Chapter Twenty
Red Door
Her body felt like she as floating the moment she was able to come down from her panic attack. Instantly her mind began to think of the worse case scenario when it came to Billy and why there was a bloody whistle in his bathroom - and the only she wanted to do was find the truth. Outside the crack on thunder sounded making the small house shake slightly, Piper looked out the window in Billy's room to see it start to pour with rain.
"Where can we find Billy?" El asked from beside Piper.
"The pool." Piper rubbed her eyes slightly. "Come on, if we go now we might be able to catch him before his break if he's there."
Piper looked around the room and grabbed the jacket off the back of Billy's chair, the heaviness of the coat weighting on her shoulders, as they walked out and back towards the truck. Once inside, Piper drove away quickly, the entire ride driven in silence. Each girl trying to come up with some sort of scenario of what could be going on. When Piper pulled up into the parking lot she watched as people ran out quickly, shielding themselves from the rain, as they ran towards their cars. Piper held tightly to the guard pouch that was found with the whistle and walked with determination into the community building. She stormed up towards the desk window, slamming it down on the counter causing the two teens behind the desk to look up towards her. El and Max soon joined up and stood beside her.
"Pools closed." The guy spoke, giving the three of them weird looks.
"I don't care about that." Piper held the small pouch up for them to see. "Can you tell me whose this is?"
"Uh...Heather's. Why?" the girl asked after popping her gum.
"Where is Heather?" Max asked ignoring her question.
"I don't know she bailed out on me today." the boy sat up straighter and set the magazine that was in his lap down onto the desk in front of him. "Aren't you Hargrove's girlfriend?"
Piper rolled her eyes and stepped away from the desk, only to turn around and see El standing across the hall and standing in front of a bulletin board. Piper slowly walked towards her and looked over her shoulder and towards the row of photographs tacked onto the board.
"Heather." Piper pointed towards the photo, the name written across the bottom, and grabbed it quickly and yanking it from the tack. "T-Think you can find her?"
El looked up towards Piper and nodded her head. Piper looked over her shoulder to see the two teens not paying attention before grabbing both Max and El's hand and pulling them towards the woman's locker room.
"Start turning on the showers towards cold." Piper instructed towards Max, as she turned the latch on the door locking it front the inside to make sure they didn't get interrupted.
Max moved quickly to Piper's instruction, as Piper moved towards the closet into the locker room. She grabbed a pair of goggles from the top shelf along with some thick black tape. She worked quickly to black out the front of the goggles to create a mask for El.
"Alright, El. No matter what tell me what you find." Piper looked up towards El. "I don't care what it is, you tell me."
El nodded her head as she took the mask from Piper and quickly placed it on before walking into the cold shower. She sat down on the floor of the shower and quickly became still. Piper stood against the tiled wall and watched her, once again her fingernail finding its way towards her mouth. Piper wanted nothing more than to have a cigarette at the moment. Max's nerves got the best of her and slowly she began to pace at the end of the locker room.
"What do you see, El?"
"A door." El answered "A red door. I-I'm going inside..."
Piper nodded even though she knew the girl couldn't see her. Once again El became stiff and her hands began to tighten into fists at the tops of her knees. Piper moved to kneel down in front of the girl, this time making sure to not touch her, but could see the tremor of El's bottom lip. Not knowing if it was from the cold of the shower or whatever she was seeing.
"El?" Piper whispered
El jumped back and removed the goggles quickly from her face and looked towards Piper with the same wide, scared and tearful eyes.
"El? What happened? What did you see?" Piper asked
El took in deep hard breaths before dropping her head into her hands.
"I-I don't know." She shook slightly. "I don't know."
Piper rested back in the seat of her car and felt like her mind was racing at a mile a minute with everything that as going on inside of her mind. From the fight with Billy, to the weird transmission with Steve and Dustin, and now this. The day wasn't even over and she felt like she was ready for bed and to sleep for ages.
"We're not gonna find, Billy, you guys." Piper spoke "We aren't gonna find him and be able to figure out what's going on with this Heather girl. At least not today."
"What if we went to the house?" Max asked looking up towards Piper. "Hawkins is a small town and El saw the number on the mail box along with a red door. Maybe we can just go and see if she's home?"
Piper's head rolled to the side and looked down towards the two girls in front of her.
"Last thing we're doing with this." Piper reached and started the car "And then after that we drop it ok? We can't keep going on this scavenger hunt."
El and Max nodded their heads before Piper reached to shift the car out of park and pull out of the pool parking lot. It a took a while of driving around, and for a moment Piper even thought maybe the red door wasn't even real. Till she turned down the street and right at the center of the block was a Tudor style house with a red door and a mail box that read the numbers 1438.
"T-This is it." El whispered softly from beside Piper.
Piper stopped the car quickly and shifted it into park the rain pouring down on the car as they stared out towards the house.
"Are we going up there?" Max asked after they had sat there for a long moment.
"Y-yeah. Stay behind me ok?" Piper sighed "Technically I'm enabling this bad behavior."
Once again the girls got out of the truck and headed towards the house quickly, racing towards the porch and becoming drenched once again from the rain. El used her powers to unlock the door allowing Piper, with a shaky hand, to reach forward and slowly open the door of the home. All three surprised to see lights on inside when they walked in since they expected no one to be home just like back at the Hargrove home. Soft music was playing as they slowly walked through the house, framed photos of a smiling family welcoming them in the foyer of the home they stood in. Piper walked towards the large framed photo on the wall and instantly made out Heather with two people she assumed to be Heather's parents.
"This is her place." Piper whispered. Seconds later the sound of a woman laughing could be heard from farther into the house.
Piper stepped forward first, making sure to keep El and Max behind her at all times. Slowly they walked in, the music becoming louder along with the sound of laughter. When they turned the final corner, what was in front of them was not what she was expecting. Billy sitting at a table with the two adults from the photo that she was just looking at. The moment Piper's foot met the threshold their heads turned towards them and the laughter stopped.
"Piper?" Billy spoke.
"Billy...what?" Piper was left speechless and utterly confused.
"We didn't meant to barge in..." Max quickly began to cover up, looking up towards a confused Piper."We tried knocking but...we didn't think you heard with the storm and everything."
The man with the silver colored hair and stern look on his face looked the girls up and down before turning to Billy. "Who are these people dripping all over my floor?"
"Sorry," Billy chuckled "Janet, Tom this is my sister Maxine and my ex-girlfriend Piper"
It felt like a punch to the gut the moment the words left his lips. Ex-girlfriend? Billy stood from the table and walked around and towards them. Piper kept her eyes on him the entire time, the fear she's been feeling once again taking over her frame. Something isn't right, she thought to herself. That feeling was back. The fear, the ice cold feeling on the back of her neck.
"We wanted to make sure that you were ok. We hadn't heard from you all day." Piper spoke as she looked towards him with confusion.
"Why wouldn't everything be ok?" Billy cocked his head to the side.
"Where is she?" El spoke quickly stepping to stand beside Piper, glaring towards him.
Billy shifted his stance towards El. "Where is who?"
Suddenly a soft voice came from the left, causing Piper, Max and El's heads to shift and see none other than Heather walk into the room. A basket of biscuits resting in her arms as she smiled widely towards them.
"Oh, whose this?" Heather spoke
"Heather...meet my sister Maxine, and..."
"I'm Piper." Piper interrupted him quickly snapped and glared towards him. But he just smiled towards her in a way that was unsettling. It didn't quite meet his eyes.
But little did Piper know that Billy was screaming from the inside. Begging. Pleading for whoever had taken over his body to not touch her. He tried and fought as hard as he could to break through but nothing he did was strong enough. It was like he was watching this all unfold before his eyes with no control to stop it. He could see the hurt in her eyes as she stared towards him. The tears starting to well up in her emerald green eyes. Billy wanted nothing more than to reach to her, hold her and tell her it was all a lie. That he loved her.
"Piper! Piper please!" He screamed. But to avail those words didn't read his lips.
The dark form stood in front of him and smirked as he watched the boy before him wither. "She will be mine in due time, Billy. Don't fight it. It's bound to happen."
"And I'm sorry I didn't quite catch your name." Billy's eyes shifted down towards El. Piper gave him a confused look once again.
"El." El even spoke her name with the clear confusion that they were all feeling. "My name is El."
Piper looked towards Max and gave her a look.
Billy stepped towards El slightly, Piper institutionally shooting her arm out to slightly press El behind her. "Now, El, you said that you were looking for someone?"
El began to stammer, before Piper quickly stepped in front of her blocking Billy's gaze. Slowly his eyes moved up Pipers body before locking with hers. Once again his eyes were devoid of any emotion. Blank. The soft ocean blue had now turned into a stormy gray.
"Your manager at the pool that you two didn't come into work today. So we just wanted to make sure that everything was ok. Especially when we didn't see you at home, Billy."
He nodded his head and scuffed slightly "Well, you see here, Heather wasn't feeling so...hot. So I just came over like a good friend to make sure she was ok. Needed to nurse her back to health." He looked towards Heather. "Aren't you feeling better honey?"
Piper snapped her head back towards Billy. "So sorry then. We must be going."
She quickly grabbed both of the girls hands and lead them out of the house. Her pace quickly with each step nearly making the girls behind her to run to keep up. The moment they got into the car, Piper locked the doors and quickly drove away.
"Woah! Piper slow down!" Max screamed "Rain storm is happening ya know."
Piper drove down the street more before quickly stopped and shifting it back into park. She felt the tears streaming down her face as she stared out towards the front windshield.
"Piper.?" El spoke softly.
Piper paused for a long moment before answering. "He didn't know your name."
"What?" El asked, causing Piper to look towards them both.
"El. He didn't know your name." Piper spoke firmly with the tears still streaming down her cheeks, a clap of lightening brightening up behind her. "Why all of a sudden does Billy not know your name?"