Chapter 2: THE MONSTER'S HOUSE
The stairs creaked under my weight. Billy's weight. Every step felt like learning to walk again—this body moved differently, balanced differently, carried its strength in places I wasn't used to.
The kitchen opened up at the bottom of the stairs. Linoleum floor, yellow cabinets, a table that had seen better decades. Morning light slanted through windows that needed washing, catching dust motes in golden beams.
Neil Hargrove sat at the head of the table like a king holding court. Coffee mug in one hand, newspaper propped against the salt shaker, posture calculated to occupy as much space as possible. Late forties, gone soft around the middle but still strong. Still dangerous. The kind of man who measured his worth by how much fear he could generate in a room.
He looked up when I entered. His eyes—pale blue, cold as lake ice—narrowed.
"Took your sweet time."
"Morning." I kept my voice flat. Neutral. The borrowed memories screamed at me to look away, to hunch my shoulders, to make myself smaller. I ignored them.
Susan stood at the stove, spatula in hand, moving with the careful precision of someone who'd learned to avoid sudden movements. Pretty once. Still was, underneath the exhaustion and the permanent tension in her shoulders. She glanced at me when I walked in—something between hope and fear in her expression—then returned to the eggs before Neil could notice.
Max hunched at the far end of the table, red hair hanging like a curtain around her face. Thirteen years old, small for her age, radiating the defensive hostility of a kid who'd learned early that family wasn't safe. She didn't look up when I entered. Her spoon moved through the Cheerios with mechanical regularity, stirring more than eating.
I grabbed a piece of toast from the counter. Butter—real butter, the kind that came in sticks instead of tubs. The taste hit harder than expected. When was the last time I'd eaten? When I was alive? The bread was warm, the butter melting into it, and for a moment I just stood there experiencing something as simple as breakfast.
"Didn't say you could eat," Neil said.
"Didn't ask."
The words came out before I could stop them. Billy's memories went haywire—that wasn't how this worked, that wasn't safe, that was going to end with bruises in places clothes could hide—
Neil's hand twitched toward the table's edge. Susan flinched so hard she nearly dropped the spatula. Max's spoon froze halfway to her mouth.
I met Neil's eyes. Held them.
He was bigger than me. Older, heavier, with the kind of mean strength that came from years of manual labor and recreational violence. In a fair fight, he'd probably win. He'd certainly won every fight against the original Billy, who'd learned early that resistance only made the beatings worse.
But I wasn't the original Billy. I was something else wearing his face. And I had fire waiting underneath my skin.
"You got an attitude problem," Neil said slowly. His voice had dropped into that dangerous register, the one that usually preceded violence.
"Probably."
His jaw worked. The muscles in his forearm bunched around the coffee mug. I could see him calculating—the challenge to his authority, the unfamiliar response, the way I wasn't backing down like I should.
Susan's hands trembled at the stove. Max had stopped pretending to eat, watching the confrontation with wide eyes.
Then Neil looked away. Back to his newspaper. "Get out of my sight. We'll talk about this later."
It wasn't surrender. Not even close. But it was a crack—a hairline fracture in the foundation of his control. He'd expected submission and gotten something else. That uncertainty was keeping his fists at his sides.
For now.
I took another piece of toast and sat down across from Max. She stared at me like I'd grown a second head.
Susan placed a plate of eggs in front of Neil without a word, then busied herself at the sink with dishes that didn't need washing. Running water filled the silence.
"What's your problem?" Max's voice was barely audible, pitched below the sound of the faucet.
"Don't have one."
"Bullshit." Her jaw set in that stubborn way. "You always have a problem. With me, with Mom, with the way I breathe. What's different?"
Good question. The honest answer was everything—I wasn't her stepbrother anymore, just a stranger in his skin, trying to figure out rules for a game I'd never signed up to play. The easy answer was nothing she'd believe.
"Not in the mood," I said finally. "You want a fight, find someone else."
Her eyes narrowed. Blue-green, fierce, waiting for the trap. The old Billy would have made this moment hell. A comment about her skateboard, her clothes, her existence. Ammunition designed to wound because wounding was the only power he'd ever had.
I took a bite of toast.
"Whatever." She went back to her cereal. But I caught her glancing at me three more times before she finished, each look more confused than the last.
Neil turned a page loudly. "You working today?"
The question threw me for a second. Billy had a job? The memories surfaced slowly—a garage on the east side, Hector Martinez running the place, oil changes and tire rotations for minimum wage plus tips. Something to keep him busy and put gas in the Camaro. Something to get him out of this house.
"Yeah."
"Good. Don't be late." Neil didn't look up from his paper. "Makes me look bad when my son can't keep a schedule."
His son. The possessiveness in those words made my skin crawl. Billy wasn't a person to Neil—he was property. An extension of Neil's ego that needed to be controlled, directed, beaten into the proper shape.
My hands warmed under the table. I pressed them flat against my thighs, willing the heat down.
"Going out," I said, standing.
"You just got—"
I was already through the back door.
The morning sun hit my face like absolution. Warm, golden, real. California summer wrapped around me—jasmine from somewhere nearby, exhaust from the distant highway, salt riding the breeze from an ocean I couldn't see but knew was there.
I stood on the back porch and just breathed. In, out. Filling lungs that worked when they shouldn't. Feeling a heart beat that had stopped on a highway in another life.
The Camaro sat in the driveway. Blue with a white racing stripe, chrome gleaming in the morning light. A 1979 Chevrolet Camaro Z28—I knew this from Billy's memories, from the hours he'd spent washing it, waxing it, treating it like the only good thing in his life. Which, for him, it probably had been.
I walked around the car once, running my fingers along the fender. Warm metal, smooth curves, the kind of American muscle that didn't exist anymore in the world I'd come from. Beautiful machine. My machine now, I supposed.
The driver's door opened with a satisfying click. I slid behind the wheel, settling into leather that was already warm from the sun. The keys went in. The engine caught on the first try—V8 growl, throaty and angry, vibrating through the steering wheel into my bones.
"Okay." I put my hands at ten and two, staring through the windshield at nothing. "Fire powers. Abusive father. Teenage stepsister who thinks I'm a monster. Stranger Things universe, 1984, approximately one year before everything goes to hell."
The dashboard didn't respond. The engine just rumbled, patient, waiting.
"Cool," I said. "This is fine. Totally fine."
I needed somewhere private. Somewhere I could figure out what was happening to my hands without an audience. The garage wasn't it—too many people, too many questions. Home was definitely not it. Any public space was out.
Billy's memories offered a suggestion: an industrial district on the edge of the city. Abandoned warehouses, empty lots, the kind of place where nobody asked questions because nobody cared enough to look. He'd gone there before, when the house got too small and he needed to break things. Bottles, mostly. Scream where no one could hear.
Now I had better things to break.
I put the Camaro in reverse, backed out of the driveway, and pointed myself toward the edge of San Diego. The radio found a station playing Van Halen—"Panama," all keyboard hooks and David Lee Roth howling. I drummed the steering wheel without thinking about it.
Same as I would have in my old life.
Small connections. Proof that whoever I'd been still existed somewhere underneath Billy Hargrove's muscle memory.
The road opened up ahead. Morning traffic was light. The sun climbed higher, burning off the coastal haze.
First step: figure out what I could do.
Second step: figure out how to survive.
Everything else could wait.
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