She had learned to move through Hawkins High the way lightning moved through a storm—quiet until it wasn’t, invisible until it struck. People thought she had it all: the glossy hair, the razor-sharp grades, the jocks tripping over themselves to carry her books. They didn’t see the way her fingers sometimes twitched when the hallway lights flickered, or how she startled at the buzz of a malfunctioning locker. They didn’t know she could pull the electricity out of the walls if she wanted to.
They didn’t know she had been Number 007.
Only Robin Buckley and Steve Harrington knew her well enough to sense the storm underneath the smile. Robin because she was Robin, and Steve because—well, Steve had been lovesick since the moment her and her adoptive mother, Dr. Vera Thompson, had stepped into Family Video asking for a job application.
But that was a year ago.
Before Billy died. Before she started drowning herself one red Solo cup at a time. Before she started slipping.
⸻
Tonight
The party was too loud, too bright, too humid with the smell of beer and cheap cologne. She let a stranger press another drink into her hand, something neon blue and probably illegal. She downed it anyway. Anything to numb the part of her that still woke up thinking she heard Billy’s laugh. Anything to drown out the memory of how warm his hand had been the night he told her he thought she was magic—if only he had known how right he was.
From across the chaos of the living room, Steve Harrington watched her, jaw tight.
“She’s doing it again,” he muttered.
Robin followed his gaze to her, who was sitting on the arm of a couch, laughing at something she didn’t really hear. Her eyes were glassy, unfocused. “Yeah,” Robin said softly. “She’s hurting.”
Steve swallowed. “She’s destroying herself.”
“Then go help her.”
“I tried,” Steve said. “She doesn’t want help from me.”
Robin gave him a pointed look. “Then be there anyway.”
⸻
The Breakdown
She slipped out the back door before Steve could cross the room. The night air hit her like a slap—cold, damp, familiar. Hawkins was so damn quiet, she could hear her own pulse, electricity rolling under her skin like static begging to arc.
She stumbled toward the tree line behind the house, heels sinking into dirt, vision swimming. She pressed a hand to her forehead, trying to ground herself, to push down the tidal wave rising in her chest—
—and then she saw him.
Billy.
Standing just beyond the trees, half in shadow, watching her with those ocean-blue eyes she’d tried so hard to forget.
Her breath caught. “Billy?” she whispered, voice breaking on the name.
He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Just stared.
Her heart cracked straight down the center.
“No—no, you’re dead,” she said, shaking her head hard. “You’re dead, I saw— I saw—”
She staggered backwards, electricity spiking off her fingertips. The air shimmered, lights from the nearby house flickering violently. Her knees buckled and she hit the ground, choking on a sob as the world warped around her.
“Y/N!”
Steve.
His hands were suddenly on her shoulders, warm and steady. She clawed at him, still trying to see past him into the trees. “He was right there—Steve, he was right there—Billy—Billy—”
Steve pulled her into his chest, holding her like she might break into lightning and vanish. “Hey—hey, look at me. Look at me, thunderbolt. There’s no one there.”
She pressed her forehead to his shirt, sobbing helplessly as the phantom dissolved into the darkness.
Steve brushed his fingers through her hair, voice shaking. “You don’t have to do this alone. You don’t have to hurt like this.”
“I can’t stop seeing him,” she whispered. “Every time I close my eyes.”
“You loved him,” Steve murmured. “Of course you see him.”
“No,” she said, voice raw. “I killed him. If I had told him what I can do… if I had used it—if I had tried—maybe he—”
“Hey, no,” Steve said, tightening his grip. “It wasn’t your fault.”
The electricity under her skin finally ebbed, dying to a faint hum.