The first thing Billy notices isn’t the hair.

It’s the way she flinches.

Hawkins High is its usual midday chaos—lockers slamming, kids laughing too loud, the echo of sneakers on linoleum—but when someone bumps her shoulder in the hall, she jerks like she’s been struck. Not dramatic. Not loud. Just a sharp, instinctive recoil, shoulders curling inward as if she’s trying to make herself smaller.

Billy Hargrove slows without meaning to.

Post–Starcourt, he’s trying to be different. Quieter. Less reckless. More aware of the damage he used to leave behind without a second thought. He tells himself he’s just people-watching, killing time before third period.

But then he really looks at her.

Seventeen, maybe. Five foot nothing. Split-dyed hair—half black, half red—falling down her back in a curtain she keeps tugging forward, like a shield. Fishnets under ripped black shorts. Combat boots scuffed from use, not style. An old metal band tee that’s been washed thin.

Piercings catch the light when she turns her head: septum, snake bites, a flash of silver at her tongue when she nervously wets her lips.

And her eyes—hazel, with strange little gold flecks—never quite settle on anyone for long.

She keeps her gaze low as she walks, hugging her books to her chest, moving like she’s afraid of taking up too much space.

“Hey,” someone shouts behind her, loud and sudden.

She startles so hard she nearly drops everything.

Billy’s jaw tightens.

That… hits too close to things he doesn’t like thinking about.

He watches as Eddie Munson appears from nowhere, swooping in with exaggerated flair, scooping her fallen notebook off the floor.

“Whoa there, sweetheart, gravity’s got it out for you today,” Eddie says lightly, handing it back.

She manages a small, careful smile just for him.

Just for Eddie.

They walk off together, her shoulders easing the tiniest bit now that she’s not alone.

Wayne Munson’s kid, Billy remembers. Or… not his kid. The girl Wayne took in. The foster one. The quiet one who never talks in class, never causes trouble, never looks anyone in the eye.

Billy lingers by the lockers longer than he should.

Something about her sticks with him.

Later, in the cafeteria, he sees it again.

A tray slams too hard on a table nearby—she flinches.

Someone laughs too loud—she tenses.

A boy gestures too suddenly—she shrinks back, instinctively guarding her side.

That’s not shyness.

That’s fear.

Billy shifts uncomfortably in his seat.

He knows what bruises look like.

He knows what it means to grow up bracing for the next hit, the next shout, the next thing you can’t stop coming.

And for the first time in a long while, he doesn’t feel like the biggest monster in the room.

He feels… protective.

Which is new.

After the bell rings, he finds her at her locker, fingers shaking as she works the combination.

He stops a few feet away, careful not to startle her.

“Hey,” he says, quieter than he ever used to be.

She jumps anyway.

Hazel eyes snap up, wide and wary, like a trapped animal’s.

Billy lifts his hands a little, palms out.

“Sorry. I— I didn’t mean to scare you.”

She nods once. Doesn’t speak.

Of course she doesn’t.

He hesitates, searching for words he’s never been good at.

“You dropped your… uh—” He holds out a pencil she’d missed. “This.”