Chapter Eighteen
Flayed
Piper stood in front of her mirror and slightly teased her hair, adding the finishing touches, before stepping back and smiling. She quickly moved to the duffle she had sitting on top of her bed, looking through it quickly to double check and make sure she had everything that she would need. Piper made sure she was dressed in a way that wouldn't alarm her Uncle, wearing a black pleated skirt and her sneakers and a t-shirt. Piper quickly grabbed the bag and her keys before leaving her room and walking out into the living room.
"Ok, heading out." She spoke while walking towards the front door. "I'll be at Nancy's and will be home tomorrow morning before heading to work."
Piper was gone and out the door before Jim could even say a word, not that he would with her saying she was heading to the Wheeler's. She nearly skipped down the front steps of the cabin and walked towards her truck, quickly starting it to make her way towards the high way. She couldn't help but feel a rush of excitement going through her body the closer she got to the motel. It didn't take long for her to arrive and when she pulled up she could already see Billy's car parked outside one of the room. She parked the car, grabbed her bag and stepped out of her truck quickly. When she turned around she saw Billy leaning causally against the door frame of the motel room.
"Hey beautiful," Billy smiled towards her as she walked towards him. The moment Piper got closer Billy grabbed her waist and pulled her towards him.
"Hey handsome."
Piper kissed his lips softly before moving past him and setting her bag down on the chair that was close to the door. The room was dimly lit decorated in dark red and brown. Billy closed the door to the room before moving towards Piper and wrapping his arms around her, holding her from behind and causing her to giggle slightly.
"I have missed you" Billy whispered softly in her ear.
"Missed me? You say me earlier." Piper laughed softly and turned around in his arms.
"You know exactly what I mean." He smirked down towards her.
His hands moved up her back before gripping her waist and bending down to kiss her deeply. Piper smiled against Billy's lips as she pulled away from him.
"Wasn't there something that you wanted to see?" She bit her lip and smirked towards him.
"Don't tempt me." He spoke "You did enough of that at the pool today."
Billy moved to lay her across the bed, her hands feverishly moving to unbutton the shirt that he was wearing and pushing it off his shoulders. His hands moves down to grip her thigh before slowly moving up her leg. The moment she had his shirt off, she pushed on his shoulder to straddle his waist. Piper reached for her t-shirt and pulled it over her head, a curse passing through Billy lips. She smirked down towards him before leaning down to kiss him again, her hand caressing his cheek and hips grinding down against him.
Piper pushed the covers from her body before standing and grabbing her shirt from the floor, the soft noise of the shower sounding from the bathroom. She moved around the room, picking their clothes up off the floor. The door of the bathroom opened behind her and Billy walked into the room while drying his hair with a towel. Piper moved towards the bed and sat down as her eyes scanned over his body.
"Don't give me those eyes, doll." Billy chuckled before reaching into his bag and slipping on a pair of boxers.
"What eyes?" Piper asked, faking innocence.
Billy shook his head and laughed as he slipped on a pair of pants and moved towards the bed to sit down beside Piper. She leaned against him and rest her head on his shoulder.
"What's the plan for the rest of the night?" Piper spoke softly, gently grabbing his hand and began to play with the rings on his finger like she always did. Billy liked it, it was one of the small things she did that he found adorable.
"Thought we could just be together, spend some time together." He shrugged "Ever since we both started working we haven't really been spending time together a lot."
"I know." Piper sighed and sat up slightly and turning towards him more.
"That's all gonna change when we move to California." Billy smiled "Spending days at the beach, walking the pier."
Piper's back straightened and she let go of his hand, Billy's eyes quickly looking down towards her hand with confusion.
"Something I said?" He asked
"We talked about this Billy. I don't know what I'm going to be doing at the end of the summer, including me moving with you."
"What's there to think about?" He looked towards her confused "You wanna be together don't you?"
"Of course -"
"Then what is there to think about!" Billy spoke, his voice raising with each word and standing quickly from the bed to look down towards her.
"I still have my family, Billy. You may hate yours and wanna run away from them. But I don't."
"What the hell did you just say to me?" He looked down towards her, the anger clear all over his face and in his body language. Piper sat before him, crossing her arms at her chest.
"You know what I mean." She spoke with her voice hard and firm.
"No. Maybe you should tell me exactly what you mean, Piper."
Her back straightened more, Billy never called her by her first name. It was always some sweet nickname.
"I don't know what I'm going to do. I told you that I needed time to think. You wanna get away from your dad and Hawkins and go back to the life you had before you came here. I get that. But I can't run away from my problems like you do!" Piper spoke, her voice even and calm. Knowing that yelling wasn't gonna get any where. Billy didn't have that same thought.
"Such bullshit." He shook his head and reached for his shirt to put back on. "You know I thought that maybe my girlfriend would wanna come with me." He gathered his clothes and angrily threw them into the bag he brought with him. "That she would love me enough to wanna start a life together. But I guess I was wrong."
"Billy...don't-"
"Don't what!" He screamed, turning towards her his eyes wide and face turning red. "You wanna tell me that I'm wrong?"
Piper sighed and rubbed her hands over her face. "What do you want from me?"
"I can't fucking tell you that, Piper." Billy reached and grabbed his keys. She looked up towards him to the sound.
"Where are you going?"
"Leaving!"
Billy grabbed the handle of the door and threw it open and left out of the room quickly. Piper quickly looked around the room for her skirt to throw it on so she wasn't running out of the motel room nearly naked. But by the time she got to the door, the back lights of Billy's Camero were staring back at her as he drove out of the parking lot.
Billy drove angrily down the highway with music blasting through the speakers as the wind whipped quickly through the car with the windows rolled all the way down. He kept one hand on the wheel as he dug through his pockets and grabbed the pack of cigarettes and pulling out one and lighting it quickly. His foot sat heavy on the accelerator as his car sped down the highway.
"Fuck!" Billy screamed throwing the lighter into the passenger side seat.
His hands gripped tightly to the steering wheel as he drove with eyes straight ahead. As he drew closer to town, something was thrown towards the windshield of his car, causing him to swerve and lose control of his car. The Camero veered off the road and smashing straight into a pole. Billy's body moved forward with his head smashing into the steering wheel. Billy groaned slightly, a ring in his ear, before looking around in confusion.
"The hell?" He moaned softly as he got out of the car and looked around.
The windshield was smashed from the impact along with the front end of the car. Billy curses loudly and kicked the side of the car out of anger. A sound came from behind him and he quickly turned around to notice that he was outside an abandoned factory miles outside of town. The sound got louder and closer.
"Hello?" He called out. Billy looked around as he slowly made his way towards the building, where he thought the noise was coming from. "Hello?"
The noise came again, louder than before, causing Billy to jump slightly and quickly look to his left. There was a eerie calm and silence and something deep within his gut told him to get out of their. But before he could even make a move to head back towards his car, something grabbed him by the ankle and pulled – causing him to slam hard to the ground and knock the wind out of him. A loud scream sounded from him as the hold around his ankle tightening as he was pulled through the factory.
Piper sighed as she closed the door to the motel room behind her and walked towards her truck. She felt drained and tired from the fight that happened with Billy. But with him driving off she knew that it was gonna be pointless to drive around and track him down, knowing that Billy just drove around when he got mad. Piper pulled out of the parking lot and headed through the back roads and straight towards someone she knew that she could go to. It took a little longer to get there, but the moment she parked the truck, Piper hopped out of her truck and straight towards the front door. The lights were still on in the house, which she was thankful, meaning she wouldn't be waking anyone up. Piper knocked on the door quickly and took a step back, and waited on a few moment, before the door opened.
"Piper?" Steve asked with a confused look on his face as he stared towards the girl standing before him.
"H-Hey." She smiled sheepishly towards him. "Uh...can we talk?"
"Yeah. Yeah." He pushed his hair from his face. "We can talk in my room? Or out here?"
"Uh, your room is fine." She shrugged her shoulders before following behind Steve and heading towards his room.
Piper moved towards the chair sitting off the side in Steve's room and almost instantly dropping her head into her hands.
"Not that I'm not happy to see you or anything, Canon. But why did you come to my house at 10:30 at night?" Steve asked closing his bedroom door and then sitting at the end of his bed facing Piper.
She shrugged her shoulders and moved to sit up straighter. "I don't know. Billy and I got into a fight and I just...wanted to see a friend. Hopper thinks I'm at Nancy's so that would only cause him to question me if I came home."
Steve looked towards her confused. "What did you and Hargrove fight over?"
"He...uh...wants me to...move to California with him." She whispered softly
"And you don't want to?"
"I don't know what I want!" Piper spoke quickly before taking a deep breath. "He's so adamant that I come with him and I truly don't know what I wanna do." She paused and looked towards Steve. "What would you do?"
Steve shrugged "I don't know. Ya know I had my whole life practically planned out by my entire family. My dad thought I'd be heading off to some big college right now to be a doctor or some shit. Life doesn't go as planned and sometimes you gotta just...follow your gut."
"My gut isn't telling me what to do right now." Piper grossed her legs "I'm truly lost."
"What do you mean?"
"I-I never thought that I would be here ya know? I thought that I would kinda do the same thing your parents planned for you. Go to school, go to college, get a good job...but then my parents died and everything changed." Piper bit her lip and looked towards Steve. "I came here right after my entire world go turned upside down...then it changed even more with everything that happened a few months ago. So now I feel like I'm walking around life lost with no guide and no way out of this...confusion."
Steve sighed heavily and nodded his head. "I can understand where you're coming from. We went about our lives expecting one thing, then something came along and changed that, and now we're just...left here sorta."
Piper nodded her head "Exactly"
"Well why don't we do this." Steve stood up from where he was sitting "My parents are out on some date night bullshit, so no one is here, we can grab a few drinks and just hang out."
Piper looked up towards him and nodded her head, before standing and following him back down the stairs. She took a seat on the couch in the living room as Steve walked towards the kitchen. He came back a few seconds later with a beer in hand and handing one to Piper. She cracked it open quickly and took a long drink from it as she relaxed back into the couch.
The next morning Piper woke up early and got ready for work, planning on heading to the pool before going to Star Court. Her stomach was in knots most of the night. After leaving Steve's around midnight, she drove home and snuck back into the cabin to pass out in her own bed. Thankfully when she woke up in the morning neither Hopper or El had woken up, meaning she wouldn't be questioned on why she wasn't at the Wheeler's. Piper drove quickly towards the pool, parked and looked around the parking lot and hoping to find Billy's car. She couldn't find it any where which made her stomach twist up even more with not only nervousness but also worry.
Piper got out of the car and slipped her car keys into her back pocket as she walked through the front doors of the community building. It was buzzing with activity of running children and mothers loudly gossiping to each other, Piper having to slightly push through the early morning crowd to head towards the employee door. It was thankfully propped open with a wood wedge on the floor and she was able to peek her head in and look around. Spotting the same girl from yesterday looking over a clipboard while standing near the shelves. Her head wiped towards Piper the moment she filled the doorway.
"Heather right?" Piper asked, the girl nodded her head as she popped her gum. "Uh...you seen Billy?"
"Yeah, he just stormed into the locker room." She spoke her voice slightly monotone. "He looked like shit."
"T-Thanks."
Piper gave the girl a weird look before pushing off the door frame and turning to walk towards the employee locker room door. She opened it slowly and saw instantly saw that the lights were off. The second thing she noticed was the feeling she felt when she walked into the room. Piper's stomach sank slightly to the cold silence that surrounded her. She couldn't put her finger on it but for some reason she was scared.
"Billy?" Piper spoke out into the darkness of the locker room, her voice slightly shaky as she stepped further into the room. She didn't know if the fear she was feeling cause of their fight last night or the heavy feeling looming around her. "Billy?"
She heard a bang come from the back of the locker room where the showers were, freezing for a moment, before walking towards them. Her sneakers squeaking against the damp floor as she walked further and further into the locker room area.
"Billy, come on." Her voice became more firm.
When Piper turned the corner she could see Billy standing with his hands pressed against the shower walls, the shower head turned on and the water cascading down over his head. His back moved with each shallow breath he took.
"Billy?" He didn't answer. "I-I was hoping we could talk about last night?"
"Last night?" He spoke, Piper's face turning with confusion. His voice was off.
"Yeah." She took a tentative step towards him and started ringing with her fingers nervously. "Our fight? Did you forget?"
Billy's back straightened slightly and he reached to turn off the water. But not moving at all the face Piper. A hard scuff came from him, back stiff and his fists clenched tightly to his side before he turned around towards her. His eyes hard, dark and almost empty.
"B-Billy..." Piper stepped towards him, but he instantly stepped back away from her.
"Stay away from me, Piper." Billy spoke. The tone of his voice sending a chill down her spine.
He slowly walked towards her, his eyes never leaving hers, before pushing past her and walking out the way she came. Piper's eyes watered slightly as she stood there feeling a cold chill going down her spine.
AN: Thanks again for all the reviews! I saw some theories and of course, I have a ton of tricks up my sleeve when it comes to flayed Billy and Piper. I love reading your theories and thoughts on the story. Also half of nineteen is written and I will try and update for you soon!