelei put it to the back of her mind, not to be messed with again.
After a few more minutes, everyone had migrated to the kitchen once more. Hopper was the one calling the shots now - it seemed as though the demodog attack in the Byers' house had prompted him to act because he looked all the more desperate for answers.
"It's not like before - it's grown," he explained. "A lot. And I mean, that's considering we can get in there, that place is crawling with those dogs."
"Demo-dogs." Dustin corrected, his head craning over at Hopper.
"I'm sorry?" Hopper asked.
"I said um - demo-dogs," Dustin explained awkwardly. "Like Demogorgon and dogs. You put them together, it sounds pretty badass-"
"How is this important right now?" Hopper interrupted.
"It's not," Dustin winced. "I'm sorry."
"I can do it," Eleven spoke out confidently.
Lorelei turned to the young girl, just as everyone else in the room did. Anyone that was to look at her would see the fact that she had clearly been on quite the journey - and Lorelei could only guess that it had sharpened her up. But still, this was dangerous.
"You're not hearing me," Hopper shook his head.
"I'm hearing you," Eleven affirmed. "I can do it."
"Even if El can, there's still another problem," Mike piped in. "If the brain dies, the body dies."
"I thought that was the whole point," Max shrugged.
"It is but... if we're really right about this, I mean - if El closes the gate and kills the Mind Flayers army..."
"Will's a part of that army," Lucas nodded.
"Closing the gate will kill him," Mike confirmed.
Lorelei breathed in sharply through her nose at this newfound revelation. She might not know Will, but from what she knew, there was no way this kid deserved all that had happened to him. And there was no way they could allow him to die.
She turned her eyes over to her father, who had a hand over his mouth. David lifted his eyes and shook his head at her, affirming the fact that he too had no idea of how to solve this problem.
If they closed that gate with that thing still stuck in Will - it would kill him, that was for certain. But if they waited any longer, then they would all die, and who knows what else would happen - who else would get hurt. The ultimatum hurt Lorelei's head; she wanted a solution to this so bad, but this time the ideas didn't come.
One of the dinner chairs creaked against the floor, and Lorelei snapped her head up to see that Joyce had stood from her chair. Her eyes looked lost in thought, as though she had just figured something out, or was in the midst of doing so.
As Joyce walked out of the kitchen and headed over to Will's bedroom, everyone followed behind her, eager to learn of anything that might help. She wandered into her son's room, and Lorelei strayed at the door, accompanied by Steve since they were the ones which knew Will the least.
Lorelei rubbed her hands together at the chill that hit her even from the pathway of the room. She glanced over at the window, which was wide open and her brows furrowed in confusion.
"He likes it cold," Joyce mumbled to herself.
"What?" Hopper asked.
"It's what Will kept saying to me," Joyce replied. "He likes it cold," she said as she walked over to the window and slammed it shut. "We keep giving it what it wants."
"If this is a virus, and Will's the host, then..." Nancy spoke up.
"Then we need to make the host uninhabitable," Jonathan finished the sentence.
"So if he likes it cold," Nancy turned to Joyce.
"We need to burn it out of him," the woman nodded.
"We have to do it somewhere he won't know this time," Mike said.
"Yeah, somewhere far away," Dustin added.
Lorelei watched as her father turned to Hopper, and both men nodded simultaneously, seemingly coming to some sort of conclusion.
"I may know a place," Hopper spoke up.
"Alright," Jonathan nodded as he glanced at his mother for a second. "We're gonna need a heater."
Everyone moved quickly after that. They all made a fast pace of gathering all the things they would need and diving themselves up. It was decided - Jonathan and Joyce would go to Hopper's cabin with Will; Hopper, Eleven, and David would go to the gate and the rest would stay at the house.
The protests from Lorelei at that were through the roof. Because her father was leaving her again, and he was heading into dangerous territory again. But meanwhile, she would have to stay like a sitting duck and just pretend like everything was normal.
It was crap.
She watched in exasperation as Will was carried out to a car by Hopper, with the Byers following closely behind as the man gave them instructions on what to do.
Her father brushed past her with Eleven, and they were talking under their breaths. Well, it was more like David was talking - and the girl was listening. But still.
Lorelei leaned up against the wall, her breath stuck in her throat as that horrible feeling erupted all over her body in unwanted shivers. She barely even noticed the fact that she had started to play with her fingers as her foot tapped against the wooden floors.
"You're doing it again," a voice brought her out of her daze.
"Huh?" Lorelei snapped her head up and sighed in relief when she saw it was just Steve.
He gestured down to her fingers first, before his eyes moved down to her feet with a smirk on his lips. "You're doing it again," he repeated. "You know - the whole playing with the fingers, tapping the foot thing?"
"I just don't like that he's going," Lorelei admitted with a shrug. Her eyes snapped over to her father for a moment, and Steve nodded his head in understanding.
"It'll be fine," Steve comforted weakly.
He looked away from Lorelei in time to see Nancy heading outside, and he bit the inside of his cheek before coming to a quick decision.
"I'm gonna go talk to Nance really quickly," he mumbled.
"Oh," Lorelei sighed. "Alright."
She watched him go, and the second his figure disappeared, Lorelei began playing with her fingers once more. This was goddamn crap - she didn't know why, but the fact that he had left to speak with someone else hurt. Lorelei chalked it up to the fact that she was vulnerable and feeling quite alone - so maybe being alone wasn't the best solution. Although it seemed to be all she knew.
Her body felt heavy and she could barely register the fact that all this was happening around her. It all still felt like a crazy nightmare that she couldn't escape from. But then again, a little excitement was good from time to time; she just wished it had been something a bit more low-key.
"You okay?" her father asked tentatively as he neared her.
"Are you still going?" Lorelei retorted.
"Yes," he answered immediately.
"Then no," Lorelei replied.
"You know I have no choice," David raised his brows. "This is my responsibility too."
"No, it's not," Lorelei shook her head adamantly. "You didn't start this. All you did was answer a phone call you shouldn't have answered and it sucked you into all of this. Why should you have to help?"
"You're here to Lorelei - against my wishes," he pointed out. "But you're not walking out, and neither am I. Because that's not us, we're not quitters."
"No, we're not," Lorelei nodded.
David smiled slightly and leaned over to hug his daughter. Their arms wrapped around each other, and Lorelei closed her eyes at the comfort that she felt from being with her dad. They may have their arguments from time to time, but she didn't know what she would do without him. And there is no way in hell she wanted to find out.
"Please come back in one piece," Lorelei whispered into his shoulder.
"I will," he replied firmly before pulling away. "And you stay here, alright?"
"Yeah," Lorelei scoffed. "I'm on babysitting duty as usual - I know."
"You have help this time," David replied.
He turned over and nodded his head in Steve's direction as the teenage boy walked back inside the house. David squeezed his daughter's shoulder one last time before he moved away from her and headed back outside.
Lorelei followed, but she stopped short at the porch. She watched as her father got into Hoppers' truck with Eleven. But her brows furrowed as Nancy Wheeler brushed past her and climbed inside Jonathans' car - now that was a surprise.
She felt the presence of all the kids and Steve as they headed into the porch too. As the headlights from both the vehicles turned on, Lorelei squinted her eyes in an attempt to shield them from the harsh light.
Those on the porch said nothing; they simply watched both cars drive away - leaving them there to do absolutely nothing whilst everyone else solved the problems. Lorelei still had that terrible feeling in her chest, but now that she and Steve were alone with those kids, she would just have to push it away.
She might not be rushing to close a gate or perform an otherworldly exorcism - but Lorelei Keller was anything but a coward. And she was going to keep those kids safe if it was the last thing she did.
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