章節 21: 21. Wind of Change
[A/N: Hey y'all! :) I feel like this story is going to have a million chapters because every time I lay out a plan for a chapter, there are just a few notes for what will happen and then all of a sudden there's 5,000 words and I need to cut it off before it gets too crazy long haha. I'm working on finishing an outline for the remaining chapters but like I said, I think we're only like, halfway through this story right now haha. Anyway, thanks for sticking around and reading! I hope you're still enjoying it! There's plenty more to come. :)]
Chapter 21: Wind of Change (by Scorpions)
"Take me to the magic of the moment on a glory night, where the children of tomorrow share their dreams..."
. . . . . . . .
The wind was particularly strong that night and each heavy gust whistled loudly as it blew across El's window. The room was dark and the clock Becky had put on the small table by El's bed said 3:13.
The day had been surprisingly interesting. After initially meeting the girls in her neighborhood, they'd been abruptly called away by Gabby's dad but they'd promised they would hang out with her tomorrow. It was a strange feeling to hear them make a promise to her. They'd just met and already they could give her something that could never be broken? She deduced that these girls must have trusted her a lot already to do that. And if friends typically made promises, did that make them her friends? They'd barely interacted before being called away. The whole thing seemed odd but El didn't mind the idea of more friends. She was wary, of course, but she was also quite lonely.
As the digits on the clock changed with each passing minute, an idea popped into El's mind.
"Three… one… five…" She murmured to herself before throwing the quilt off of her and digging through her bags, finally retrieving the Supercom Mike had gifted her. He hadn't showed her how to use it properly yet but she honestly didn't really need to know anyway.
As she turned the walkie talkie on, she wondered if Mike would mind her talking to him so late at night or if he'd even hear his walkie talkie. The idea wasn't enough to deter her, however, and she sat cross-legged on her bedroom floor, the hardwood floor uncomfortable to her bony behind, as she sat the Supercom in front of her and focused. Her eyes closed and she thought of Mike, his dark, moppy hair and the little brown spots on his face. She thought of his house and his room and the way his voice went up and down sometimes without him trying. It didn't take long before the connection was established and she whispered his name gently, "Mike?"
She paused, listening intently for a response while also keeping an ear out for any noise in the hall. She didn't want to wake Becky or Terry. "Mike?" She tried again and waited.
She was about to give up when the Supercom crackled and Mike's groggy but happy voice came through. "El? Is that you? Over,"
"Yes," She said simply.
"Is everything okay?" Mike asked through a yawn. "It's really late,"
"Can't sleep," El said quietly.
"Oh," Mike said knowingly and the sound of his voice was like a warm blanket wrapped around her shoulders. "That's okay. That happens to me sometimes, too. Did you try counting sheep?"
"Counting… sheep?" El asked, her eyebrow quirked in confusion, though he couldn't see that.
"Yeah," He yawned again. "Um, sometimes people imagine sheep jumping over a fence or something or in a barn and they count them,"
El considered this for a moment, balancing her conversation with the effort it took to maintain their connection. "What is a 'barn'?" She inquired thoughtfully.
"It's a house for animals on a -," Mike cut himself off, knowing she was probably going to ask him what a 'farm' was if he mentioned it. "Nevermind, it's not important," He yawned again. "Sorry, over"
El sat quietly, content to hear him talk as she wiped away the trickle of blood running from her nose. She wouldn't be able to keep this up much longer but on the bright side, she may be able to sleep better.
"So how is um, living with Becky?" Mike asked after El had been quiet for a moment.
El thought for a moment. So far Becky seemed nice. She still wasn't sure what to think about Terry but her energy was quickly draining. "Good," She replied, then remembered the girls she had met earlier that day. "New friends,"
Mike's surprise was noticeable in his voice, though he hid the tinge of disappointment. "Oh yeah?" He said. "That was fast. Um, what are they like?"
"Nice," She replied softly, her eyelids feeling heavy. "Tired,"
"They're tired?" Mike asked, confused.
El shook her head and the movement made her dizzy. "No,"
Thankfully, Mike usually had a pretty good sense of El's communication style. "Oh, you mean you're tired," He said. "Well -"
Mike's bedroom door opened abruptly and the bright hall light assaulted his eyes.
"Michael!" Karen stood in the doorway, her pale pink robe wrapped around her and a disapproving hand on her hip. The yellow light shining from behind her silhouette made it difficult to see her face but Mike knew she was pissed. "Turn that thing off and go to sleep!"
She didn't wait for him to respond before shutting the door behind her and heading back to her own room next door.
"Angry?" El's wavering voice questioned.
"Yeah," Mike sighed, then added in a hushed tone, "She heard us talking and I'm supposed to be asleep. I'll talk to you tomorrow, though. Okay, El?"
El nodded, then added a beat later, "Okay," Talking this way made it difficult for her to maintain her non-verbal way of communicating.
"Night, El," Mike said with a smile.
El yawned, wiping another streak of blood from her nose as the connection faded with her exhaustion. "Night, Mike,"
. . . . . . . .
El woke up late the following morning, her stomach rumbling and gnawing at itself with hunger. As she trudged down the stairs, wiping the sleep from her eyes, she could hear the sound of the TV in the living room. Still wanting to avoid Terry, she quickly darted into the kitchen. She paused at the fridge, sizing it up before opening it and immediately becoming overwhelmed. There was so much stuff crammed into such a small space, El wasn't sure where to start. There were numerous packages and cartons she didn't recognize, along with plastic containers with other unidentified food items. The freezer did little to help, as well. Still no Eggos and several frozen packages of meat that she had no idea what to do with. On the door of the fridge, she recognized a bottle she'd seen at Mike's house, identifying the liquid inside as "orange juice" and pulled the carton out.
At Mike's house, they'd poured the juice into glasses so El began her search for one of her own. There were several cabinets that hung above the countertops, just out of El's reach. As she struggled on her tip-toes to open one of the cabinets, she let out a frustrated sigh, double-checking that no one was coming. She exhaled, focusing her mental energy on the cabinets, the orange juice carton tucked safely under her arm, as every cabinet door opened at once with a quick swing. The glasses were in a cabinet above the sink and just as El was about to use her powers to retrieve one, a soft voice from behind startled her.
"Do you... need some help, sweetie?" El turned around to find Rose looking from her to the array of open cabinets with a combination of confusion and relentless pleasantness.
El pursed her lips, then nodded. "Juice," She gestured with the carton under her arm.
Rose walked over to the cabinet, effortlessly pulling down a glass as El handed her the carton of juice.
"Your aunt went to the grocery store while you were sleeping," Rose said as she poured the beverage into the glass. "She should be back soon but I think you need more of a breakfast than just some juice, don't you think?"
El looked down, giving a gentle nod. She was still a bit nervous around new people and she hadn't interacted with Rose very much. Still, the woman seemed nice.
"Go ahead into the living room," Rose instructed as she began to scrub out a frying pan. "You can watch TV and I'll bring you your breakfast,"
El hesitated, looking from Rose to the living room doorway and back again before finally deciding to oblige, reluctant though she was.
Terry was seated in her usual chair, facing the TV, and El hung in the doorway like a shadow, observing. She wasn't sure what to make of this woman. As she understood it, she was supposed to feel good things around her. This was her "mom". But after their encounter the other night, El was even more nervous to be around her than she'd been before. That strange sensation and the voice that appeared in her head without her trying had been unnerving to say the least and she couldn't help but wonder if it had been Terry's doing. Her fear paralyzed her while her curiosity compelled her, causing a consistent friction between what she wanted to do and what frightened her.
I know you're there.
The voice in her head almost made her shriek and El clamped her hands over her ears instinctively. The calm and soothing warmth of its tone did nothing to keep her from being startled. Strangely, Terry hadn't moved an inch as El did everything she could to keep from screaming as her adrenaline thumped through her veins with the pounding of her heart.
Don't be afraid.
El looked around, wondering for a moment if Rose had come out of the kitchen and was talking to her, but she could hear pans clattering on the stovetop and knew she and Terry were alone.
Come sit.
As much as she wanted to run out of the house or crawl up into a ball on the floor and cry, El couldn't help the magnetic fascination that tethered her to this woman. She cautiously approached Terry's sitting form, eyes wide and movements slow with trepidation. Terry never moved as El got closer, finally coming in view of the woman. There was an ottoman next to Terry's rocking chair and El stared at it for a few moments before bravely sitting down, her muscles tight and her breathing shallow. She didn't know what was going on but as much as she was frightened, she wanted to understand.
Close your eyes. The voice was gentle and warm, tickling El's mind with the soft curl of its words. Find me.
El hesitated, looking at the woman as if at any moment she would begin to move and talk like a normal person. But in the short few days she'd been here, she knew that wasn't going to happen. El inhaled deeply, exhaling as she closed her eyes and tried to focus. She wasn't sure what to do or to what degree she was the one "doing" anything in this situation. Normally when she "found" people, it was in the bath. There was no tank or tub here but she did as the voice instructed regardless.
As El focused her attention and energy on the voice, recalling its warmth and softness, she quickly found herself in a familiar place. The darkness, she'd called it. Her bare feet sloshed in the shallow water that covered the floor of the otherwise empty space. She began to breathe heavily, frightened that she was here without going into the bath. If there wasn't a tank to come out of, how would she escape? As she looked around nervously, she noticed a woman standing before her in a long blue nightgown. This woman, Terry, had a light in her eyes that El had never seen before and her smile was foreign to her as well.
Hello Jane.
El stared at Terry in wonder before dumbly pointing to herself and murmuring, "El,"
El. Terry said with a breath, feeling the syllable roll over her tongue. My beautiful daughter.
El stood stock still, unsure what to make of this experience. For as much as she had learned of her powers and abilities in the lab and outside of it, she'd never experienced something like this. Did this mean Terry had powers, too?
"How?" El asked.
You're very special, El. Terry smiled sadly. I'm so sorry that I lost you.
El looked down as the image of Terry screaming from a hospital bed as Papa walked away, a baby cradled in his arms, flashed across her memory. The realization that she was the baby felt like a veil lifting from her eyes. Things were quite suddenly beginning to make so much sense. If she was the baby being taken away from Terry then… perhaps Papa wasn't her real Papa… He'd stolen her. The thought brought bile up to the back of El's throat and her eyes pricked with tears.
The bond between a mother and her baby can never be broken. Terry explained. I've waited for you all this time. Terry stepped closer and El fought the urge to back away as Terry's hand reached for her. No matter what happens to me, you can always find me here. Terry's fingertips gently grazed El's cheek and she was struck with a sudden, powerful sensation that welled up in her chest like a geyser. She wasn't sure what it was or what it meant but she simultaneously wanted to cry and hug this woman at the same time.
"Breakfast is ready!" Rose's sing-song voice echoing down the hall startled El out of her focus and her face briefly crumpled at the disruption. When she looked up at Terry from her place on the ottoman, the woman's empty eyes were staring blankly at the television and El fought the urge to cry. She didn't understand why but it felt like losing her mother for the very first time.
. . . . . . . .
Will was seated at the kitchen table, his social studies homework spread out in front of him. He hadn't gotten much sleep the night before so it'd been a long day at school, trying to stay awake and alert despite the frequent pull of his eyelids. Even now, he had to prop his head up in his hand lest he give in to the idea of resting his head on the table and taking a nap.
Despite a few twinges of nausea here and there, Will had been feeling much better than he had since returning from the Upside Down. He hadn't seen a slug in almost a week and he'd only flickered into the Upside Down once on his way home from school when his bike tire momentarily lost traction over some sticks in the road. It seemed he wouldn't have to worry his mom or Jonathan after all, which was a relief considering everything that had been going on lately.
Jonathan had stayed after school for a bit to develop some photos and Joyce was busily bustling around the house getting ready for work.
"God, this piece of crap," Joyce muttered to herself, checking for the third time if her curling iron had heated up yet as a lit cigarette dangled from her mouth. "Will, honey!" She called from the bathroom. "What time did Jonathan say he'd be back?"
Will looked at the kitchen clock. "He should be home in a few minutes!" Will called out as he began to doodle on the corner of his homework. "He said he'd be back by 4!"
Suddenly, the lights in the kitchen flickered and for a split second, Will thought his heart had actually stopped beating. The last time that had happened, the Demogorgon wasn't far. This time, however, the lights flickered and went off throughout the house and Joyce let out an angry groan from the bathroom.
"Dammit!" Will heard something plastic bang against the sink and Joyce came storming out, her hair half-curled and her brow furrowed deeply as she made a beeline for the phone on the wall.
"What's going on?" Will asked, pausing his homework completion though it was still light enough outside to see his worksheet.
"The damn electric company shut us off," Joyce blustered as she waited for someone to answer, the receive pressed to her ear and her fingers tapping against the wall impatiently. "I sent them a payment a week ago!" She grumbled more to herself than to Will, then realizing how she must have been coming across, she softened her tone, "Don't worry, sweetie. They probably just turned us off by mistake,"
"It's fine," Will shrugged, more concerned by his mother's stress than the lack of light. As Joyce struggled to maintain a polite tone with whoever answered the phone, Will couldn't help but be thankful that his issues with those slugs and the Upside Down seemed to finally be over. The last thing his family needed right now was more stress.
. . . . . . . .
Despite how much El appreciated the big, fluffy waffles that Becky made, she couldn't help but be delighted when Becky came home from grocery shopping with a box of Eggos. They reminded her of Mike and she had insisted on having some for a snack later that afternoon. She'd just finished eating when a knock on the front door echoed through the first floor of the house. El's instinctive reaction was to cower and hide but she peered around the kitchen doorway to watch Becky answer the door.
"Hi!" Gabby's bright red hair was the first thing El noticed and she couldn't help the tiny smile that escaped. "I'm Gabby. Is El home?"
"Can she come out?" El recognized Trish's voice and slowly slipped out from hiding behind the wall. Emma quietly hung back behind Gabby and Trish.
Becky turned, eyebrows raised at her niece. "I guess you're making friends already?"
El pursed her lips in an effort to keep from smiling too broadly at that comment. She was making friends.
"Do you want to come over my house?" Gabby asked El, then looked to Becky for approval. "I just live a few houses down," She gestured in the general direction of her house.
"What do you think, El?" Becky looked to her niece, uncertain as to how to navigate this new territory. While she wanted to protect El, she also knew she couldn't keep her on house arrest. How would they find that balance?
El looked to the girls, their faces eager as they waited in the doorway, then nodded.
"Okay," Becky nodded, her nerves tingling with anxiety as she thought on her feet. "Okay, um," She began to unlatch the watch from her wrist. "Take this. I want you to come back at 6 o' clock, okay?"
El stared in confusion at the watch as Becky latched it to her tiny wrist. This one looked different than Mike's and she wasn't sure what "6 o' clock" meant. There were two little sticks pointing in different directions and a third that she could see moving around the clock's face in a circle.
"When the longer one is on the twelve and the shorter one is on the six," Becky whispered into El's ear discreetly.
That made more sense and El nodded before walking outside and following the girls to Gabby's house.
The house was laid out similarly to Becky's house with only small differences in detail and Gabby immediately led the girls up to her room. As Gabby closed the door behind them, El couldn't help but compare the bedroom to Nancy's. There were pictures everywhere and El recognized many of them included Gabby and one or both of the other girls. The walls were a pale shade of pink and purple star stickers were clustered together in one corner. A thin white curtain covered the single window and the blanket on Gabby's bed had horses all over it. Much to El's surprise, there was a small TV in one corner and another unfamiliar object on the other side of the room.
For a while, El sat and observed the interactions of the other girls. While she'd spent time with Nancy, she'd had very little exposure to the interactions between girls her own age. The most she'd been able to witness had been girls at the middle school in Hawkins but even then, she hadn't been with them. She'd been walking around with the boys and hadn't been able to hear the conversations those girls were having. She'd always wondered what other girls her age talked about? She quickly learned they did not talk about Dungeons and Dragons, Star Wars, or Lord of the Rings, the latter of which she still did not know anything about. Instead, they seemed to giggle a lot and mentioned several boys' names but El had trouble keeping up - the conversation moved so quickly! She could barely keep track of the questions as they rolled around in her head. What was a 'crush'? Who was 'mascara'? What was an 'MTV'?
"El, you're super quiet," Trish finally commented, startling El out of her mental list-making. "Are you okay?"
With the other girls' eyes on her, El carefully nodded. "Okay,"
"Guys," Gabby suddenly stood up from her spot on the bed. "Have you heard Madonna's new album?" El watched curiously as she walked over to the strange object in the corner and adjusted some of the knobs on the front, filling the room with music that made El want to bounce. "I can't stop listening to this song!" Gabby began to sway animatedly, flipping her auburn locks around as she dramatically acted out the words to the song. "Get into the groove, boy, you've got to prove your love to mee, yeaah!"
Trish nudged El's shoulder. "Gabby can be a little dramatic when it comes to music," She said under her breath but Gabby still heard her over Madonna's vocals.
"Whatever, Trish," Gabby rolled her eyes, continuing to dance slightly off-beat. "It's my favorite, okay?"
"Favorite?" El looked to Trish.
"Yeah," Gabby noticed El's expression. "My favorite song,"
"What is 'favorite'?" She asked hesitantly. The boys were used to her not knowing words but she wasn't sure how the girls would react to her lack of knowledge.
"You don't know 'favorite' means?" Trish asked, dumbfounded.
El pursed her lips, her cheeks growing hot as she felt the girls' eyes on her.
"Um," Emma spoke from her place on the other side of Gabby's bed. "Favorite means you think something is the best. Like, okay, Gabby's favorite song is 'Into the Groove' so she thinks that's the best song out of all the songs she knows," She paused. "Get it?"
"I like it the most," Gabby clarified and El nodded, seemingly satisfied with this explanation. "Hey uh, where are you from that you don't know the word 'favorite', El?"
El blinked, digging through her memory to retrieve that place the boys had described once before. "Sweden,"
Trish did a double-take. "Seriously?"
El shrugged and nodded at the same time, her expression uncertain.
"Wow," Gabby breathed, sitting back down on the bed. "That's wild. So like, what's it like over there? Is everybody the same as they are here?"
"Um," El paused. "Cold,"
"Ha, I bet," Trish guffawed.
"So how come you don't go to school with us?" Gabby asked, pulling her legs into a criss-cross position. "Are you home-schooled or something?"
El considered this for a moment. She did schoolwork at home so that seemed about right. "Yes,"
"Oh my god, she needs to come to the dance with us," Trish suddenly exclaimed, then turned to El who had leaned away a little bit at her outburst. "You need to come to the dance,"
"Dance?" El parroted. She remembered that word. Mike had used it when he was explaining what a "Snowball" was. A cheesy school dance he had called it.
"Yeah, it's a Sadie Hawkins dance for Valentine's," Emma added but El's perplexed expression only deepened so she continued, "Normally the boys ask the girls to school dances but for the Sadie Hawkins dance, the girls ask the boys,"
"We usually just go as a group," Trish said with a shrug. "The boys at our school are lame,"
"Yeah, you're not missing much," Gabby said, rolling her eyes.
"Mouthbreathers?" El asked and the girls giggled.
"Sure, you could say that," Trish smirked, then turned to Emma and said in a sing-song voice, "Except for Joooshuaaaa,"
"Shut up," Emma muttered, her normally pale cheeks pinkening as Trish and Gabby chuckled and El stared. "I'm not asking him, okay?"
"We've been giving her hell about this all week," Gabby leaned to El and explained. "She has a mega crush on this kid Josh at our school,"
"Crush?" El quirked her head upon hearing the word again. Crushing didn't sound like a good thing. She knew about crushing. She had crushed the brains of the agents who had threatened her friends and countless soda cans during her testing at the lab. Why were they so happy about someone who was crushing someone?
"Wow, you're like an alien," Trish laughed, then patted El's shoulder when she noticed the girl's face fall. "No, it's okay. A crush is like, when you like someone,"
"A friend?" El reasoned but Trish shook her head.
"No, like, someone you really like," She said, emphasizing and drawing out her words. "More than a friend,"
"More than a friend," El nodded thoughtfully, considering this. "Okay,"
"Do you have a crush, El?" Gabby asked, her face beaming with anticipation and suddenly El felt shy, though she couldn't explain why.
"More than a friend?" She said, hesitating. "Um…" The only person who came to her mind was Mike. He was her friend but when she thought about it, she liked him the most. That probably made him her favorite. And if he was her favorite friend, maybe that meant he was her 'crush'? "Mike,"
"Oooooooh," Trish and Gabby said in unison, looking at each other in amusement. "Tell us about Mike,"
El blinked, unsure of what to say but she didn't need to think long before more questions came.
"What does he look like?"
"Does he live around here?"
"Is he from Sweden, too?"
"Is he cute?"
"Um," El tried to make sense of their questions, organizing her thoughts. What did she think of when she thought of Mike? "Dark hair," She said quietly, barely touching her own head. "Spots," She gestured to Gabby's face and the redhead laughed heartily.
"You mean 'freckles'?" She grinned. "He has freckles?"
"Freckles, yes," El nodded confidently. "Um… not from here,"
"You should bring him to the dance!" Gabby said excitedly, clasping her hands together. "Ahhhh, this is so romantic. You can bring Mike, Emma's gonna ask Josh -"
"I'm not -" Emma began.
"Whatever, yes you are," Gabby waved away her protest. As she did so, El noticed the sleeve of her shirt fell down a little bit, exposing some of her forearm, and through the space between her arm and the fabric, El could see strange dark spots on her skin.
"Freckles?" El asked, pointing to Gabby's arm and the girl quickly yanked her sleeve down. The entire mood of the room quickly became heavy and quiet and El wasn't sure what she had done wrong.
"No," Gabby answered curtly and stood up, walking over to the TV and turning it on as her friends quietly watched with pained expressions. El looked between Trish and Emma, then back to Gabby who was quickly flipping through channel after channel.
"Gabby's dad is kind of an asshole," Trish whispered into El's ear. "He got pissed one time and put his cigarette out on her arm,"
"A few times," Emma added quietly.
"I can hear you," Gabby grumbled, leaving the TV on MTV as a music video for Prince began.
Trish pursed her lips and El wished this uncomfortable feeling would go away. Despite her ever-present confusion, she'd been having a good time with her new friends and she felt bad for making her new friend upset. She felt even worse knowing that Gabby had a dad who hurt her. That was certainly something she could relate to.
El stood up and walked over to where Gabby was crouched in front of the TV, gingerly resting her hand on Gabby's shoulder. "Sorry," She said softly. "I understand,"
The tension in Gabby's shoulders and back released and she sighed. "It's fine," She said without looking up. "Hey uh," She cleared her throat and forced her voice back to normal. As she stood back up, El let her hand fall to her side. "Have you ever watched MTV? They've got all the music videos you could imagine,"
. . . . . . . .
The rest of the week seemed to fly by. El spent the mornings reviewing her schoolwork and chatting with Becky and Rose. She hadn't had another opportunity to communicate with Terry in the darkness, though. She didn't want to do it in front of Becky or Rose and since that initial time, she hadn't had another moment in which she and her mom were actually alone. She was happy when Gabby, Trish, and Emma invited her to hang out with them again each day after school. She was getting a lot of information very quickly that she was still trying to work her way through but so far, she had decided that she liked MTV, she definitely thought Emma should go with Joshua to the dance, and she was afraid of Gabby's father. Thankfully, her dad was never home when she went over to their house because he worked until evening and El always went back home before he got there. Trish and Emma didn't seem too worried though which seemed odd but maybe they were just used to knowing about Gabby's dad. In the evenings after dinner, El would sneak up to her room and sit in her closet, using the supercom to talk to Mike and fill him in on her day. There never seemed to be enough time, though, before his mom insisted he work on his homework or help with dishes and sometimes Becky would interrupt them just because she wanted to know where El was. She seemed a little anxious and a little overprotective sometimes and El couldn't decide if she liked it or not.
El spent Friday excitedly waiting for Hopper to come pick her up. He'd called the night before to let her know to be ready by 2 pm, that way they could swing by the school and pick up Mike. Earlier that week, Hopper had run into Karen at the library. As she was returning books she'd rented for Holly, he was scouring the educational section for appropriate resources for El. After some small talk, Karen had offered to help with El's schooling, citing the fact that she had studied a little bit of child development in high school and had plenty of time since she was usually home with Holly. She just couldn't shake the sympathy she felt for El and the things she had gone through - what she knew of them, at least - and wanted to do her part to help the girl. The new plan was for El to be picked up by Hopper on Friday's and unless something else was going on, she would go to the Wheeler's house for the evening. Karen would help her with schoolwork while Mike did his own homework and then she could spend the rest of the day with her friends. Saturday was largely reserved for schooling with Hopper and Sundays were a freebie.
As Hopper and El drove back to Hawkins, El couldn't help the bubble of excitement that bounced around in her stomach at the thought of seeing her friends again. Especially Mike.
. . . . . . . .
The locker room always smelled awful after gym class and Mike was glad that it was his last class of the day. The teacher had asked him to help put away the equipment for the day and so Mike was the last to get back to the locker room to change. After washing the dirt and dust from his hands and changing into his regular clothes, Mike began to make his way through the maze of lockers to the exit when he was stopped by Troy standing in the doorway.
"Where ya goin', Frogface?" He said menacingly and Mike rolled his eyes, moving to pass him but James appeared and further blocked his way.
"C'mon, Troy," Mike sighed in exasperation, rolling his eyes. "The bell already rang,"
"Oh, the bell rang," Troy mimicked obnoxiously and James smirked, crossing his arms.
"What do you want?" Mike asked, his expression beyond annoyed as he tried to squeeze past them to no avail.
"Do you… do you want to leave, Wheeler?" Troy asked, pretending to just become aware of this. "Uh, yeah," Mike replied sarcastically. "Can you move?"
Troy's eyes darkened. "How about you make me?" He said, shoving Mike just hard enough to set him off balance. "You know, we never finished this conversation the other day,"
"Cut it out, Troy," Mike growled and steadied himself but the weight of his backpack made it easy for James to reach out and grab him, further pulling him off balance. As Mike stumbled, Troy grabbed him by the straps of his backpack and shoved him into a row of blue lockers. The metal clanged loudly with the impact and Mike's supercom dug into his back through the backpack's fabric.
"Let me go!" Mike yelled angrily, struggling as James immobilized him, weaving his arms through Mike's so that he couldn't defend himself or get away. Mike clenched his eyes tight as Troy's fist came flying toward him.
. . . . . . . .
"The wind of change blows straight into the face of time, like a stormwind that will ring the freedom bell..."
每周推薦票狀態
-- 推薦票
榜單 
-- 推薦票