Chapter 21: MAX'S WEEK
The Palace Arcade was glowing when I pulled into the parking lot.
Neon signs flickered in the late afternoon light, promising entertainment and escape from the crushing boredom of small-town life. Max had texted—well, called, since texts weren't really a thing in 1984—asking for a pickup at five. She'd been spending more time here since school started, and I'd been letting her. Independence was important, especially for a kid who'd never really had it.
Through the storefront window, I could see her. Standing at one of the machines, fingers dancing across the controls, completely absorbed in whatever game had captured her attention.
She wasn't alone.
Four boys clustered nearby, watching her play with expressions ranging from awe to territorial annoyance. I recognized them immediately—not because we'd met, but because I'd watched their faces on a television screen in another life.
Mike Wheeler. Dark hair, intense expression, the natural leader of the group even when he was being insufferable. He stood closest to Max, arms crossed, clearly not thrilled about her presence but unable to look away from her high score.
Lucas Sinclair. Watching Max with a different kind of attention—interest, curiosity, the first stirrings of a crush he probably didn't understand yet. He'd be important to her eventually. Important to me, by extension.
Dustin Henderson. The curly hair caught my attention immediately, confirming the suspicion I'd been carrying since the quarry. He was gesturing wildly, probably explaining some elaborate theory about the game or the universe or both. Always talking, always thinking, always getting into things he shouldn't.
Will Byers. Standing slightly apart from the others, pale and distracted, present but not entirely there. The possession symptoms were subtle at this stage—anyone who didn't know what to look for would miss them entirely. A faraway look in his eyes. A slight tremor in his hands. The sense of someone listening to a frequency the rest of the world couldn't hear.
The Mind Flayer. Already reaching for him. Already beginning its work.
I forced myself to stay in the car. Every instinct screamed at me to go in there, to pull Will aside, to warn someone. But I couldn't. Not yet. The timeline was delicate, the web of cause and effect complex beyond my ability to fully predict.
If I interfered too early, too obviously, I might make things worse.
So I watched. Catalogued. Filed away details for later.
Max finished her game—new high score, based on the celebration—and the boys reacted with varying degrees of acceptance. Mike looked annoyed. Lucas looked impressed. Dustin started explaining something that made Max roll her eyes. Will barely reacted at all, his attention somewhere else entirely.
I honked once. Brief, non-threatening. Just a signal.
Max's head turned toward the window. She said something to the boys—probably goodbye, probably nothing important—and headed for the exit. The Party watched her go, four sets of eyes tracking her progress through the glass doors and across the parking lot.
Tracking me, too. The stranger in the blue Camaro, the intimidating older brother they'd heard about but never met.
I wondered if Dustin recognized the car. Wondered if he'd made the connection between the guy in the parking lot and the guy he'd seen shooting fire at the quarry.
If he had, his face didn't show it. Just curiosity and a hint of the endless questions that probably filled his brain at every moment.
Max dropped into the passenger seat and closed the door. "You're early."
"You're popular." I nodded toward the arcade. "Those your friends?"
"Maybe." She shrugged, but I caught the hint of a smile she was trying to suppress. "They're weird."
"Weird how?"
"I don't know. Good weird, I think. They've got this club or something. Dungeons and Dragons. One of them—the curly-haired one—he won't shut up about it."
Dustin. Of course.
"And the pale one?" I asked carefully. "He seemed kind of out of it."
Max frowned. "Will? Yeah, he's... I don't know. The others say he was sick last year. Like, really sick. Almost died or something. He's still recovering, I guess."
Sick. That was one way to describe being abducted to another dimension by an interdimensional predator.
"He seems nice though," Max continued. "Quiet. Not like Mike—that guy's kind of a jerk. But Lucas is cool. And Dustin's hilarious when he's not being annoying."
Lucas is cool. I filed that away. The crush was mutual, apparently, even if neither of them had figured it out yet.
"You want me to meet them?" Max asked, half-joking. "Give them the protective older brother speech?"
"Maybe later." I started the engine. "Let you get settled first. Make your own connections."
She gave me a look—the one that said she knew I was up to something but couldn't figure out what. I'd been getting that look a lot lately. The price of playing chess while everyone else thought we were playing checkers.
"Whatever." She reached for the radio dial, claiming control without asking. "Your funeral when they ask about you. I already told them you're weird."
"What else did you tell them?"
"That you're not the worst." The smile broke through this time, small but genuine. "They wanted to know if you were dangerous. I said only to people who deserved it."
High praise from Max Mayfield.
The drive home took us through the center of town, past the diner and the school and all the ordinary landmarks of ordinary American life. Max fiddled with the radio, finding a station that played something we both tolerated, and the silence between us was comfortable in a way it hadn't been two months ago.
So much had changed. The hostile stepsister who'd expected cruelty from every interaction was becoming an ally, a partner, something that felt dangerously close to real family. Martinez had been right, back in California—the door was open if I chose to walk through it.
Don't waste it on anger.
I was trying. Every day, every choice, I was trying.
"Those boys," I said as we turned onto Maple Street. "The ones from the arcade. What did they want to know about me?"
"Everything." Max rolled her eyes. "Where you're from, why you moved here, whether you're going to be a problem. Mike especially. He's paranoid about new people."
"Smart kid."
"Annoying kid. But yeah, maybe smart too." She paused. "The curly one—Dustin—he asked about your car specifically. Said he'd seen it around town."
My hands tightened on the steering wheel. Just slightly. Not enough for Max to notice.
"Around town?"
"That's what he said. Driving by the quarry or something. I told him you like exploring. Is that weird?"
The quarry. Dustin had been at the quarry.
"Not weird," I said, keeping my voice level. "Just curious. New town, new places. Makes sense I'd be driving around."
Max accepted that with a shrug. She didn't know about the fire I'd shot at the quarry wall that night. Didn't know that someone had seen me, had watched from the rim before pedaling away on a bike with distinctive tire treads.
Dustin Henderson. It had to be.
The question was: what was he going to do with the information?
We pulled into the driveway. Susan's car was there, which meant dinner would be happening soon. Neil's truck was gone—work, probably, though he might just be avoiding me. The power dynamic in the Hargrove household had been firmly established, and he'd learned to stay out of my way.
"Billy?" Max paused with her hand on the door handle. "Those kids. They're okay, right? I mean, they're not going to be a problem?"
"Why would they be a problem?"
"I don't know." She shrugged. "Just a feeling. Like there's something going on with them that I don't understand yet."
More than you know. More than I can tell you.
"They seem fine," I said. "Just kids. Let me know if anything changes."
She nodded and got out. I watched her walk to the front door, disappearing inside with a wave over her shoulder.
Alone in the Camaro, I let myself process.
Dustin Henderson knew something. Maybe not everything—maybe just "the new guy can do weird stuff with fire"—but something. And Dustin Henderson was not the kind of kid who kept secrets easily. He talked. Constantly. About everything.
Which meant I needed to figure out what he was planning before he did something that put both of us in danger.
The Party. Will Byers. The possession that was already beginning. The Gate pulsing beneath the lab. All the pieces were moving now, converging toward a crisis I could see coming but couldn't entirely control.
I had fire. I had knowledge. I had six weeks of training and a sibling who trusted me.
Time to find out if it would be enough.
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