"and when she was happy, so was i. when she loved me."

★・・・・・・★

Amber sat on the bed, staring at the wall. She heard a knock on her door and saw Brenner come into the room with two men. Probably to experiment on her again.

"Sixteen," he said with the voice that always creeped Amber out. "Because of your stubbornness, we do not need you anymore. You have become a pain to contain. We are sending you back to Hawkins."

Amber had relief for the first time in months.

It had been 4 months since they had taken her. 6 months since she had moved to California.

And now she was going home. 

She had endured many uncomfortable experiments. Some causing her physical pain, others causing her mental pain. Didn't matter what she was going through. She wasn't the same Amber everyone once knew.

Brenner motioned for the men to grab her, and they did so. They roughly pushed her up and on the ground. They gave her a pair of clothes and told her to change and left the room.

She had stood there for a while, staring at the clothes. They weren't hers. She wasn't comfortable wearing them. But it was one step closer to being home. She slowly changed out of the hospital gown and into the sweats and t-shirt. She hates t-shirts just because of the tattoo that read "016."

Brenner had come in, assuming that she was done. He saw her standing there. No life behind her eyes. She was exhausted.

"Now, Sixteen," he said, kneeling to be level with her. "You will not speak of this to anyone. Got it? You will also do us a favor. Cut all relationships off. Romantic ones."

That got Amber's attention.

"But..." she said, very lowly due to screaming from previous days.

"If you don't, we will get you again. And we will get Eleven again. And all of your friends. You don't want that. Do you?"

Amber lightly shook her head. Even if it meant losing the one person she truly loved, she did it. She couldn't have Max be hurt.

"Good. We have bought you a ticket back to Hawkins," he said, getting up and starting to leave. "And remember; tell anyone, and we will kill you. Okay?"

"Okay," she said, barely above a whisper.

-

The plane ride back to Hawkins was very boring, very lonely. But Amber got a decent sleep, minus the nightmares.

When she landed, people gave her weird looks. A 14, almost 15, year-old getting off a plane by herself with no luggage.

But, there was a problem.

She had nowhere to go.

-

She ended up at a place where she didn't expect. She stood in front of the blue house and looked at it.

She went up to the door and lightly knocked, seeing it open instantly.

"Amber?" she heard the little Sinclair say. She looked her way and saw Erica Sinclair.

"Lucas," she said quietly, trying her hardest to avoid eye contact.

"Lucas! Lucas!" Erica yelled.

"What do you want..." But his voice trailed off when he saw the girl who was supposed to be missing. "Amber?"

-

Lucas sat on his bed as his friend slept on it. He wanted answers to his hundreds of questions but didn't want to push her.

He grabbed his walkie and started speaking.

"Mike? Do you copy? Over. Mike. We have a situation here. Over."

"What is it? Over."

"Amber's home."

And the line went dead.

"Dustin? Do you copy? Over. Dustin, it's an emergency. Over."

"Mike told me. I'm on my way. Tell Max. Over."

Lucas ran downstairs and started calling Max.

"Mayfield residence," Max's mom said, her words being slurred a little bit.

"Is Max home?"

A couple of seconds later, he heard her voice.

"What?"

"Amber."

And the line went dead.

-

"I don't know what to do. I've already called Mrs. Byers and told her she's with me, but she also has millions of questions."

"She won't answer any questions about her being missing for over four months?" Mike questioned, visibly confused as Lucas shook his head.

"I don't want to overwhelm her, so I've been asking minimal questions."

"I think she'd answer me," Max said as she finally spoke.

"It's worth a shot," Erica said.

Lucas led Max up to his room. He closed the door softly after Max entered the room. She knew Amber was awake, but she didn't want to startle her.

"Amber?" Max softly said. "It's me. It's Max. I have some questions if you are up to answering them."

When she didn't respond, she took that as a sign to ask them.

"Where have you been, Amber? You were missing for over four months."

"I just ran away."

"Well, I find that hard to believe. You love us. You love me."

"No, I don't."

"You don't what?"

"I don't love you," she said, a hint of anger in her voice, "I'm not gay. I was using you."

Now, Amber didn't mean any of that. She also didn't know how to break things off with her, so she just started saying the meanest things she could think of.

"You don't mean that."

"I mean every word. I never loved you. I'm not gay."

Tears started swelling in Max's eyes. She didn't want to believe her. That what she was saying was lies. But most of her started believing her.

"Get out."

"Amber... please, let's talk about this."

"No. Get out. We are over. I don't want to see you again."

Max didn't want to push it, so she got up and left the room. She started going down the stairs with tears in her eyes, instantly going to the front door. That was before Lucas stopped her.

"Max. What'd she say? What happened?" he asked as he saw her crying.

"Well, apparently she just ran away and caused us to panic for four months," she said in between sniffles. "And, uh, oh yeah, she was using me our entire relationship and never loved me!"

"Max..." Dustin tried.

"It's fine. I guess I'm just, like, unlovable."

"Max, what she's saying isn't true," Lucas said. "She loves you, I know she does."

"I don't have time for any of your relationship bullshit, Lucas. Or you, Mike. Even you, Dustin. I'm going home."

And she left.

-

"She'll stay with us. Our parents are okay with it," Lucas said as Mike and Dustin were getting ready to leave. "She clearly went through something very bad. I don't want her to relive the memories, though. We can gradually ask her."

"Okay. You know, out of all of us, she trusts you the most," Dustin said.

"What? How do you know that?"

"She came here instead to one of ours."

"Whatever. Just get home safe. See you."

"Bye."
"Bye."

Lucas closed and locked the door and went up to his room. He saw Amber had changed into some of his clothes, which he didn't mind but just looked at her with concern. He grabbed a blanket from his closet and put it over her.

But he noticed something.

He lightly moved her wrist back and saw it.

016.

"What the fuck."