Margin

by SaphiraBellacqua

Summary:

"Real life didn’t have dice rolls, spells and divine powers. Here, Mike didn’t have a sacred sword or a shield, he couldn’t heal with a touch of his hand. Mike only had his weak hands and his weak arms, and his weak legs to keep him alive."

 

After the fall of 1984, nothing will ever be the same.

Chapter 1

Notes:

WARNING: Mind the tags, folks

 

 

Mia caps the pen in her hand, staring at the black X she’s just marked down on the calendar. 

The 29th of October.

Only one day until Halloween. 

“Mia, can you help me set the table?”

“Sure.” Mia answers Jonathan, lips numb. 

It’s been almost a year since -

Mia shakes her head. Steps away from the wall. And goes to set the table.

She had, of course, known that Halloween was just around the corner. 

She and Jenny were going out tomorrow to see if they could find the finishing touches for their costumes, which they’ve been planning for months already. Mom has spent the last few days sewing the finishing touches to Will's Egon Spengler outfit, made from an old jumpsuit that Mia, Will and Jenny had found at the thrift store. Even Jonathan has been busier than usual with a thematic assignment from his Photography Club, that had him going to that Murder House on Morehead with two other kids from the club to take some horror-inspired pictures. 

And Mia has been marking down the days on the calendar every morning since January 1st. Once all the little boxes for the month were marked with black ink, she was the one to rip the pages out to reveal the following month. She knew the date was coming. Ever since September started, she had seen the little October 31st box, watching as it got closer and closer with a feeling like dread settling deep in her stomach.

Her problem wasn’t with Halloween, no. She loves Halloween. 

But the thought that on the morning after they go out trick or treating she’d have to rip out the October page and reveal the November one had her entire body breaking out in a cold sweat.

“Hey.” 

Mia startles, dropping the cutlery in her hands to the floor with a loud sound.

Jonathan stares at her from the stove. There’s a concerned frown on his face which he quickly smooths out once she raises her eyes to him. 

“You okay?” He asks, mouth quirking up at the sides as if he thought she was being funny. 

Mia stares at him for a second. 

She had forgotten he was there. She doesn’t even remember getting cutlery from the drawer.

“Sorry.” She says, looking away. “I was thinking about something else.”

A flash passes behind Jonathan’s eyes, a small frown twisting his brows, but before Mia can identify the emotion, her brother turns around to face the pan on the stove, stirring the mac ‘n cheese in it. 

He stirs it too fast, the movement too wide, and some of the cheese sauce spills out one side of the pot. Chester, who had been lying down behind Jonathan’s heels, licks the drops that fall on the floor.

Jonathan doesn’t notice it, eyes fixed on the pot. 

It’s almost ten o’clock and Jonathan’s been wearing pajamas since he came back from school. If mom was here and not picking up Will from the arcade, she’d already have complained that not only was he getting his pajamas dirty, but he was also walking around on the cold floor of their house in socks, without slippers or shoes. 

Dad used to make Jonathan scrub his dirty socks in the mudroom’s sink until his knuckles bled, saying Jonathan shouldn’t make their mom wash his dirty clothes when it was Jonathan’s fault they got dirty. 

Jonathan still washes them in the mudroom sink until his hands turn red.

And despite never having to wash his dirty socks, Mom still complains about it.

“What were you thinking about?” Jonathan prompts Mia, feigning nonchalance. 

She wishes he’d just stop pretending. Wishes he’d just ask what he wants to ask.

She wishes he’d just shut up and never try to talk to her about it again.

“About tomorrow.” Mia lies. “Jenny and I are going to town to get the stuff for our costumes. You shouldn’t be walking around in your socks.”

Jonathan huffs out a breath, but doesn’t continue the conversation, which is just what she wanted.

Still, Mia wishes he’d ask her again. 

Maybe this time she would tell him the truth.

But Jonathan doesn’t ask. And Mia feels a terrible mix of relief and resentment that she doesn’t get another opportunity to answer.

Mia puts down four plates on the table. Jonathan puts the pan in the middle of the table. Jonathan sits down on his chair. Mia sits in hers and they wait. Chester walks over to the table, curling up underneath it. Mia pets his flank with her heels, drumming her fingers on the table.

The clock ticks on the wall. 

Jonathan sighs and opens his mouth.

Mia’s heart races, throat aching with the urge to talk, to tell him that she was thinking about -

But then Jonathan closes his mouth again, and the moment passes.

Mia leans back in her chair, not knowing when she had leaned forward in the first place, and looks at the clock. 

Then she looks at the calendar on the wall. 

Then tears her eyes away, back to her empty plate. 

She fiddles with her fork, remembering that cool balancing trick that Dustin had shown her the other day when they had dinner at his house. She eyeballs Will’s fork, but sighs when she realizes they don’t have any corks in the house. Though Mom has started drinking wine at home with her new boyfriend Bob, they throw away the bottle as soon as they’re done with it, and Bob takes all the corks home for his “cork collection”. 

Why anyone would have a cork collection, Mia really doesn’t know.

The silence between her and Jonathan could be cut with the dullest butter knife in their kitchen drawer. 

However, what breaks it, finally, is the sound of Mom’s car rolling to a stop on their driveway, followed by the twin sounds of car doors slamming closed.

Mia cranes her head to look at the living room, straining her ears to hear her brother's voice. She hears nothing but Mom’s and Will’s footsteps coming up to the porch, which immediately sets her on edge. 

Ever since the Arcade re-opened back in February with dozens of new games, Will and the others have been going there every time they get the chance (and the money) to do so. It changed Will, in a good way - ever since, well - her brother has been walking around like a ghost of himself, always lost inside his head, eyes always turned to the ground, voice so small they all have to make an effort not to ask him to repeat himself. But in those few hours after he hangs out with the party, it’s like an old light comes back behind his eyes. He talks, as loudly as he did before. He smiles and jokes and touches Mike and Dustin and Lucas and it’s almost like last year never happened. 

Mia would be happy to see that light back in Will’s eyes, if it didn’t always blink out as soon as Will’s eyes fell back on her. 

Sure, Mia could understand it. She had tried to give him space that first week after the hospital. Will should be mad at her, should hate her. But it had kind of consoled her a bit, the knowledge that, at the end of the day, he was still her brother, her twin, and that he’d seemed happy to see her, back at the hospital. She knew that at one point they would settle things - maybe they’d pretend that nothing had happened, or they’d sit down and talk, but they would do something, and they'd go back to being like they were before.

But the silence seemed to have grown to swallow everything. 

They never did settle things.

They didn’t really talk much these days, actually.

Mia really doesn’t blame Will, or at least it’s what she tells herself over and over and over again. Mia had escaped the demogorgon last year and had been found safe and sound in the woods while Will had been stuck in the Upside Down for a whole week, running from the Demogorgon only to end up caught by it and almost killed. 

She had only found that out because Chief Hopper had told her about it one time that he came by for dinner. Mia had spent the entire week working up the courage to just ask him, and once she did, she wished she didn’t. He’d told her about the flakes floating in the air like ash, the vines covering everything, and finding Will, unconscious and surrounded by vines. 

Chief Hopper had hesitated as he told her that last part. At night, before Mia falls asleep, her brain tries to figure out what it is that Chief Hopper didn’t tell her: those vines Chief Hopper mentioned choking Will, pinning him against a wall. A mountain of bones picked clean, and Will lying there, limp and almost dead, left amidst the bones so the demogorgon could feast on him later. 

The bottom line was: Mia could understand why her brother hated her now. 

She was a constant reminder that Will hadn’t escaped the demogorgon last year, while she had. 

She was a constant reminder that he’d been alone in the Upside Down and had almost died. 

And Mia had been right here, safe and sound.

The front door opens, jarring her out of her thoughts. 

Will comes in, head low, Mom hovering anxiously behind him. She locks the door with shaky fingers, catches Mia’s eyes, and smiles, a thin and shaky thing. Worried.

Something happened. 

“Hey, Will.” Jonathan says, bracing his arms on the table. His smile is a thin thing, feigning normalcy. “How was the arcade?”

Will blinks, eyes snapping up to Jonathan. He blinks again - and smiles, wide and fake. “It was good! Lucas and I competed to see who would get more points in Pac-Man. I lost but he still shared his milkshake with me. Oh and, uh, someone beat Dustin’s high score on Dig Dug. He spent the whole night trying to bribe Keith into telling him who it was.”

Will’s cheery voice is offset by mom’s dark eyes, sharp and worried, at his back. 

Something happened to Will. 

“That’s cool.” Jonathan says, the words like plastic, and raps his knuckles on the table. “I made some mac ‘n cheese if you still got room for it.”

Will looks at the pot and the steaming macaroni as if seeing it for the first time. An emotion scrunches up his face - there and gone so fast Mia can’t catch it.

“Yeah. I’ll just - uh, wash my hands.”

Mom, Mia and Jonathan watch him disappear into the hallway. As soon as he’s gone, mom walks to the table and drops down on a chair, head in her hands. 

“I don’t know what’s wrong.” Mom whispers just loud enough for them to hear as soon as the sink starts running in the bathroom. “I tried to ask if something happened, but he didn’t - He did exactly what he did now. Something happened. I know it did. But he won’t tell me what.” 

The sound of water running stops and Mom falls silent. 

By the time Will comes back to the kitchen, she’s lifted her head and picked up her plate, serving herself some of Jonathan’s mac'n'cheese. 

Mia helps herself to a little bit of the food, not feeling all that hungry. It tastes the same as it always has, delicious, though she thinks that Jonathan might have left the pasta a bit too long in the water. The food turns mushy in her mouth, too soft. It weighs on the back of her tongue, and she has to force herself to swallow. 

Mom eats everything on her plate. Jonathan and Mia too, though Mia sneaks a few pieces of pasta to Chester under the table. Will leaves some on his plate, which Jonathan ends up finishing, along with the single spoonful of macaroni left on the pot. 

It’s not an eventful dinner. Afterwards, Mia and Will leave to brush their teeth and go to sleep. Jonathan and Mom stay at the kitchen to tidy up the dishes - and to talk about Mia and Will, probably, now that they’re not there, like Mia, Mom and Jonathan talked about Will when he wasn’t there.

Did mom, Jonathan and Will talk about Mia, when she wasn’t there?

Mia kind of wants to hang around the hallway and see if she can listen in on their conversation. But one look at Will’s faraway eyes has her following him to their room.

If there’s the slightest chance that she can make him talk about it… 

Will pulls off his clothes as if they’re burning him, stepping to their dresser in his underwear and quickly pulling on pants and a sweatshirt. Mia bites the inside of her mouth and twists her fingers on the bottom of her sweater, trying to think of how she’s going to bring up the subject.

Will leaves their room without looking at her.

Mia contemplates just…sitting on her bed and ignoring everything. Suddenly, she wants nothing more than to lie down, pull the covers over her head and sleep. But if there’s the slightest chance that she can make him talk about it…

She sighs and goes to the bathroom, heart starting to race in her chest. 

Will is holding his toothbrush and staring at the mirror, not blinking. There’s a glob of toothpaste in the sink. 

Mia glances between it and her brother’s face in the mirror. He doesn’t move, doesn’t even notice she’s there. 

She clears her throat and Will startles, blinking at her through the mirror before wordlessly putting more toothpaste on his brush.

“So…” Mia starts, voice choked with nerves. She clears her throat, but the feeling of a knot growing in her windpipe doesn’t ease up. “What happened?”

“Nothing.”

She barely refrains from rolling her eyes. “You’re lying.”

“I’m not.”

He is. And not just tonight. He’s been lying and hiding things from her this entire year.

She knows something is going on with him. He’s been crying in their room when he thinks no one’s looking for him, and his skin is always bright red when he comes out of the shower. Two weeks ago he got all pale and shaky at the grocery store and it had taken mom leaving their groceries right there on the floor and dragging him halfway to the car for him to snap out of it. 

Back in March, someone had taped a picture of him on his locker with a drawing of bolts at the side of his head and a row of stitches on his neck, like Frankenstein's monster’s. She had asked him if anyone’s been messing with him, and he just told her no - as if she didn’t have eyes. As if she couldn’t see what was right in front of her. Two months later she’d seen a crumpled piece of paper in his bag, and when she pulled it out to read it - just to snoop really - he’d torn the paper from her hand and snapped at her to not touch his things.

Something is wrong with Will. Several somethings. 

And honestly, she was getting sick of not knowing.

She was sick of him not talking to her. She was sick of him hating her in complete, and utter silence.

If the boys at school are picking on him, maybe they can talk about it. If something happened at the arcade, if someone made fun of him, or stole some of his money, or if any of their friends did something - they could talk about that right? That was normal stuff. They should be able to talk about it! He could still hate her! But they could talk.

Even if this - even if all of this was about - that. She could. She could try. She could talk to him about it. She should talk to him about it.

No more letting this silence take over everything between them.

“You are so lying.” She tells him, ignoring the way her voice shakes and her heart races. 

This is it. She’s not letting him remain silent anymore. 

For the sake of having something to do, she steps next to him by the sink and puts toothpaste on her own brush. She runs it under the water, taking her time so she can think on what she’ll say next - only for her entire body to freeze.

Will has brought up his arm to brush vigorously at his front teeth and his sleeve has ridden up a bit past the wrist. On the inside of it, there are two long scratches. 

Mia’s heart stops, then slams against her chest so strongly she fears it’ll break through her ribs. 

“What. Is that.” She says, not feeling her own mouth. 

She’s gone numb all over, her face hot and tingly, her hands cold.  

 Will frowns at her in the mirror, eyes following her gaze and finding the scratches. 

He freezes.

“It’s nothing.” He tells her, eyes wide, lying. 

There’s toothpaste foam at the side of his mouth and he must have spit it out at some point but she doesn’t remember it. His eyes are wide and his breathing is starting to get fast and he’s lying to her now, has been lying to her this entire year. It’s not nothing. He hasn’t really talked to her in nearly a year. None of this has been nothing.

 Mia blinks, and sees Jonathan, pale and still with his back on the bathroom floor, limp legs propped up on the closed toilet seat. All that red spreading over the tiles. 

Mia blinks and her vision tints red at the edges.

She grabs Will’s arm and pulls up his sleeve. 

There are just the two lines, all raw at the edges, bits of skin around them raised and scraped over as if - as if - 

“Mia, it’s nothing. It’s just a scratch.” Will insists, not even tugging his arm away. “I promise -”

“Stop lying to me!” Mia shouts, voice echoing in the bathroom, so shrill it makes her heart race, the fear in her voice feeding the fear in her chest like a sick feedback loop. She had expected an external threat, maybe someone has been beating him up at school or - but not this. Not this. “You’ve been lying to me this whole time! Stop it!”

“I’m not lying -”

“Yes you are!” She drops his arm, gritting her teeth. “Stop fucking lying!”

Will’s eyes go round with shock, before his brows scrunch up, expression thunderous. Yeah. He hates her. She knew it.

“I told you -”

“You’re lying!”

Will scoffs, incredulously. “I’m not!”

“Then why are you saying that there’s nothing going on?!”

“Because there is nothing going on!” He shouts, throwing his toothbrush in the sink. “What is wrong with you?!”

He throws her a wide-eyed look, brows furrowed and nose wrinkled, as if he couldn’t recognize her, as if she was crazy, as if she was the one losing her mind, and oh, how that makes her blood boil. 

“What is wrong with me?” Mia hisses, pointing a finger at him. “What is wrong with you!” 

“There’s nothing wrong with me!” He shrieks, teeth bared.

Something shatters in the kitchen, making both of them jump. Mia hears the ringing of Will’s voice in her ears, suddenly too aware that they’ve been screaming at each other and that their voices are traveling all the way to the kitchen. 

She seethes, huffing like a bull, hands shaking. She tries breathing in and out, but one look at Will and the red tinge to her vision returns. 

“You want to lie to me, fine.” She whispers, leaning close to his face, voice so full of venom she barely recognizes it. Will leans away, eyes wide. Mia’s whole body burns. “But if I find you in this bathroom like we found Jonathan, I will not stitch you up. You hear me? I will let you bleed out.” 

Take that back. Her own voice says in her head. You don’t mean it.

Will’s entire face shutters, eyes glazing over, all lights gone. 

It’s that same expression he’s been carrying around all year - as if he was dead already, and only his body remained.

Mia thinks of the quarry and the lake. The sound Will’s body had made as it was dragged out of the water. 

And she burns.  

“Eleven died to kill the monster that took us, you know.” She hisses, all teeth and hatred. She doesn’t think - her mouth moves, and the words tumble out. She wants to make him burn, the way she is burning. He doesn’t want to talk about it? She will talk about it. “She died and you’re here. Alive. Why the hell did you bother coming back if all you were going to do was kill yourself all over again?”

Will recoils, stumbling back until the back of his knees hit the toilet. The look in his eyes immediately makes her sick to her stomach, saliva pooling in her mouth and throat tightening as if she was about to throw up. 

She’s shaking, sweat sliding down the sides of her ribs. 

Oh, God.  She didn’t mean it. 

She doesn’t mean it.

Regret and shame wash over her like a tidal wave, leaving her cold and sick. She’s going to throw up.

“Will, I’m -”

“I saw the Upside Down. That’s what happened.” The words burst out of Will’s mouth like vomit, “I saw it. I was there - again - and, and I called for Mike and Dustin and Lucas and they didn’t hear me, and when I walked outside I -” He gasps in a breath, a ragged, wounded sound that cuts straight through Mia’s chest. “There was something in the sky and I could feel it. I could feel him. It was just there, looking at me and it wanted to kill and destroy everyone, and I was there again, in that place, and I thought that maybe I’d never left and -” Will drops down on the toilet lid, pressing his palms to his eyes. He sobs, open mouthed, whole chest shaking, and Mia did this. “I didn’t want to tell anyone because I think I’m going crazy, and mom’s already so worried about me. You, mom and Jonathan - you’re all so worried and nothing I do or don’t do ever changes anything and I hate it. You don’t know what it’s like there. I hate it so much -”

Mia can’t take it anymore. She puts a hand on his shoulder and Will tips forward, his forehead digging into her stomach.

“I’m so sorry.” Will gasps, “I know she’s dead and that - that I’m -  she’s all that Mike speaks about. I’m so - I’m sorry.”

Mia hugs his head, heart leaden in her chest. She did this.

She did this.

“Will, stop. Stop.” She whispers, choked up. Her throat hurts like a physical wound. “I shouldn’t have said it.”

You still said it. A voice whispers in her ear. 

I didn’t mean it.

Didn’t you?

Someone knocks on the door of the bathroom. Will freezes, swallowing down his sobs so abruptly his whole body curls in on itself.

“Everything alright there?” Comes mom’s voice from the other side, half-concern and half-reprimand. “You two better not be fighting.”

“We’re not.” They say, at the same time, Will’s voice too wet and Mia’s too choked up to be true.

There’s a long silence on the other side before mom leaves.

I shouldn’t have said that, she wants to say again. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. 

“We have to tell mom.” Is what comes out instead.

Will’s head snaps up, eyes wide and dark in the dim bathroom light. “No.”

“Will, we have to - what if it’s -”

“No.” Will gets up, forcing Mia to step back so his head doesn’t smack into her nose. Will roughly wipes his nose on his sleeve and steps around Mia, shoulder bumping painfully against her chest. “We’re not telling her anything.”

“Will -”

“No!” He shouts, angrily taking his toothbrush from the sink basin and putting it properly back in its holder, toothpaste still all over it. “We’re not telling mom.”

Mia grits her jaw. “Will -”

“Just leave it!”

The door of the bathroom swings open, their mom on the other side, a hand on her hip.

“William and Amanda.” Mom interrupts, voice hard as iron. “Do I have to repeat myself?”

“No, mom.” Will answers, followed a beat later by Mia.

“Good.” Mom says, and though her voice is just as unyielding as before, she’s frowning, dark eyes betraying her worry. “It’s late. You both should go to sleep.”

Will shuffles out of the door, head low. 

Mia hesitates to follow him.

Mom crosses her arms. “What happened?”

Mia opens her mouth, tempted to tell her, but snaps it shut, shame and regret flooding her body and making her cheeks burn. Could she really just betray Will’s trust like that after every vile thing she’d said to him?

“Nothing…Just - nothing.”

“You know I don’t believe that, honey.”

Mia doesn’t say anything else, just clenches her jaw and stares at the floor. 

Mom sighs, reaches out a hand to pull her in by the shoulder. She drops a kiss on Mia’s head and shame zaps through Mia’s entire body. Mia doesn’t deserve this. Mom doesn’t know what she had said to Will. If she knew…

Mia is half-tempted to tell her everything then, just for her to tell Mia that what she’d done was unforgivable, to ground her for it, to punish her for it. 

She shouldn’t have said it. She didn’t mean it. 

“Goodnight, honey.” Mom whispers against the top of her head when Mia remains silent. “I don’t want to hear you two arguing anymore tonight, alright? You two need to rest.”

Mia nods and mom gently lets her go. Mia doesn’t look at her eyes once as she leaves the bathroom. 

Will is already lying on his bed, covers over his shoulder, back turned to Mia.

The weight of his silence presses down on her as she closes and locks their door. It pushes her down into the mattress as she lies on her trundle bed. 

She stares at the dark space beneath Will’s bed until her eyes burn. She’s tense all over, sick to her stomach.

“Did you tell her?” Will whispers after a small eternity.

Mia finally blinks. “No.”

Will doesn’t say anything else. 

After a while she hears his breaths even out, asleep.

Mia doesn’t sleep. Doesn’t relax. Her fingers ache where she clutches her covers, white-knuckled. Her head hurts, and suddenly she realizes she’s been clenching her jaw this entire time. 

She opens her mouth, wincing at the pain. Even her tongue hurts. She moves it, trying to ease the ache, but all it does is spread the pain down to her neck.

Mia turns around in her bed, faces the door. Will breaths are loud above her. 

Their door is locked. She still can’t sleep.

What if Will really had gone back to the Upside Down, as he’d said? And maybe those scratches really were just that…scratches. 

But what if it really was all in his head? Didn’t the doctors at the lab tell mom to look out for these sorts of things? Episodes, they were called. What if those scratches had been intentional?

Red flashes through her eyes, Jonathan’s pale face, and she squeezes her eyes shut. She sees yellow and red then, Will’s vest dark and waterlogged as they pulled his body out of the lake.

It hadn’t been real. Will was here, alive and breathing behind her. Jonathan was alive and breathing, probably asleep in his room.

El was dead. She had just told Will that he should be dead too.

She didn’t mean it.

Her heart slams in her chest. She can feel it beating against the thin skin of her throat. Mia counts each heartbeat, hoping to slow them down, but they don’t. It just gets harder and harder to breathe.

Suddenly feeling too hot under the covers, Mia kicks them away. She rolls to her back to stare at the dark shadows of the ceiling, shivering at the cold air of her room.

Cold air?

She sits up, and looks over at the window. 

It’s open, just a tiny bit. 

Mia rolls out of bed, heart in her throat, and hurries over to it. Slowly, so as to not make any noise and wake up Will, she closes it, twisting the lock on top of it.

The cold breeze stops. Mia stands next to the window, swaying on her feet.

Her mouth is dry, the spot above her eye has started throbbing along with the beating of her heart. Why that damned spot. 

It feels like she hasn’t drank water in a thousand years.

She leaves their room and walks barefoot to the kitchen, turning on every light in the house on the way there. She fills a cup and drinks it by the sink with her back to the counter, staring at the wide expanse of the living room. 

Jonathan had told her that the demogorgon had fallen from the ceiling. The hole in it had been covered up when the government fixed the entire house at the end of last year, but the paint on that part of the ceiling is just a little bit off, just a bit too white.

Mia shudders, all hairs on her arms and neck rising up. 

She feels watched, all of a sudden. 

She leaves the half-empty glass on the table and walks fast back to her room.

But what if those scratches had been intentional? 

She hesitates at door to her and Will’s room.

Perhaps, this time, those scratches might have been just that, scratches. What if the next time they weren’t? 

What if it was all in Will’s head and he was…going crazy, somehow?

Mia shouldn’t keep this a secret. She can’t.

Jonathan had been keeping secrets too, once, secrets that now Mia and Will kept with him. They’d almost found out about it too late. 

But on the other hand, Mia had her own handful of secrets that she had never shared with anyone, not even Jenny. Could she really spill Will’s secrets when she, herself, had never told hers to anyone else?

But her secrets were in the past. They didn’t matter anymore. This was now. 

She couldn’t keep Will’s secrets. She had to tell someone. She couldn’t tell their mom, but maybe….she could tell Jonathan.

Will already hated her, anyway.

Decided, Mia walks back around to Jonathan’s door and twists the doorknob. It’s unlocked. 

Jonathan’s lying sprawled on his bed on his stomach, head turned to the door, asleep, and she hates him for it. Hates that he can leave his door unlocked and just go to sleep. 

Mia pushes the door open and the hinges creak. Chester raises his head from where he’s curled up at the foot of Jonathan’s bed, ears up. Jonathan’s eyes remain closed, deep asleep.

She could turn around now and go back to her room.

Mia sits at the edge of Jonathan’s bed and shakes his shoulder. 

“Jonathan.” She whispers. Her voice is hoarse, as if someone had wrapped their hands around her throat and squeezed. “Jonathan.”

“Wha’ -” Jonathan’s head snaps up first, then he sits up in one movement, kneeling on the bed. His eyes look wildly around the room, so wide she can see the whites of them, even in the dark. “What happened? What’s wrong?”

Mia opens her mouth, closes it again. 

She should go back to her room. 

She should invent a story about some nightmare and just ask to sleep in his bed. It wouldn’t be the first time this year she’d asked to sleep with him because she had a nightmare.

She opens her mouth -

“It’s Will.”

Notes:

Mia's spidey senses were tingling the whole year

Chapter 2

 

 

“Meet the human brain!”

Mia looks up from the Math homework she’s copying from Jenny, sees Mr. Clarke set a plastic brain in the middle of his desk, and looks right back down again. 

Those plastic organ things give her the creeps.

“I know, I know, doesn’t look like much. A little gross even -”

“Seven.” Jenny whispers behind Mia. 

Mia grits her teeth and rubs her burning eyes. 

Jenny and Lizzie Owens have been playing with Lizzie’s chatterbox origami since they all sat down. And before that, Lizzie and Jenny had been talking about the winter play the Drama Club was going to perform later this november. Jenny had barely looked Mia’s way all morning. Even at the bike rack, Jenny had seemed distracted when Mia asked her if they were all set to go to the thrift shop this afternoon.  

“ - a hundred billion cells inside this miracle of evolution!” Mr. Clarke finishes his explanation, all smiles and waving arms. 

Mia hasn’t heard a word of it. She had barely slept last night, and it’s like there are leaden weights on her eyes, pressing them down, urging her to just lower her head on her forearms and sleep.

“You’re not gonna pass the class.” Lizzie whispers back to Jenny. 

“Aw, man. Lemme try.”

Mia kind of likes the sound of the little paper chatterbox opening and closing. It’s almost hypnotic.

Her head bobs down and Mia startles, realizing she’d just almost fallen asleep in class.

 She blinks hard at hers and Jenny’s homework, heart racing.

Stay awake. She hisses at herself. Just stay awake. You can’t risk having a nightmare at school of all places.

Mia forces herself to re-read the problem, and Jenny’s long equation, half-heartedly copying it down, skipping a few steps so their answers don’t look the same. 

On the chair next to Mia, Jessica’s huge gum bubble pops, making Mia jump. Her chair scrapes on the floor, loud enough that she sees Jessica, and some other kids, looking over at her from the corner of her eyes. 

Mia doesn’t move a single muscle, keeping her eyes on her desk. Mr. Clarke continues the lesson as if nothing happened, and soon enough she feels Jessica looking away. Soon, the others follow.

Jenny pokes Mia’s shoulder. Mia looks over to find Jenny pointing the chatterbox at her. 

“Pick a number.” Jenny says. 

Her golden hair is half up, half down today, and it’s grown long enough in the past year that it falls to her lower back. It keeps getting caught everywhere, but mostly under her backpack straps and on the screws on the back of chairs. Mia has to carefully pull her hair out of those about twelve times a day.

Mia looks at the long spill of it instead of at Jenny’s eyes, biting the inside of her cheek, tempted to not say a thing. After all, Jenny has barely spoken to her today. 

But Jenny’s looking at her, blue eyes all hopeful and happy and Mia doesn’t have the heart to hold it against her. She shouldn’t hold it against her - Jenny wasn’t the one at fault here, Mia was. As usual.

Guilt presses in on her chest, a leaden anvil so heavy it made her ribs ache.

“5.” 

Jenny beams at her, and Mia curses herself for being such a terrible friend.

Mia touches the spot above her eye that’s been pulsating with pain since last night and watches as Jenny shuffles the chatterbox. 

Jenny doesn’t owe Mia any of her time and attention, she really doesn’t. Mia shouldn’t begrudge her for talking to other girls, making other friends besides her. Jenny should be making other friends, in fact. 

Mia hasn’t been a great friend lately…never able to hangout anywhere besides their respective houses and public places like the pool and the library. Gone were the days where they explored Hawkins and the woods. Mom would always drive Mia everywhere, these days. Even riding to school together on their bikes never happened anymore.

Mia hadn’t been able to ride her bike once this past year. 

And she can see it in Jenny’s eyes - the way her face falls every time that Mia says, sorry, I can’t and My mom doesn’t want me to stay past dark. Jenny puts up a good front, but Mia knows she’s disappointed whenever Mia suggests they watch a movie or listen to music or do whatever else inside instead of riding or walking around as the sun sets. 

Jenny loves to explore. Loves the outdoors and laying in that grassy hill near Denfield road. Loves to go looking for mushrooms in May. They didn’t go mushroom hunting this year. Halloween is tomorrow and they haven’t even gone to Mr. Neary’s pumpkin patch to see if they can help with smashing the old rotten pumpkins that won’t be sold. 

Jenny hadn’t even brought it up. 

The weight in Mia’s chest gets heavier, denser. It’s hard to breathe.

Before Jenny can finish shuffling the chatterbox five times, the classroom door - that Mr. Clarke usually keeps open - slams shut. Mia jumps again but, this time, she’s not the only one. 

Everyone’s heads snap to the door, even Mr. Clarke’s, whose spooked look is quickly replaced by one of his large, kind smiles.

“Ah, hello there! This must be our new student!”

A red haired girl in a dark red jacket walks in, principal Coleman just behind her. 

“Indeed it is.” Mr. Coleman says, clasping his hands together and looking over the classroom. 

Mia doesn’t move, entirely too aware of the fact that she’s copying Jenny’s homework. 

Mr. Coleman’s eyes pass right over her, because of course they do, how could he even know what she was doing? 

Mr. Coleman nods at Mr. Clarke, then at the new girl, distractedly fixing his burgundy tie with a hand. “Have a great day, Mr. Clarke. Ms. Mayfield. Class.”

The principal leaves, to Mia’s relief, leaving the girl alone next to Mr. Clarke’s desk. 

The girl, Ms. Mayfield, glances around once, eyes falling on the empty seat to Mia’s left. She hitches her backpack higher on her shoulder and moves, but before she can take a single step, Mr. Clarke stops her with a hand on her shoulder. 

“Ah ah ah, Don’t be shy.” Mr. Clark encourages, waving a hand at where Dustin is sitting on the front row. “Let’s introduce you to the class. Dustin, drumroll.”

 Dustin closes his notebook and drums his fingers against its cover. The girl looks at Mr. Clarke as if he’s lost his mind before glancing at the door, probably considering her chances of running out of the classroom.

“Class, please welcome, all the way from sunny California, the latest passenger to join us on our curiosity voyage -” He holds out a hand to the girl, like a magician showing a rabbit. “Maxine!”

“It’s Max.” the girl, Max, says, her voice rougher than Mia expected it to be. 

Max’s blue eyes flick from Mr. Clarke to his desk, to Dustin and back again to Mr. Clarke’s desk. 

“Nobody calls me Maxine.” She adds, “It’s Max.” 

“Well, welcome aboard, Max. Why don’t you sit over there, next to Ms. Byers?”

Even though she hasn’t done anything wrong, nor has Mr. Clarke actually talked to her, Mia stiffens in her chair, hiding Jenny’s notebook under her own. 

Max frowns, looking at the other students and probably wondering who ‘Ms. Byers’ is and wondering if she’s missed another empty chair. 

Mia belatedly realises that she is the Ms. Byers in question, and Mr. Clarke is not chastising her for copying her math homework, and cautiously raises her hand. 

Max doesn’t have to be told twice. Her eyes fix on Mia with the intensity of a laser beam and she marches over, throwing herself in the chair to Mia’s left, crossing her arms and pulling up her feet to rest on the metal bar of Owen Simpson’s chair. Eyes narrowed and chin set, she doesn’t look much friendly, or even open for any friendly introductions.

The other students stare at her, sizing up the newcomer, but end up losing their interest as soon as Mr. Clarke continues with the class. Will and the boys are the last ones to stop staring - and only do so because the girl, Max, stops glowering at the windows and turns her head back to the front of the classroom, making them hurriedly turn away to avoid being caught.

Aware that she’s been staring just as much as the boys, Mia glances back down at her and Jenny’s notebooks. 

This is new. 

Their school hasn’t had a newcomer in years. In fact, no one their age has moved in since Dustin moved to Hawkins all those years ago. 

Dustin had been the exact opposite of this Max girl, then, eyes wide and nervous, and soft curls all over the place, smiling as the teacher introduced him. Lucas had told him to sit next to him, and soon enough, Will, Mike, Lucas and Dustin started talking about Dustin’s Star Wars lunchbox.

Max is sitting next to her now. Should Mia try and talk to her? Should Mia say hi? Max didn’t have a Star Wars Lunchbox. Mia didn’t even know what to say.

Mia rubs her tired eyes with a knuckle. Why would she even talk to this girl anyway?

An idea strikes her then.

She sits up in her chair, and it feels like her entire brain is electrified. 

This was the perfect opportunity to fix everything.

Mia hasn’t been able to do any of the things she used to do with Jenny. Jenny was getting fed up, understandably so. This was the moment to make the transition as smoothly as possible - Mia knew Jenny, knew her best friend was the most loyal and amazing girl in Hawkins. She deserves to have more friends and to rid herself of the burden that is Mia. But she knows that most of the other girls at their school are already on Jenny’s “do not best-befriend” list because of all the years they’d spent looking down on Mia or being mean to Jenny for being nice to Mia.  

But this Max is someone completely new. 

And maybe she’s someone who likes to explore, just like Jenny.

Max could be Jenny’s new best friend. 

Mia eyes the redhead, taking in her red jacket, blue jeans and white shoes. She looks - normal, if a bit angry. Her hands are curled into fists at the sides of her ribs, tightly crossed over her stomach. 

Is she like Lizzie, who giggled at pretty boys, and gossiped about pretty much anything under the sun, but was also incredibly sweet and a great partner for school projects? 

Was she like Mara Honey, who was the best runner in their year and the best person to make presentations with? 

Or was she like Sarah, who was part of the school’s chess team and the only girl in their year that knew how to french braid? 

They were the nicest girls in school. They’d never resented Jenny for her grades (the best in their year), and they’d never talked badly of Jenny or treated her weird. Jenny was friendly with all of them, but Mia knows that Jenny isn’t friends friends with them just because there was a distinct…frostiness when they talked to Mia. 

But they’re quiet about it - not like Stacy and the rest of her friends, who called Mia names and sneered at her brother and his friends as they walked by.

Mia’s heart squeezes in her chest. If only she wasn’t Jenny’s friend…The other girl could have had all the friends in the world, just like she deserved. 

That had always been a source of guilt for Mia, the way that Jenny would refuse one birthday party invitation after the other just because Mia hadn’t been invited, how she would say that she’d only sit at tables if Mia was invited too. It had always been a secret source of satisfaction too, after all, Jenny was sticking up for her. Jenny thought that Mia deserved better.

Mia’s heart gives a dull throb of pain. How selfish was she, to be glad that Jenny was basically isolating herself from the other girls their year. And for what? 

For her?

Jenny could have died last year. Mia had been the one to drag her into that.

Mia shakes her head, focusing once again on the new girl. 

Here was a new chance. This Max girl was someone who didn’t know anything about Mia’s family and strange brothers, and who probably still hadn’t formed an opinion on Mia’s boyish clothes. 

Someone who didn’t know anything about what happened last year.

Mia sees Max frown at the black board, eyes turned icy blue from the sunlight coming through the window. Sees the girl clenching her jaw, red hair burning, and for a moment, Mia also sees another girl whose eyes had also gleamed with cold anger.

Mia looks away. 

Something pokes her back. It’s Jenny again, a questioning look in her eyes. 

Mia doesn’t think she knows what kind of girl Max is just by looking, but there is a way to find out.

Mia widens her eyes at Jenny, jerking her head to Max. 

Jenny frowns, immediately understanding what Mia meant. 

She glances between Mia and Max, incredulous, as if to say you want to befriend her? 

Mia rolls her eyes, because she wasn’t that averse to befriending people, and after a moment of hesitation, Jenny leans over her desk to get closer to the redhead.

“Hey,” Jenny whispers. 

At the front of the class, Mr. Clarke is drawing a neuron, adding the Myelin sheath with bright blue chalk as he talks about synapses. 

Max turns over her shoulder, frowning at Jenny’s bright smile. 

“Hey! I’m Jenny! Jennifer Hayes, but everyone calls me Jenny. This is Mia, my best friend.” 

Max looks over at her, and something about her makes the headache above Mia’s eyes throb and spike with pain. 

Mia realizes a second too late that maybe this is the moment to say hi. 

“Hey.” She says, a beat too late, swallowing more air than she ought to and making her voice sound hoarser than it should. Mia clears her throat and tries to smile at Max, but from the way Max’s frown deepens, she might not have been all that successful. 

“Hi.” She tries again, quiet and lame.

Max doesn’t say a thing, just nods at Mia and Jenny.

Mia feels like slumping over in her chair, deeming this an utter fail of an attempt - but somehow Jenny isn’t disencouraged, and her friendly smile only grows.

“Do you want to sit with us at lunch?” She asks Max.

Max glances at Mr. Clarke for only a moment before looking back at Jenny. “I was…planning on skating. During lunch.” She says, low enough that Mr. Clarke won’t hear her.

“We can sit by the ramp outside.” Jenny offers, “There’s space there for skating there.” 

Max hesitates, eyes fixed on Jenny’s face for a long moment, before she nods, still looking uncertain. “Sure.”

“Great!” Jenny drums her nails on her desk, all ten of them painted a sunny yellow. “Do you know where your next class is?”

Mr. Clarke raises his voice. “Girls, keep it down back there, will you?”

Mia and Max turn their heads to the front of the room. 

Jenny leans back on her seat, desk squeaking against the floor, and smiles sheepishly at Mr. Clarke. “Sorry, Mr. Clarke.”

“It’s fine, Jenny. Just keep it for the end of the class, alright?” 

Once Mr. Clarke has returned his attention to the lesson, drawing a close up of a synaptic cleft and bright pink neurotransmitters in the shape of little triangles, Jenny reaches over to tap Max’s shoulder, drawing the girl’s attention again. 

“We can walk you to your next class, if you want.” She whispers, much lower this time.

Max gives a curt nod before turning back to Mr. Clark. 

Jenny gives Mia another loaded look, as if asking are you happy now? 

Mia smiles and hands over Jenny’s Math notebook, along with her own English homework for Jenny to copy. 

Jenny continues to stare at her, though, eyes unreadable. 

Mia feels her heart starting to race in her chest. Even after a decade of friendship, it’s still hard sometimes to remain steady under Jenny’s gaze, and not give into the urge to hide. Jenny’s eyes see everything. Every little secret you have, every lie you tell, she finds out.  And Mia knows that Jenny’s wondering why, for the first time in their entire lives, Mia wants to make a new friend.

Looking for something to distract the girl and her keen senses, Mia nods with her head at the chatterbox, laid forgotten on Jenny’s desk. “So, what did it say?”

Jenny blinks at her, and Mia points at the chatterbox again.

“Oh.” The sharpness fades from Jenny’s eyes. She picks the chatterbox up, and just shuffles it five times again. She tilts it to Mia, revealing four dots: a blue, a red, an orange and a green one. Mia picks the green. Jenny opens its flap and reads, “The boy you like likes you back.”

Jenny looks up grinning, a strand of golden blond hair falling next to her brow. 

Mia’s heart squeezes in her chest again. 

This, of all things. 

Another reason why Jenny shouldn’t remain friends with Mia. 

She is disgusting. Jenny shouldn’t be near her.

Mia looks away from Jenny, and finds Max staring at them. Caught, the redhead quickly whips her head back to the front of the room. 

Jittery from anxiety and lack of sleep, and with her resolve strengthened to make this work, Mia takes the chatterbox, checks that Mr. Clarke isn’t paying attention and gestures towards Max with it. 

“Number?” She asks in a whisper.

Max doesn’t move her eyes away from Mr. Clark. She bites her lip, and for a moment, Mia thinks she won’t answer, but she does. 

“Three.” Max whispers back, very quietly.

Mia shuffles it, and shows her the colored dots. Max picks the yellow one. 

Your day will suck is written on it in Lizzie Owen’s bubbly script.

Mia shows it to Max apologetically, but the girl only smiles, whispering back. “Glad to know that thing is working.” 

“Girls. Do I have to ask for your attention again?”

Mia winces and turns back to the front of the class. Dustin is throwing a dirty look her way, probably for interrupting his favorite class of the day again.

“Sorry, Mr Clarke.” Mia says. 

Mr. Clarke’s face softens with pity, like all the teachers who look at either Will and Mia do, even after a year.

“Well. Does anyone have any questions about neurons or can I continue the lesson?” Mia, Max and Jenny keep quiet, and so does the rest of the class,  “No one? Alright, continuing then -” 

Once the bell rings and the class ends, Jenny asks for Max’s timetables, which Mia peeks at from over Jenny’s shoulder. Max ends up having most classes with Mia and Jenny, except English and Geography, the latter which she only shares with Mia. 

“Aw, that’s too bad, you got Mrs. Anderson for English. She’s boring and dresses terribly.” Jenny tells Max, giving her time table back. “But that’s something you’ll have to worry about tomorrow. Want to walk with us to History class?”

Max squints at them again, but nods. “Sure.”

“So, you’re from California?” Jenny asks when Max falls into step beside her.

“Yeah.”

There’s a beat of silence. “Did you…like it there?”

“Sure.”

Jenny glances at Mia, who shrugs. 

“Did you move here because of your mom and dad?” Mia tries, hoping that this will work. 

“Just my mom.”

“Oh.” Mia says, thinking on what else to say, “Me and Will live with just my mom too. Hum - Will is my brother. Twin brother, that is. And there’s our older brother, Jonathan, but he’s in high school.” 

“I don’t live with just my mom. God, I wish. There’s my shi-” Max’s eyes widen, and she quickly backtracks on whatever she’d been about to say, “my, um, older brother, Billy, and his dad too, I guess.” Max says, eyes fixed on the end of the hallway. 

“Oh.” Jenny says, fake pouting. “You have a brother too. That’s so not fair!“ 

More silence. Jenny sighs, “Well, do you like it here?”

“Dunno.”

And so it goes. Jenny asks Max question after question, which Max answers briefly, if not downright curt. Mia pulls on Jenny’s arm every now and then so the other girl doesn’t bump into the other people in the hallway, and tries making a question and a comment every now and then to see if it gets easier to talk to Max. 

It doesn’t.

And Jenny soon gets tired of Max’s monosyllabic answers.

“Look, Max, if you want us to like, piss off, we will.” Jenny says, fixing her backpack straps on her shoulder. 

“Yeah, we don’t wanna bother you.” Mia says, hoping that the girl won’t ask them to go away. 

For her plan to work, Max has to be someone nice, someone that Jenny likes. This has to work.

“It’s fine.” Max grits out, though it really doesn’t sound like it’s fine. ”Just - what do you get out of it?”

Mia frowns at her, then trades a confused look with Jenny. 

“What?” they ask Max, at the same time.

Max’s eyes are cutting as they come to a stop in front of the door to History class. 

Mia startles once she realizes where they are. They’d passed through that narrow hallway, and she hadn’t even noticed.

 “What do you get out of this?” Max asks,  “Juicy gossip?”

Mia clasps her hands together, her heart slamming into her ribcage with a sudden bout of fear. She hadn’t noticed that they were walking through that hallway where that agent had broken her wrist. Where the monster had crashed through the wall and nearly killed them all.

“Look, we - we were just…being nice.” She tells Max, trying to distract herself. “Like Jenny said, we can - we can piss off or you can sit with us. We’re not - The only person you have to worry about spreading gossip here is Lizzie Owens and Martha Callaghan, we’re not like that.”

It’s not entirely true. Jenny loves listening to gossip, and relays every information she finds out to Mia, who also gets some awesome gossip from her mom, and always tells everything to Jenny. They have their own network, but they don’t really share it with anyone but themselves.

Jenny elbows Mia’s arm. “Lizzie doesn’t spread gossip.”

Mia throws her an incredulous look. “She really does.”

Max’s shoulders relax. She raises her chin, tucking her bright red hair behind her ear. “Alright. Sorry, I was…This is like, the third time I’m moving schools, and people at my last one weren’t all that great when I got there.”

“Luckily for you, we are not californians. We got that good old, hum, Indiana…hospitality?” Jenny cringes at her own words, “We don’t suck. Now, c'mon, Mrs. Lowndes starts her class on the dot and she hates tardiness.”

*

 

“Who are those creeps that keep staring at me?”

Mia and Jenny look up from Max’s skateboard, the redhead having just shown her and Jenny a frankly impressive trick called an ‘olly’. 

They’re by the ramp, eating lunch. Or at least, Mia and Jenny are. Max had eaten her sandwich in three quick bites and then immediately got on her skateboard.

At Jenny’s and Mia’s confused looks, the redhead tilts her head to the metal fences that separate the school from the field. 

Mike, Will, Dustin and Lucas are there, staring creepily just as Max had said. 

As soon as they see Jenny and Mia looking their way, they turn around. Will continues looking for a moment longer, before Mike slaps his arm and makes him turn around too. 

“Oh. That’s my brother and his friends.” Mia explains.“They’re not really creeps. Just…stupid?”

Max does something really cool on her skateboard, that if Mia had tried to do, she’d most certainly be back in the hospital, this time with a broken ankle. 

Her left wrists twinges with phantom pain, palm itching just at the memory of the months she’d spent with the cast.

“Well, they’ve been staring at me the whole day. Especially the one with the baseball cap.” Max grumbles, riding her skateboard in tight circles in front of Jenny and Mia. “Wasn’t he at Mr. - at our science class?” 

“Yeah. That’s Dustin.” Jenny explains, balling up her paper bag and hurtling it through the air over to the trash can. It hits the rim and drops inside. Mia cheers quietly and Jenny reaches over to give her a high-five. “He’s really nice, but doesn’t do well with many girls other than Mia and I.”

“None of them do, actually.” Mia adds, biting into the last piece of her apple. “But yeah, Dustin’s nice.”

Besides El and Jenny, the only times she’d seen the Party interact with girls their own age had been complete disasters. Dustin had accidentally insulted Carol’s braces once while trying to compliment her new glasses. Lucas called Mara a barbarian last week, within the girl’s earshot, and Mike had been so affronted when Lizzie said she didn’t know what the AV club was when they partnered up for History two years ago that he still refuses to speak to her outside of school projects to this day. 

Across the patio, Will and the others start making their way to the three of them. 

Mia jerks her head at Max. “They’re coming here. If you want me to tell them to -”

“It’s fine.” Max cuts her off, continuing to skate in circles in front of Mia and Jenny, eyes on the ground.

The boys stop next to Jenny, Will at the front. Dustin nudges Will’s shoulder, who throws a sharp look back at him, annoyed. Next to Lucas, Mike huffs, rolling his eyes, and pokes Will’s other shoulder. 

Will rolls his eyes, and turns to the girls.

“Everything ok?” Mia asks him, nervous. 

They haven’t spoken since last night.

Mia had told Jonathan about what Will had seen. Despite Mia’s urging for him to keep it quiet, Jonathan had then woken their mom up, and told her everything, saying it was too important to keep secret. 

This morning, at breakfast, Mom told them that she would try and schedule an appointment for Will at the Lab.

So much for secrecy.

Will didn’t even look her way during the entire car ride to school this morning, tight shoulders oozing betrayal. He hadn’t even asked her if she’d told someone, he just assumed that she had told mom, which was so unfair. 

She had told Jonathan, but she hadn’t planned on him telling mom.

“Just wanted to say hi.” Will says, crossing his arms too, hazel eyes turned to Max. 

Mia frowns at him. Yeah, right. 

Before she can answer him, however, a voice cuts in, making them all turn around. “Will Byers?” 

It’s principal Coleman. He’s ditched the tie, the top button of his white shirt undone. He looks concerned, but a bit annoyed, a mix of emotions that usually appears on his face when he has to deal with their mother. 

“Your mom is here for you.”

The change is immediate. 

Will’s face shuts off, shoulder rising around his ears. After a second’s hesitation, Will walks silently over to Principal Coleman, head ducked, barely bothering to reply to the other boys’ confused and worried goodbyes. 

Mia’s own stomach is doing somersaults in her belly. She doesn’t try to ask Will if he wants her to go with him. 

She doesn’t have the right to ask anyway.

The boys wait for a moment, staring at Will’s and Mr. Coleman’s backs, then they stalk off to the other side of the patio, towards the side of the school, from where they can see the parking lot.

“That was your brother?” Max asks, rolling to a stop next to Mia. “Is he okay?”

Mia nods, distracted. Even though it’s too far for her to actually hear anything coming from the parking lot, Mia still thinks she hears the door of her mom’s green Pinto closing. 

“Yeah.” She answers Max, only then remembering that she had already nodded her head. “He just - he has a doctor appointment.”

The first time they’d been to the Hawkins Lab had been at the end of May. An agent had showed up to Mom’s work, and whatever he’d said to her had been enough to spook her into taking Will to that place. 

Mia had offered to go along, and when the day finally came, she had spent half an hour curled on the bottom of their shower, trying to gather up the courage for it, thinking about El and the monster, feeling that agent’s arms around her, and hearing the sound of her own wrist snapping like a twig echoing in her head over and over again. 

Then Chief Hopper had knocked on their door and stated that he was tagging along and some of the terror that Mia felt had abated. Chief Hopper had a gun, and was over six feet tall. He had gotten Will out of the Upside Down before, had broken into the lab and made them give her brother back. 

He was going to protect them. 

The lab had been a huge, boxy building deep in the woods, which she had only ever seen from afar. Entering those cold hallways had been terrifying, especially with all the military personnel walking around, some with guns strapped to their waists. 

Inside the looming concrete walls, Mia had felt ridiculously small. 

Chief Hopper’s presence had felt much less reassuring.

Though she had wanted nothing more than to run away, Mia had stayed by Will’s side the whole time Mom talked alone with the doctor, and hadn’t looked away once while the nurses prodded and poked him, drawing blood and sticking electrodes onto his head. 

All the while, Mia couldn’t help but wonder if those nurses and doctors had been the ones who experimented on El.

Will had gone on two more appointments since then, but as soon as the doctors declared him physically well, Mom had sworn to them that they’d never step foot into that place again. 

But then yesterday happened and she just…changed her mind.

And today Will was going back, without Mia. 

Just him and Mom. And Hopper, probably.

 Mia’s hands start to sweat just thinking about it.

Chief Hopper will be there, she tells herself. They’ll be fine. 

*

Jenny offers to cancel their trip to the thrift shop. Mia refuses to cancel. They’d been planning it for days now. And she’s here, isn’t she? Will hadn’t wanted her to go along with him, and neither did mom, or else the principal would’ve called both of their names. So, she’s keeping their previous plans, no matter how anxious she feels. 

They invite Max to come with them, so they could also show her around town, but Max declines, saying she had already asked her brother to drive her to the arcade. 

So once the final bell rings, they split up, Max heading to the high school parking lot and Mia and Jenny to Jenny’s house. Mr. Hayes picks them up, and drives them to Jenny’s to eat something before they go looking for the finishing touches of the costumes they’ll be wearing tomorrow. 

Mia’s costume has been ready for weeks now - she’ll be going as Bowie, her costume matching as closely as possible to the outfit he’d worn to perform Rebel Rebel at that Dutch TV show. Jenny, who hadn’t actually settled on anything solid until this year’s VMA, had decided way too late to go as Madonna. And now, she needed more stuff, because two days ago she’d ruined the dress she was supposed to wear with an exploding tube of acrylic paint.

At first Mia had thought about going as Joan Jett. But the leather jacket Mom had kept from her teen years had been all cracked and peeling at the back, and there was no way they could buy a new one, not even second-hand. Mom had ended up finding her Bowie vinyl at the back of her closet, though, and so she’d suggested dressing up as him. 

That day, they’d all sat on the couch to watch The Man Who Fell to the Earth, because mom hadn’t watched it in nearly a decade. It ended up being kind of annoying because Mom and Jonathan had to cover her and Will’s eyes every time someone appeared naked or having sex, which was many times. At one point Mom hadn’t been quick enough and Mia had gotten a full picture of a guy’s thing and nearly hurled over the side of the couch. Yuck.

Seeing so many girls naked had been weird for…other reasons, none of which Mia had wanted to think about much. Though she saw something kind of similar everyday, she’d still felt as if she was doing something wrong by looking at them. Besides, Jonathan and Will had been right there, and Mia had been acutely aware of every shift and movement of theirs while...noises came from the TV.

It had been awful.

It reminded her why she’d never gone along with Jenny’s ideas of watching R-rated movies when they were alone at her house. The noises had made Mia nauseous. 

Still, Jonathan had loved the movie, and had been rambling about why he thought some of the scenes were shot the way they were to their mom while the two of them cooked dinner together. Will had been quiet since Farnsworth had been thrown out the window, and honestly, Mia had found the whole thing confusing and weird, and not even that good. 

Though Bowie did look cool the whole time. 

So Bowie it was.

After they eat at the Hayes’, Mr. Hayes drives them through the new road that the city built for the mall they’re inaugurating next summer, just so they can gawk at the looming, half-ready structure in the distance. He drops them off at the thrift shop behind the film store with a cheery wave and a handful of change for them to eat ice cream afterwards. 

They stand by the doors and repeat to each other what they’re after: a white church dress and some lacy gloves, or even drapes for them to turn into gloves. They really shouldn’t look at anything else, lest they spend more money than they should.

They do manage to go straight to the dress aisle, instead of inspecting the multicolored hats near one wall. But that’s all they manage to do. Soon, they lose themselves in the colorful, shiny fabrics, looking through each dress even when they’re not near the color white.

“Are you going to get anything for the Winter Ball?” Jenny asks, looking over a rack of puffy dresses. She pulls out an orange one, violently bright, with puffy sleeves. Jokingly, she drapes the dress over her front, twirling around. “Think I’d look good in this?”

You look perfect in anything, Mia thinks, turning a pair of sunglasses she’d found in the pocket of a violently blue dress in her hands. “If you want people to confuse you with Cinderella’s pumpkin carriage, sure. Go for it.”

Jenny puts the dress back, turns to another rack and pulls out a fake-fur coat. She puts it on, takes the sunglasses from Mia’s hand and strikes a pose. 

Mia shakes her head, a bit too fondly. Not even Jenny can pull off that look. 

Jenny puts the coat back with a pout. 

“So?” Jenny asks.

Mia goes back to looking at the dresses, finding two off-white dresses. Both of them have lace and look a bit like the one Madonna had worn, but none of them are Jenny’s size. “So what?” 

“Are you going to get anything for the Snowball Dance?”

Oh right, the Snowball dance. 

Jenny’s been looking forward to it since last year. Jenny had joined the student committee that was organizing the Dance, and even had her dress ready earlier than literally everyone else. It had been made by a seamstress, who was a friend of her mom’s: a beautiful pale pink dress that ended around her knees, with an off the shoulder neckline and dramatic dark pink ruffles along the neckline and hem. 

Mia’s own Mom had saved up money during the entire year to get her and Will nice clothes to go. She’s already found Will a fitting black vest, a brand new dress shirt and pants. Mia’s dress is still in debate. 

She hadn’t found anything that looked good on her with a decent price in the stores downtown. 

“Oh. No. Not right now.” Mia shakes her head. “Besides, we’re looking for your Halloween costume right now. Not a ball dress or whatever, for me.”

Jenny ignores her, and pulls out a green dress from a nearby rack. It looked like it came straight from the fifties, or the sixties, with a tight underbust made of shiny fabric in a deep green color, a bust made of transparent tulle over the same green fabric, and a straight neckline with spaghetti straps tied in bows on the shoulders. The skirt puffed out at the waist, made of layers and layers of wavy green fabric tiered in horizontal rows. 

It looked a bit like a mint cake, but it was pretty.

“This one would look perfect on you.” Jenny says, holding it against Mia’s front. “It looks like it’s your size too. And it’s so pretty!!”

She doesn’t recognize the brand on the back, but the lining is soft and nice and not at all transparent. Mrs. Hayes had told her that you always had to look at the stitching, to see if something was of good quality and this one looked like it was, with no holes or frayed stitches. It looked almost brand new, with just the smell of old perfume clinging to it and a yellowish stain on the inside. 

Mia takes a look at its tag and winces. 

Way out of budget.

“It’s too long.” She tells Jenny.

“My mom could always shorten the skirt.” Jenny argues, wiggling her eyebrows, “Or Mrs. Wheeler - she has a sewing machine, doesn’t she?”

Mia ignores her, and ends up finding a pretty white dress full of lace in Jenny’s size. It looks a bit like Jenny’s confirmation dress from when she was nine, but it has the spaghetti straps, and a layer of see-through fabric that they can just add the polka dots of Madonna’s dress. It even has the sweetheart neckline. It’s perfect. 

“Let’s just take the dress you need.” She throws the dress at Jenny. “Besides, I could just go with some of my nicer clothes.”

“But it’s a ball!” Jenny insists, jumping up and down. “You have to look like a princess!”

Mia rolls her eyes, “Why? I don’t even have someone to impress, Jenny.”

“It doesn’t matter if you have a date or not. You don’t need to look beautiful for some boy, you have to look pretty ‘cause it’s fun!” Jenny puts the green dress back on the rack with a pout, “But isn't there really anyone you like that you would want to ask?”

“No.” Mia answers firmly. “There isn’t.”

Jenny bites her cheek, lips puffing out. “You could always ask Dustin. Or Mike. Does Will have a date?”

“I’m not going with my brother.” 

“It’s not like it’d be the first time.”

“That was second grade, Jenny!”

Jenny ends up bullying Mia into buying a pair of lightning shaped earrings that she says will look great with her costume while Jenny gets the dress that Mia found. They walk together to the register, and Mia waits with their things while Jenny takes one last look at the rings section. 

Isn't there really anyone you like that you want to ask?

When Jenny comes back, clutching a gaudy steel ring in hand, Mia clears her throat to dispel the sudden nerves making her mouth as dry as the Sahara. 

“Are you going to ask Lucas?”

Jenny flushes to the tips of her ears, and shrugs, uncharacteristically shy. 

“I don’t know. Maybe.” She bites her lip, glancing up at Mia, eyes impossibly blue. “Do you think he’ll say yes?”

Mia takes a long look at her. 

Jenny has always spoken loudly and proudly of her crushes. Like Dustin, she’d usually send them love notes and little trinkets as gifts. But in all those times, Jenny had never been like this - shy and uncertain.

Maybe she really likes Lucas this time around.

“Of course he will. He’d be stupid not to.” Mia answers her, honestly. “If I go with Dustin, and you go with Lucas, it’d just be Will and Mike left, then - and I doubt that they could find anyone to go with, so it’d be nicer if you paired up with Lucas and the rest of us went as a group.”

Mia could swear she hears Jenny mumbling something, but before she can ask Jenny to repeat it, Jenny gives her things to Mrs. Hastings - the owner of the thrift shop - and takes the money from her bag to pay. 

Mia pays for her earrings next. 

And since they’re always at Mrs. Hastings’ thrift store, the elderly woman lets Mia call Jonathan’s work to ask him if he can pick them up from the ice cream shop. Jonathan says yes, and tells her he’s leaving work in half an hour. 

Jenny and Mia buy a caramel sundae and a coke to share at the ice cream shop, and sit down on the curb to eat it, the packet of jelly beans Mia had gotten for Jonathan sitting between their feet. They talk about their english homework and some article about horoscopes Jenny had read on Seventeen. When Jonathan arrives, Mia hops on the passenger seat while Jenny goes to the back, and her brother lets them listen to Madonna all the way over to Jenny’s house. 

Once they’ve said hello to Jenny’s mom, and Jenny’s gone inside, Jonathan switches to his personalized Queen mixtape. On the way home, the two of them sing loudly to Killer Queen, Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy, and Somebody to Love, with Jonathan doing the high notes while Mia does the low ones. 

Jonathan doesn’t mention Will. Mia doesn’t either, though she’s gripping the sides of her seat to hold back the urge to ask. 

“I picked up some movies from the store on Park Street.” Jonathan says once Under Pressure ends, pointing to the bag at Mia’s feet. 

They’re a couple minutes away from home, at the end stretch of the long road Mia always forgets the name of. Mia takes a look inside the bag, glad for the distraction from the trees outside, ‘hm’ing and ‘ah’ing as she looks through the tapes even though she doesn’t recognize any of the titles, and none of them sound all that exciting. She doesn’t like horror movies, those are more Jonathan and Will’s thing.

Jonathan tries to explain their synopsis, asking her which she’d like to see, but Mia barely pays attention, not at all interested in watching any of them.

“Whatever you guys choose is fine.” She says when Jonathan is done talking. 

She doesn’t ask about Will.

Jonathan throws her an annoyed look. “You could have told me you weren’t listening to a word I said. Now I’m thirsty.”

They spend the rest of the ride in pleasant silence, and are both surprised when they get to their house and find Bob’s car in the driveway. 

Mia doesn’t know if it’s a pleasant or an unpleasant surprise, she still doesn’t know what to think of Bob. 

Bob is nice, if a bit too chipper. He made Mom happy, and Mia hadn’t seen him get angry so far.

That had to be enough, right?

She opens the front door and comes face to face with mom and Bob by the kitchen sink. Bob is keeping her mom company as she washes the dishes, back leaning against the sink and his elbow nearly glued to her mother’s. Chester sits in front of him, wagging his tail.

Mom deserves someone who isn't angry all the time, Mia tells herself as Bob turns to her and Jonathan, a smile on his face. Even if she doesn’t know how to feel about him. 

“Oh, hey, kids!” Bob greets them, cheeks dimpled. He throws more popcorn at Chester, one of the kennels bouncing off the dog’s snout and falling under the kitchen table. Chester scrambles to go get it, nearly overturning a chair. Mom laughs and turns off the faucet. 

“You’re spoiling him.” She chides, voice full of warmth, turning around to dry her hands on a tea towel.

“I’m most certainly not - I’m just introducing him to the wonders of popcorn.” Bob argues playfully, still smiling.

Mom steps away from the sink, shakes her damp hands at Bob, and comes to Jonathan and Mia, enveloping them in her arms. 

“How was work, Jonathan?” She plants a kiss on top of Mia’s head, “Did you and Jenny find everything for tomorrow night, baby?” 

“Work was fine.”

“Yeah, mom.” They answer at the same time.

Mom looks between them both, a smile on her lips. Even with the crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes, she looks younger when she smiles like this - no signs of the worry lines on her forehead and at the corners of her mouth, no sign of the haunted look that still lingers when she stares at the living room wall for a little too long. 

She looks happy, and this is why Mia will never say a word about her and Bob’s relationship, no matter what happens. Unless Bob starts hurting their mom, or her brothers, Mia will keep her mouth shut. 

Mom is happy. Bob is good to her. Bob hasn’t been anything but nice to Mia, Will and Jonathan so far. 

Mia shouldn’t worry at all.

“Will is in his room already.” Mom tells them, smoothing a hand down Jonathan’s arm, “He’s a bit...down after his appointment earlier. Why don’t you ask him to choose the movie?”

Jonathan nods and goes deeper into the house to get Will. Mia wants to go too, but she doubts that Will will want her there. 

“C’mon, Mia” Bob calls from the sink, “Why don’t you pour the rest of the butter in?”

Once the three of them are sitting on the couch, with the popcorn bowls and drinks all at the ready, Will and Jonathan still haven’t come out. Bob goes to call them, while Mia doubles back to the kitchen to grab a glass of grape juice for Will. 

Jonathan and Will get to the living room soon after, and they sit down to start the movie Will had picked. Jonathan sits on one of the armchairs, Mom cuddled up to Bob’s side. Mia sits on the couch between Mom and Will, sharing a popcorn bowl with him. 

Will doesn’t look at her, not even when she passes his glass of grape juice to him. 

The phone rings halfway through the movie and Mom freezes. Will continues to stare at the TV, pretending not to care, though his shoulders tense, coming up to his ears. Mia glances at Jonathan, and finds him staring at Mom worriedly. 

Jonathan had told Mia about that phone call, right after they’d gone missing. How mom had been desperate and terrified that someone had taken both of them, how she’d dragged the armchair all the way to the phone so that if whoever it was called again, she’d pick up and find out where she and Will were. He had told her about how many phones mom had bought, how one after the other kept getting fried, about the breathing she’d heard from the other side of the phone, the one that Mom had been certain sounded like Will.

Bob is the one who holds Mom’s hand now, and softly tells her to let it go.

The phone stops ringing. Mom finally relaxes.

Mia glances at Jonathan, and this time he looks back at her, concern carving a deep line between his brows. 

Once the movie’s over, Bob leaves to his own house. Mia helps mom clean up the living room, while Jonathan and Will go out to the backyard with Chester. 

Mom tries to talk to Mia about the movie, and Mia nods and hums at every appropriate moment, but she isn’t really paying attention. She hadn’t paid much attention to the movie, too aware of the silence between her and Will, and too uncomfortable with the screaming and crying coming from the TV. 

Jonathan and Will come back inside with Chester, and Mom’s attempts at a conversation stop.  

Mia goes to bed still tense and uncomfortable, and her sleep is far from restful.

The next morning, she wakes up before Will, jolting to consciousness after dreaming of running through the woods and jumping over the cliff at the Quarry. 

Her legs hurt as if she’d actually been running. In the dream, she’d hit icy cold water, and even wide awake now, she’s shivering.

She rolls to her back, giving time for her heart to settle down. 

It’s still dark outside. The only light in the bedroom is the yellow night light in the shape of a fish by the window. On the bed above her, Will’s snoring softly, lying on his stomach, one hand dangling over the edge of the mattress. 

He’s been biting his nails again, she notices, his ring and pinky fingers showing that little skin under the nail.  

Mia counts his slack fingers until her breathing evens out and the shivers stop. 

She looks away to the ceiling and stares at it until she hears noises coming from the hallway. 

She rolls out of bed, only to stop and stare at her window in surprise.

The sky outside her window is already bright and gray. 

She could have sworn it was still dark a minute ago. 

She must have fallen asleep without noticing it.

Feeling her mouth dry as though she had been running all night, Mia gets up to face the day. 

She finds Jonathan in the kitchen, taking out bread and butter and eggs from the cupboards and the fridge.

“Morning,” he says, eyes still puffy from sleep. “Sleep well?”

Mia rubs her eyes, and blinks hard when she keeps seeing the quarry and all that cold water behind her eyelids. “Yeah. You?”

“Eh. Good enough.” Jonathan answers.

They hear the shower running for a few minutes, and then mom’s footsteps as she goes to her room to get ready for the day. Mia helps Jonathan finish up their breakfast, and crosses out yesterday’s date from the calendar on the wall. 

It’s officially Halloween. 

Anxiety churns her stomach and she tries to distract herself by eating a slice of bread and peanut butter, ignoring Jonathan when he tells her to wait for mom and Will.

Mia’s setting the table, holding the slice of bread in her mouth, when she hears Mom clap her hands, calling out to her and Will down the hall.

“C’mon, kids, Up and at ‘em.” She calls out, opening their bedroom door. “Will? Mia?” 

Before Mia can swallow the bread and answer her, Mom is already running to the kitchen, fear thick in her voice. 

“Jonathan?!”

Mom stops at the threshold of the kitchen, eyes wide. She exhales heavily at the sight of Mia putting down the knives on the table.

“Oh, thank god - Where’s Will?”

Mia shrugs, trying her best to ignore how the edge of panic in her mom’s voice makes her own shoulders rise, and her arms break out in goosebumps. She takes the bread out of her mouth, “He was still sleeping when I got up.”

There’s a sound in the hallway, Mom spins on her heels and runs.

“Will?!” Her voice comes from the hallway, followed by the sound of the bathroom door slamming open, then - 

“What are you doing?”

“Peeing?”

There’s a beat of silence, then the sound of the bathroom door closing. 

Mom comes back to the kitchen, a troubled look on her face. 

Mia shares a glance with Jonathan, because what the hell? 

Mom had been a bit…jumpy and overprtoective this past year, but…nothing had happened today. No nightmares, no storms, nothing. Why was she so jumpy now?

Jonatha just widens his eyes at Mia, then shakes his head, also not knowing why Mom is acting like this.

Had it been the phone call yesterday? The horror movie? 

They both keep their mouths shut, anyway, sitting down at the table to wait for Will. 

Will walks in a few moments later and sits next to Mia. 

“Good morning.” He mumbles, reaching out for a slice of bread and the butter. 

And that’s that.

Mom eats her food with eyes glazed over and distant, Jonathan hunches over his plate, and Will keeps his eyes on his hands as he pulls apart his bread slice before stuffing the tiny pieces into his mouth. 

As soon as that wonderful and eventful breakfast is over with, Mia dashes to her room to change her clothes and grab her backpack, then she remembers it’s Halloween and has a moment of hesitation at her doorway, wondering if Will will want her help with putting on his costume. 

Every year on Halloween, Will and the Party would put on matching costumes for school, and go trick or treating straight after. Mia and Jenny had done it once and never again, because halfway through the day Mia had spilled chocolate milk on her Strawberry shortcake dress and had nothing to wear to go trick or treating. 

After a moment of thought, she decides that her help probably won’t be welcome. So instead of just lying on the couch and doing nothing while Will gets ready, she keeps herself busy by doing the dishes. 

But washing the dishes becomes mechanical after the first five minutes, her mind easily drifts away, sticking to the fact that tomorrow will be November first. 

Mia shudders, accidentally dropping a glass in the sink with a loud noise.

“Everything okay?!” Mom shouts from inside the house, the door of her bedroom swinging open with the sound of squeaking hinges.

“Yeah!” Mia shouts back, before her mom can come running. “Just dropped a cup, it’s fine!”

There’s a moment of silence, but her mom shuts her door again.

Mia finishes the dishes, and without anything else to do, settles on the couch to wait. Mom and Jonathan get ready before Will. Mia considers knocking on her bedroom door and asking if he needs her help, but once again decides against it. 

Ten minutes later, Will comes out dressed as Egon, ghost-sucking backpack and all. 

He looks like a dork. She loves it.

She doesn’t say anything to him, though. Not only is Will still not talking to her, but after a whole day of stewing in her own guilt from the fight the other night, she’s hesitant to even tease him, afraid he’ll think she’s being cruel again. And with the memory of her nightmares still fresh in her mind, Mia really doesn’t want to make things worse between them both.

Jonathan brings out the camera, Mom cheers on Will, suggesting pose after pose while Jonathan takes pictures. 

Mia watches from the couch, listless, head propped on one fist.

Jonathan drives them to school, humming the ghostbusters theme song as he drops them off by the bike rack.

Mia waits for the Party to arrive while standing next to Will, the coldness between them as tangible as a winter breeze. 

Mia shivers, arms crossed in front of her chest. When she closes her eyes, she sees the Quarry. Sees the firefighters pulling Will’s body from the ice cold water.

No, not Will’s body. 

Will’s alive and standing right next to her.

“Hey, guys!” 

Mia jumps, heart racing.  “Jenny! Jesus.”

Jenny laughs, blonde hair gleaming in the early morning light. She throws her arms around Mia, clothes smelling like butter cookies and strawberries and so warm that the trembling in Mia’s arms ceases instantly. 

“Sorry.” Jenny says with a smile, “Good morning!” She leans further into Mia’s shoulders, “It’s halloween! I’m so excited!”

Her smile is contagious, and against her will, Mia feels her own mouth curling up at the corners. Jenny pulls away from the hug, but leaves her hand on Mia’s elbow. 

“Hi, Will!” Jenny wiggles her eyebrows at Mia’s brother. “Or should I call you Spengler?”  

“Hi, Jenny.” Will greets with a smile. “What are you dressing up as, tonight?”

“Mia didn’t tell you?” Jenny’s hand leaves Mia’s elbow as she strikes a pose, legs apart and one hand on her hip, the other under her chin, “I’m going as the one and only, Ma-donna!”

Will laughs, and Mia’s heart warms further at the sight, so rare this past year. 

“I’m sure you’ll look awesome. She’s going on a tour next year, isn’t she?”

Jenny and Will talk for a little while about Madonna, Mia watching avidly, but quiet. She doesn’t want to scare Will away, to say something at the wrong time and have Will close up in his shell again. 

Soon enough, they can see Mike, Dustin and Lucas in the distance, all dressed up in their ghostbuster outfits and chattering excitedly while pedaling. Mia and Jenny split up from Will then, going into the school as Will waits behind for the boys. 

Something’s niggling at the back of Mia’s head as she and Jenny walk inside, though. 

They grab their books for the day, Mia singing Borderline under her breath while furiously trying to identify what, exactly, is scratching at the walls of her brain. Meanwhile, Jenny tells her that Lizzie told her that Jessica had been the one writing all those things about Martha, Cassidy and Mara in the bathroom stall by the Gym, and that she had found out because John, from their History class, had seen the girl coming out of the girl’s bathroom with a green smudge on the side of her hand, the same color those comments had been writing in. 

Mia’s just closed her locker when Max rolls down the hallway towards them, literally, on her skateboard, red hair a halo of fire around her head.

Jenny stops her gossiping to wave at the redhead, “Hi, Max!” 

“Hi.” She hops off the skateboard, steps on its front and it goes flying to her hand, promptly. Mia raises her eyebrows, impressed. “Why is your brother wearing a proton pack?”

Mia opens her mouth to answer and that’s when it hits her. 

She looks around and…yeah. 

No one’s wearing costumes. 

Shit. 

“Because it’s Halloween.” She groans, spinning in place and craning her head this way and that to look at the crowd of students, hoping there’s at least someone in a costume. Not even Beatrice Gomez, from the grade below, came dressed as a witch this year, and she always dresses up as a witch. Will is going to be mortified, if he’s not already. “Why is no one dressed up?!” 

“Oh.” Jenny says, wide eyed, also realizing the issue. “Oh no…”

Mia opens her locker again and roots at the bottom of it for any clothes that Will would wear. She has a sweater she’d stolen from him, which has a huge ink stain on one of the sleeves from when Mia’s pen had exploded during an English test. That had been months ago. 

Mia really needs to clean up her locket.

“Should people be dressed up?” Max asks, peering into Mia’s locker. “Nice.”

The picture they’re using as reference for Jenny’s Madonna costume is still duct taped into the inside of her locker door, next to a cut out of Bowie’s Aladdin Sane cover that Mia had gotten from one of Jonathan’s vinyl catalogs, but besides those pictures, there’s nothing much to see inside. 

Mia slams her locker door shut with a  groan, not registering the redhead’s comment. 

She hopes Will has something else to wear in his locker, but she doubts it.

Shit, shit shit.

“People usually dress up.” Jenny tells Max, picking lint off her own fuzzy blush-colored sweater. It matches her socks, visible under the rolled up bottoms of her light-wash overalls. “We’ll put on our costumes when we go trick or treating. Oh! By the way, do you want to come with us tonight?”

Mia wants to smack her own face. She should’ve asked Max that already! 

On the other hand, if Jenny’s inviting Max to go, then it does sound like her plan has even more chances of succeeding. Jenny is actively inviting Max. 

Max should go with Jenny. This year, Mom had told Mia and Will to come back home early, and though Jenny had accepted it pretty easily when Mia told her about it, Mia couldn’t help but feel that the other girl had been disappointed. 

This way, when Mia leaves, Jenny could stay longer with Max. 

“Yeah, you should come with us!” Mia says, “You have anything planned already?”

Max stares hard at them, blue eyes piercing. “Not really.”

“It’s at the Maple Street cul-de-sac.” Mia adds, in case that’s relevant for her to decide if she should go or not. “We’re meeting at seven, my brother and his friends will be there.”

“The Ghostbuster stalkers?” She asks, eyebrows raised, the corner of her mouth quirked up in a smile. Her tone is more joking than serious, it even draws a snort out of Jenny.

“The very same.” Mia says, fighting down her own smile. 

She runs a nervous hand through her ponytail, finger catching at some strands and pulling half of her hair out. With a groan, Mia redoes her ponytail pulling out some wisps of her brown hair to frame her face. 

Since she doesn’t have a mirror, she turns to Jenny, “Do I look okay?”

Jenny stares at her hair, leaning in. 

Suddenly too aware of how close they stand, Mia glances away from Jenny’s blue eyes, down at the freckles on her nose and cheeks. After spending an ungodly amount of time in the public pool all summer, Jenny had gotten covered in freckles. They covered her entire face, her shoulders and her arms. Even her knuckles had a faint dusting of freckles, fading now that Fall has started. 

Jenny reaches up and fixes Mia’s bangs. “There you go. You look great.”

Mia smiles at her, “Thanks.” 

Jenny smiles back, nose scrunching. 

Mia looks away from her  and clears her throat, pressing her cold fingers to her too warm cheeks, only to find Max watching them, a soft look in her eyes.

A swell of revulsion twists her stomach. Mia smiles at Max, watery and fake, and feels even worse when the girl half-smiles back.

They walk to History class together, Jenny telling Max about the time someone had brought a bearded dragon in their backpack back in February and it had gotten out and into the girl’s bathroom near the Gym. The teachers had been hunting it all over the building, but the one to find it had been a very unlucky 8th grader who had her thigh bitten when she went to pee. Ever since, people had left that stall strictly to write gossip on the walls. 

“I recommend you go there every thursday after PE.” Jenny tells Max, “This way you’ll know if there’s anyone talking about you at the school. The janitor cleans it every Friday morning, though. What’s what? Oh, that? That’s the school play this year. I’m part of the drama club by the way-”

They go about their day. 

People barely stop talking during their classes, all too excited about Halloween, despite no one but the younger years wearing costumes. Will, Mike, Lucas and Dustin, when Mia catches sight of them in their first class of the day, have their heads ducked low, embarrassed, the noodles or whatever parts of their proton packs gone, leaving only the boxes that must be stapled to their backpacks, like Will’s is. When she asks Mike if everything’s okay, if they've been made too much fun of, during Math, he says it’s been fine, embarrassing as hell, but fine.

She hopes it really is. 

Mia, Jenny and Max eat together at the ramp outside the building again, Jenny cheering every time Max does something extremely cool on her skate in between bites of her egg salad sandwich. Yesterday, Jenny’s mom had made butter cookies with strawberry-jam topping, and Jenny shares the ones she’d brought for lunch with Mia and Max, the latter of whom doesn’t seem to know what to do with it.

“It’s a cookie, Max.” Jenny comments before shoving an entire cookie in her mouth. “It’s not poisoned, if you’re wondering. It’s really good.”

Mia makes a noise of agreement, mouth full of her own cookie. 

Max eats her cookie, face lighting up immediately. 

Mia breaks in half the other cookie she’d taken from Jenny’s lunch bag and offers it to her. Max takes it.

Time seems to pass even more slowly after lunch, but at last, the final bell rings. 

Max catches up to Jenny and Mia as they’re heading to the front doors. 

“Lucas and Dustin just invited me to go trick or treating with you guys, too.” She says, hopping off her skate and putting it under her arm. “They didn’t know what ‘presumptuous’ meant.”

Mia snorts. 

“Are you going then?” Jenny asks Max.

Max shrugs, “I’m not sure yet. I have to check with my, uh, my mom.”

“Alright. You can call us if you decide to go - here, I’ll write it down for you." Jenny tears off a piece of paper from her english notebook, walks over to a random locker door and quickly scribbles down both Mia’s and her own phone numbers with a yellow glitter pen she takes from one of the pockets of her bag. She offers it to Max, “Here. Can you read it? I never use this pen because it’s so light, but I think I forgot my pencil case in my locker -”

“It’s fine.” Max tells her with a smile, taking the piece of paper. 

Jenny and Mia walk outside, Max following hesitantly behind them. They climb down the stairs to the parking lot, Mia and Jenny sitting down on the curb to wait for Jonathan, who’ll be taking them home to get ready for trick-or-treating, Jenny having brought all of her stuff from her own house that morning in her backpack that’s field to bursting at the seams. 

Max stays standing for a while, passing her skateboard from one hand to the other and anxiously staring off in the direction of the high school. She looks down at the piece of paper with Jenny’s and Mia’s phone numbers and must reach some sort of decision because she flips her hair to her back over her shoulder, and drops down next to Mia, bumping shoulders with her. 

“You said your brother was a nerd, but what about you? Are you a nerd too?” She asks, a smirk turning up one corner of her mouth.

“Only on days ending with a y.” Jenny answers for Mia, laughing, “I mean she’s not as bad as them, but she’s always reading. And even Mike doesn’t know as much about Star Wars as she does, I’m telling you. And she’s like, the third best student in our year.” 

Mia rolls her eyes at her best friend. “Says the second best student in our year. Honestly, Max, Jenny is as much of a nerd as I am. She loves D&D -”

“Only because I like making up characters!”

“- And she’s a huge theater nerd.” Mia continues over Jenny, “Name any musical or play that’s been on Broadway in the past fifteen years. Jenny knows every single line from it.”

Jenny shoves her to the side, flushing, “Shut up, you.”

Max has a bemused smile on her lips, “What’s D&D?”

Mia stops, turns to look at Jenny to see her eyes just as wide as Mia’s.

“Oh my god.” They say at the same time, turning back to look at Max.  Excitement bubbles up in Mia’s stomach, rising up her throat and making her giggle like a maniac, just as Jenny flaps her hands at the redhead over Mia’s lap. 

“It’s so cool, you have no idea - look, D&D is this game called Dungeons and Dragons and -”

Mia lets Jenny explain it to Max, occasionally cutting in to add a detail or two that Jenny forgets in her enthusiastic babble. It reminds her of when Jenny first came to Mike’s basement to play D&D after spending a week getting her character just right and buying a whole new dice set for herself and Mia. 

Jenny had barely been able to sit still in her chair while Mike DM’d, shooting wide smiles at Mia whenever their characters were mentioned, gasping loudly at every dramatic reveal, and giving long, passionate speeches whenever the chance presented itself. Her and Dustin were almost as dramatic as Mike, shouting and laughing and going absolutely crazy on every campaign.

That lasted until Jenny became a part of the Drama Club, and stopped having as much time available for their campaigns. Then she’d tried to convince Dustin to get into the Club and Mike had thrown a fit. And then, after Mia spent a whole week hanging out with the Drama kids during lunch, he’d said Jenny and Mia were not invited to any other campaign ever.

Nevertheless, Jenny hadn’t lost any of her fondness for the game. Jenny and Mia used to pretend to be their characters when they went out exploring the woods: Jenny being a halfling called Berylla, and Mia a halfling called Orianna. It hadn’t been quite the same without the others, but it had been fun, and being with each other was more than enough.

But then…last year happened. And they haven’t stepped foot into the woods since.

Max, thankfully, listens patiently to the huge amount of information that Jenny and Mia dump on her, though she still looks a bit lost. Taking pity on the girl, Mia asks her what she likes to do, and turns out that Max is a huge fan of video games. She has already beaten the highest score of Dig-Dug at the Arcade, despite getting in town only about a week before. Back in California, she’d also been in the track team of her school. Jenny tells her she’s played softball her entire life. They spend the next minutes comparing their athletic records, Jenny poking fun at Mia for not doing any exercise beyond getting up to change the side of her vinyls.

“I’m not as sedentary as Jenny’s trying to make me look.” Mia rolls her eyes, “We go swimming at the public pool every summer, and I’m the fastest -” 

She cuts herself off. 

I’m the fastest at biking among us all, she had been about to say.

Though Mike had returned her bike as soon as she’d gotten out of the hospital last year, Mia hasn’t touched it since that November night. It had spent two months on the front porch, until Jonathan had moved it to the shed, which Mia avoided even looking at, most days. 

She hasn’t biked anywhere the entire year, either walking or having Jonathan and mom drive her to wherever she needs to go. 

Was she still the fastest rider of their group? Was she still the only person in their group that could do those tight corners of Morehead Hill without full-stopping their bike?

Will hasn’t biked anywhere either, but his bike is still in its usual place by the front porch. Sometimes, he rides loops in the front of the house, knuckles white on the handlebars. 

Mia can’t even do that. She can’t even look at her bike. 

And she can’t help but be angry at herself for that. Can’t help but think that if only she had taken her bike that night, maybe Will and her could have biked faster. Maybe they could have outrun the monster. 

Maybe nothing that happened last year would have happened at all.

“You’re the fastest…?”

Mia blinks, finding Jenny and Max staring at her, one expectantly, the other confused. 

“What?” She asks them.

Before they can answer though, a car stops right in front of them and honks. It’s Jonathan.

“Oh, that’s my other brother. C’mon, I’ll introduce you.” Mia jumps up from the curb, motions for Max to follow her. 

She knocks on the window and waits for Jonathan to roll it down.

“Hi, Jonathan!” Jenny greets as soon as the window’s rolled down. Jonathan smiles at her, tired, but amused.

“Hi, Jenny.” Then his smile turns to Mia, soft as it always is, “Mia.”

His eyes fall on Max, calm and waiting. When Max doesn’t move to introduce herself, Mia gestures between them both.

“Jonathan, this is our new friend, Max. Max, this is Jonathan, my older brother.”

Jonathan waves. “Hi, Max.”

Max is stiff as a board, arms crossed over her chest. Her eyes flick from Jonathan to the car, and the parking lot around them, frowning. “Hi.”

Mia chalks it off as a first introduction thing. Max had been prickly as a porcupine yesterday. Meeting someone else’s older brother must be pretty weird if you’d only known the person for like, a day. “She might go trick or treating with us tonight, okay?” 

“Sure.” Jonathan agrees, easily. “Do you need a ride there or on your way back? I’ll be dropping off Jenny too.”

Max looks down at the ground, then tilts her chin up at Jonathan. “I’ll be fine. I don’t even know if I’m going yet.”

Jonathan nods, unlocking the back door for Jenny. “Alright, just let me know if that changes and I’ll drive you.”

Mia throws her bag at Jonathan through the open window and he catches it, throwing it over his head to the backseat without hesitation. Jenny pulls the back door open and throws herself down on the seat, pulling her legs up to her chest, her high-top converses on the very edge of the old and stained seat cover. 

Mia opens the passenger door, but stops before getting in, turning to Max. “You need a lift?”

Max shakes her head and lifts her skateboard. “Nah, it’s fine. I gotta meet Billy at the high school.”

“We’ll loop around the highschool, we can drop you off there.” She turns to Jonathan, “Right?”

“Sure.” He taps his fingers against the wheel and nods, “Hop in.”

Max hesitates, shooting a suspicious look at Jonathan, but slides in after Jenny in the backseat, shutting the door with a soft click. 

Jonathan grimaces at her through the rearview mirror and Max freezes, hand on the handle. “You’ll have to slam that. It’s...a really old car.”

Max stares incredulously at him, and glances at Mia in confirmation. Mia nods and slams her own door shut, to hopefully make her more comfortable with doing the same thing. 

Max quickly opens and shuts her door again, this time with a loud slam that makes the windows shake.

There’s a brief moment of silence. Through the rearview mirror, Mia sees Max’s face turn red as a firetruck. 

“Can you play Cindy Lauper?” Jenny asks Jonathan before the silence can turn awkward.

Jonathan smiles, “Had it ready for you, Jenny.” 

He takes the tape he’d made for Jenny from the cupholder and puts it on the radio, the start of Girls Just Wanna Have Fun coming from the speakers a few moments later. 

Notes:

Max is here!!! Yay!!!

Chapter 3

 

 

That evening, Mia stands by the kitchen doorway with a tray of facepaint in her hand, feeling as though her heart was beating out of her chest.

She glances at the paints, and at the picture in her other hand, then past the kitchen doorway, where Will is sitting on the table drawing, his back to her. 

Then to her paints and to Will again.

She’s almost ready to go trick or treating - there’s still one detail from her Bowie costume missing. The most important detail.

The iconic lightning bolt across her face.

Jenny is getting ready in her room, and she’s doing her own makeup. Mom was busy setting things up in the living room,  putting together a huge bowl of candy, despite the fact that no one ever knocks on their door on Halloween. Bob is there, helping her put up fake spiders and spiderweb decorations, dressed as a ridiculously stereotypical vampire, complete with a stiff high collar, white face paint and fake blood on the corners of his mouth.

And Jonathan is in his room, but he’d be terrible at painting her face anyway.

Mia needs Will.

She breathes in deep, and steps into the kitchen.

“Hey, Will.” She says, feigning normalcy. Will jumps in his seat, but Mia pretends she doesn’t see it, coming around the side of the kitchen table with her eyes firmly glued to her tray of paints. “Can you do the lightning bolt on my face for my costume?”

She places everything on the table, heart hammering. Will doesn’t answer for a long moment, making her glance cautiously up at him.

He’s staring at her, brows furrowed and nose scrunched up. 

“I’d ask mom to do it, but…” Mia gestures vaguely towards the living room. “And you’re the better painter, anyway. Honestly, I don’t really trust that anyone else would be able to make it look even remotely as cool as Bowie’s. But you, that is.”

Will continues to stare at her. Heart hammering in her throat, she offers him her pointer finger.

“Please?” Mia tries.

She hopes that that tiny gesture from their childhood might help, might let him see that she really was sorry for what she had said and done.

Yet, Will’s eyes glance away from her finger, down at the picture of Bowie and the tray of face paint and glitter. 

“Yeah, sure.” He says, eventually, motioning for her to sit next to him, completely ignoring the finger still raised towards him.

A cold wave washes over her, a pain lacing deep through her chest, deep enough that it makes her audibly take in a breath.

For a moment, Mia feels like bursting into tears. 

Will really won’t forgive her this time.

And it’s all her fault.

What is she doing? Should she even be forgiven for what she had said? 

She had said it was better that Will had stayed in that place, that he’d stayed dead. Just as worse, she’d thrown El’s death in his face as if it was his fault.

It wasn’t, Mia knew it wasn’t. 

But…El had died because they’d all been after Will. 

In a way, wasn’t it his fault?

Then again, if one thought that way…maybe it was her fault. 

Would have Will even gone missing, if Mia had opted to use her own bike that night? Would the monster ever have gotten to him if she’d tried to fight it, like he did? Would El be dead now, if it had been her to go missing in the first place, and not Will?

It should’ve been her. Not Will. not El, but Mia.

“I think…” She starts, her mouth completely dry. She coughs, feeling a knot swelling in her throat, choking her. “I think I’ll see if - if mom can, uhm, do it. I don’t wanna…uhm.”

She doesn’t know how to finish her sentence, but before she can even attempt to think up something, Will shrugs, and turns around, attention once again back on his drawing.

Mia feels incredibly small and stupid. And so, so guilty.

She grabs the tray of face paint and the picture of Bowie. She wants nothing more than to tear off her costume and run back to her room, to hide under the covers and cry. But Jenny is in her room, and they’d been planning to go trick or treating for months, and they’d meet Max and…Mia couldn’t back out, not now. 

She’d taken so much from everyone already. She had to give them this, at least.

So she swallows the urge to cry and walks to the living room, to see if her mom can make some time for her.

It’ll take a few minutes until mom’s all done with the decoration, but mom says she can will do her best to paint the best lightning bolt ever on her face.

By the time mom sits her down to do it, Jenny is all ready to go. Mia sits on the couch, Jenny next to her, while mom sits on the coffee table, and tries not to squirm as mom carefully paints the red and blue lines on her face. Jenny helps with the glitter application, and once they’re finished, Mia is handed the broken half of the tiny hand mirror -the one mom carried in her bag to put on lipstick, though she never really wore lipstick - to inspect the result.

It looks awesome. But…she can see where the lines aren’t all that straight, and knows that Will would have made it even better.

“I love it, mom.” She tells her mom, though, still sincere. “Thank you.” 

Soon after, Jonathan emerges from his room with his camera, and starts taking pictures of Jenny and Mia asking them to strike different poses, from kisses to the cameras to Jenny piggybacking on Mia’s back. Will - who had his photoshoot done earlier that morning - huffs annoyedly when Jonathan calls him over to pose with Jenny and Mia, but he smiles at the camera every single time.  

Mia’s skin tingles when Jonathan takes a picture of only the two of them, her cheek pressed to Will’s. It’s almost as if her guilt changed the very charge of her body, setting off millions of tiny static shocks all over her skin wherever it touched her brother. 

It hurts.

Finally, after what must have been a thousand pictures, they leave the house with a pocket full of candy each. 

Mia tries to pretend to be as excited as Jenny and Will on the way to the car.

Once inside and on the way to Maple Street, Jenny goes to town on the jellybeans in her bag, biting on it with her lips pulled back so as to not mess up her lipstick. At the front seat, Will is eating a handful of candy corns as well. Mia tries to ignore her roiling stomach and forces herself to look at the candies she’d swiped from her mom’s bowl.

She brings her hand out from her pocket, finding a bite-sized Reese’s cup, right in the middle of her palm.

Her mind flashes to El - her brown eyes glittering when Mia showed her how to do a toast with their Reese’s cups. 

Mia quickly shakes her head and shoves that thought as far away from her mind as she can. If she starts thinking of El now…

Too late. Tears rise on her eyes, turning everything turvy. Mia refuses to blink, and forces them to dry.    She opens the Reese’s packet and shoves the entire chocolate in her mouth, like bait being fed to a shark so as to not smudge her mom’s painting. Her throat aches something fierce, still, she swallows.

“Can any of you get me some green jelly beans?” Jonathan asks, nodding his head to his hands, both busy on the wheel.

“Su-.” Mia’s voice breaks, and she quickly coughs to try and make herself sound more normal. “Sure.”

Jumping at the opportunity to do something, she takes the jellybeans from Jenny and picks through the candy to find Jonathan’s favorites. Luckily, Jenny’s favorites are the yellow and orange jelly beans, so she doesn’t mind giving all of the green ones to Jonathan. 

Mia scoots to the edge of her seat and slowly gives them to her brother, two at a time, so as to not spill any. 

He’s tossing the last Jelly bean back like it was some kind of prescription drug when Mia sees it - he raises his arm, and the coat catches on his seatbelt, and something bright and orange pokes out of his pocket.

“Aha!” Mia shouts, fishing it out of his jacket without thought. She drops back on the seat, careful not to mess up her slicked back, mullet-looking hairstyle. TINA’S HALLOWEEN BASH, the orange paper reads, along with an address, a date and time, with cartoon black bats all around. Despite herself, she smiles, feeling a giddy energy beneath her skin. “Hey, it’s tonight! You’re going to a party?”

Jenny grips the flyer, pulling it closer to her face so she can read it too. There’s still some red paint on the side of her hand from when she’d helped with the lightning bolt on Mia’s face, and it smudges a corner of the paper. 

“Why didn’t you tell us?!” She cries out, a bit too loud, and sounding equal parts ecstatic and dejected. “We could have made you look cool!”

Jonathan laughs, “Are you saying I don’t look cool already?”

“Look who you’re with, Jonathan.” Will says, twirling the tube of his proton pack, “None of us look cool.”

“Speak for yourself, Egon Spengler. We look cool as hell.” Jenny retorts, motioning at herself and Mia, “And for the record, I meant cool-er. That jacket looks great on you, Jonathan.”

“Thanks, Jenny.” Jonathan smiles, “But the reason why I didn’t tell you guys is because I’m not going to the party.”

“Why not?” Mia and Will ask, at the same time. Mia tenses, glancing at her twin, but Will just continues to stare at Jonathan.

“You have to go!” Jenny cries out, scooting forward on her seat. “Why aren’t you going?”

Jonathan’s eyes meet Mia’s through the rearview mirror, before quickly looking away. Mia’s stomach sinks.

“I just didn’t feel like going.” Jonathan says, fooling absolutely anyone.

“Liar.” Mia calls him out, that barbed wire returning with full vengeance to knot around her throat. “Did mom tell you to stay with us?”

“Mia -”

“You should go.” Mia tells him, “We’ll just walk around the neighborhood. You’ll be bored after, like, fifteen minutes.”

“And what about your friends?” Jenny asks him, “Aren’t they going?”

Jonathan rolls his eyes, “Maybe I want to stay with you guys, did you ever think that?”

Mia raises her eyebrow at her brother through the rearview mirror at the same time as Jenny. There’s a long silence in the car, which just shows what everyone thinks of that.

“You really should go, Jonathan.” Will says, finally, tilting his head to the side, voice soft. “We’ll be fine, I promise.”

Jonathan bites his lip, brows furrowed. 

He must have really wanted to go, because he concedes. 

“...Fine. I’ll go.”

“Yay!” Jenny claps excitedly, scooting even closer to the back of Jonathan’s seat, smushing Mia’s knees against the door. “Oh my god, it’ll be so fun! I mean it’s a high school party - they are fun, right?”

“I’ve never been to one before.” Jonathan shrugs. Jenny opens her mouth, but Jonathan continues to speak before she can interject, “I’ll be sure to tell you every detail after, Jenny, I promise.”

Jenny beams at him, star earrings dangling at the sides of her face.

Mia sits up, Jenny wordlessly scooting to the side to give her enough room to lean her arms over Jonathan’s shoulders. 

“But shouldn’t you dress up as something?” She asks him, looking down at his clothes. She can’t think of anything that might quickly make him be something. Like, not even sunglasses would make him look like a rockstar in his normal jeans and shirt, even though he is wearing his nice jacket. “It’s a Halloween party.”

Jonathan shrugs, “I’m going as a guy who hates parties.”

Mia boos. “Lame.”

“Shut up.”

Jonathan drops them off at the Wheelers’ driveway and makes them promise to be close to the others at all times. And to please, call him if anything happened, anything at all.

But eventually he drives away, leaving Mia, Jenny and Will next to the Wheeler’s mailbox.

And it’s officially the first time they’ve gone out unsupervised at night since last year.

Jenny grabs Mia’s hand, as if struck by the same thought. She grins, toothy and wide, her lip gloss sparkling. “Oh my god! It’s the first time we go out without your brother in forever!”

Mia grins back, glad to be able to make her smile. By accident, She looks over Jenny’s shoulder at Will still smiling,  but he just looks away, without even acknowledging her.

Mia’s heart drops like a stone, the smile vanishing from her face.

Thankfully, the boys come out of Mike’s house right at that moment. Dustin and Lucas tackle-hug Will and compliment Mia and Jenny’s outfits. Mike carefully hugs Will, and approvingly nods at Jenny’s elaborate hairstyle, saying that the lightning bolt over Mia’s face looks awesome.

They start walking together down the street, but the problems arise just as they get to the corner.

Jenny and Mike can’t get to a consensus on which street they should go through first. 

“Oh my god, guys!” Dustin shouts, stepping between Mike and Jenny, after they've been arguing for a solid five-minutes, both equally red-faced. “Stop with this shit already! Let’s just split up and go. Jesus.”

Lucas crosses his arms and nods. “Yeah, what Dustin said. We’re missing out on so much candy right now, and I don’t wanna spend the whole night here while you two argue over every little thing.”

Jenny closes her mouth with a soft click, cheeks turning even redder. Mia feels a bit bad for her - having her crush be so clearly annoyed with her can’t be easy, but she’s also glad that Dustin and Lucas spoke up. 

“Fine.” Mike bites out, “We’ll go down Cherry, you girls go down Cornwallis.”

Just the mention of the street has Mia’s heart stuttering in her chest. She glances at the darkening sky, palms beginning to sweat. 

“Nu-uh.” Jenny argues, making Lucas and Dustin both roll their eyes. “We’re turning on Dearborn.”

 Mike huffs, “Fine! Do whatever you want, but if we don’t end up seeing each other, we’re meeting up here, at my house, by ten.”

“Fine.”

“Uh, actually…” Will pipes up, eyes widening when both Mike and Jenny snap their heads around to look at him. “Jonathan was supposed to come pick us up at nine.”

A quick flash of disappointment passes through everyone’s faces, but they all manage to conceal it well. Jenny even throws an easy smile aimed at Mia’s brother.

“Right, sorry. We’ll meet here by nine, then.” She says, “Two hours is more than enough for us to fill our bags twenty times over, right, Mia?”

Mia smiles at her by reflex, but her mind’s far away, her stomach twisting itself with guilt. 

Everyone knows that there are houses who only start giving out big candies at the very end of the night, after all the little kids have been sent off to bed. Last year they’d walked around Hawkins until eleven, and had gotten the best chocolate bars then. 

“Right.” Mia says eventually, “We should get going.”

So the boys go left, while Mia and Jenny go right. 

Mia pretends that Will being the only one who doesn’t say ‘see you soon’ to her doesn't cut through her chest like a knife.  

She tries to shake it off and enjoy the weight of Jenny’s hand around her wrist as the blonde pulls her towards the first house offering candy in the street. She doesn’t want to ruin Jenny’s night with her bad mood.

And as it turns out, they do run into Max only four houses down Dearborn street, or rather, Max jumps them, a mask over her face and a knife in hand. 

Jenny shrieks, Mia curls her hand over a can of pudding that’s not there, both equally terrified. 

Max, however, is oblivious to their real terror, cackling, red hair sticking to her mouth as she pulls off a cheap, silicon mask off her face. Mia glances wide-eyed at Jenny, but slaps Max in the shoulder, ignoring  her own racing heart and the dull throb of her left wrist.

It’s been a year, she tells herself, annoyed at her own reaction.

“Oh my god, why would you do that?!” Jenny yells, half-angry and half-amused, poking Max in the side. 

“Sorry.” Max smiles back, not looking sorry in the slightest. She is in simple dark blue coveralls, red hair messy from the mask and straight down her shoulders. Her cheeks are pink and her eyes very, very blue, even in the twilight. 

“we didn’t know you were coming.” Mia blurts out. 

It’s true, they had invited Max, but the girl had never called or anything to confirm, so they weren’t really sure if she was coming or not.

Max winces, “Yeah. My stepdad - I wasn’t gonna come but he allowed me to come at the very last minute, and only because Billy had this stupid party to go to; I tried calling you, Mia, but your…dad? He said you had already left.”

“Dad?” Mia frowns, “Oh - Bob, right?. He’s not my - he’s my mom’s boyfriend.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

There’s an awkward beat of silence. Max pushes some hair behind her ear, cheeks pink. Mia looks away, then fishes a mini toblerone out of her bag and rips the packet open with her teeth.

Jenny flaps her hands at Mia, “Hey, no messing up the paint, yet!”

Max seems to take in their costumes then, blue eyes turning wide as saucers.

“Holy shit, you guys look incredible.” Max looks down at her own clothes, wrinkles her nose. “And of course, I’m dressed like Myers.”

Jenny does look incredible, dressed like Madonna from this year’s MTV Video Music Awards - wearing the strappy white dress they’d found at the thrift, with plastic white flowers stitched onto the tulle skirt by her mom. Her hair’s done up in curls, neck loaded with many different necklaces, from plastic pearls to a long rosary she’d gotten from her Nana. They’d ended up cutting some white lace stockings to make fingerless gloves, and written BOY TOY on a thick white belt Jenny’s mom had lying around with a black marker. Her red lipstick is bright, and her eyes are ringed with black eyeliner, the whole ensemble complete with a fake mole on top of her sharp cupid’s bow.

Mia had done her best. She was wearing bright red overalls, made from white ones they had found at the thrift store two months ago and dyed in Mia’s mudroom, cackling like witches over the dark red pot of hot water. Mrs. Hayes had lent her a black and white button up shirt with stripes on it, which Mia has folded up and tied with a simple knot in the middle of her ribs. She’s also tied a dark blue scarf on her neck, courtesy of her own mom, and put on the lightning bolt earrings she’d gotten at the thrift the day before. Instead of the eye-patch Bowie that wore when he sang Rebel Rebel on that one European TV show - the reference for Mia’s entire look - they’d opted to paint the blue and red lightning bolt across her face, like in the Aladdin Sane album cover, to make her costume more recognizable. 

A fruitless effort, considering two of the four houses they’d stopped by had asked Mia what she was dressed up as. Well…They’d asked the same to Jenny, noses twisting at the sight of the writing on the blonde’s belt, so maybe they simply weren’t cultured.

“I think your costume is awesome.” Jenny loops her arm through Max’s. “You look scary as hell. Didn’t you hear me scream?”

“Yeah. And Halloween is a great movie.” Mia adds, hesitatingly looping an arm through Max’s other arm. “And I don’t even like horror stuff.”

Together, the three of them go from house to house, heading down towards Old Cherry Road. Mia and Jenny point out which house belongs to who on the way (That’s old man Wellington’s house, he’s a creep that hangs by the ice cream shop on sundays and stares at all the girls; that’s deputy Callahan’s house, he’s nice). They pass over the intersection that leads to Max’s house, and Max timidly points it out from their spot at the bend of the road. 

By the time they finally get to the cul-de-sac on Maple Street, they've filled their bags halfway through.  

And just around the corner, they spot four familiar figures in tan overalls in front of a door, shoving handfuls of candy into their own treat bags.

The past hour has left Mia happier than she’s been in weeks, her cheeks hurting from smiling so much, and her voice rough from speaking more than she has in months. She’s filled with a manic sort of energy, and the urge to do something spreads through her like a wildfire. 

Mia grabs Max’s elbow and shakes it to get her attention. Max, who had been tilting a baggie of sour patch watermelons to get all the sour crystals at the bottom, gets the last contents of the bag sprinkled over her eyes and winces. 

“Oops.” Mia cringes, “Sorry.”

“‘S fine.”

Jenny helps Max clean it off, and once all of the sour sugar is off her face, Mia points out her brother and the others to Max and Jenny.  “We should scare them.”

Jenny follows Mia’s pointing finger to Will and the boys, then turns back to Max and Mia, grin wide and wicked. “Michael’s gonna scream like a little girl.”

“I’m in.” Max says, smiling.

They skirt around the boys, taking cover in the dark shadows of the trees that line the street. Mia has a brief feeling of unease, but quickly shrugs it off. 

This is going to be fun. 

She and Jenny hide behind a tree trunk decorated with tiny pumpkin cutouts, while Max gets ready to jump, her fake knife in hand and the mask over her face. 

3, 2 -

“Grah!”

Mike does, indeed, scream like a little girl. So does Lucas and Dustin.

Mia and Jenny laugh so hard they trip over the curb, Jenny’s hand around Mia’s arm the only thing that saves her from falling face first to the ground. 

“Was this your idea, Jenny?” Mike hisses, glaring at the blonde, who just laughs at him.  

“It was Mia’s.” She says, giggling, “God, you should have seen your face.”

Mike growls, and pulls off Mia’s scarf in retaliation. She grabs it from his hand and slaps it against his face, more to see the outrage in his eyes than to hurt him. She’s not disappointed. 

Next to Mike, Will rolls his eyes, not a hint of mirth in them, and it quickly makes the little happiness she’d been feeling vanish like water on a hot pan.

“You girls suck.” Dustin groans, a hand on his chest as he tries to regain his normal breathing.

“Oh, did you piss yourself, Henderson?” Max mocks, eyes glittering.

There’s a spark in Dustin’s eyes that Mia’s sure she’s seen before but can’t quite place it. But then he grins, soft and gap-toothed, and Mia recognizes it immediately.

Oh-Oh. Someone has a cru-ush.

Lucas whistles, “That’s a gnarly mask.” He tells Max.  “I didn’t know you were coming.” 

“Well, I heard there were full size candies being handed over at Loch Nora. I couldn’t miss it.” Max tells him, bouncing over to Mia’s side and taking her arm.

Her hand is warm enough to be felt through the sleeve of Mia’s shirt when she tugs at Mia’s sleeve, pulling her along to walk ahead of the boys. 

*

Lucas, Dustin and Max seem to have hit it off. Over the last half-an hour, the three of them have ended up walking a few steps ahead of everyone, Lucas waving his arms around and saying something about a tube. Mia can’t exactly hear it - she has her hands clasped with Jenny’s as they both spin around as fast as they can while still propelling themselves forward, trying to see who will buckle under the centripetal force and break the handhold first. The loser has to give all the bottlecaps and fun dips in their bag to the winner. 

Mia is determined to win.

Jenny’s hand slips and she goes flying forward, giggling madly. Mia whoops, throwing her hands up. “Hand it over, Madonna!”

Jenny passes the candies over, mock-pouting, before scampering off towards Max and the others, pretending to be upset. On instinct, Mia looks back to boast at Will but finds only Mike, with a sour look on his face. 

Mia’s heart drops to her stomach. 

The same unease from before returns, so sudden and strong she feels sick. 

“Where’s Will?” She asks. 

Mike stops, turning his head to the side, eyes going wide when he realizes Mia’s twin isn’t at his side, as he should be.

Mia doesn’t wait for Mike to answer, spinning on her heels and running up the street, right back where they came from

Good thing she did it too. 

Around the bend, three older boys are circling Will like sharks, ready to attack.

“Trick or treat, freak!” The one dressed as a clown yells at Will, pushing his shoulders. Will goes flying to the ground on his back, the camera he’d borrowed from Bob crashing next to him. 

Mia’s vision goes red. 

She doesn’t even think. She twists her candy bag around her wrist, pulls it back over her shoulder and shouts. 

“Hey!” 

The Clown and the boy with the Jason mask turn around, and Mia uses all her strength to slam the bag against their stupid faces.

Jason Boy’s mask goes flying off. Clown boy gets hit in the eye with the corner of a full-sized chocolate bar.

Mia doesn’t have time to gloat. Will gets up, head whirling. His eyes are wide, staring at some middle distance, despite the fact that Mia’s right in front of him, and his eyes pass right over her, not seeming to even see her. She’s about to tell him that this is not the time for their stupid fighting, when Will whimpers.

“Mike?” He says, truly scared, the sound raising all the hairs on Mia’s arms.

“What?” She starts, stepping towards him. “Will, are you -” 

She is sharply interrupted when the third boy, the one dressed as a Werewolf, pulls her violently back by her arm, “What the hell do you think you’re doing you little bitch -” 

Heart jumping to her throat, Mia pulls back her left arm and slams her palm against his nose, just like Jenny - who had recently started doing this martial arts class with her uncle - showed her how to.

The boy howls in pain, blood gushing out of his nose. 

Will takes advantage of the commotion to run away, leaving Bob’s camera and Mia behind. 

That traitorous little shit.

Mia grits her teeth and moves to run after him, but Clown Boy, still down on the asphalt, grabs her by her pant leg. She falls like a tree, but manages to catch herself with her palms at the last second, pain shooting up both her wrists.  

Around them, people have started noticing the fight, stopping to look, some little kids pointing. 

Clown Boy’s hand closes around her shin and for a strange moment, it’s almost like there is a split between her mind and her body, before she’s jolted into one single, terrified, thing again.

“Get off me!” She shrieks, not recognizing her own voice, and kicks out, narrowly missing his face.

“What the fuck are you assholes doing!” Someone screams, an older, male voice.

Something pulls Mia out of the ground by the back of her overalls. It’s an older boy with long hair, who’s much taller than Mia, taller even than the other boys on the ground. He quickly pulls her to her feet and behind him, holding her arm with one hand. 

Clown Boy sneers at him, sitting up on the ground. 

“Fuck off, freak.”

“You’re actually stealing some little kid’s candy and I’m the freak? Yeah, right.” The older boy scoffs.

Without warning, he stomps down over Clown boys’ fingers. 

He’s wearing big, dark boots, with shiny metal over the tips, Mia notices, as there’s a sharp sounding crack. 

Clown Boy screams. The boy with long hair lifts his foot, and immediately, Clown Boy starts rolling around on the ground cradling his hand. 

The older boy ducks down to grab Mia’s bag of candy and Jonathan’s camera that Will had left behind, the black cape over his shoulders swirling around his shins. When he straightens up, he glares in warning at the boy dressed as Jason, who’s standing next to Werewolf Boy, holding a flannel shirt to Werewolf’s bleeding nose. Clown Boy is still howling in pain on the ground.

Jason Boy sneers at them, but turns his back to Mia and the older boy to focus on his bleeding friend. 

The older boy lets go of her arm and places his hand on Mia’s shoulder. “C’mon, kid.” 

He gently shoves her to the sidewalk, walking her a few feet up the street before he stops and whirls her around to face him. 

”Hey, you’re the Byers kid, aren’t you? The one that went missing.” He says, “Nice makeup. That’s a sick Bowie, kid.” 

Mia barely hears him. 

She shrugs his hand away from her shoulder, glancing around herself, trying to find her twin. The boys haven’t followed them, at least, and it turns out that Cape Guy had led them near the driveway where she'd last seen her friends. Mia cranes her head around but can’t find Jenny’s golden curls, or Mike’s tan boilersuit. She can’t find Will.

Because Will ran away and now he’s gone again and she can’t find him -

“My friends. I have to -” Mia gasps, stepping away, but Cape Guy catches her by the wrist, her left wrist, sending Mia’s heart slamming to her throat once again.

She lets out a choked scream, wrenching her arm away, before she can stop herself. Cape Guy lets go of Mia’s arm as if burned, hands flying up to the sides of his head. 

“Shit! right - stranger danger -  Fuck. I’m trying to help - Hey, hey.”  

A glint of metal catches her eyes - a skull ring on the middle finger of the hand around her wrist. For some reason it makes her snap out of her panic and look at the older boy. 

He’s wearing black skinny pants and a black long-sleeved shirt under an equally black cape, with handmade cardboard vambraces over his wrists, a raised relief of a skull on the outer side of each of them, painted a shiny silver and aged with black paint. They match the cardboard knee guards over his jeans. The collar of his cape is stiff, like Bob’s costume, and rises around his head in the shape of flames, the tips painted a deep red, like the inside of his cape.

It’s so ridiculous and so well done that she just stares at him, all of her earlier panic gone.

“Name’s Eddie, okay? Don’t freak out again. We’ll find your friends.” Eddie waits until Mia looks up at him to continue. “Did you see them around here or -”

Then, over his shoulder, Mia sees Mike coming out of the back of a house, a wide-eyed and trembling Will under his arm.

“Will!” She yells and starts to run, but a hand on her shoulder stops her for a moment. 

She remembers that Eddie is still standing in front of her, then,

“Here,” is all he says, shoving the camera into Mia’s arms. “Go.”

Mia doesn’t look back, and runs straight to Mike. She skids to a stop at his side, hand coming up to his wrist, where it’s curled protectively around Will’s shoulder. “What happened?”

“We’re going home.” Mike spits out over his own shoulder, to someone she can’t see amidst the crowd of kids walking through the sidewalk. Then his eyes turn to Mia, widening at whatever he sees, “What the hell happened to you?”

Mia blinks, turning her attention to herself. Her hands are trembling at her sides, leftover adrenaline making her fingers shake. She squeezes them into fists and shoves them under her armpits, only then noticing that her palms are burning. Now that she can feel the cold wind on her face instead of the blood pounding under her skin, her lip is smarting something fierce. 

She licks it and winces at the pain. She tastes blood, and what seems to be gravel stuck on her skin. She doesn’t remember hurting it.

Shit. Her face must be busted. She has no idea how she’s explaining this to Jonathan. Or mom. 

Will doesn’t even look like he cares, his eyes squeezed shut, and his cheeks pale. 

Mia wonders if Jonathan and mom will even care about her once they catch sight of Will.

Jenny, followed by Max, Dustin and Lucas come around the corner of the house then, all with equally concerned frowns on their faces.

“At least tell us if he’s -” Lucas starts, only to be sharply interrupted by Mike.

“He’s fine! I’m getting him home.”

“Mike, c’mon, man -” Dustin starts, hand squeezing his candy bag tight.

“I told you guys to keep trick or treating.”

“That isn’t fair, Mike.” Jenny says, standing protectively by Max. “We all care about Will too! We’re not just going to pretend nothing happened -” She catches sight of Mia, then, eyes widening. “What happened to you?!”

Lucas, Dustin and Max look at Mia then, as if only now realizing she was there.

“Oh shit, Mia, your mouth is busted.” Dustin says, stepping closer to her, one hand coming up to her face. He pokes the fleshy part under her lip, and it surprises her how much it hurts. 

She pulls her face away from his hand with an ‘ow’ that is much louder than she intended. “Nothing happened.”

“Uh-huh, and I’m santa claus.” Lucas answers, coming closer. “Did someone beat you up?”

“You guys stick to Mia, I’m going home with Will.” Mike says, and immediately starts moving away from the group.

“I’m going with you.” Mia tells him, then to the others, “Really it was nothing. You guys should stay and get more candy. They’ll only hand out the big chocolate bars later.”

“We are all going. Who cares about big chocolate bars” Jenny reiterates, voice firm.  “Or do you guys want to stay?” She asks, looking back at Max, Dustin and Lucas.

“Like hell I’m staying!”

“Of course we’re going!” Dustin and Lucas say at the same time. 

“I know a thing or two about busted lips.” Max mumbles then, as if afraid to speak up. “I can help.”

Mike rolls his eyes, and now both Mia and Jenny glare his way.

“Fine. Stay, leave, I don’t care.” He turns, still holding onto Will’s weight, and starts walking back where they came from.

“Sheesh. What is wrong with him?” Max asks, stepping next to Mia. “And what happened to you? Don’t say nothing, because that is not nothing.”

Jenny steps on her other side, hand touching the inside of Mia’s elbow, and despite the guilt she feels churning in her stomach about ruining her and the others’ night, Mia lets herself lean into her best friend’s hand. 

“Fine. It was just some assholes going after Will.” She shakes her head, glancing over at Lucas and Dustin too, “I’ll tell you on the way. We should get going, or Mike’s gonna lock us out of his house.”

*

Jonathan hadn’t expected to end his night with Steve Harrington handing him a drunk Nancy for him to drive home. 

Jonathan hadn’t expected to take nearly two hours driving from that stupid party back to the Wheelers’ residence. Still, he had to stop every other minute so Nancy could throw up on the side of the road, and had to drive really slowly, so she’d not throw up inside of his car.

Jonathan also hadn’t expected to finally arrive at the Wheelers’ to find Jenny and that redhead girl sitting on the steps to the front door looking as if someone had stolen all their candy, with Will and Mia nowhere in sight. 

Immediately, Jonathan’s heart starts beating twice as fast. 

They must be inside, he tells himself, you’re late to pick them up, stupid.

Jonathan shakes his head and walks out of the car to grab Nancy from the passenger seat. 

To her credit, Nancy manages a few steps out, but as soon as her feet touch the walkway to her house, her body goes completely limp in Jonathan’s arms, almost sending them both toppling to the ground. 

Shit. 

“Jenny?” He calls out, and has to take a second to remember the redhead girl’s name, adjusting his grip on Nancy’s limp body. “Max? Where’s Mia and Will?”

“They’re inside.” Jenny says, eyeing Nancy curiously.

Max is also staring at Nancy, “Is she okay?”

Jonathan looks down at Nancy’s lolling head and glazed over eyes and nods, “She just…had a bit much to drink. Can you guys help me with the doors?”

Jenny opens the front door so Jonathan and a passed out Nancy can get inside, while Max clears the path ahead, which is extremely useful once they reach the stairs, where Molly’s toys are scattered all around. He tries to gently nudge Nancy awake at the foot of the stairs, but when the girl shows no sign of waking up, Jonathan’s forced to pick her up in a bridal carry and carry her upstairs to her room.

Once there, he sets her down on her bed and pulls off her boots. It’s a familiar motion: grabbing her ankles, unlacing and then gently pulling the shoes off, setting them by the bed, then tugging the covers from under her and tucking them around her. He’s done the same to Mia and Will plenty of times before, when they’d fall asleep on the couch still in their school clothes. 

A noise from the door has him turning around. 

Max and Jenny are hovering by the doorway, looking worriedly at Nancy. 

“You should turn her on her side.” Max says, “In case she throws up.”

Right. Jonathan’s memory flashes back to all the times Mom had done the same to Lonnie when he passed out on the couch, as he dutifully turns Nancy to her side. 

Then he freezes for a second, shooting a concerned glance back at Max. 

The girl isn’t looking at him anymore, her eyes flicking around Nancy’s room, curious.

Jonathan shakes his head at his own ridiculousness. 

It’s nothing. Max must be a smart girl. She seems to be his sister’s friend, after all.

“I’ll go get Will and Mia.” Jenny whispers, bolting downstairs, her stacked necklaces jingling like a bag of coins. 

Max’s gaze snaps from its curious inspection of Nancy’s room directly to Jonathan. Her shoulders stiffen, as if realizing that she was alone with him now, before taking three steps away from the door. Far enough that her back is nearly to the halfway door, but still being polite. 

Jonathan doesn’t begrudge her. If Mia were in her place, alone with the brother of someone she’d met - what, a day before? - he’d want her to do the same thing.

Jonathan steps slowly out into the hallway, leaving enough space between him and Max.

“Did something happen?” He asks, making sure to keep his voice soft enough it doesn’t carry down the stairs. The girls had seemed a bit too down when he first saw them, and Mia and Will were nowhere to be seen. Something must have happened.

Max shrugs, “I’m not sure - uhm…Will didn’t feel well? I think?” 

She stops for a moment, frowning. Then she continues, and Jonathan feels his heart plummeting further and further down with every word she says. 

“Dustin and Lucas said he had an episode? Mike was being a di- a - a douche and wouldn’t let us get close to him. And then some guys tried to jump Will, but Mia stopped them, but she got knocked around and so we all came home.” Max’s eyes flick to him for the first time then. 

The girl hasn’t met his eyes once this whole time, Jonathan notices suddenly, which is worrying, considering he, himself, hates eye contact and usually doesn’t notice when others do the same.

Whatever she sees in his face, has her quickly continuing.  ”She’s fine, though! Really! Nothing really bad happened to her - just some bruises and, and whatever, uhm. But she - she is in the living room, sleeping it off. You just passed by her on the way up?”

Jonathan sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. This was his fault. 

If he hadn’t gone to that stupid party, if he’d just done what his mom had told him to - God, he doesn’t even know. His brother would be fine and his sister wouldn’t have been - fuck she’d been knocked around by some guys? What the fuck did that mean?

He should have stayed with them. 

“Thanks, Max.” He tells her, tiredly. 

He rubs his eyes, only then realizing how exhausted he is. He hasn’t been sleeping well lately. And it’s late - so much later than he’d agreed to come pick up Mia and Will. 

God, this whole night’s been a nightmare that doesn’t seem any closer to ending. 

Opening his eyes again, he looks down at the girl, “Do you have a way to get back home? It’s late.”

“It’s fine.” She says, shaking her head. Something about the set of her shoulders, the way she’s avoiding looking him in the eye feels familiar. “I live not so far from here.”

Something is wrong. He can’t quite put his finger on what it is.

“Is someone picking you up? It’s pretty late. I’d rather you not walk back alone to your house.” 

It’s dangerous at night, and he knows better than anyone what could be out in those woods. 

That thing is dead, Jonathan tells himself. Eleven killed it. 

Jonathan shakes his head at himself, wishing it was as simple as that to ignore the anxiety curling in his stomach.

“I’ll just call my step-brother.” Max mumbles, though something in her voice rings like a lie to Jonathan. “Really, I don’t want to be a bother.”

“Are you sure? I still have to drop off Jenny, you wouldn’t be a bother anyway.”

The girl hesitates, eyes briefly flicking up to meet Jonathan’s. “...Are you sure?”

“I wouldn’t say you weren’t if you were.” At this hour, he’d drive this girl all the way to Cartersville if she needed it.

“Okay.” Max says after a moment, voice so low he almost doesn’t hear it. “That’d be nice.”

Jonathan smiles at her and carefully walks close to the wall so he can head downstairs without coming closer to the redhead. 

Max follows him, footsteps nearly silent on the stairs. 

When they get to the first floor, all the lights are out, as they were when Jonathan came in with Nancy. It’s dark, but for the patches of light coming through the windows from outside, and for a rectangle of golden light on the floor of the kitchen, spilling in from the basement.

Will, Mike, Mia and Jenny are coming up the stairs, Mia rubbing her eyes and swaying in front of Mike and Will. She trips on the last step of the stairs, and Mike catches her with a hand on the back of her red overalls. Will, following behind them, seems more awake, but only just so, walking shoulder to shoulder with Mike. Jenny comes last, shutting off the light and closing the door as they all step into the kitchen.

Mia sees Jonathan then, eyes nearly shut with sleep, and runs straight to him, hugging him around his waist and leaning all her weight on him. 

He hugs Mia back, awkwardly tapping at her head when he can’t card his fingers through it because her hair’s still full of gel, somehow. Shit, she got red paint all over his shirt, didn’t she? 

He gently pulls her a bit away, to inspect her face, which he finds mostly free of paint, with only a few flecks of blue and a stain of red on her right eyelid. 

And there - Her lower lip is red and swollen, starting to bruise, and there’s dirt sticking to the sweat on her temple. 

Jonathan’s heart jolts in his chest. 

He opens his mouth, about to ask her what being knocked around by some guys meant, but decides against it.  

He’s reached his quota of guilt and worry for the day. He’s tired. And he’s with her and she’s fine now. Banged up but fine. Her pupils look normal, and there’s no other bruising that he can identify right now.

“C’mon, let’s get you guys home.” 

Apparently Lucas and Dustin had already rode home on their bikes. Jonathan only has to take the girls home, but he makes a mental note of calling the Sinclairs and the Hendersons to see if the boys got there okay. 

He drops off Jenny first, since she’s closest to Mike, and then Max, at the address she quietly gives him at Old Cherry Road. It’s a bit out of the way home, but Jonathan would have gone willingly to Cartersville if she had needed it.

When they roll to a stop at Max’s driveway, there is a man sitting on the porch, with a beer bottle in his hand. Jonathan stiffens, before telling himself to quit it, already. It’s probably Max’s dad. A man is allowed to blow off some steam from the day with a can of beer.

“Night, guys. Thanks for the ride.” Max near-whispers. 

“Night, Max.” Comes the sleepy goodbye from his sister. 

“Good night.” Jonathan tells Max. “Whenever you need it.”

He sees her nod at him through the rearview mirror, before she slides off the back seat, opening and shutting the door gently, with barely enough force to actually shut it.

She walks up to her door with her head down, and Jonathan watches her go. 

Her dad gets up from his rocking chair and stands next to the front door as she approaches him, arms crossed. 

Even after all these years without Lonnie, Jonathan tenses, heart racing. His hands clench around the wheel when Max walks past her father, half expecting the man to grab her arm and shake her. 

But he doesn’t. 

He’s just a man drinking. Her dad. Why would he hit her?

Max gets inside, and the man gives Jonathan’s car a seething once-over before closing the door behind him.

Jonathan stares at the closed door for a couple of seconds, heart slamming against his chest, then shakes himself off, realizing he’d been just sitting there, with an ear out, waiting for the yelling to start. 

He should be driving home. Will is asleep in the passenger seat. Mia, who had blinked awake just to say goodbye to her friend, has her head against the backseat window, already fast asleep again. 

Jonathan remains still.

There’s no yelling coming from Max’s house, so why is he still waiting?

Max’s porchlight switches off. The street is dark, all of the windows with a view to their car have their lights out.

There’s still no yelling coming from Max’s house. 

Why the hell is he shaking?

With no one to witness it, Jonathan leans his head against the steering wheel, hands coming up over his ears to tug viciously at his hair. 

His arms reek of booze, the memory of Nancy’s vile alcoholic breath still heavy in his nose. He shudders, neck and shoulders aching with how stiff his muscles are.

This afternoon, while Mia and Jenny were getting ready in Mia’s room, Bob had pulled out a bottle from the fridge and Jonathan had frozen against the sink, hands going numb as he wondered if he would be able to duck if Bob decided to throw the bottle at him. 

But then - 

You want one too, Jonathan? Bob had asked. And suddenly he was just Bob, wearing a ridiculous vampire cape with the collars turned up, with a bottle of sprite in his hands. 

Not beer. 

Mom didn’t even keep beer in the house.

Jonathan had to hide in his room after that, both so his hands could stop shaking, and so he could just stop feeling so damn ashamed of himself.

It’s late and he’s exhausted. He shouldn’t have gone to that party. Mia’s lip was busted and his arms smell like booze and he just wanted to be a normal, stupid teenager for a moment, but he can’t help but remember everything. All the time. 

He’s so tired of remembering. 

With a last look to Max’s front door, Jonathan swipes his knuckles over his eyes and pulls away from the curb, heading home.

It’s late and he’s tired.

He’s just projecting on some poor girl lucky enough to still have a father who waits for her to get home.

Notes:

Poor Jonathan needs a hug :(

Chapter 4

Notes:

WARNING: This chapter heavily implies CSA, as always, take care of yourselves, and if any more warnings are needed, just let me know in the comments.

 

 

Bob drives them to school the next morning. In the Bobmobile. 

He’d spent the night over at their house and Mia hadn’t known about it. She had fallen asleep in the car and Jonathan had carried her straight to her bed, where she had woken up this morning, flecks of paint and gravel dirt all over her pillow. 

She had fallen asleep and she hadn’t known that Bob was also sleeping, just down the hall from her.

She had taken a shower and she hadn’t known that Bob had been awake, just down the hall from her

Her door hadn’t even been locked when she woke up this morning. She hadn’t locked the bathroom door.

The car moves over a pothole. Mia pulls her head away from the window just enough to avoid bashing her head against it, then immediately glues her temple to it again, pretending to be asleep. Bob’s eyes had been flicking to Will every five seconds since they entered his car, but he’d look at Mia through the rearview mirror and continue to keep quiet. 

He wanted to talk to Will, probably in private, but like hell she’d let him.

So she had placed her bag against the door and leaned over it, telling them to wake her up when they got to school, making sure to relax her face and even open her mouth a bit a few moments later. 

It pays off about ten minutes after they leave their driveway.

“Think she’s asleep?” 

We don’t want to wake him, do we? She hears Dad’s voice out of nowhere. 

Mia tenses, before she remembers she’s pretending to be asleep and forces herself to relax again. 

She hears Will turning around and realizes her fingers are too stiff, but when she relaxes them, she ends up moving her hand. Damn. 

She’s sure Will’s seen it. 

But she hears the sound of him turning back to the front. 

“She always falls asleep fast in the car.” He says.

Lie. She falls asleep fast only when someone from their family is driving. Bob’s not family. 

“Alright. So…was that you I heard milling around last night, or was that a ghost?”

Hah. Will is probably beating himself up for covering for Mia now.

“Uh - it was probably me.”

“Another nightmare?” 

Mia doesn’t know if she’s grateful or if she hates that Bob just asked Will like that, especially when her brother sucks in a breath loud enough that it makes Mia’s skin prickle with the urge to comfort him. He clearly had not expected this line of inquiry, this morning. 

“No.”

He’s lying, of course. 

Mia mentally slaps herself for sleeping like a rock the previous night and not realizing he wouldn’t sleep well after whatever episode he had. Not that Will had told her what happened - he’d been silent the whole walk to Mike’s and then Max and Jenny had pulled Mia to the kitchen to take care of her scrapes and cuts with Mrs. Wheeler’s giant first-aid kit. When Lucas and Dustin went home - because Mike and Will had shut the door of the basement behind them - the three of them had stayed on the porch waiting, then counting and swapping the candies they’d gotten. 

When neither Mike nor Will resurfaced about an hour later, Mia had gone inside, saying she’d take a nap because she was too tired, leaving Jenny and Max behind on the porch. 

Mia had laid on the couch, wide awake, listening to their hushed voices drifting in through the open window. 

She had wanted nothing more than to be there with them, but she couldn’t. 

They had to like each other. And Mia had to get used to the distance.

“Why do they call him Zombie boy? I mean, I get it, he got lost in the woods for a week or something, but why is he a zombie? Because everyone thought he was dead?”

“Yeah. We had a funeral for him and everything.”

“But it was just a week.”

“Some other boy from Cartersville drowned at the quarry, they thought it was Will. We all thought it was Will.”

“What? Really?”

“Yeah. He was wearing almost the same clothes.  Mia saw it…we did too. I’ve never seen -”

When Jenny didn’t continue speaking, Max had piped up, voice so quiet, Mia had to control her breathing to hear it.  

“I heard that - that someone, like, tried to kidnap them and they escaped. Is that right? Cassidy said she even heard shots from the school when the police found the creep hiding out there.”

“Yeah, it was a whole thing. I can tell you about it, but just don’t - don’t say anything in front of Mia or Will, okay? You saw how he’s still…he still has trouble with it. Mia does too, even though she doesn’t say it.”

“Yeah, of course. People at school talk about it so much, even to me, and I just got there. I can’t imagine being taken by some creep, not knowing if…”

“Yeah. They just talk about it…so easily. To them it was some news on the tv, and some of them got to show up behind the reporter. But they don’t know Will or Mia, or this other girl, Barbara Holland, who was friends with Mike’s sister and went missing the same week. They weren’t worried sick when they didn’t show up to school in the morning and no one had any idea where they were.”

“That sounds terrible.”

“It was. And then they found Mia, and she was - she didn’t even - she wasn’t herself, you know. It was awful. She still isn’t. You didn’t meet her before - but yeah. She was just different. And then we all thought Will was dead, and Barbara…”

“Did they find her?”

“No.”

She wasn’t herself,  Jenny had said. She still isn’t.

Jenny’s right. Mia feels like there was a girl before November 6th and a girl after November 6th, as if someone had showed up with a giant meat cleaver and separated her entire life in two halves. 

And this new girl, this new, different Mia…Mia herself hated her. She’s been so angry, so stuck. It feels like she’s been running in place since the end of last year.

She’s been such a terrible sister. Such a terrible friend. Always taking and taking and ruining it for everyone else.

Why can’t she stop ruining it for everyone else?

“Did I ever tell you about Mr. Baldo?” Bob asks Will, jarring Mia back to the present. 

“Yeah, didn’t think so. I was a little younger than you, standing in line for the ferris wheel at the Roane county fair. Suddenly, I feel this fat white glove tap me on my shoulder. I spin around and there he is, Mr. Baldo. ‘Hey, kiddo, would you like a balloon?’” Bob says, making this stupid clown impression. “Go ahead, laugh. It’s funny. It wasn’t funny back then, I can tell you that. I couldn’t get him out of my head. Every night, he’d come to me in my dreams, and every night, when he came to me...I ran. It got so bad I made my mom stay in the room with me until I could fall asleep every night.”

There’s a moment of silence. Despite herself, Mia wants to hear what Bob has to say.

“Really?” Will asks, voice small.

“Really. It went on like that for months. And then one day, the nightmares just suddenly... stopped. Wanna know how?”

How? 

The Quarry still appears in Mia’s dreams. The dark woods, the hallway to history class at school, the white lights over the cafeteria windows. She’s always running in her dreams. In most of them, the monster is there, chasing her. She can hear its thundering footsteps, the sound of branches breaking and that screech that came from every direction. Sometimes, it’s not the monster, but her dad. Just looming over her, squeezing and holding, his hands so heavy.

Last month, Mia had gotten a whiff of spoiled milk in the fridge and had thrown up in the kitchen sink. She had to clean it before anyone saw it, and she did, all the while looking over her shoulder at the dark living room, certain that the monster was just there in the darkness, waiting to try and take her again.

“How?” Will asks Bob, echoing Mia’s earlier thought.

“Well, I fell asleep…and just like always, Mr Baldo came to me. Only this time, I didn’t run. This time, I stood my ground. I just looked at Mr. Baldo and his stupid face and I said ‘Go away!’, ‘Go away!”

Mia purses her lips. It’s a stupid advice. 

She can’t even think, much less try to turn back around while she’s running in her dreams. And in real life, yelling at the monster chasing you to go away had never, ever worked. She’d know. So many times she’d told him to stop, and go away, and I don’t wanna watch it tonight, daddy, please. 

It had never worked.

In real life, if you tried telling the monster to go away, you would die because you had just stood there, and done nothing useful, like running away. 

But Bob is still talking.

“Just like that, he was gone. Never saw him again. Easy-peasy, right?”

“Easy-peasy.”

“Just like that.” Bob says, snapping his fingers.

As if it were that easy.

Maybe if she was someone powerful like El, maybe she could make it go away. Maybe she could fight back, and kill the monster chasing her in her dreams, like El had done. 

But if you weren’t someone with superpowers like El, the only thing you could do was either run away or stay very still and hope it lost its interest. 

That was the only way to survive.

And the shame that lingered afterwards…did it even matter, if you were there, alive, to feel it? 

*

Max has a weird look on her face when Mia finds her and Jenny sitting in the back row of Mr. Clarke’s class that morning.

The lights are out and Mr. Clarke’s fiddling with the Projector, so Mia can’t ask her what’s wrong. She can only smile at the two girls before taking her usual seat in front of Jenny. 

Will has been quiet too since they left Bob’s car. He’s sitting down with the boys at the front of the classroom, ignoring Lucas poking his arm and not so quietly asking him what’s wrong. 

Mia crosses her arms over her desk, leaning her chin on her wrist, and watches the back of Will’s head while Mr. Clarke talks about the case of Phineas Gage.

She misses him.

“...but his injury resulted in a complete change of his personality. So much so that friends that knew him started referring to him as ‘no longer Gage’. At the time it was known as the ‘American Crowbar Case’. Though it wasn’t a crow-”

The door slams open. 

Mia freezes, suddenly unable to breathe, certain she’ll see the gray-skinned monster crouching on all four legs over the broken classroom door, head open like a flower, screeching at her through rows and rows of sharp teeth.

But it’s Dustin. 

Only Dustin, his hat askew on his head and his backpack held tightly in his hands. 

“I am so sorry Mr. Clarke.” He pants, stumbling into the room. “Really, I’m so sorry, please continue with the class. Don’t mind me. Really, continue with the class, please. Thanks.” He babbles, whispers trailing off as he sits down and hastily kicks his bag under his desk.

After a moment, Mr. Clarke continues the lesson, unfazed with Dustin’s antics by now.

Mia watches Dustin lean over to whisper to Mike and the others, and immediately sits up in her chair, alarmed. Dustin turns around then, looking over at her, and mouthing: AV club. Lunch. Bring Jenny and Max.

Mr. Clarke calls him out for not paying attention. Dustin apologizes to Mr. Clarke, but as soon as their teacher has turned back to the projection, Dustin turns in his seat to look at Mia again, waiting for confirmation that she had understood.

Mia nods at him. Then she hunches over her desk to write in big capital letters on top of her notebook: AV CLUB W/ DUSTIN AND THE BOYS. TELL MAX. 

She reaches back to poke Jenny’s knee, and lifts her notebook so the other girl can read it over her shoulder. Jenny taps her shoulder in assent, then Mia hears her scribbling on her own notebook and hears Max’s chair creaking as she looks over to read Jenny’s notebook.

With all three of them in on it, Mia focuses back on the lesson, despite her churning stomach. 

Mia and Jenny drag Max to the AV club as soon as the bell rings for Lunch. The boys are already there, and Mike wrinkles his nose when he catches sight of Max, shouldering into the room before everyone else as soon as Dustin opens the door.

Mia frowns at his back, but settles around the table with the others without saying a word. 

For some reason, Dustin pulls the trap box from his ghostbuster costume out of his bag. 

He looks around at everyone, eyes glinting, and dramatically presses the button that opens the box with a flare of his hands. Mia leans forward to see inside.

There’s a… wet-looking animal there.

“Ew,” Jenny says, disgustedly. 

Mia agrees. She can’t believe Dustin’s been this secretive just because of a…salamander? Tadpole? What even is that?

Some of her earlier alarm fades, leaving her feeling decidedly stupid for even being alarmed in the first place.

Honestly, what had she expected? She doesn’t know. The monster was dead, El was dead. She should be moving on.

“Oh shush. His name is D’Artagnan.” Dustin says, taking out the tadpole-looking thing out of the box and gently cradling it in his hands. Its skin is nearly translucent, grey and yellow. “Dart for short. I found him in my trash last night.”

“And you brought it here?” Max says, looking down incredulously at the thing.

“Yeah, I wanted to show it to you guys. Wanna hold him?”

Max and Jenny shake their heads, stepping away from the table. Dustin steps closer to Max anyway, holding it out. 

“I really don’t -”

“He doesn’t bite -”

“I don’t want to, I don’t want to -” But then Dustin’s passing it to her and she scrambles to hold the thing up in her palms, face twisting with disgust, “Oh, god, it’s slimy!” She turns, helpless, and it’s Lucas there, right next to her. 

She practically throws it at him, who takes it in his cupped palms with just as much disgust.

“Ugh, he’s like a living booger!”

He turns to Mia, who desperately shakes his head at him, but he shoves it onto her chest and she’s forced to hold it in her hands. 

The thing is cold, and surprisingly heavy for its size. It’s wet too, and all the hairs on Mia’s arms raise at once, a shudder of revulsion traveling down her back. 

She moves her cupped hands up and down, torn between wanting to throw the thing away and not wanting to hurt it, feeling sick to her stomach but not being able to bring herself to do anything to the thing in her hands.

“Get it off, get it off, get it off me!” She shrieks, not knowing what to do.

“Here.” Will says, stepping next to her and cupping his hands beneath hers, his palm warm against her knuckles. Mia drops the thing with prejudice. 

Will makes a disgusted sound, passing the animal over to Mike not a second later.

And Mike, the absolute lunatic, holds it up to his line of sight, completely calm. He even leans close to it. 

Mia’s stomach twists into tighter and tighter knots, the looks she looks at it. 

There are no eyes on its head, no holes for its ears…it really doesn’t look like any other frog and tadpole she’s seen around Hawkins. And she’d loved to hunt for tadpoles with Jenny…before. 

“What is he?” 

“I was just about to ask that.” Mike mumbles, turning the thing sideways.

It moves its fin-like tail, featureless head moving around as if trying to look at them.

“How do you even know it’s a he?” Jenny asks.

“My question exactly. Not the ‘he’ thing, but, what it is, you know. Though hopefully we can know if it’s a he or a she once we know what it is at all.” Dustin says, pointing at Mia before grabbing the thing from Mike. He puts it on the table, caging it in with the thick black cables of his ghosthunter box, and pulls out a pile of books about reptiles from his bag. “At first I thought it was some kind of pollywog.”

Max squints at Dustin. “Pollywog?”

“Another word for tadpole,” Jenny whispers to Max.

“Tadpole is the larval stage of a toad.” Dustin complements. 

Max rolls her eyes, “I know what a tadpole is.” 

“Then you know most tadpoles are aquatic, right? Well, Dart isn’t. He hasn’t needed water so far.”

“But aren’t there tadpoles that don’t need water?” Lucas asks.

There are two species, one from India and one from South-America, Dustin tells them, which doesn’t explain why he found the animal in his trash, in the middle of nowhere in the United States. Max proposes that someone might have been raising it like a pet and just let it escape. Mia agrees with her. It wouldn’t be the first time, after all. Just this year, there had been an iguana or something that had been let loose into the school. 

“Did you guys see that?” Mike asks, leaning over the table, and cutting off Max and Dustin’s brainstorming. “Looks like there’s something moving inside of it.”

They all lean closer too, and that’s when Mia sees it, a slight bulge under the skin of its side, near its tail. 

“What is that?” Mia asks, disgusted to her bones.

“Does it have worms?” Jenny looks down at her hands, holding them stiff and away from her own body. “Should we have touched it?”

Dustin huffs. “It doesn’t have worms.”

“It might have.” Lucas retorts.

Jenny makes a noise of agreement, “You said it yourself that you found it in the trash, Dustin. It could have parasites!”

“I’ll check it.” Mike says, sounding slightly disgusted now.

It’s dark in the AV room, with only the desk lamp turned on, so Mike shifts the beam of light to the thing to see it better. 

The thing immediately shrieks, curling away from the light as if Mike had burned it.

Mia startles at the sudden noise, and jumps away from the desk, yelping. The others do too, Jenny grabbing onto Lucas’ arm and accidentally knocking over the lamp. 

It falls on its side with the light pointed straight to the thing on top of the table. 

The thing screeches, and crawls over the wires to escape the light, almost falling over the edge of the table.

Dustin grabs it before it does, gently cradling it in his cupped palms.

Mia stares at it, frozen with fear. 

She had heard that sound before. That screech. It sounded like -

Almost like - like -

Dustin is talking - something about another way in which Dart is different. Unlike other reptiles, that like warmth because they’re ectothermic, Dart seems to hate it. Even light sources bother him. 

“So he’s not a reptile, which means he’s not a pollywog.” Jenny begins.

“Which means that I’ve discovered an entirely new species.” Dustin adds, beaming with pride.

She feels eyes on the side of her face. When Mia looks away from the thing, she finds Will’s head turning away from her and towards the animal, fear written clear as day across his face.

The bell rings, striking their little bubble of trepidation like a thunderclap. 

They all jump, startled and can only stare at each other in stupefied silence for a second, before scrambling into motion: grabbing their backpacks, turning off the light, shoving Dart back in its box, and putting the desk back in order. 

Mike and Lucas take the front as they walk out into the hallway, saying they have to show it to Mr. Clarke. Dustin says he’s naming it Dustonious girinus. Max calls him an idiot while walking behind him, followed by Jenny, who’s arguing that Dustin shouldn’t call it girinus if it wasn’t a tadpole. 

Will follows, slower than the rest, and Mia slows down to accompany him.

The others are laughing, walking in front of them, talking about scientific discoveries, and getting rich and famous, but Mia can’t find it in herself to think any of it is funny, not even a little bit. 

Mia looks over at Will, who’s staring at the floor. 

He seems to sense her stare and looks up. 

Their eyes cross, the familiar feeling of connection sparking there for the first time in what feels like days, if not months. 

She knew it then, and she knew that Will knew it too.

That thing Dustin had found...That wasn’t an animal.

*

Mia doesn’t have the opportunity to talk to Will about it until after her last class of the day ends. It’s a class that she shares with Lucas and Dustin, but today, both boys go running out as soon as the bell rings, intent on showing Dart to Mr. Clarke. 

Mia grabs her backpack in a hurry and runs to Will’s locker, finding him there, putting away his books.

“D’Artagnan is not a pollywog is he?” She asks as soon as she reaches him, voice shaking. 

She’d spent the entire day with its screech playing over and over again in her head. The whole school smelled like spoiled milk. And this last class with Dustin and Lucas had been a nightmare. Every second of it she’d been all too aware that the thing was inside Dustin’s backpack, moving around, breathing, and just…there.

Will spins around, eyes wide. He shakes his head. “I don’t think so.”

Mia’s heart sinks to her feet. 

“Will!” Mike calls from behind Will, walking up towards them with his backpack dangling from one shoulder. “Hi, Mia. C’mon, we’re going to show Dart to Mr. Clark.”

Mia snaps her head to Will. You better tell him. 

Will swallows, looking down at the floor.

Mike immediately senses something is amiss, his brows furrowing and dark eyes flicking from Mia to Will.  He stops between them, and for the first time Mia notices how tall he’s gotten this past year, standing almost a head taller than Will. 

“What is it, what’s wrong?” He asks, in that soft voice usually reserved for Will alone. His eyes turn to Mia then, dark and questioning.

She squeezes her lips together and shrugs, then looks at her brother, urging him to say something.

Will sighs and looks up at Mike.

“It’s about Dart.”

*

Mia’s furious. Will had seen the Upside Down again on Halloween, and worse, he’d heard monsters shrieking and warbling around and hadn’t told anyone about it.

And apparently, he’d coughed up weird-looking slug-like things and hadn’t told Mia about it.

He tells Mike he didn’t think they were real, not even the slug-things, which is why he hadn’t told anyone, but she knows he’s lying.

If he’d told her about it all since the beginning that he really thought it was all real, that there might be more monsters out there, that he’d thrown up slugs, she wouldn’t have told Jonathan that Will was seeing things that might or might not be real. 

She would have told him outright that there were more monsters out there. 

She’d have gone straight to Hopper, who had a gun and a whole squad of cops and they’d -

They’d have done something.

Did the scientists know about the slugs? Had Will told them? Did they know there might be more monsters out there?

Had they known all along that there were more and just not said anything because they want to see if they’ll grow into demogorgons? Was Dart one of those slugs that had grown?

Those questions run through Mia’s mind as Will explains to the others what he told Mike. Jenny and Max had stayed outside the AV room, because Max didn’t know anything about the Upside Down. Mike helps Will along, talks about True Sight, and Will’s flashbacks not being just flashbacks, and about the slugs.

At that last bit, both Dustin and Lucas turn to Will, incredulous.

“It happened only once or twice. I thought it was a dream…that I was going crazy.” Will whispers. “‘S why I didn’t tell anyone.”

Mia huffs, crossing her arms over her chest, furious. 

“Dude, but that’s some Alien shit! The kind of thing you tell us! We would have believed you!”

“Hey!” Mike cuts in, angling himself so his shoulder is half-hiding Will, who has hunched in on himself. “He’s telling us now!” 

“Mike’s right, never mind what happened then. At least you’re alive, and not coughing them up anymore, right?” Lucas asks Will, who nods. Lucas then looks down at the box with Dart in it. “We have to take that thing to Hopper now. And find the rest of the slugs Will coughed up.”

“I agree.” Mike says.

Mia nods her head. “Me too.” 

Dustin, however, shakes his head, eyes wide. “No! If we take him to Hopper he’ll kill Dart.”

“He should!” Mia bites out. 

Dustin turns to her, “How can you say that?”

“How can she not?” Mike argues. “That thing is from the Upside Down!”

“That doesn’t mean it’s bad.”

“That’s like saying someone from the Death Star isn’t bad!”

“I promised to keep him safe!”

“What if it’s a baby demogorgon, huh?” Mia raises her voice to be heard over the two of them. “What if it's the - the larval phase of it? Are you going to wait around for it to grow? Are you going to keep it safe until it kills you just like it did those agents? Like it almost did with me and Will?!”

Dustin looks away, curls obscuring his eyes. “We have a bond.” He mumbles, voice shaking.

“A bond?!” Mike yells, slapping his hand on the table. “Just because you both like nougats?”

“He trusts me!”

The box with Dart rattles on the table. Inside it, the thing screeches, much louder and deeper than before. 

A shiver rolls down Mia’s body, nausea welling up in her throat. She can’t think with it in the same room as her. 

Panic wells up in her chest, a manic sort of energy swelling up behind her heart.

She needs to kill it. Now.

She grabs a toolbox from one of the shelves and holds it over her head. It’s heavy enough to smash that thing to a bloody pulp. “Open the box, Dustin!”

The thing screeches again. Mia snaps her jaw shut so fast she bites through her lower lip.

“Don’t hurt it!” 

Mike takes the microphone from the table too, holds it like a club over his shoulder. He puts himself in between Will and the table. 

“Open it, Dustin!”

The thing slams into the top of the box. 

“No!”

The thing shrieks and the top of the box suddenly bursts open, hinges broken as the creature throws itself against it. 

Dart flops out, bigger than before, now a shade of green that’s bordering on grey. 

In the hours since they last saw it, it has grown two front legs, and right there, as they watch, its stomach shifts and wobbles, the skin thinning until it bursts, two legs sprouting off next to its tail in a splash of watery-slime and pink blood. 

And it opens its mouth for the first time, like a small flower-bud, with rows of tiny teeth around a black hole for a throat.

“Holy shit!”

“Oh my god!”

With a screech, Mia brings down the toolbox, vision turned red, intent on killing it.

“No!”

Dustin jumps on her, and grabs Mia’s arm, throwing her out of balance. Dart scrambles to the edge of table. Mia screeches, flinging herself away from it, and trips on Dustin’s foot. She falls, Dustin on top of her, and bangs her head on the metal cabinets behind them. 

Dart falls onto the floor.

Mike stomps around, trying to squash it. Will is frantically yelling where is it?! Where is it?! while Lucas is shrieking and jumping away from the thing as it crawls across the floor. 

In the middle of the chaos, the door opens, Jenny and Max on the other side.

“Are you guys oka-” Jenny looks down, sees the monster crawling straight to her and jumps a foot in the air with a shriek, tripping onto Max and sending them both to the floor. 

On the way down, Max’s leg slams against the door, throwing it wide open. 

The monster, seeing the open door, runs out into the hallway. 

“What was that?!” Max shouts from the floor.

“Is that Dart?” Jenny shrieks.

“Grab him!”

“He’s getting away!”

There’s a scramble. Jenny throws herself towards the creature, her hand missing it by inches. Mike and Lucas scramble out the door behind the monster, tripping and falling against each other.

“No!” Dustin yells, scrambling up to his feet to follow them. “Don’t you two hurt him!”

Mia stays on the floor of the AV Room, heart pounding. Above her, Will stands, white faced. 

There’s a baby demogorgon at the loose in the school.

*

They split up to look for Dart, despite Mia and Jenny insisting it was a bad idea. 

Dustin, Lucas and Mike had voted for splitting up, saying they’d cover more ground separately. Will, Mia, Jenny and Max had voted on sticking together. Mike said that Max didn’t count, ‘cause she wasn’t officially part of the Party. 

Before either Mia or Jenny could try and defend Max, Mike had told them to settle it with odds and evens, evens being splitting up. 

Mike and Jenny had quickly held out their hands, both Mike and Jenny holding up two fingers. 

Splitting up it was then.

After a quick stop in their respective lockers to grab their Supercoms - Mia is glad hers and Jenny’s were in their schoolbags and not at home - Will followed the boys in splitting up.

 Jenny, Mia and Max opted to stick together, ignoring the boys’ decision. 

“East is clear, no sign of Dart.” Mike's voice comes from Mia’s Supercom. West, South, and North are also clear. No sign of Dart.

“What was that thing?” Max asks, for the fourth time, “I know it’s something bad, why aren’t you telling me?”

Mia wedges her nail under the Sheila sticker at the back of her supercom, nearly pulling it all the way off.  The three of them have been checking the girls’ bathrooms all over the school for the past half hour. There’s only one left: the girls’ locker room in the gym.

Mia presses the button on the side of her ‘com, “Bathrooms are clear. We’re headed to the locker rooms next, over.”

“Hello? Are you even listening to me?”

Mia is going to find that thing and kill it. 

“Sorry, Max.“ Jenny whispers quietly to Max behind Mia, “It’s from before you got here. We want to tell you, but we really can’t.”

“Why?”

“Because it has to do with the Government, and they might have bugged everything we own, and if we say something about it to people that shouldn’t know about it they’ll lock us up in jail. Or worse.” 

“Worse?” 

Mia had seen the look in Mom’s and Chief Hopper’s eyes when they sat everyone down in the Byers’ kitchen, a week after everything had gone down last year. Will had just been released from the hospital, and Mia had listened with a deep sense of injustice as Chief Hopper told them they couldn’t breathe a single word about any of it to anyone, or else the agents at the lab would go back on their promise of not arresting Mom and Hopper for breaking into the Lab. 

It had felt like something had been left unsaid, then. But Mom had been smoking cigarette after cigarette, and her hands had shook when Hopper gave them the warning, so Mia hadn’t asked, had just nodded and obeyed them. 

“Yeah, worse.” Mia hears Jenny say.

Max stays quiet for a moment while the three of them make a turn to another hallway, but just for a moment.

“So that’s what Dart is? A government experiment? An alien coverup?” 

This time, both Mia and Jenny glance warningly at her. 

Max is unrepentant. “What? I can still ask, you don’t have to answer me. Just nod if I’m close.”

“This is serious, Max. Stop asking.” Jenny begs, “The government knows about things like Dart, and so do we. But the government agents have their eyes on us and we can’t tell you any more about it. Trust us when we say this is real. We aren’t joking around.”

They finally get to the Gym. Mia half expects El’s pool to still be in the middle of the court, half-expects to smell the salt and feel the night air against her arms. Which is stupid. She’s had a thousand Gym classes since then. Still, she shivers, rubbing a hand down her arms, which are riddled with goosebumps. 

Why did she choose today of all days to wear a short-sleeved shirt to school?

They get to the locker rooms. She doubts the others have gotten here yet, so the three of them will just have to look into both of them.

They search the girls’ locker room first, finding no sign of the small baby monster. 

They hesitate at the door to the boys’ locker room, looking between each other and shifting on their feet. 

“We should go inside.” Mia whispers, waiting for one of the other girls to move first.

“This was your idea. You go in first.” Jenny whispers back, “If there’s someone inside you can say you’re looking for Will.”

“No way.” Yeah, searching the boys’ locker room had been her idea, but it’s still the boys’ locker room. What if the principal finds out? “Why don’t you go in?”

Max huffs, clearly done with the two of them, and shoves open the door. Mia and Jenny glance at each other and hurry behind her. 

Luckily, it’s empty.

They look over the lockers and benches, Jenny splitting off to go look at the showers while Mia checks the toilet stalls. Max has hung back to look into the lockers, poking at coats with the edge of her skateboard. 

Mia’s checking her third stall when there’s a scream. 

“What the hell are you doing?!” Max shouts.

Mia goes barreling out of the stall, skidding around the corner to find Mike holding up a mop, pointing it at Max. Jenny comes running from the showers, and skids to a stop behind Mia, panting. 

“What are you doing here?” Mike hisses, eyes narrowed at Max.

Jenny and Mia glance, confusedly, at each other.

”She’s helping us. You know - to look for Dart?” Jenny tells Mike, brows furrowed.

Mike rolls his eyes at her.

“This is the boys’ locker room.” He growls, throwing the mop in his hand to the ground. He’s glaring at Max, too, jaw clenched tight. “You should go home.” 

And he doesn’t wait for an answer, simply stomps out of the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

Jenny looks at Mia, bewildered, “What just happened?”

Max’s face is thunderous, the hand that’s not holding up her skate balled up to a fist at her side. 

Mia frowns at the door, feeling angry on Max’s behalf. There is  no reason for Mike to treat her as bad as he is. Why does he insist on excluding Max? He hadn’t been like that with El, last year.

Max strides out of the bathroom, running after Mike. Jenny throws a wide-eyed glance at Mia, and they both hurry out to follow the redhead.

“Why do you hate me so much?!” Max shouts at Mike, who’s already halfway through the basketball court.

Mike scoffs, not even looking behind him. “Hate you? I don’t hate you, I don’t even know you.”

“Yeah, but you don’t want me to be near your party.” 

“Correct.”

“Why not?!”

“Because you’re annoying.” Mike snaps, whirling around on Max. “You aren’t a part of the Party and you’ll never be. We don’t need another party member.”

A flash of anger burns in Mia. Why, why is he being such a dick? Mike isn’t one to shout at people like that, and he’s ruining her plan!

“Mike!” Mia yells, putting herself between Mike and Max in two strides. Mike stares her down, cheeks red with anger, but Mia glares just as hard. “She’s our friend, and she’s not annoying. We want her here! You’re the one acting like a dick for no reason at all. ”

He grits his teeth, steps closer to Mia, his nose almost touching hers, and whispers. “Did you forget El, already?”

Mia feels as though she’d been slapped. 

Mike takes another step forward, making Mia take one step back. His dark eyes are cold and angry, and just for a moment, Mia is scared of him.

“No one talks about her but me, and you and Jenny are here walking around with some other girl, pushing her into Party business as if El had never existed!”

“We are not, Mike!” Jenny yells, pushing him away from Mia by his shoulder. “El was our friend too, we all miss her, not just you!”

Now Mike’s the one who looks like he’s been slapped. He looks at Jenny, face crumpling in on itself. 

The anger drains away, leaving him swaying on his heels. He drops his head, staring at the ground.

Mia’s heart twists in her chest, her own anger also forgotten. 

“We didn’t forget her, Mike.” She says, standing in front of him, squeezing her hands into fists then relaxing them again, over and over, ignoring the tears that are rising in her eyes, “We didn’t forget her, okay? I still miss her. We all do.”

“Then why,” he sniffles, wiping at his face with a forearm. “Why are you trying to replace her?”

Max, who was watching the conversation with wide eyes, bites down on her lower lip, glancing away.

“We’re not.” Mia grits out emphatically, as much to Mike as it is to Max. “El was El. Max is Max. We will never try to replace El, we couldn’t even if we tried.” Mike's eyes are dark, ringed with red. “We miss her. But Max is our friend too. You have to stop acting like a dick.”

Mike glances at Max, then back at Mia again. “I wasn’t acting like a dick.”

Max scoffs, “Yeah, you totally were.” She tucks her red hair behind an ear, glances between Mia and Mike, “Look, I’m really not trying to replace this friend of yours.” She says, offering him a hand. “Truce?”

Mike’s eyes are still sad, but he nods and takes her hand. “Truce.”

Jenny gasps, suddenly, drawing their attention.

Her blue eyes are wide, mouth wide open in shock.

Before Mia can ask her what’s wrong, Jenny goes running past them all to the double doors of the Gym. Mia spins around, about to catch her wrist and ask her what’s wrong, but then she catches movement in the corner of her eye, someone darting away from one of the Gym doors’ windows. 

It’s just a flash, but she sees a pale face with short brown hair, dark eyes and -

She knows those eyes.

Before Mia knows it, she’s running too. 

She hurtles through the doors, Max and Mike right behind her. 

Further down the hall, Jenny has her hand clamped on someone's wrist, eyes wide, smiling larger than she’s smiled the entire year.

“El!” Jenny yells, throwing her arms around the girl’s shoulders and bursting into tears.

Notes:

my girls are reunited :')

Chapter 5

 

 

Brown eyes meet Mia’s over Jenny’s long blond hair and suddenly, a knot loosens inside her chest, one that Mia hadn’t known was constricting her heart so harshly until now. 

She knows those eyes. 

Dark brown and round, no longer ringed with red, or surrounded by black veins. 

It’s Eleven, alive, right in front of them. 

El’s eyes shift to Mike, a small smile blooming on her face. 

It’s really Eleven.

 Alive.

“Mia?” someone taps her shoulder. Mia snaps her head around, to find a deeply confused Max, pointing at Mia’s hand. Or better yet, at the Com that Mia had forgotten she’d been holding this whole time. “Will’s saying something.”

Mia looks at the Com, looks at El. Lucas and Will’s tiny voices coming from the supercom sound so far away and unimportant. . 

El is alive and here, and they have no idea.

“- where?” Lucas is asking, and Mia’s brain jars back to life. 

They’re hunting a baby demogorgon, and El is here.

“In the bathroom next to Mr. Salerno’s.” Will’s voice says.

El is alive.

“Sit tight, we’re coming.”

El is alive. She’s here. And Will just found the baby demogorgon.

“Guys!” Mia yells. 

Jenny lets go of El, one hand still fisted in the girl’s oversized jacket as if to stop her from running away or disappearing the second her back is turned. They turn to Mia, who for a moment can only stare at El, forgetting what she had been about to say.

El looks good.

The last time Mia had seen her, she had been bleeding, dark veins popping out on her unnaturally pale face.  Now, El looks good. She looks normal, if a bit tired, with bags under her eyes. She’s wearing big jeans, and a striped shirt, with a dark jacket on top, all clean and soft-looking. Her hair has grown out too, curly and fluffy and as brown as her eyes. 

She is alive and here, and okay. 

She had died, that night. Had turned into dust like the demogorgon, or so Jenny told her. Mia could only remember screaming El’s name until her throat hurt.

El is alive.

Max clears her throat.

“Hi.” She starts, voice uncertain. She glances at Mia, then at El again, and offers her hand to El. “I’m Max.” 

El stares at Max, eyes turning serious. She glances down at Max's hand then back at Max’s face, then slowly, reaches out for it. She reaches with her left hand, while Max has held out her right, and simply holds Max’s hand instead of shaking her hand.

Max is holding El’s hand.

Max stares wide eyed between El’s hand and face, then back at Mia, very confused.

“O-kay…” Max says, pulling her hand off of El’s. “Uhm. Shouldn’t we…uhm, go?”

Right. 

“Will found it.” She tells the others, throat feeling too small all of a sudden. She shakes her head, trying to focus, but her eyes keep coming back to Eleven, alive and well, and here. “He found Dart.”

Mike’s head snaps to her, though his eyes quickly go back to Eleven as if magnetized. “He did?”

Sensing his distraction.

“Will found it near Salerno’s classroom.” 

Still, none of them move, Mike, Mia and Jenny just standing there under the harsh lighting of the hallway, staring like dumbstruck idiots at El. 

El hasn’t said anything either, has just stared back at them, eagerly. 

Max nudges Mia again. “Shouldn’t we go?”

Mia blinks, repeatedly. Then a jolt runs through her as she remembers: there’s a demogorgon in the school.

Will El run, if she hears about it? Is she here because of it? Had she sensed it? Did she have anything to do with it being here? It couldn’t be a coincidence, Dustin finding a baby demogorgon and then El coming back from the dead. Had she died and come back? Had she even died? Where had she gone? Where had she been?

“We have to go.” She says, agreeing with Max, who is staring, very confused, between Mia and El. “We have to go.”

“You’re coming with us.” Jenny says, eyes fixed on El. 

El opens her mouth, and Mia’s heart jolts in her chest. 

“Ok.” The girl says, and though her voice is quiet and soft, it hits Mia like a thunderclap. 

It’s real. This is real. El is really here. 

Mike seems just as struck as Mia, but the sound of El’s voice seems to snap him out of his trance. He blinks rapidly, and Mia has sonly a second to catch a faint glimmer in his eyes before he’s shaking his head. He walks to El, to hold her hand softly in between his. 

“You’re really here.” He whispers, voice choked.

El smiles, and it’s like the sun coming out of the clouds. “I am here.”

There are few students left at this hour, so it’s easy to dodge them as they run around the hallways. Jenny’s nearly running backwards, looking over her shoulder every five seconds at El. Max is silent, El is still holding Mike’s hand, looking wide-eyed at the corridors of the school, eyes lingering on every colorful pamphlet and open doorway, and Mike’s smiling. Actually smiling. Mia hasn’t seen him do much more than tilt his lips since…

Since last year.

They finally reach the bathroom near Mrs. Salerno’s room, finding Dustin and Lucas bickering by the door. 

“I already told you, I didn’t see it! Will must have it.”

“Then where’s Will?”

“Guys!” Mike shouts, drawing their attention.

Dustin pushes away from the wall. “Finally, what took you so -”

Lucas gasps. Dustin stares, jaw hanging open. They’ve noticed there are five people, instead of four, and stand stock still, as if they were seeing a ghost.

“Is that - “ Lucas whispers, eyes filling with tears. 

“It’s El!” Jenny squeals, holding onto El’s arm.

Lucas is the first to move, pushing past Mike and Jenny to crash onto El, who barely catches him without falling on her back, eyes wide. 

“You’re alive” Lucas whispers, voice thick and wet, his arms tight around her. “How - I can’t believe you’re alive.”

As soon as Lucas steps away from El, Dustin makes as if to run to El as well, but stops himself. Dustin pats down his hat, fixing the brim over his forehead, with a wide smile on his face. 

El looks wide eyed at him. “Teeth.” 

“What?”

El reaches out to touch his face. Dustin flinches away, but ends up letting her touch him. Her pointer finger pushes his upper lip to the side revealing the new teeth Dustin had gotten earlier in the year. 

“Wha’?” He asks, around the finger pulling his lips back. 

“You have teeth.”

Dustin smiles around her hand. “Do you like them?”

El nods, smiling, and taking her hand away.

“They’re my most recent feature.” Then he growls, showing all his teeth and making El’s eyes turn wide. 

That’s when Dustin’s and Lucas’ conversation catches up to Mia. 

She touches Dustin’s arm, heart racing, “Where’s Will?”

Dustin, however, is still staring at El and doesn’t seem to have felt her hand on his arm, or heard her.

It’s too much all at once. Dart. Eleven. And now Will is missing too. Again. 

There’s a twist in her gut, because those things have to be connected. They have to. And it’s been almost a year since Will came back, a year since the monster was killed by Eleven, who should have died, but somehow didn’t, and if she’s not dead, and there’s a baby demogorgon running around, who can say the monster isn’t still alive either?

And if there’s a chance that the demogorgon is still alive, there’s a chance that it’s going to come back, to finish what it started.

Mia’s hands turn cold, fingertips starting to tingle. It gets harder to breathe.

Still, she takes both Dustin’s shoulders and shakes him, making him look at her. ”Dustin, focus! Where’s - Where’s Will?”

At last, he looks away from El. “I don’t know. He said he’d be here.”

“And that thing?”

“It’s not here, either.” He replies hurriedly, frowning. “Don’t call Dart a thing.”

Mia steps away from him, away from the group. Max stops her from going further, a hand on her arm. 

“You want to go look for Will?” She asks. Mia nods. Max grabs her hand and squeezes. “Okay. We’ll split up in groups.”

They end up splitting into three groups: Max and Mia; Dustin and Lucas; then Mike, El and Jenny. 

Jenny had looked so torn between going with Mia or staying with El. The hesitance had been enough for Mia to urge her to go with El. Jenny had sent her a relieved look before holding El’s hand firmly, and leading the way to another corridor of the school, Mike trailing behind them.

Mia tries to ignore the sting she feels when Jenny doesn’t even look back as she leaves with El’s hand in hers.  She has other things to worry about right now.

Mia and Max walk fast down the hallway, towards the science labs, while the others go to the other side, towards the classrooms and the fields. 

They walk around, calling out for Will, peering into open classrooms. Nothing. There’s no Will to be seen. 

Or Dart. 

“So…Did El move away or something?” Max says, once carefully closed the door to the biology lab.

Mia, who had been thinking about Will, took a moment to process her question. “Huh?”

“It’s just - You all seemed so surprised? About her being here? I mean - Lucas kept saying he didn’t know how she was alive. Is this - What does that even mean?”

Dammit, Lucas. “Oh. We just hadn’t seen her in a while, it’s all.”

“Huh.” There’s a small moment of silence. “Did she…move away, or something?”

“Yeah.” Mia says, purposefully vague.

A hand on her elbow sharply pulls her to face Max. Her brows are furrowed, a redness that Mia doesn’t know if it’s from anger or embarrassment creeping up her cheeks and settling over her forehead, the same shade as her eyebrows and hair. 

“Look, I don’t really care about what happened, but I…I need to know - was Mike right? Were you trying to replace her when you invited me to hang out with you guys?”

“What? No!” Mia retorts, aghast at the thought that the girl could really be thinking that, as though she was a mere replacement, as though any of them would try and replace El. 

Then her heart squeezes inside her chest when she really thinks about the girl’s question. 

Earlier on, she had been speaking the truth when she told Mike that they weren’t trying to replace El, that she could never be replaced, just as she was telling Max now. However… Mia did see Max as a replacement, though. 

Not of El, no. But of herself. 

For the first time, Mia really stops and thinks about what she has been doing. Was it really fair, on Max and Jenny? To simply try and find someone to replace herself? 

Mia shakes her head. Of course it was. She was helping them. Max, to find friends. And Jenny, to be friends with someone who would be able to go out and have fun with her without all this terror that followed Mia around like a bad smell. Max was cool and just better than Mia was. Jenny was too loyal, she wouldn’t be friends with the people who had only treated Mia badly so far. Mia had liked it, once, to have such a good friend. But it was so selfish. She was so selfish. Jenny shouldn’t deprive herself of other friends just because of Mia. 

Maybe, when it was just Jenny and Max, Jenny would feel free to make friends with the other girls in their year.

So this, that she’s doing, it’s for both of their sake. And Max wouldn’t really be a replacement for Mia. She would be someone even better than her.

Max is still staring at Mia, cheeks red and eyes so blue and uncertain, that now Mia reaches out to gently hold her by the hand. 

“Last year…it wasn’t a good year, Max. For many reasons we cannot tell you.” Mia starts, looking deep into her eyes. “But this year I realized that…well, Jenny likes having lots of friends and I’m not…good at making them. I never was. It doesn’t help that all the girls in our school don’t really like me, and so Jenny doesn’t truly like them either, but then you showed up. And you looked really cool and you know how to skate and you came all the way over from California and I had a feeling you would be different. You seemed like a good person to become friends with. Really. That’s why we called you to hang out with us: we wanted to know you and be your friend. Nothing else.”

Max’s cheeks remain red, but her eyes are now to the floor, staring at her dark shoes. 

“I was never…good at making friends either.” She says, finally. She looks up at Mia, with a small smile. “I want to be your friend. Even with all these secrets and weird stuff going on.”

Mia smiles at her, a bit unenthusiastically. “I’m sorry for that. But it’s really better if you don’t know.”

“We’ll see about that.” Max replies, eyes narrowed, glinting with an emotion Mia doesn’t recognize. 

Mia gently squeezes her hand before letting it go. And so, they continue to search the school for Will. And Dart.

They’ve just crossed to the front part of the building when she feels it.

Her chest tightens, a knot settling in her throat. She trips on her feet and throws a hand out to the wall to catch herself. Her face grows cold, eyes burning, she opens her mouth to try and breathe and it feels like there’s a ball in her throat, stopping her from breathing. 

“Mia?”

Deep inside her chest, she knows:

There’s something wrong with Will.

“What’s wrong?” Max asks, shoes squeaking when she stops next to her. 

“Will.” She gasps, “Something's wrong.”

“Mia?”

Mia snaps her head up at that familiar voice, a voice which definitely should not be there. For a moment, she thinks she’s seeing things, but sure enough, it’s her mom on the other side of the hallway, walking towards her, a frantic look in her face. 

It only helps to heighten Mia’s anxiety.  Dart. Eleven. Will. and now Mom. 

Something’s wrong with Will.

What is Mom doing here?

“What’s going on? Where’s -” Mom looks at Mia then, eyes widening. She puts her cold hands on Mia’s cheeks, rubbing a thumb under her eye. Mia suddenly remembers the tightness of her chest, her racing heart. She still can’t breathe. “Mia, what’s wrong?”

Mia opens her mouth, but before she can say anything, the doors leading outside the school bang open, and Lucas comes running inside. He stops short when he catches sight of them, his face stricken with pure terror. 

“The field!” He shouts, then runs back outside without another word. 

Mia doesn’t stop to think. She just runs out after Lucas.

There are black spots in Mia’s vision as she throws the doors open. She jumps all the steps of the stairs outside the doors, landing onto the concrete path beside the field. The impact sends a bolt of pain up her legs, and she clenches her jaw to stop herself from making any other noise other than a gasp through clenched teeth. Her knees hurt, and so does her shins, but she has to get to Will. She has to.

Something is wrong with her twin.

Will’s standing in the middle of the fiddle, Mike, Lucas, Dustin and El huddled around him. Mike has a hand on his shoulder, shaking it desperately. 

“I just found him like this!” Mike shouts once Mia skids to a stop next to him, “I think he’s having another episode!”

Mom comes up behind Mia, and steps closer to Will, taking him by the shoulders, and not even noticing El. 

“Will, wake up! It’s mom. Will!”

She calls and calls and calls for him. Will shakes, hands twisting at his sides, his eyes closed, but moving frenetically behind his eyelids.

What was happening? Was he seeing the upside down? 

Mia feels like throwing up. Desperately, she turns to El, teeth bared as she tries to breathe through her mouth, “Can’t you do something?!”

El jerks back, brown eyes darting between Will and Mia. She hesitates, before determination settles on her face. She reaches to touch Will’s shoulder -

And Will gasps, eyes flying open.

Mia sucks in a breath too, suddenly able to breathe, bending down at the waist and clutching her chest as she takes in lungfuls of air. 

When she straightens back up again, El is staring at Mia worriedly. After a moment of hesitation, El pats Mia’s back as if to say there, there.

“Mom?” Will’s voice is rough, like he’d swallowed sand. 

He looks at them in confusion, then he sees El, and for a moment his whole body jerks, fingers stiff at his sides. Then his eyes fall to Mia, and the rigidness in him evaporates as if it had never been there. 

“What’s going on?” 

*

Mom drives Will and Mia back home.

Mom tries to ask Will what had happened, but Will takes one look at Mia through the rearview mirror and keeps his mouth shut.

Mia wants to shake him. Hadn’t they sort of made peace today? Wasn’t anything that had happened enough for Will to accept a truce? 

Mia doesn’t try to insist, doesn’t try to speak to him. No. A sudden fury consumes her, making her hands shake and her head spin. A fury that quickly turns into terror. 

She thinks back on what had happaned at the school before they left.

When she’d finally noticed El, Mom had stared, clearly torn between incredulity that the girl wasn’t dead, happiness that she was alive and concern over what had just happened to Will in the field. 

“How - what…” Mom had finally stuttered out, one hand reaching out to El. She had stopped just before touching the girl’s shoulder, as if afraid El would dissolve into smoke at the slightest touch. “How are you alive? The kids saw you -” She stopped herself abruptly, dark eyes wide.

El had stared up at her, expression pained, and shaken her head.

“Where have you been all this time?” Mom had asked, “It’s been a year.” 

“Safe.” El had whispered.

Mom had shaken her head, “You should come with us. I don’t know how you - but, please, please, honey, come home with us.” 

El had looked fearful, shaking her head at Mom, head twisting around to look at all of them, still gathered in a loose circle around Will. 

Then, before anyone could stop her, she had bolted into the woods. 

Mike, of course, had followed.

Mom had looked like she’d have run after them, had Will not been in her arms. Dustin had patted her arm, told her “we’ll take care of it, Mrs. Byers” and he and Lucas had gone after Mike and El, yelling their names.

After that, Jenny and Max had walked next to the Byers to the school’s parking lot, all in stunned silence. 

While Mia bid them goodbye, Max had put a hand on her shoulder. 

“I hope he gets better soon.” She said, blue eyes fiery, demanding answers. “And then we’ll talk.”

Mia had swallowed around her dry throat and agreed.

Dart is still missing.

El is alive, but had run away into the woods.

And there’s something wrong with Will. 

Now, the car rolls to a stop on their driveway. Mia immediately hops out of it without a word to anyone. 

The front door is unlocked, so she walks inside, drops her backpack by the couch, and goes straight to the bathroom, shutting and locking the door behind her.

She sits down hard on the toilet seat, head in her hands, the entire day flashing behind her eyes. Her left knee bounces, seemingly by itself. 

Her thigh hurts, muscles straining, but she can’t stop bouncing her leg.

There is a knock on the door. “Mia?”

“I’m okay, mom.” She answers, glad that her voice doesn’t shake. 

Mom doesn’t knock again, her footsteps trailing away from the bathroom. 

Mia doesn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved.

She stares down at the yellow tiles of the floor until her neck starts hurting. Then she walks to the sink and splashes some water over her face. Her cheeks and forehead are hot to the touch, as if she’d been standing near a fire. She pours some water over her equally overheated neck, shivering at the coldness. 

It doesn’t help at all. The water leaves her feeling even more stifled, skin sticky and uncomfortable.

First Dart, then El. Then Will. 

Her mouth floods with saliva, lips going numb as Will’s jerking body in the field flashes behind her eyes. Mia digs her knuckles into her eyelids, forcing herself not to cry.

They’d spent a year lulled into some false sense of security, thinking everything was behind them and everything could go back to normal if only they went on with their lives. They thought that what happened back in November would never happen again, that the agents would keep their promise if they just stayed quiet, because the monster was dead and El was gone, but now El was here, and there was a baby demogorgon on the loose, and it’s possible that the monster had never even died in the first place, and Will is seeing the Upside Down, and the doctors lied, and -

Mia drags her nails down her cheeks, breathing ragged. 

She has to check in with Jenny, ask her how she was doing after what happened today. She has to call Mike and see if they’d caught up to El. And Max - god, the girl had just had a front row seat to their problems and didn’t even have a clue about any of it. They’ve only known her for like, two days. 

They have to tell her everything. Maybe they should just ditch her. God, she had been so stupid. Why did Mia want to drag someone else into all of this? She shouldn’t have tried to make Max and Jenny become friends. She should have just - just gone away and let Jenny decide for herself who she should have as her next friend. Maybe there’s still time for Max to make other friends.

Mia glances at her reflection in the mirror, grimacing at the sight she makes. Her hair is messy and frizzy, her bangs askew and clumped together with sweat. Four sets of pink nail marks drag down each of her cheeks. Her eyes are red and puffy, a large burst vein right next to her left iris. She looks crazy. She feels crazy.

She sneers at the reflection, somewhat surprised when it sneers back. By now, she wouldn’t be surprised if it had just stared back, unchanged, like a horror movie.

Mom’s on the phone when she gets out of the bathroom. The door to Mia and Will’s room is closed at the end of the hall.

“...tell him to call me, please. Thank you, Flo.”

Mom puts the phone on the hook with a long sigh. 

“You can’t tell Chief Hopper about El.” 

After a second, Mia realizes the words had fallen from her mouth.

Mom whirls around. “What?”

“Or Dart.” Mia insists, staring up at her.

Mom walks to her, rubs a hand up and down her arm. “Why not, honey? And who’s Dart?”

Mia opens her mouth, closes it again. Tries another time. “The doctors lied, mom. They told us it was all in Will’s head, but it wasn’t - and, and they’re lying, and if they’re lying about this, they might still be going after El, and who knows if they’re not listening to our phone? You can’t tell Chief Hopper, not over the phone. They can’t get El again. They could arrest you or kill you if they find out we’ve seen El again. we can’t lose you or - or Chief Hopper, or El, mom, please don’t call him.”

Mom looks more stressed with every word coming out of Mia’s mouth. As Mia had been speaking, Mom had been slowly leading them to the couch, setting Mia down on it and putting the couch throw over her legs.

 “It’s okay, Mia. It’s okay, baby, hey, you’re right.” Mom takes Mia’s face between her hands, stares down into her soul, steady as a rock. “You’re right, okay? I won’t tell him over the phone. I’ll call him and tell him to come here, no details, so we can talk and do something about this entire thing. You and me, Hopper, your friends - we’ll deal with it together. We will all be safe. I promise you that, baby.”

Mia wishes she could trust her promise. But she can’t.

Mom makes her chamomile tea, pours it into one of the huge mugs they usually reserve for hot chocolate. Mia sips at it, and holds it in her hands until it grows cold. 

She hates the taste of tea, but the smell and the warmth are comforting.

Half an hour later, Will comes back out of their room, in new clothes, and sits on the couch next to Mia. 

She’s kind of glad he hadn’t been here to see her small breakdown, it’s bad enough that she freaked out on mom.

Mia stares hard at the side of his head. He’d chosen to sit right next to her. Was this an olive branch? If he tried to speak to him now, would he listen?

“Are you okay?” she whispers, feeling foolish for hoping. 

But to her surprise, Will answers. 

“Weird.” He says, leaning his head on her shoulder. Mia freezes at the touch. She can’t remember the last time Will had initiated contact like this, can’t remember the last time he'd hugged her or even been a little bit affectionate towards her. 

It hurts, all of a sudden, a sharp ache in her chest. Mia tries to keep still, so he won’t take his head away. 

“I feel like I’m falling asleep.” Will whispers, an eternity later.

Mia frowns, “Sleep then.”

He shakes his head, slides down until his head is on her lap. Mia roots around the couch cushions for the TV remote, turns it on with a loud click. There’s a program she’s never seen before on it, that seems to be just a soap opera. She leaves it there, letting it act as a sort of white noise for her and Will.  

They sit there, Mia running her fingers through Will’s hair while they both stare blankly at the TV. Chester paws at the kitchen door to come inside the house, and mom opens it for him. Mom tries to call Chief Hopper at the station again and again. Once that proves futile, she makes dinner. None of them are hungry, so Mom just leaves it on the stove for when Jonathan gets home.

Mike calls Mia over her supercom a while later. They hadn’t been able to find El and had gone back home. He asks how Will is doing. Jenny gets in the call too and tells them she’ll also keep her eyes open for El, in case the girl decides to go to her house. Jenny also tells them that Max would help them look for Dart tomorrow, and asks if she can call Max with updates on Will. 

Whether a testament to Mike’s commitment to his and Max’s new truce, or simply him being exhausted, Mike doesn’t protest at all, just tells them they’re meeting up by the dumpsters tomorrow morning. 

They hang up the call. Chester comes out from the hallway at some point later, curling up in front of the couch. Mia remembers she’s still holding the supercom and bends over Will’s head to set it on the floor by the couch and goes back to staring at the TV. 

She hasn’t seen Jonathan all day. 

Will starts snoring, though Mia doesn’t remember when he’d fallen asleep. Mia herself has fallen into a sort of trance, watching the people talk on TV, but not actually listening to anything they say. She thinks the soap opera ended, and some random movie’s on. Mom steps in front of her to take Will to bed and Mia startles.

The TV has been turned off. Mia hadn’t even noticed it. 

Mom says something, and Mia answers, but she can’t recall what had been said as soon as the words leave her mouth.

Mom takes Will to bed and doesn’t come back. Mia stares at the dark TV screen, wondering when mom had turned it off.

Her eyes burn. She closes them, to see if the feeling of sand under her eyelids will fade, but startles again when a hand touches her shoulder. 

It’s Jonathan. 

Mia sits up on the couch, noticing the pain in her neck, the taste of sleep in her mouth. It’s dark outside the front windows. Will, Mom and Chester are nowhere to be found. 

“Hey. Let’s get you to bed.” Jonathan says, voice infinitely kind as he pulls her up by her hands. Mia goes, standing flopily in front of him.

“Where’s mom?” She asks, or at least tries to. It comes out sounding something like ‘z mom?’. 

Luckily, Jonathan has known her since she was born, and understood her even when three of her front teeth had fallen out when biting an apple when she was seven and she had to walk with a wad of gauze in her mouth for an entire afternoon to staunch the bleeding.

“She’s sleeping with Will.”

He leads her to her and Will’s bedroom, but Mia stops in the middle of the hallway. She doesn’t want to sleep in her room. She’s feeling buzzy and just - just weird. Everything feels wrong, her skin too tight, her head too muddled. What if she has a nightmare? If mom’s sleeping with Will, Mia doesn’t want to bother her with her issues on top of everything else that’s going on with her twin.  

She leans into Jonathan’s hand on her shoulder. She hasn’t brushed her teeth.

“Can I sleep with you tonight?”

Jonathan squeezes her shoulder, a sad smile on his face. “Sure.” 

Mia closes her eyes and walks blindly to the bathroom. She brushes her teeth with her eyes still closed, only opening them to put toothpaste on the brush and to spit in the sink. Jonathan’s waiting for her out in the hallway, and passes her one of the shirts she uses to sleep, which she’d stolen from him a few years ago. She changes into it in his room while he’s in the bathroom, her eyes still closed. 

She leaves her old clothes on the floor by the door and flops onto his bed, curling up under the covers.

She finally opens her eyes to stare at the open door, eyes getting heavier with each passing second. Her body’s heavy and far away from her, as if she was in those strange in-between moments before you completely fall asleep, where you’re still awake, but feel yourself slowly getting dragged down into unconsciousness.

Jonathan walks through the door, closing it behind him with a soft click. The gap under the door shines golden from the bathroom light, left on. 

Mia blinks, and barely feels the bed dip under Jonathan’s weight before she falls asleep.

Notes:

Jonathan is fr Mia's dad fuck Lonnie

Chapter 6

 

 

Mia doesn’t bother to change out of her sleep shirt in the morning. 

She and Jonathan had woken up earlier than mom and Will, so they eat breakfast together at the kitchen sink. Jonathan looks anxious, eating his toast in silence while staring out the window. 

He hasn’t asked her why Will and Mom were sleeping in Will’s bedroom last night.

Mia sets her orange juice down on the sink, startling him enough that he looks down at her. 

She crosses her arms, “Spill. What’s going on?”

She doesn’t even have to press him for answers. Jonathan tells her everything. 

He tells her how Barb’s parents had hired a private investigator named Murray to dig into her death. How Nancy’s mad at the government, at the people in the Lab. That she wants them to pay for putting good people like Barbara’s mom and their family through something so terrible without even getting a slap on the wrist for it. That he and Nancy have come up with a plan.

“We called Mrs. Holland. Told her we wanted to tell her exactly what happened that night.”

Mia’s stomach plummets. “You didn’t.” Jonathan turns to her, eyes narrowed. “Jonathan, those people are the government! The army! They probably bugged our telephones!”

Jonathan smiles, which absolutely infuriates Mia, because what part of ‘the government knows you want to spill state secrets and will probably arrest or kill you and your whole family if you try to make them pay for their crimes’ sounds even remotely funny?

“We know. Don’t worry, we have a plan.” He stops smiling then, looks back at the hallway. “What happened yesterday?”

Mia picks up her orange juice again, swallows the rest of the glass in three long gulps, too angry to speak. She sets it down on the sink, decides to wash it so she can have an excuse not to look at Jonathan.

“Mia, what happened?” 

Great, now he’s worried.

“El is back.” She says, deciding to pull the band-aid in one go. “And Dustin found something that looks like a baby demogorgon in his trash.”

Jonathan’s quiet for too long. When Mia looks up at him, he’s pale, staring at her with his mouth open. 

“Jonathan?”

“El is - a baby demo - the monster’s back?” His voice cracks at the end. He pulls his hands up to his face, raking them through his hair. “Fuck.”

Mia raises both eyebrows at him.

“God. Oh god. Fu- Okay, uhm. I still need to do this with Nancy. But, Mia, you can’t get involved like you did last time. Tell me that you’re not gonna go after the monster again.”

“I didn’t go after anything last time. In case you don’t remember, those agents found us. The monster hunted us. We weren’t the ones who set up a trap in the middle of our living room and set fire to the hallway trying to kill the demogorgon!” She says, throwing a hand out to the living room to emphasize her case. 

They had to remodel the whole house this past year.

Jonathan closes his mouth, stares hard at her. “Then I want you to give me updates, alright? You tell me if - if anything happens, if the monster comes after you, or if the agents come back. You tell me, or you call Hopper. I’ll run to you if I have to. Don’t let yourself get involved this time.”

“Fine.” She says, agreeing to everything but the last part, though Jonathan doesn’t know it. She can’t promise she won’t get involved if the thing decides to come for them again. If it tries taking Will one more time, she’s fighting it with all she’s got. Last year Mia had been nothing but a crying mess the entire time her brother had been running for his life. She’ll do better this time. “I want you to do the same too. You tell me how your end goes, alright?”

“Alright.”

They pinky-promise it, and finish their breakfast in silence. Jonathan leaves after brushing his teeth.

Alone in the kitchen, Mia makes coffee for when mom wakes up. After she’s done, she decides to make herself some cereal and pulls the cereal box out of the cupboard and the milk out of the fridge. She pours the milk first and sets the bowl down on the counter, going to the cutlery drawer to get a spoon. 

She wonders if Will will be feeling up to school today.

“Someone woke up early today.” 

Mom’s smiling at her from the kitchen doorway, detangling her hair with her fingers.

Mia hadn’t heard her coming to the kitchen. 

Mia takes a cup from the cupboard, pours out coffee for her mom. For some reason the coffee’s already cold. 

Mia frowns. She had left it in the thermic bottle, right? She checks, and yeah, she had. But the bottle’s only lukewarm on the outside. 

Hadn’t she just made the coffee? She was sure the water had been close to boiling. 

She sticks mom’s cup in the microwave. Someone woke up early today - oh right. 

“Jonathan woke me up. He ah, already left. He isn’t going to school today, said he had something to do with Nancy.” The microwave dings. She takes the cup out, hands it over to her mom. She passes the open cutlery drawer and shuts it with her hip.

“Thank you, baby. Nancy Wheeler, huh? Should I expect an announcement soon?”

Mia wrinkles her nose, “Considering she’s still with Steve I don’t think so.”

Will comes into the kitchen then, looking like, well...a zombie. Mom asks if he’s feeling any better. He isn’t, and when Mom takes his temperature, she says it’s colder than normal. 

Mia leans on the sink, touches something with her elbow. She sees the cereal box and the jug of milk next to a bowl filled with milk, and remembers she’d never poured herself some cereal earlier. She goes to the cutlery drawer and grabs herself a spoon, then pours some cereal into her bowl while the sound of mom filling up the bathtub for Will echoes through the house.

From the bathroom, Mom asks Mia if she wants to go to school today and of course, Mia says no. While Will gets his clothes and goes to take his bath, Mom calls the school to tell them neither of them are going to class today.

“Mom,” Will calls out, appearing in the hallway in just a towel. Mia wrinkles her nose and eats a spoonful of cereal. She can’t exactly judge his lack of clothes, because she, too, is wearing only a T-shirt in October weather, but isn’t he cold? “The bath is too hot.”

Mom goes to the bathroom and Mia follows for a lack of something else to do, standing next to Will and watching mom check the water, crunching some corn flakes vigorously with her teeth.

“I can cool it a little bit, but baby, we gotta get your body temperature back up -”

“No.” Will snaps, too loud in the otherwise silent house.

Mia freezes, a spoon of cereal halfway to her mouth, eyes snapping to her brother. His voice had been aggressive in a way Will usually isn’t, as brute and cutting as a butcher’s knife hitting the wooden block below itself, cleaving a piece of meat in two.

“What?” Mom says, voice barely a whisper. 

Mia shivers, the air in the hallway suddenly ten degrees colder as it seeps through her shirt..

Will stares down at the tub and doesn't blink.

 “He likes it cold.” He says, voice steady and distant, as if unaware of the sudden violence of his voice just a second prior.

Will turns and walks back to their bedroom.

Ok. What?

Mia shares a look with mom, alarmed. 

“I want you to stay in the living room, Mia.” Mom says, and if Mia wasn’t alarmed before, she’s downright terrified at the tone her mom uses with her. It’s a command, not a request. “I’m calling Hopper again.”

Mia stays on the couch, under the knitted throw. Mom goes into Mia and Will’s bedroom, and when she comes out, she starts opening up windows, even going as far as letting the front door hang open. Chester immediately runs out. Mia looks nervously between the open door and her mom, who’s busy in the kitchen, but doesn’t manage to bring herself to go after the dog, rooted to the couch by the anxiety coiling tight in her stomach.

She hears the clock ticking in the kitchen, and doesn’t dare move.

At some point later, Mike calls Mia on her com. It’s still sitting on the floor by the couch, and Mia hesitates for a moment, before bending over the arm of the couch to retrieve it. She feels strange, her joints creaking and her feet tingling. There’s sweat trickling down her spine, not from heat, but from fear - she feels like prey, being hunted by something she can’t see, despite the fact that she’s just been sitting on her couch most of the day.

She answers Mike’s call. Before she can even say hi, Mike is asking about Will.

“Did you find Dart?” She asks him, trying to stall, glancing towards the hallway. 

There’s a sigh on the other end. “No. We’ll try again tomorrow. So, Will?”

Mia bites hard at her lower lip, and lowers her voice, speaking in a hushed whisper against her supercom. “There’s something wrong with him, Mike.”

“What do you mean? Wrong how?” Mike asks on the other end, voice alarmed. 

“He is wrong.” She emphasizes, lowering her voice and clutching the blanket tighter around herself. “Will snapped at mom this morning and he didn’t even sound like himself. He said something about a ‘he’, something about ‘him’ liking it cold...There’s something wrong and I don’t know what it is. I’m scared. Over.” 

There’s a moment of silence on the other end of the line, then Mike’s voice, determined and serious.

“I’m going to your house later. Hang on. Over.”

*

Chief Hopper arrives at their house an hour later. Mia pulls the knitted throw like a cape around herself, realizing she’d forgotten to put on pants. He walks right through the open front door, not even spotting Mia on the couch.

“Hello?” He calls out, taking off his hat. 

She waves at him with a blanket corner. “Hi, Hopper.”

Hopper snaps his head back to look at her, surprised at finding her there.

“Hey, Mia.” He greets, and starts closing the door after him, “Where’s your -”

“Leave it open!” Mom shouts from the hallway, wrapped up in a cardigan. She marches out of the hallway, anxiously smoking a cigarette, “Where the hell have you been?”

“I overslept, Joyce. What the hell is going on? It’s freezing in here.”

Mom gestures at him to follow her deeper into the house. Mia gets up from the couch, trailing behind them, hoping that now that Chief Hopper is here, she can at least grab some clothes from her bedroom.

Then Mom opens the door to her and Will’s bedroom and Mia almost goes straight back to the living room. 

“Hey, we have a visitor.”

Will is sitting up straight in his bed, shirtless, back turned to them. He doesn’t respond, just continues to stare out their window.

It feels like a scene straight out of a horror movie.

Mom starts explaining to Chief Hopper what had happened at the field yesterday, and that apparently Will has also been seeing a shadow monster in his Upside Down visions. 

A shadow monster. That he hadn’t bothered to tell her or the others about.

Fuming, Mia grabs a pair of pants and a sweater and ducks into the hallway to change, still close to the door so she doesn’t lose any part of the conversation. 

“-And Hopper, Eleven was there. At the school. She’s - she’s alive somehow and she seemed well, but she wouldn’t tell me where she’s been, how she survived…And when I asked her to come with me, she ran away into the woods. The kids went after her but - God. We have to find her, Hop. 

Wood creaks under Hopper’s weight. When he talks, his voice is dangerously low. “What?”

Mia stops, pants halfway through her thighs, heart lurching in her throat. She pulls her pants up and creeps back to the door, watching Hopper around the corner of the door. 

“Yes, she’s alive. I don’t even know how. She said that she’s staying somewhere safe, and I have no idea what that means.”

“She - “ Hopper turns to the door, eyes falling on Mia, “You kids saw her at your school? Did anyone else see her besides you?”  

“No.” She answers, frowning at both his tone and his expression. 

He doesn’t seem to be surprised to find out that Eleven has literally come back to life.  

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” Mia looks him over, growing suspicious. “No one saw her but us.”

Chief Hopper closes his eyes and seems to take a mental step back. He turns back to Will. “Fine. Let’s take this one thing at a time.”

Without prompting, Mom gives him one of the drawings from Will’s desk: the shadow monster he’s been seeing. 

From what little Mia can see, it’s a figure made up of slashes of dark black crayon, with many limbs coming out of it. She doesn’t know if they are arms or appendages like Dr. Octopus’ claws. Mia also realizes she doesn’t want to know, and looks away.

“And this thing.” Chief Hopper prompts, walking around the bed to show the drawing to Will. “It says it likes it cold? How do you know that?”

Will shrugs. Maybe the cold air flowing around the house is getting to him, because it sounds like he has a blocked nose. “I just know.”

“Does it talk to you?”

“No. I just know things. Things I didn’t even know before.”

That isn’t alarming at all.

Chief Hopper sits down on the chair in front of hers and Will’s desk. “What kind of things do you know now?”

“Everything. It’s. It’s hard to explain - it’s like...old memories in the back of my head. Only they’re not my memories…” He trails off, breathing turning wet. 

Mia’s heart twists. Will might be acting weird and this ‘just knowing things’ is honestly creepy, and she’s mad at him for not telling her any of it before today but he’s still Will. She hates to see him hurting. 

She bites her thumb nail, unsure if she should sit by him on the bed or just continue standing by the door. 

“I don’t think they’re old memories at all. They’re now memories, happening all at once, now.” Will finishes, voice thick.

“Can you explain these now-memories?”

“It’s hard to explain.” He’s crying now. “It’s like...they’re growing and spreading. Killing.” 

Mia bites down hard on her nail, the sound of it breaking under her teeth is loud in the otherwise silent room. 

“The memories?” Mom asks. 

Will sobs, and Mia pulls the end of the broken nail with a jerk of her head, taking too much of it. 

“I don’t know, I don’t know, I’m sorry -”

Mia’s nail stings, a drop of blood welling at the jagged edge where she’s pulled the bed of her nail. Mom pulls Will into her arms and he buries his head under her chin, full out crying now. Mia can feel a knot starting to grow in her throat, the urge to run, to go back to the living room and bury herself under the knitted throw nearly overwhelming. She looks around their room, heart hammering in her throat, and pokes at her bloody thumb with her pointer finger.

She looks back at Chief Hopper, who is watching mom and Will. 

He hadn’t been surprised when they told him about El. Why?

Chief Hopper moves his eyes to her and Mia turns away before he can see that she’s watching him. She can feel his eyes on the side of her head, but ignores it, sucking her thumb into her mouth, and looking away at Will’s drawings on the wall, at one where his wizard character is throwing fireballs at Mia’s tiefling barbarian. 

Huh.

“Can’t you draw it?” She blurts out. “Those memories?”

Will looks back at her, rubbing the tears on his cheeks away with the back of his hand. His eyes find the same drawing she had been looking at on the wall.

“I…I can try.” He whispers, a new light coming into his eyes.

It’s all they need.

Mom grabs papers from the kitchen while Mia grabs his jumbo-sized crayon box. Mia also takes the colored markers she’d borrowed from Jenny and never returned, and shoves them onto Will’s hands.

Will sits down on their desk, eyes glazing over. He grabs a blue crayon without looking, and draws a long line across the papers. 

And doesn’t stop.

He hunches over the table, eyes gleaming feverishly and his mouth pale and cracked and half open in a never-ending inhale. As she looks at him, he paints page after page, with large, violent movements of his arms. He’s still without a shirt, and the knobs of his spine seem to push against his pale skin, as if trying to get out of it.

Mia looks back at the table, feeling sick to her stomach. 

Her left wrist throbs with phantom pain. She rubs it, but the pain persists. 

Maybe she should get that checked out too, in case the doctors also lied about it being healed already.

She clears her throat, finding it suddenly hard to breathe as a sudden thought crosses her mind. 

Did the doctors at the Hawkins Hospital work for the government too?

A wave of anxiety surges over her. It’s getting harder to breathe in her room, with Mom smoking on one corner and Chief Hopper looming on the other, and this strange version of her brother who keeps drawing and drawing and drawing. It’s too much at once. 

Too much.  

Mia gives in to the anxiety, and goes back to the living room, grabbing the knitted throw she’d left on the hallway. She passes by Jonathan’s room, grabbing his walkman and the The Smiths tape from his music set up, and goes to the living room. She throws herself face down on the couch cushions and buries herself under the knitted throw, earphones over her head, intending to ignore everything until Mike comes by after school. 

Mom and Hopper come into the kitchen as the opening guitars of This Charming Man start playing. 

They start talking, and Mia turns up the volume. 

She pretends she’s in her bedroom - no, in Jonathan’s bedroom. They’re listening to music together. Will is just fine, sitting by the floor and choosing what song they’ll hear next, sorting through tape after tape. Jonathan’s singing along, pretending his hairbrush is a microphone, his brown eyes twinkling in the early morning light as he tries to make Mia laugh. 

Jonathan’s room is bathed in morning light, turning everything golden. He looks at Mia, points at her, I would go out tonight, But I haven't got a stitch to wear -

“They connect! Hopper, they connect!” Mom shouts, louder than Mia’s music. 

Her heart lurches and reality comes crashing down around her. 

The music’s suddenly too loud in her ears, the headphone too tight around her head. She pulls it off, skin crawling. She scratches at her throat, angry for no reason, and looks over the arm of the couch to see Hopper dropping to the floor with a pile of Will’s drawings in his hands. Mom has a handful of sheets too, and drops those right next to Hopper’s. 

They kneel down, spreading the papers around the floor. Mom has some duct tape, and the two of them walk around, connecting one sheet of paper to the other. 

“See! I don’t know if it’s some kind of maze, or maybe roads, or- he’d said something about it spreading right? Growing?” 

“Killing.”

Mia ignores that cheerful comment from Chief Hopper, and tilts her head down at the papers. The black lines do connect, but all that blue? Maybe it’s a river or something?

”Maybe these are roots.” Mom mumbles, cigarette smoke curling around her face.

“No.” Hopper says, reaching some kind of realization. “These are vines.”

Mia looks between them, confused. 

Her supercom crackles to life in her bag, then. “Mia? Are you there? Over.” 

It’s Mike’s voice. Mia grabs the com from the floor, draping herself over the arm of the couch. 

“Yeah, Mike. Over.”

“Are there any news about Will? Over.”

Mia thinks for a moment, staring down at the papers. “Yeah. Apparently, he’s been seeing some kind of shadow monster and didn’t tell anyone. He saw it yesterday at the field. Over.”

Mom raises her head from the drawings, staring intently at Mia and the com in her hand. 

“A shadow monster? Not the demogorgon? Over.”

Mia shakes her head, though Mike can’t see it. “No. This was…something else. Over.”

There’s a long moment of silence on the other end. Mom continues to stare at Mia, lips pursed, but doesn’t say anything.

“I need to tell Dustin and Lucas about Will. Over.”

“Why?” Mia asks.

The Chief gets up from the ground and moves to the door, grabbing his hat and the coat from the coat rack on the wall.

“Because if more monsters from the Upside Down are coming back they need to know the whole story. It might have something to do with El being back.”

Chief Hopper freezes, hand on the doorknob, and looks over his shoulder at Mia. She locks eyes with him, growing even more suspicious when he glances away, but doesn’t move to open the door. 

“Tell them. And Jenny.  And Max too, do you hear me, Mike?” She says.

“I’m not telling Max -”

“Who’s Max?” Chief Hopper talks over Mike, stepping away from the door. “You know the rules, if you have been telling someone -”

“We’ve not.” Mia interrupts him, bristling. 

Chief Hopper looks serious, and mad, eyes narrowed. 

Mia feels her heart start to race. She gets up from the couch and walks slowly back towards the hallway, supercom in hand. 

“I’m telling you to tell her, Mike. Over.” She answers Mike, staring without blinking at Chief Hopper.

“Mia -” Chief Hopper starts, taking one step towards her.

Mia bolts into the hallway, darting into the bathroom and slamming the door shut behind her. She can hear Hopper’s heavy footsteps outside the door. There’s sweat sliding down the back of her neck. 

Mia looks intently at the closed door, but there are no banging fists, no shouting. She realizes her hands are trembling, so she sticks her com into her waistband and bends over the sink to splash some water into her face. 

Her heart is still racing.

Mia shouldn’t have stayed home today. She needs to leave. 

She opens the bathroom door only to find Chief Hopper standing in front of it, hands on his belt. 

Mia freezes, staring up at him and feeling like a deer in front of an oncoming car. 

She glances to the end of the hallway, only to see her mom walking towards the kitchen, a bunch of papers in her hands, not even looking towards Mia. Something like betrayal stabs her through the heart. 

She bites her lips so she won’t start screaming. Mom never pays attention. Never sees a thing. She had never been around when Dad put his movies on the TV. When he -

She blinks hard, shaking her head to dispel the thought. It’s unfair of her. Mom was working. She didn’t mean to -

“Kid. I’m not angry,” Chief Hopper says, but he looks angry, mouth downturned and a frown between his brows. He certainly sounds like he’s angry too. “I’m worried. You kids need to stay safe, and that means not running after this Upside Down bullshit again, and not pissing off those psychotic agents by telling other people, other kids, about what happened last year, you hear me?”

Mia glares up at him, jaw clenched. She had never felt afraid of Chief Hopper before, in fact, she had actually felt safe with him. 

But she should have known better. She should have known better. 

She looks down at his hands, wide as dinner plates, and talks loud enough so her mom will hear, “Mom, I’m going out!” 

She needs to leave, she can’t stay in this house a second longer. And it’s better to leave now than to wait for mom to pass her off to someone else so she can focus on whatever else is wrong with Will, like she had last year.

Mia bites the inside of her lip, immediately guilty for thinking that way. 

“What are you going to do out there?” Chief Hopper asks.

“What’s it to you?” She bites out. He glares at her and she puts both hands under her armpits to stop them from shaking. “I’m going to - to get some ice cream.”

“In this weather?” Chief Hopper replies, “No, you’re not.” 

She purses her lips. “Yes, I am.”

“If you’re going out to look for Eleven -”

Who had said anything about Eleven? “Maybe I should!”

Mom appears at the end of the hallway, “Honey, what’s going on?” 

Another stab of hurt. 

“I want to get out for a bit. Go to the ice cream shop. Or I’ll wait for school to - to let out. Go to Mike’s, or Jenny’s.” She tells her mom, looking at the floor to avoid her concerned eyes. She chances a look back at Chief Hopper, and raises an eyebrow at him. “What. Didn’t you want me to stay away from this Upside Down bullshit?”

Hopper scoffs, opening his mouth, but Mom quickly walks over to them, laying a hand on his arm. 

“Hop, let me.” Then she turns to Mia. “Honey, I really don’t think it’s a good idea for you to leave right now.”

Mia bites down on her lip, digging her nails against the side of her ribs. Her new clothes are starting to feel restrictive and sweaty and it’s like she can feel every single wool fiber of her sweater against every hair on her arms. There’s sweat sliding down the sides of her ribs, down the back of her neck. She feels disgusting. There’s something wrong with Will and she needs to leave right now.

“Mom, please. Will is weird and it scares me.” Mia begs, “I’ll call you when I get there. Mrs. Hastings has a phone she lets me use, and you know that Mr. Holland will keep an eye on me at the ice cream shop. Please. If anything happens, I’ll call you.”

Mom sighs and pinches her nose. Next to her, Hopper is gritting his jaw, nostrils flaring like a bull’s.

“Fine. Fine! But I want you to call me as soon as you get there - wait, how are you going?” Mom asks.

Mia opens her mouth, thinking of her usual answer of asking Jonathan to take her, but then she remembers that Jonathan is gone for the day and the words die on her tongue. She can’t even suggest biking to town, like she would have a year ago. She can barely stomach the idea of riding her bike around her own lawn, much less all the way to the ice cream shop downtown. 

She wilts, digging her nails into her hands. 

“I’ll take her.” Hopper tells her mom. “I was already on my way out anyway. C’mon, kid.”

Mia freezes, looking between her mom and Hopper. 

Stay in the house, with mom and Will and whatever it is that is happening to him, or go out and endure a car ride with Hopper?

She narrows her eyes at Hopper. She doesn’t trust him enough to leave him alone with mom and Will right now.

Going out it is. Then both of them will be out of this house. 

She walks to the living room, and grabs the backpack  thats was still lying on the floor by the couch. Without saying goodbye to her mom or to Will, she goes out the door and onto the front yard, hesitating when she gets to the police cruise. 

Was it unlocked? It would be humiliating to just stand there to wait for Hopper to open it.

She tries the handle, and thankfully, it’s unlocked. She opens the passenger seat and climbs onto it, cursing at its ridiculous height. Then slams the door shut, just because.

Hopper stares at her, unimpressed, from the porch. He says something to her mom and gets to the car, climbing inside and slamming his own door shut. Mia winces, and looks away, to stare at the trees outside her window.

A minute passes, then two. Hopper doesn’t start the car.

“Aren’t you going to go?” She grits out, jaw clenched.

“I’m dropping you off at the ice cream shop. You are not going to look for Eleven, do you hear me?” When Mia doesn’t answer, his voice tightens, “And you’re going to tell me what Mike Wheeler was saying about monsters from the Upside Down coming back.”

Chief Hopper pulls away from the house.

Mia crosses her arms and seethes in silence. 

Hopper glances at her every now and then, but after ten minutes of angry silence, he seems to have had enough.

“Are you going to talk or not?”

“Why don’t you want me to go after El?” She asks instead, glaring at him. Hopper looks out the windshield, face a mixture of guilt and anger, before settling onto a blank expression. “You didn’t seem surprised when Mom told you she was back.” Mia insists.

Hopper clenches his jaw, continues to stare out the windshield. 

That’s when Mia gets it.

“You knew.” She whispers, feeling all the blood drain from her face. Her vision blurs, and suddenly she feels very much carsick. “You knew she was back, that she was alive. You knew!” She shouts.

Hopper shouts back. “I was keeping her safe!” 

He glances at her, then at the windshield, then does a double take. 

Mia’s eyes are watering. She knows it and hates it, hates this crybaby she’s become since last November. And she’s not scared because he’s shouting, she’s not - no, she’s -- she’s mad. Her heart is racing and she’s nauseous and her hands are shaking and she’s furious at Hopper for hiding this from them.

Mia had been in that classroom, with Eleven and the others. With the monster. It had looked at her and she had thought she was going to die. And then El had protected them, had killed that thing that had chased her and Will through the woods, that had killed Barbara, that had hunted them and the agents through the school. El had killed it and vanished along with it. 

She’d died.

Mike had been crying, calling out her name. Lucas’ had shouted until his voice cracked. Jenny hadn’t spoken about El for three entire months.

Mia had seen El die. Had screamed her name until she grew hoarse. And now Eleven was alive, and wasn’t even dead in the first place and Chief Hopper knew. 

He knew and had left them to deal with their grief and guilt as if Eleven was still dead for a whole year.

“Aw, hell, kid.” Hopper’s shoulders drop. Silently, he pulls up to the side of the road. 

Mia buries her face in her hands, sobbing, huddled against the door. 

She wants to leave the car, and be as far away from him as possible. She wants to leave but there are trees all around them and they’re in the woods and she can’t bring herself to even touch the door handle.

Jenny still kept a bag of licorice by her record player. El’s wig and the barrettes El had borrowed still sat in her closet. Mia hadn’t eaten waffles since last November because they reminded her of El. 

And Mike…

He’d become so angry. So sad. 

All of that for what? 

Hopper had lied to her. He had lied to all of them. Every time he’d stopped by their house to talk to mom, every time he’d sat down for dinner with them, every time he’d gone with them to the lab, every time he had talked to her or Will and asked how they were doing, he’d known. He’d known that El, her friend, was alive and hadn’t said a goddamn thing. 

“Why didn’t you tell us?” She asks when the silence in the car gets too heavy, wiping her runny nose on the back of her sweater. “She was with you this whole time wasn’t she?”

Hopper sighs, shifts in his seat, his police jacket making a shuffling sound that’s too loud in her ears. 

When she looks up at him, he looks ten years older, but he doesn’t deny it. 

“Look, I’m sorry, okay. I’m sorry I yelled at you and I’m sorry you had to find out like this. But I’m not sorry for keeping her safe from those agents. I’m not sorry for keeping you, and your friends, and your brothers, and your mom safe.”

“How was it keeping us safe?” She asks him, shaking her head. “Didn’t you see Will? Those - those drawings? There’s that thing Dustin found - “

“What thing?”

Mia continues talking over him, “- Jonathan and Nancy are putting themselves in danger, and mom kept taking Will to that place where they hurt and tortured El, and every day, I’ll see something, like, like a man wearing a hat or a woman holding an umbrella and I’ll get terrified because I think those agents are back to kill us. I had nightmares about El dying for months! There’s something wrong with Will right now and everything is happening all over again!” She swallows too much air, and hiccups, chest heaving. “Keeping El away didn’t make any of us any safer!”

Chief Hopper isn’t looking at her, but out the windshield. 

Fury seizes her, and before she realizes it, she slaps his arm to make him look at her, terror washing over her as he immediately turns to look at her, affronted.

“I-I’m so-sorry, I -” She gasps, pressing her back against the door until her spine hurts. “I’m sorry, I’m - s-so-”

She’s hyperventilating. Hopper’s hands are the size of dinner plates and she’s just hit him.

His hand falls on her shoulder and she jumps, hand on the door handle. 

He doesn’t look angry, though, just sad. 

He squeezes her shoulder. “Breathe, kid. It’s alright.”

She focuses on his hand, forcing herself to breathe like Jonathan tells her to. 

In for four, out for five. In, for four, out for five. In…out. In. Out.

“Things are happening all over again.” She whispers an eternity later, feeling drained down to her bones. “It’s been a year, and it was supposed to be over, but now it’s like someone just, just came back and started it all over again. And maybe - Maybe if we had El - if we knew she was okay, we could have gotten ready for this.”

Hopper sighs again and takes his hand away from her shoulder. Beneath them, the car rumbles to life. 

But instead of going forward, Hopper turns the car around.

Mia wipes her face with the back of her hand, frowning at him. “Are you taking me back home?”

“No.” He answers, eyes fixed on the windshield. “I’m taking you to see El.”

Notes:

I totaly understand hopper but poor bby El was MOSTLY ALONE IN THAT CABIN FOR A YEAR

Chapter 7

 

 

Mia hadn’t expected the cabin.

It’s away from the road, in a part of the woods that she’s never been in, because it’s usually where people go out to hunt deer. The trees are bare this time of the year, but despite the added light, Mia still feels her heart flutter with fear. The looming, dark branches of the trees remind her too much of that night she’d spent wandering around calling for Will, terrified.

As they reach the cabin, Hopper puts a hand on her shoulder, stopping her from moving forward. 

“What?” She bites out, fearing he’d just tell her to go back to the car because he’d changed his mind and they were leaving.

Hopper pointedly looks down, and steps over a wire tied to two trees. It looks like one of those traps that people set up in movies. 

She’d have walked straight into it.

Mia steps over it too, and follows behind Hopper, paying careful attention to his steps so she won’t trip on any other traps he might have set up, until they climb up the porch stairs. Hopper pulls the screen door open and knocks on the second door, in a distinct pattern of two knocks, a pause, one knock, another pause, and three quick knocks. 

The lock clicks open on its own. Hopper pushes the door open.

The cabin is dark. The curtains are drawn over some of the windows, boards covering those that don’t have curtains. There’s a pile of broken glass and pieces of wood next to a lit fireplace, in one corner of the spacious room. 

An unmade bed is on the wall near the door, next to a doorway covered by a curtain, with an old boxy TV at its end. In the middle of the room, there’s a coffee table full of magazines, books, and some cereal boxes. An armchair faces the table, with more magazines and papers strewn over its seat. There’s also a couch in a similar state of disarray, a dusty box and dozens of folders left open on top of it, a balled up blanket half on its cushions and half on the floor. 

To the right of the TV, there’s a wall with stuffed animal heads, a boarded up door, and a side table with an old lamp and some framed pictures. Behind the armchair, there’s a dresser with books and portraits and a random assortment of things - from empty containers to pieces of rope - thrown randomly in its cubicles. 

There’s a single door in the room, a green one that is currently closed, and to its right, there’s a spacey kitchen with old, rustic furniture. 

To the right of the front door, there’s a record player, and a table with two chairs under a lamp, and an armchair, clearly out of its place.

A box of Eggos lies on the table, open.

Hopper sighs at the mess, shaking his head.

“Kid?” He calls out. “I have someone here who wants to talk to you.”

The green door flies open. El walks through it, eyes wide, clutching a red folder in her hands.

“El!” Mia shouts, and without thought, crosses the room and launches herself at the girl. 

She throws her arms over El’s neck, smushing her cheek against the other girl’s, “Why did you just leave? We looked for you everywhere and we couldn’t find you! We thought you were gone again.”

Mia pulls away, holding El’s shoulder. 

El’s dark eyes are wet and wide, a happy smile on her lips. It’s strange to see how much longer her hair is now, but it suits her, falling in dark chocolate curls around the sides of her head, the same color as her eyes. 

“Not gone. I was here, safe.” El’s eyes flick over to Hopper, a hurt look crossing her expression.

Mia looks over her shoulder at Hopper, who’s staring at the folders on the couch.

He picks one up, “Where did you get this?” 

Hopper’s voice is tense and stony, jaw clenched. He waves the papers in El’s direction. 

“Where the hell did you get this?” He repeats himself, when El doesn’t immediately answer.

“Under the floor.” El grits, hands fisted at her sides.

“What were you doing looking under the floor? You aren’t supposed to be going through my personal things.” Hopper says, raising his voice.

Mia feels her heart beating faster inside her chest.

El closes her mouth with a loud clack of teeth, eyes glimmering with fury.

“What is it?” Mia asks, trying to diffuse the tension. Her eyes get caught on the side of the box, where a tape reads HAWKINS’ LAB.

“It doesn’t concern you.” Hopper spits out, eyes turning mean.

Mia feels her entire body tremble, and steps in front of El. With all of her strength, she glares at Hopper, trying not to show how scared she is.

“Like El being alive didn’t concern us?”

Hopper is the one who closes his mouth now. 

Instead of asking, this time Mia just takes one of the papers from the couch. Her eyes skim over the words, catching on a paragraph that’s highlighted in yellow.

 

     One of the most effective psychoenergetic protocols in terms of successful subject performance is the remote viewing of natural targets. As observed in the laboratory, the basic phenomenon appears to cover a range of subjective experiences variously referred to in the literature as autoscopy (in the medical literature); exteriorization or disassociation (psychological literature); simple clairvoyance, traveling clairvoyance, or out-of-body experience (parapsychological literature) or astral projection (occult literature). We choose the term “remote viewing” as a neutral descriptive term [1]

 

There’s a small arrow coming out of it, the question Eleven? written down in small, blocky letters.

Mia drops that paper, kneels down on the floor and grabs another stack of pages at random. It’s a badly made photocopy of a document, and Mia is barely able to make out its title: special training techniques - technical proposal. She flips it open, skimming over its contents until she finds an underlined section, this time in simple pencil.

 

      psychic functioning is an innate or latent ability, somewhat similar to musical talent. 

 

Then, a few lines below: 

 

     locate and recruit the most psychically talented individuals available, both to obtain a measure of the range of abilities that exists, and also to make use of these abilities to further increase our understanding of the phenomenon.

 

“This is about you El. And others like you.” Mia says loudly to the other girl, grabbing another thick folder from the floor. There are many stacks of paper stapled together in it. 

Mia grabs the thickest, and squints down at the blocky, typewriter script. Some parts of the words are illegible, some missing altogether,as if the paper had been rubbed thin, until the paint was scraped off.

 

     [ ] purpose in this effort is to attempt to determine [ ] reality and existence of such phenomena. Army’s effort is a small, discreet, minimally funded project centered on re[ ]icating, in-house, claimed experimental successes by organizations such as SPI* international. By using army pe[  ]le and activities, carefully controlled replications of previous tests procedures can be conducted. Three sub-areas of psychoenergetics are the most relevant, provided the phenomena’s existence is verified: remote viewing, remote perturbation and remote communications. Remote viewing is the perception by an individual of things, places or events distant from him - also known as clairvoyance. [  ]mote perturbation, or psychokinesis, is the ability of a person to cause a change in state in some physical object. Remote communications is telepathy. The Army is presently involved in programs of investigation concerning remote viewing and remote perturbations. Projects related to remote communication are planned in the future

 

There’s another document right behind it, some kind of hearing, according to its title. Many of its pages are highlighted, some almost entirely yellow. Mia reads only one of them.

 

         perhaps the most disturbing of all was the fact that the extent of experimentation on human subjects was unknown. The records of all these activities were destroyed in january 1973, at the instructions of then head of the Department of Energy Dr. Martin Brenner. Brenner has since been demoted… [2]

 

“Were you reading this?” Mia asks El, putting the papers on the floor.

El nods her head, clutching the red folder to her chest.

“Did you understand it?”

El starts nodding her head, but stops, and shakes it. “Halfway.” She says.

Mia sighs, looks around at the room, then at Hopper, still standing by the couch. He doesn’t look happy, but at least he doesn’t look mad anymore. 

She decides not to talk about the papers now. Mia had so much to tell El. There’s so much she wants to ask El. She doesn’t know where to begin.

“We missed you so much.” Mia’s mouth speaks before she can figure out what to say, “Mike didn’t - he said he called you -”

“For 353 days.” El interrupts, eyes full of tears. “I heard.”

“Why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you go find us?”

Hopper crosses his arm, sits down on the table by the wall. “Because I didn’t let her. Don’t blame her for something I did.”

Mia narrows her eyes at him, “I wasn’t blaming her, I was just asking. And I wasn’t talking to you.”

Hopper throws his hands up. “You know what? I’m waiting on the porch, you have half an hour before I need to leave.” He points a finger at El. “I want this whole mess put away when I come back. You and I are having a long talk then.”

El’s face darkens. 

“No, it’s none of that, I’m not -” Hopper cuts himself off with a sigh, voice softening, “I’m not mad. Not anymore. I’ll - We’ll talk later, alright?”

Without waiting for an answer, Hopper walks to the front door, hat in hand. The door swings shut behind him with a click.

“Is everything okay?” Mia asks El. “With Hopper I mean.”

El tilts her head, confused.

“Does he…Is he - good to you?” 

Mia didn’t want to have to ask this. 

Mia had never feared Hopper before today. Mom had said Hopper had moved back into Hawkins because his daughter had died, and he’d always been so good to her and Will that she’d never thought he might have been a mean dad before. But she doesn’t know what to think anymore. He’s kept El hidden and alone for a year. The cabin is in shambles, broken glass all around and El looks so angry and sad. 

Mia has to know. 

She thinks of the way Mike had kissed El last year. 

“Does he make you…do things you don’t want to? Like, bad things?” She asks her, hesitantly. 

She doesn’t know what to think anymore. 

El takes a moment to answer, and Mia’s stomach turns.

“He made me stay. I…don’t want to.” El says, finally. “Makes me learn words everyday. Not bad.”

Relief rushes through her for a moment. “Nothing else? He doesn’t hurt you?”

El shakes her head.

What if El didn’t see it as being hurt? Sometimes it had felt good.

“And, um. Nice things? Does he do that? Things that might feel bad at first but then feel nice?”

El tilts her head like a bird, dark eyes narrowed in thought.

“Snow.” El says. “Made me go out in snow once. It was cold and bad, but he gave me a hat. And taught me to make a…snowman. Felt bad, then nice.”

Mia breathes in deeply, then breathes out, feeling her arms tingling and weak. Good. That was…good.

“What about the -” She gestures around them, at the pile of broken glass and the boarded up windows. 

Maybe Hopper was just one to throw things around and shout.

“We fight, last night. I went out. Saw you. I…lied, said no one saw me.” El looks guilty, clutching the folder in her hands so tightly the cover bends. “He yelled, said no more TV forever, and no more Eggos. I yelled too, threw a book and broke the windows.”

“You threw a book at Hopper?”

“Yes.”

Good for her, Mia wants to say. 

Maybe Mia shouldn’t have been so worried - El had powers, after all, she wasn’t like Mia, stupid and defenseless, and scared and too young to do anything against someone she should have been able to trust.

“That girl with red hair. Max. Close to Mike?”

Mia blinks at El, confused at the non-sequitur. Then the words catch up to her and she smiles, “She transferred to our school this week. You’ll like her, she’s really cool and she skates. She’s from California.” 

There’s a moment of silence, where El just stares at Mia.

“You could meet her. Like, properly.” Mia offers, “We could talk to Hopper, you could come to our house tonight. We can invite Jenny and the others, Max too, then you could really meet her.” 

The little smile that had appeared when Mia suggested she visit tonight vanishes at the mention of Max’s name. 

“She was shouting at Mike.” El says, brows furrowed, “You and Jenny too.”

“Mike was being a dick.” Mia huffs, “He thought - he didn’t want Max to be a part of our group of friends and he was being mean to her, sort of like Lucas was to you last year. Max is our friend now, he shouldn’t be treating her that way. She can be your friend too, if you want to.”

El nods, tucking a curl of hair behind her ear. 

Mia inspects her face for a moment, only now noticing how different this girl and the girl she’d met a year ago seemed to be. 

El’s face seems rounder than it was a year ago, the haunted, scared look that had been ever present in her eyes gone. She is wearing a dark blue sweater over a flowered shirt, and her jeans are clearly new. Her skin isn’t that same bloodless white it had been, and her speech had more words in it. 

She looks normal now, with her soft hair and clothes that sort of fit.

God, Mia has missed her so much. 

She reaches a hand out to hold the girl’s arm. 

“I’m so happy you’re alive.” Mia tells her, “Mike, Lucas, Dustin, Jenny - they missed you so much. You saved all of our lives back at the school.”

“I missed you too.”

They smile at each other. The cabin seems to get lighter, the sun creeping through the boarded up windows and bathing the side of the couch and El’s hair with golden light.

Eleven shifts on her knees, the folder in her hands creaking. Mia tilts her head down to look at it. She’d forgotten that the girl had been holding it.

“What’s that one?”

Eleven passes it over to Mia. Ives, Terry, is written at the front, in the same handwriting Mia had seen in the margins of the other papers. Inside there are some photocopied newspaper cut-outs, and more articles. Held together by a paper clip attached to the side of the folder, there are also a few pictures, all in black and white. 

Mia takes them out first, heart slamming in her chest at what she sees.

It’s the white haired man. El’s papa, decades younger. There’s a woman at his side, who Mia doesn’t recognize.

Mia reads over the headlines of a few of the articles in the folder. Daughter Jane Taken when she was a baby, Ives claims, one reads. Then another: Child abduction accusations against Hawkins Lab Thrown out. Indiana woman sues D.O.E. Claims child was stolen. 

Mia stops at the latter and reads the first paragraph. 

 

     Previous criminal charges against Hawkins Lab thrown out. Indiana resident Terry Ives has filled a lawsuit in state court contending that Hawkins Labs, a satellite laboratory of the Department of Energy, and its research scientists headed by Dr. Martin Brenner, have stolen her child, Jane.

 

Terry Ives was the woman next to El’s father, Dr. Martin Brenner. One of the articles has a photo of her face, and there’s something familiar about it that Mia can’t place. 

Had she been one of the agents that got them at the school?

“Why does Hopper have…all of this? Who’s Terry Ives?”

El shrugs. 

“I want to find her.” El whispers, eyes glancing at the closed door as she takes the folder back. “With my…”  

“With your powers?” Mia completes, when it looks like the girl won’t say anything else. El nods. Mia thinks about asking her why, why this woman, but figures it might be something to ask later. El clearly doesn’t want Hopper to know about it. “Okay. I’ll help.”

Mia looks around them. Last year, they’d used the pool, Mike’s supercom and the radio back at the school, but there’s nothing similar in the cabin. Maybe they could use the TV, or the tiny black radio sitting on the dresser. 

She suggests those to El. El tells her there’s no more TV and when Mia gets up to take a look at it, she finds its cables broken. 

Radio it is, then.

While Mia’s checking if it has batteries and if it’s working, El goes to the room beyond the green door, coming back with a strip of cloth, like the tie of a bathrobe.

Mia helps her tie it over her eyes. They kneel down in front of the couch, El holding the picture of the woman in her hands. 

“I’ll be right here the whole time.” Mia tells her, “We have to be quiet and you have to be quick, okay? I’ll be right here.”

Hopper was just outside, and Mia didn’t think he’d like it if he knew what they were doing. 

El nods her head, then puts both hands over her knees, one still clutching the woman’s picture. She takes a deep breath in and out and pulls the picture up to her chest.

There’s a buzzing sound, deep in Mia’s ears. 

Learned instinct makes her heart start racing, but Mia curls her nails into her hands, telling herself it’s just El, it’s just El, over and over again. 

It doesn’t help much, especially when the static on the radio wavers, making Mia jump. 

A few high pitched sounds come from it, but as El breathes in and out again, the static changes, turning into something like the white noise on the background of a phone call, instead of plain static.

“Rainbow.” A voice comes from the radio, feeble and almost a whisper, more air than sound. 

Mia has to blink hard to dispel the memories from last year, Will’s voice tiny and terrified in the school’s radio. 

“Three to the right. Four to the left.” The voice continues. It’s a feminine voice, but deeper, the aged voice of a grown woman instead of the high voice of a teenager or a child. “Rainbow. Three to the right. Four to the left. Four fifty.”

Mia mouths the words to herself. 

Instead of repeating the words again, the voice stops.

El gasps, suddenly.

Mia sits up straighter, alarmed. 

“El?” Mia whispers, touching the girl’s knee. 

The radio crackles. “Jane?” The voice asks.

“Mama.” El whispers.

Mia’s eyes widen, flicking from the radio to El.

Eleven’s hand twitches. Then her breathing stops, and when it starts again, it’s fast and wet, her shoulders heaving. 

“Mama?!” El asks, louder than before.

Mia jumps to keep her quiet.

“El. El!” Mia calls, half-whispering. El’s face twists, as if she was about to cry. Mia pushes the blindfold off her head, coming face to face with the girl’s brown, teary eyes. 

“It’s okay,” Mia tells her, pulling El into her arms. “You’re okay. You’re okay.”

El buries her head against Mia’s shoulder, and starts sobbing, loud and pained. 

“What happened?” Mia asks, throat tightening. “Was that her?”

“Mama.” El cries, hands coming up to clutch Mia’s side. “Mama.”

The picture of Terry Ives lies on the floor by El’s thigh, forgotten. Mia looks over the woman’s dark curls, her round, dark eyes.

If Terry Ives was Eleven’s mother, that meant -

“You’re Jane. Jane Ives.” 

The cabin’s door bursts open. Hopper strides inside, looking around wildly. 

His eyes fall on the two of them, curled together on the floor. The radio turned on static, the picture. 

His face clouds over, thunderous. 

“What are you two doing?”

“Nothing.” Mia answers as reflex.

“Nothing?” He looks pointedly at them, and the things around them. “That doesn’t look like nothing.”

Mia spits his words right back at him. “It doesn’t concern you.” 

Hopper scoffs, lips pulled back with annoyance.“God, kid. Won’t you just let it go?”

Mia climbs up to her feet, hands curled into fists at her sides as she stands between El and Hopper. “No! I won’t. You kept things from us, you kept El locked away - and you didn’t want her to go through your stuff but you knew who her mom was and you never said anything to her? You knew -” Mia bends down, takes the folder and marches to Hopper to shove the articles in his face. “You knew her name was Jane. You knew there were people out there looking for her, and you never even told her?!”

Hopper grabs the articles, reads over a few of them. Mia can see the thoughts behind his eyes, the guilt, the fear. He squeezes them shut, snapping them open to look sternly at Mia. 

“I was protecting her. Joyce and I - we visited Terry Ives’ home last year. Terry lives with her sister, she’s safe, but she is in some sort of - of coma. The lab did something to her… and those agents still keep tabs on her. Which is why I didn’t take El there. Yet.”

Mia rolls her eyes. Right, as if she believed that stupid excuse. “Bullshit.”  

Hopper throws the folder on the couch. “You believe whatever the fuck you want, kid. I told you the truth. Now get yourself ready, we’re leaving.”

Mia swallows back the urge to scream. She doesn’t want to leave - El has just found her mother, for christ’s sake. 

“She should come back to my house.” She tries to argue. “She doesn’t need to stay here now that we know about her.”

But Hopper’s already shaking his head. “Not a chance. Do you really think those agents don’t have their eyes on your place? Why do you think it took so long for us to get here, if your house is just by the woods? I’ve been doing the best I can to make those bastards chase their own tails for a year, and I’m not jeopardizing that now because you want a slumber party.”

This time Mia makes a choked off growl that sounds more like a cat choking than anything truly scary. 

“Fuck you.” She says with her full chest.

“Jesus.” Hopper scrubs his hands over his face, “God fucking dammit - What about this? Huh? We’ll deal with your brother today. I’ll make sure there are no agents anywhere near your place. We’ll check if your house is bugged and tomorrow - tomorrow, El is going over to your house. How about that, huh?”

Mia opens her mouth to tell him that she’s not leaving El another single night in this cabin, but a hand touches her arm. 

It’s El, her eyes still wet, but steady. 

“Halfway happy.” She tells Mia, then stares up at Hopper, eyes hard. “Promise.”

“I promise.” He tells El, then to Mia. “Now let’s go, ‘cause I have a lot of things to do, and we’re losing daylight.”

Mia nods, still angry despite the compromise. She turns on the balls of her feet, puts her hands on El’s shoulders and forces the other girl to look at her. “You come to us, you hear me? If you need us, if you get scared out here alone - you can come to our house any time you want, okay?”

El nods.

“She won’t stay here alone.” Hopper corrects, “I’ll be back tonight.”

Mia ignores him, and hugs El as tight as she can. El hides her face against her neck, and Mia does the same.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” Mia whispers.

She can feel El smile against her shoulder. “Tomorrow.”

Notes:

Most of the texts that Mia reads are actual excerpts from USA Government documents. That shit is wild.
[1] https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00788R001100050001-5.pdf
[2] https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/hearings/95mkultra.pdf (p.7)

Chapter 8

 

 

One day, Jenniffer Hayes is going to kill Mike Wheeler. 

To the surprise of a total of zero people.

Not even her parents would be surprised, she thinks. They had expressed their concern for her newfound violent tendencies when they’d found her destroying their juniper bush with her bedazzled softball bat back in September.

In her defense, Jenny had thought someone had been hiding behind it. The agent that had hit her over the head at the school, perhaps, back to kill her. Or another agent looking to send her to Guantanamo or something, or wherever the other people who committed treason against the nation by hiding and abetting a runaway government experiment with supernatural powers went. 

But the bush had been just a bush. And she had remembered that that agent was dead, ripped apart by the interdimensional monster that had tried to kill her best friend, and that had nearly succeeded in killing her best friend’s brother. 

Then she had imagined the bush was that monster, and gone to town on it.

Her dad had to pull her away from the dead and twisted remains of the tree, after Mrs. Carrie from next door rang their bell to tell him Jenny was having a fit in the backyard. Mom had spent an hour in the kitchen pulling splinters out of her arms and hands, berating her for destroying the plant.

They had offered to have her uncle - who was a black belt at karate or something - teach her martial arts to vent her anger. She had refused, but they had called him over anyway to teach her some. 

Those had been a nice few weeks

So yeah, her parents wouldn’t be surprised if they heard from Sheriff Hopper that she’d killed Michael Wheeler today.

“Meeting! AV room. Now!” Mike yells at the four of them during lunch, after conferring with Mia through his walkie-talkie. Jenny, Dustin, Lucas and Max had been sitting outside, on the side doors stairsteps while Mike talked with Mia in his walkie talkie inside.

Jenny huffs, already sick of him telling her what to do.

Nevertheless, Jenny nudges Max, who had been zoning out, rolling her skateboard under her foot back and forth. Max looks at her and Jenny motions with her head for them to go inside the school.

After what happened to Will yesterday, Max had said that either Jenny would tell her the truth about what was going on with the others, or they wouldn’t be friends anymore. 

Jenny had chosen the obvious alternative, and told Max everything.

You see, Jenny has many casual friends at school, courtesy of being in the theater club, but she doesn’t have many real girl friends other than Mia. The other girls didn’t like Mia much, and after Jenny had slapped Laura Daniels for making fun of Mia back in fifth grade, people had come to regard her as a sort of guard dog to the weird girl in class, and had decided it wasn’t worth it to get too close. 

Mia didn’t know about it, of course, because she was incredible, and beautiful, and the best friend anyone could ask for, and those people were idiots for just looking at her boy-ish hand-me downs and closed-off nature and writing her off as a freak. She didn’t need to know just what terrible things other people said about her. But just because Jenny doesn’t have many true friends besides Mia and the boys, it doesn’t mean she had never wanted more.

She had thought she’d have another friend in El. Brown-eyed, quiet El. Who had never tasted Eggos before and who looked as much as a kicked puppy as Mia had, those days after her dad went away. 

El, who had superpowers. Who had protected Dustin and Mia and Mike when Jenny couldn’t, and broken Troy Walsh’s arm with her mind.

Then, El had died and Jenny had been devastated, despite knowing the girl for barely a week. 

And just as she was starting to get better, just when she was debating putting away El’s wig and licorice, along with all of her hopes for a new friend, Max came, all the way from California. She had red-hair and she dressed like a boy, just like Mia. She had cut off Mr. Clarke’s introduction with an ‘It’s Max’ so gruff but so certain that it made Jennifer want to be her, not even five seconds after Max had walked into the room. 

Still, Jenny had been wary. That kind of rudeness could easily turn on her, and even worse, on Mia. 

Mia was her best friend first and if this out-of-towner tried something with her best friend, Jenny would make her wish she’d never moved here. 

But then Mia had looked at Jenny and she had seen it in her eyes too. She wanted Max to be their friend.

Even though they’d only known each other for a couple of days, Jenny already felt like she would do anything for her growing friendship with Max. 

Including spilling State Secrets, at the risk of going to jail. 

Max hadn’t really taken it well, and had accused Jenny of lying over a handful of times before Jenny finally managed to convince her. She had been quiet ever since, probably processing it all. 

Jenny lets her to her silence, not insisting on talking. 

She wishes she had time to process everything that had happened last year as it unfolded, but there had been no time for it.

“C’mon, Max.” Jenny says, blinking out of her digression and nudging the redhead next to her. “Michael is ordering us to go inside like the power-hungry tyrant he is.”

That draws a smile out of the redhead, who gets up, immediately lacing her arm through the one Jenny offers her.

Mike stops them at the doors, “What are you doing?”

“We’re going to the meeting?” Jenny states, more than asks, sharing a look with Max.

Mike opens his mouth, looking suspiciously at Max, and Jenny can see exactly where this is going. She interrupts him, before he can even start.

“In case you’ve forgotten already, Michael.” Jenny snaps, “Max is a part of our Party now. Or are you so much of a dick that you won’t honor your own agreement of truce?”

Mike looks properly chastised. He shakes his head at Jenny, flaps his hand dismissively towards them before getting inside the school.

Max smiles at Jenny. “Thanks.”

“You’re our friend, Max. Mike’s just being a dick, but you’ll get used to it.”

They huddle around the AV table, a single lamp flicked on, setting an eerie atmosphere to the already tense mood. 

Mike tells them about what happened on Halloween, the shadow monster that Will had seen. He says that Mia had told him Will saw the same shadow yesterday at the field, with his True Sight. Max throws Jenny a confused look at the term, but Jenny’s just as lost. It sounds like something from DnD, but Jenny doesn’t really recall it from the books and manuals she’d read.

Lucas questions if it can hurt Will, the shadow monster. 

It is from the Upside Down. Jenny thinks that’s an answer in itself.

“If you’re in another plane, you can’t interact with the material plane, so theoretically, no, the shadow monster can’t hurt him.” Mike answers Lucas.

Dustin shakes his head, “If that’s even what’s happening.”

“Maybe it’s like a ghost?” Jenny offers, “Like, ghosts are theoretically not physical, but they can affect people and material things.” At everyone’s incredulous looks, she throws up her hands, “What? Are you going to tell me that you’ve seen an interdimensional monster and you still don’t believe in ghosts?”

“We need more knowledge.” Mike ends up saying, “I’ll go to Will’s house after school, you guys stay here and find Dart.”

Dustin sits up in his chair. “Dart? What does he have to do with this?”

“Besides the fact that Mia’s sure it’s a baby demogorgon, you mean?” Jenny scoffs, Dustin can’t be that taken with that tadpole looking thing from Hell, can he?

Mike half-heartedly shoots her an annoyed look, but he knows she’s right. “Jenny’s right. Will has also heard the sound it made in the Upside Down before. It must be connected somehow.”

“You guys said there was a gate, right?” Max pipes up then, “At the, uhm, lab in the woods?” She glances at Jenny for confirmation, “Maybe it came from over there?”

A this, Mike, Lucas and Dustin all glare at Jenny.

“What? I told her. So what. She knows now, it’s too late to take it back.” Jenny huffs, crossing her arms.

Mike rolls his eyes, but thankfully, gets back on track.

“Maybe. But Chief Hopper said there were no other demogorgons down there. It wouldn’t explain why one would be here all of sudden.”

“Maybe it’s like a spider full of eggs.” Jenny points out. “You hit it with a shoe and then three hundred little spiders come crawling out. El sort of...exploded the demogorgon last year. Those flakes could have been...microscopic demogorgon babies?”

Lucas shudders. “I fear your mind, Hayes. But that does make some sense.”

Jenny silently preens, suddenly too conscious of Lucas standing right next to her. 

“What if El didn’t kill it, though?” Mike whispers. “What if she just...shadow walked to the upside down, taking the demogorgon with her. It would explain why she’s back.”

They stand in silence, staring at the floor. 

Jenny can’t bear the thought of that thing still being out there somewhere. 

The only reason she can still fall asleep at night is because she added ‘thank you, Lord, that you gave El the strength to kill the monster’ to her prayers. And she still had to buy a lava lamp, because she kept opening her eyes every time a shadow shifted in her room, and didn’t actually fall asleep.

None of them have any further ideas of what is happening, so they split up in low spirits, each going to their respective classes. In the few classes Jenny shares with the rest of the Party, they barely talk, all immersed in their own thoughts. 

Jenny keeps seeing El’s face, the black veins around her eyes. Keeps hearing the scream Mia let out when Jenny pulled her up by her broken arm in the history corridor.  

When school’s over for the day, Mike goes to Mia’s house. Dustin, Lucas, Max and Jenny meet up by the same dumpsters they’d looked through that morning, to look for Dart again, but then it turns out that Max won’t be able to stay because her brother is supposed to drive her home and she hadn’t told him she’d be staying. 

Dustin also has to go.

“My mom asked me to do chores around the house today.” Is his explanation, shaking his head regretfully. “Our neighbor is coming over for a book club thing. Or something.”

Jenny narrows her eyes at him - Dustin is an excellent liar, better than Mike who gets all red, and even Lucas, who can’t stare you in the eye as he lies to save his life, but Dustin has a tell. 

He exaggerates his earnestness, and always looks too truthful to be actually telling the truth.

If his mom had wanted him to do chores around the house, he’d have said so when Mike told them to stay and find Dart, and not now, at the end of the day. 

Besides, Jenny’s mom and Dustin’s mom are in the same book club, and Jenny would know if her mom had a meeting. Her mom would have baked something to take to Mrs. Henderson’s.

Which means that Dustin is lying.

 “Alright.” Jenny says, staring at the side of his face. “Then it won’t be fair on me and Lucas to search all alone. Besides, we don’t even know if it’s still here. We could each look near our houses, and then call if we happen to find something. If nothing comes up we’ll try again tomorrow morning.”

All four of them agree. Dustin scampers off to the parking lot, Lucas following close behind. 

Jenny kind of wishes she had stayed quiet and helped Lucas search for Dart alone. It’d have been sort of like a date.

Jenny snorts at herself, shaking her head in disgust. 

They would be searching for the baby version of the interdimensional creature that had almost killed Mia. A baby that could have grown in the last 24 hours they haven’t seen it, and that could be just waiting to try and kill them again. 

Not much of a date at all.

Max heads towards the high school parking lot, and Jenny follows, to keep her company. 

Trying to distract herself, Jenny asks if she can try out the redhead’s skateboard, and Max promptly helps her hop up on the board.

“You don’t have to walk me there, you know.” Max says, holding Jenny’s hand as she tries and fails to balance on Max’s skate. “We’ll both be late.”

“Oh. Sorry. I hadn’t thought of that.” Jenny jumps off the skate, regretting the move immediately, when she almost falls on her face. The skate continues to roll a couple of paces ahead of them. 

They jog to catch it. Max catches up to it first and picks it up, shoving it under her arm. 

“It’s no big deal. It’s just my brother. Billy, I mean. He’s kind of a dick when I’m late.”

Red lights flash across Jenny’s mind, remembering the fat lip she’d seen on Jonathan back when she and Mia were in third grade. “He’s a dick how?”

Max shrugs. “Just a dick. I don’t know. We fight a lot.”

Well. That sounds relatively normal. Siblings fight all the time don’t they? She wouldn’t know, not really.

“Oh. Jonathan’s always pretty nice to Will and Mia. Nancy - Mike’s sister, the one from Halloween - loves to annoy Mike and yell at him for taking her stuff, which I can get behind. But I don’t have siblings, so I don’t know if that’s normal or not.”

“I only have Billy, unfortunately.” Max says, wrinkling her nose. “I don’t know if it’s normal either. Mia’s brother did seem nice.”

“He is. Sometimes I kind of wish he was my brother too.” Jenny confesses. She’d always wanted to have siblings. “Did I tell you that Jonathan fought the monster last year? Like, the real demogorgon. It wasn’t the size of Dart at all, more like, eight feet tall and terrifying. Mia told me that Jonathan, Nancy and Steve Harrington - oh you don’t know him, do you? He’s Nancy’s boyfriend, and like, popular and stuff. He’s super cute - anyway, they laid down a trap for it -”

Jenny tells her the story she’d gotten from Mia, about Nancy and Jonathan buying hunting stuff in town, Jonathan and Steve having a fist fight next to the movie theater, then the monster showing up at Mia’s house when Jonathan and Nancy lured it there, then Steve just showing up, and how Nancy had been a complete badass and shot at the monster, complete with Mrs. Byers’ breakdown when she came back and saw the state of the house after all of it. 

Jenny had gone over to help them repaint the living room walls back in April, and she did like the new wooden floor better than the old carpet.

Before she realizes it, they’ve arrived at the parking lot.

Max leads them towards a dark blue car. 

There’s a teenager leaning against the car’s trunk, smoking. Reclined back on one of his elbows, and wearing a whole ensemble of matching jeans jacket and pants, he looked like he’d just stepped out of a clothes catalog. 

Jenny absolutely loves the knife earring on one of his ears, and the way he has his hair all done up in a curly mullet. 

“You’re late.” He calls out to Max, tossing away his cigarette. When he looks down at Jenny, she finds that his eyes are blue, like Max’s, but much, much colder. He smiles, and it doesn’t go up past his dimpled cheeks. “And you are?”

He says it with so much disdain that Jenny immediately starts to hate him. 

Max opens her mouth, but Jenny’s faster. “I’m the reason she’s late. Jennifer Hayes, her friend.”

“Jennifer.” Max’s brother repeats, “Funny that. Max told me she didn’t have any friends.” He looks at Max, raising both eyebrows. 

Jenny has seen Nancy annoyed with Mike, has seen Will and Mia fight. 

Even on the worst times, they’d never looked at each other like Billy is looking at Max.  

 “Well, well, well. Should’a known she’d have lied.” Billy snorts, pushing away from the car’s trunk.

That’s it. Jenny hates him. 

She’s stealing Max away and hiding her in her bedroom until Billy’s old enough to leave for college. God, are Max’s parents as bad as Billy? 

Jenny can share her mom and dad too.

“Shut up, Billy.” Max snaps out, turning around and putting a hand on Jenny’s shoulder, gently pushing her away. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Jenny pulls Max by the arm and hugs her, glaring at her brother over Max’s shoulder. Billy points a finger at himself and smiles, tongue between his teeth as if saying, who, me? 

The audacity. 

Jenny glares harder, hoping he will receive her telepathic message of hurt her and you’ll regret it.

She pulls away from Max, smiling as sunnily as possible. Max smiles back, incapable of resisting Jenny’s charm. Few people are capable of that.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” Jenny says, flipping her braids over one shoulder and forcing herself to walk away from them. She tries not to look back, but anxiety rises in her stomach and she has to look back. 

Billy is glaring down at Max, who has her arms crossed as she glares at the ground, her face pale. 

Jenny clenches her jaw, and calls out to her again. “Bye, Max!”

A few high schoolers startle at her shout, looking at her as if she was a weird alien that had touched down in the middle of the parking lot. 

Jenny feels her cheeks warm, suddenly too aware of herself to be entirely comfortable, but it’s worth it, though, because Max raises her head and waves her goodbye, a small smile on her face.

Back at her school, her dad’s at the parking lot already, a bit upset that he’d been left waiting for so long. Jenny tells him she’d walked her friend over to meet up with her brother at the highschool. Dad understands, because he’s cool like that, and says he could drop Max off next time. 

He also asks when Jenny’s bringing Max around for dinner. Mia tells him she doesn’t know.

She gets home and eats lunch with her parents, talking about the parts of her day she can talk about, like her history grade and the short story they’d read in English. When they’re all done eating, her mom gets ready to go to one of her friend’s house, the one on Cherry Oak road who had just had a baby, while Dad locks himself up in his study. 

Jenny stays at the kitchen and washes the dishes by hand at the sink. Mom walks past her when she’s halfway done, kissing her head, before walking towards the front door. 

“Bye, Jenny!” Mom calls out, “I’ll be back later.”

“Bye, mom!” She calls back, smiling as she hears the door close. 

Once Jenny’s done with the dishes, she looks around the living room for any glasses that her dad might have left lying around, and glimpses Mrs. Henderson talking to her mom by the tulip bed.

Remembering Dustin’s lie earlier in  the day, Jenny is out the front door in a blink. 

“Hi, Mrs. Henderson!”

Mrs. Henderson’s hair is curly just like Dustin’s, her almond brown eyes cheery and kind. She’s a writer, and Jenny always goes to her for advice on what book to give to Mia on her birthday and other holidays. “Oh, hi, Jenny, how are you?”

“I’m great!” She answers, smiling. “Actually, I have this science homework to do that I really don’t get at all. Is Dustin home? Maybe he could help me.”

Mrs. Henderson nods. “He came straight home today. He was acting a bit weird, though. Did something happen at school?”

Did something happen? It was easier asking what hadn’t happened. 

That answer was easy enough: a single moment of peace. 

“Not that I know of.” Jenny lies, “We do have some big tests coming up soon, maybe it’s that?”

Mrs. Henderson accepts the answer, and continues to chit chat with Jenny’s mom, and soon the two of them decide to go together to Mrs. Bianca’s - the one who just had a baby - house. 

Jenny sprints to Dustin’s house as soon as they turn the corner.

It’s just across the street from hers, two numbers down. She knocks on the door.

No one answers.

Jenny slams her fist on the door. “Henderson! I know you’re in there! Your mom told me you were here so open up!”

She hears a door slam inside the house, then footsteps running to the door. Dustin pulls it open, pale as a ghost. 

Jenny’s hands twitch, and she curses that she’d left her bat at home. 

“What is it?” She asks, stepping inside, already on full alert. There’s an Agate geode by the phone, which she grabs, holding it over her shoulder. “What happened? Is it the monster?”

Dustin looks at her, looks at the rock in her hand, and seems to snap out of whatever trance he was in.

 He slams the door closed, locking it behind her. 

“Don’t freak out,” He starts, making Jenny freak out even more. 

When he doesn’t say anything else for a hot second, Jenny snaps, “Spit it out, Dustin! Or I’ll throw this in your face!”

Dustin takes a deep breath in and out. A loud thump comes from deeper in the house, both their heads snapping towards it.

There’s a low clicking sound that raises all the hairs on Jenny’s arms.

No. 

He couldn’t - 

He couldn’t have been that stupid.

She looks back at him, glaring. 

Dustin's eyes are wide and guilty. “It’s about Dart.”

*

“I can’t believe you were that stupid.” Jenny whispers to Dustin while they’re hiding in his shed, watching the trail of bologna slices they’d left as bait for Dart. She had popped to her house and grabbed her softball bat before they’d put out the trail, and now she anxiously taps the end of it to the ground. “I can’t believe you’d do that to Will and Mia.”

“I didn’t do anything!”

“You protected a baby version of the monster that tried to kill them! That’s not nothing.”

A movement by Dustin’s kitchen door has Jenny’s breath leaving her in a strangled gasp. 

Dustin’s description of Dart doesn’t do justice to the creature that steps out onto his backyard. 

With wet grey skin tinged with green, grotesquely shaped legs and a body curved like a greyhound on steroids, it looks every bit the nightmare dog-version of the monster she’d seen at school last year. Its button head is closed as it...sniffs the Bologna, but it opens a bit when he gets to the first slice, revealing the glint of sharp teeth in its five-petaled mouth as it swallows the slice whole.

Jenny’s heart pounds in her chest, her fingers curling tighter around her bat.

Dart follows the trail they’d left to the storm cellar at the back of Dustin’s house, gingerly sniffing at the double metal doors at its entrance. 

Jenny can almost hear El’s screaming from that night in the science classroom. 

Her heart climbs to her throat, and she has to open her mouth to breath. 

Suddenly, the thing’s head snaps up. It turns its head, looking straight at them.

Jenny shrieks, flying away from the door, tripping over Dustin. He catches her roughly with two hands on her back and pulls her behind him, looking out through one of the cracks between the boards. 

The thing must have gotten closer, because Dustin yells, also jumping away from the door. He glances at Jenny, terrified out of his mind. Jenny clenches her jaw and raises her softball bat. Dustin swallows, face turning serious behind his hockey mask. He pulls up his hockey stick, nodding at her.

They charge out, screaming.

The thing shrieks, startled, and tries to run from them. Jenny catches its hind legs with her bat, sending it towards Dustin, who pitches with his entire strength. Dart goes hurtling through the air, slamming into the cellar’s doors and falling inside.

Jenny grabs one door while Dustin grabs the other. 

Dart shakes its head at the bottom of the stairs, an inhuman shriek leaving its mouth. It crouches, and jumps up three steps before Jenny can so much as blink. 

Jenny slams her door down, and so does Dustin, both of them throwing themselves on top of the closed doors just as the baby demogorgon jumps again.

It hits the closed door, jostling both of them. 

Jenny glares at Dustin.

“What do we do now?!” She yells, voice strangled with equal parts fear and anger. “There’s a - a demodog in your house, Dustin!”

“I loved that.” Dustin honest to god smiles, but then seems to realize the gravity of their situation, and it slides right off his face.  “Right. We need to take care of it.”

“How?!”

“I don’t know!”

They should call Sheriff Hopper. Or, or someone with a gun. God, how she wished El hadn’t fled into the woods. They could use her powers now.

Wait, someone with a gun. Nancy!

Jenny tells Dustin her idea, ignoring Dart’s attempts at opening the storm cellar’s doors by throwing itself at them. At first Dustin protests the use of deadly force, but when Dart throws itself so hard against the doors that Jenny actually slides off of it, Dustin acquiesces. 

They shove their weapons through the door handles and Dustin lays in a starfish position on top of the doors while Jenny goes to look for chains and a lock in the shed. They wrap it around the door handles, closing Dustin’s thickest padlocks through its links.

It won’t hold for long, but there’s no need to. They’ll bike as fast as they can to the Wheelers, and then, this demodog thing will be toast.

*

They try calling the Sheriff first, because, you know, adult with acess to multiple guns, but they can’t reach him at the station. They go back to option number 1, then: Nancy Wheeler, the teenager who knows how to shoot a gun.

They bike there as quickly as they can, arriving at the wheelers breathless and sweaty.

Mr. Wheeler opens the door, looking bored and sleepy as he always does.

“Hi, Mr. Wheeler!” Jenny gasps, hands on her knees as she tries to recover her breath. “Is Nancy home?”

“No.” Mr. Wheeler says, deadpan, then frowns down at Jenny and Dustin. “What do you want with Nancy?”

“Is Mike home, then?” Dustin butts in, not bothering to answer Mr. Wheeler. 

Mr. Wheeler looks at him for a moment, “No.” 

Really, Mr. Wheeler? They are in a bit of a pickle here!

“Really?” Dustin asks, incredulous, echoing Jenny’s thoughts. 

Mr. Wheeler continues to look bored. “Are we done here? Can I go back inside?”

Dustin looks at Jenny, eyes wide, then turns back to shake his head at Mr. Wheeler. 

“Son of a bitch. You’re really no help, you know that, right?”

Jenny’s hand darts out to slap Dustin’s side. “Dustin! You can’t curse at Mr. Wheeler!”

Dustin shoves her. “I just did.”

Mr. Wheeler glares at Dustin. “Hey! Language, boy. I’ll tell your mother about this.”

“Oh, forget it.” Dustin says, shaking his head and walking off.

Jenny shakes her head too, but her mom and dad raised her to be polite, so she turns to Mr. Wheeler and at least attempts a smile, despite wanting to strangle the man. 

“Sorry, Mr. Wheeler. We’ll leave now. Bye!”

As she turns to follow Dustin, they see a car rolling to a stop on the Wheelers’ driveway. Out comes Steve Harrington in all his teenaged glory, holding a bouquet of roses.

Jenny looks at Dustin, who looks at her.

At least they have a teenager. That’s one out of two, right?

Dustin runs to Steve, asking him if he still has Jonathan’s bat without even saying hello. 

Turns out, he does, and now their plan has turned to getting anyone with a weapon. 

Dustin doesn’t let Jenny explain what’s happening to Steve, just yells at him to move, that they needed his help now.

Confused, but seeming to understand the urgency in Dustin’s voice, he agrees to help them.

“What are the roses for?” Jenny asks after Steve allows her into his car - because she does have some manners, unlike Dustin, who had just ran towards Steve’s car without asking for permission. 

“Nancy.” Steve answers, “We broke up. I mean, I broke up with her. I said some things...” He shakes his head, turning on his blinker to make a U-turn out of the Wheeler’s driveway. “Actually, I didn’t. Say anything bad, that is. But I’m apologizing anyway, because I’m an idiot who wants to be okay with her again.”

“You’re really going to talk about this? Now? Really?”

“You’re not an idiot.” Jenny says, ignoring Dustin. “I think it’s nice. It’s definitely romantic.”

“Thanks.” Steve says, pulling out of the Wheeler’s driveway. He shakes his head, “Great. Now I get love advice from preteen girls. What is even my life.”

Jenny rolls her eyes in the backseat, leaning forward on the shoulder of Steve’s seat. “I’m not any preteen girl, Steve. If you have to know, I’m an avid reader of both YM and Seventeen, so I know what I’m talking about. What happened?”

He hesitates, but makes the mistake of glancing at Jenny through his rearview mirror. One look at her face and he caves in. 

Maybe Jenny does have a superpower.

“So there was this party on Halloween -”

“Tina’s Bash?”

He glances at her through the rearview mirror. “Yeah. How d’you know?”

Jenny debates not telling him, so she can channel the air of an all-knowing entity, but decides against it. “We convinced Jonathan to go to it on Halloween.”

Steve presses his lips together. “So it’s you I have to thank for, huh?” Before Jenny can start to dissect that particular comment, Steve launches into the story, how Nancy was acting cold to him, and though he hesitates to tell them how shit-faced she got - I literally helped Jonathan carry her upstairs, Steve, I already know - he tells them about it all, about what she’d said in the bathroom, and that he’d asked Jonathan to take Nancy home, because he was hurt and couldn’t look her in the face but still wanted her to make it home safely. 

Soon enough he’s telling them how Barbara had disappeared from his house, and how since everything had gone down at the Byers’, Nancy’s been slowly pulling away from him. How it felt like Steve was the only one trying to preserve his and Nancy’s relationship, and how lately, it’s been like trying to stick the same poles of two magnets together.

By the time they get to his house to grab his bat full of nails, Steve’s telling them about the dinners at Mr. and Mrs. Holland, how Nancy just wouldn’t let what happened last year go. 

“Dude.” Dustin says, because he had taken an interest in the conversation five minutes after it started, despite pretending to be annoyed at it. “We’re taking you to my place to beat the shit out of a dog-version of the monster.” Steve pales, turning green around the edges at the reminder. “Do you really think she was wrong in not letting it go?”

Jenny nods at Steve,  “Besides...It must be really hard, what she’s going through with Barb. I know that If I’d lost Mia last year when she was coming from Mike’s, I - I probably would have never spoken to Mike again.” 

Jenny’s throat constricts at the mere thought of Mia dying. 

Last year had been traumatic enough. Mia and Will going missing, the hours where she thought both of them were dead, and then just Will, and then finding Will’s fake body in the quarry and going to his funeral…God, Jenny had been so mad at Mike. Why couldn’t his parents have offered to drive all of them home? Why couldn’t Mike have offered them to sleep at his place? 

It was stupid, she knew that now. But at the time she’d been feeling terrible and wanted to just - just give someone else the responsibility. To have someone to point at and say, it’s your fault this is happening. 

Dustin turns around in his seat, throwing her a disapproving look. 

“What? I wouldn’t have, then.” She sniffs at Dustin, then turns to Steve, “Yeah, Nancy was really harsh, unnecessarily so. You’re not bullshit, Steve, and what happened to Barb was not your fault.” God, Jenny still remembers how El had screamed in that pool, how stricken Nancy had looked. “Look, Steve, I’m sorry, but honestly? Grief changes people. Nancy’s not the same as she was last year. And maybe, maybe she’s been trying to feel the same way she felt about you, tried to be that same Nancy from before and just couldn’t do it. That’s why she said you two were pretending. Maybe she just didn’t tell you how she felt before because she didn’t want to hurt you too, and then she was drunk and, well, people make bad decisions when they’re drunk, right?”

They’re nearly at Dustin’s by now. 

Steve is staring at Jenny through the rearview mirror as much as he stares out the windshield. 

 “And we’re near the anniversary.” Jenny continues, in a softer voice. “It’s just… a lot to deal with. It’s understandable, you know?”

“Yeah,” Steve’s voice falters, and he clears his throat. “Yeah, of course.”

“I...I never actually dated anyone, but I think it must not be that easy to just - let go of them. But you deserve better than getting called bullshit. Just as she deserves to have time to herself to grieve. And you said it yourself, lately, you were more worried about keeping her with you than actually enjoying being with her. Forget about Nancy’s feelings for a second. Were you happy? Were you still in love with her?”

Steve opens his mouth, closes it again. 

Dustin pats his leg, staring sympathetically at him. “Take your time, dude.”

They spend the rest of the drive in silence. 

Steve only answers her question when they’re pulling up to Dustin’s house. 

“I love Nance.”

Dustin clips off his seatbelt and lets it bang against the door. “But, dude, are you in love with her?” 

Steve’s mouth clicks shut once again.

They get out of the car, stopping to get the bat from the trunk. Jenny  rubs her hands together, a wave of anxiety crashing over her so suddenly that her jaw starts trembling.

“And -And w-what if your mom finds our bloody, eviscerated corpses by the shed when she comes back?” Jenny asks Dustin, shaking her hands to try and dispel some of her fear.  

“We’ll get to that when we get to it.” Dustin stops, then shakes his head. “If we get to it, which we won’t.”

The only way out is through. 

Steve swings his bat onto his shoulder and goes in front of them. Jenny grabs her own softball bat from the side of Dustin’s house and forces herself to follow Steve and Dustin down the backyard stairs.

They finally get to the cellar. The doors are still intact, and the lock seems to have held on, thankfully.

Steve tells them he’ll be opening the door, to which neither Dustin nor Jenny object. 

With a single move, Steve throws open the doors, bat at the ready. 

Jenny and Dustin jump behind him at the ready, with her bedazzled bat and his hockey stick, but there’s…nothing on the stairs. 

There are no sounds coming from within the storm cellar either. No growling or moving or…anything, really.

Dustin clears his throat, “I’ll stay up here in case it tries to…escape.” 

Jenny and Steve stare at Dustin. Steve shakes his head, a short incredulous breath leaving his mouth.

“What? I’m not armed!”

“You literally have your hockey stick, Dustin.”

Dustin throws his hockey stick to the grass behind his shoulder, without even looking. “Not right now, I don’t.”

“Oh, fuck it.” Steve curses, putting one foot down on the stairs. “Let’s go, Jenny.”

He goes down first. Jenny tries not to trip on her way down, and keeps her eyes on his back, terrified and so not wanting to see what they’ll find inside the cellar. 

Was the thing just waiting for them inside, ready to pounce? Would she see it in the darkness, a blur of motion in the corner of her eyes, before it jumped and killed them dead? 

Steve stops and Jenny bumps into his back. 

“Dude.” She whispers.

He just steadies her with his elbow, putting her firmly behind him. He clicks on the light -

And the room’s empty. 

There’s nothing in the storm cellar. 

Or rather, Dart isn’t there. 

There are two things in the cellar, though: a shed skin, covered in thick slime, and a hole dug through the thick brick wall, the perfect size for a monster to pass through.

“Shit.” Dustin curses when they bring him down and show it to him. “No way.  We have to tell the others.” 

He turns to Jenny, eyes pleading. 

She scoffs.

“You want me to tell Mia, Will, and Mike, that you not only hid the monster we’ve been searching for, like - the past two days, the very same monster that tried to kill Mia and Will, and that dragged Will into a nightmare dimension - you want me to tell them you not only hid it, but also fed it, and then let it escape? Me? Who has nothing to do with your mess?” She shakes her head, her braids twapping softly against her neck. “No way.”

“Please?” Dustin continues to beg, “It’s either you tell them or I’ll tell Lucas. Do you want me to tell Lucas?” 

The way he says Lucas’ name makes her stomach drop. There’s no way - 

“Maybe, while I’m telling him about Dart, I’ll just let slip that you’ve liked him since you saw him shirtless when he was mowing my mom’s lawn this summer!”

For a moment, Jenny can only stare at him, gaping, before she snaps out of it.

“Don’t you dare!” Jenny raises her softball bat, setting the tip of it against his throat. Dustin doesn’t even flinch. “Are you serious?”

Oh my god, he would really tell him? Not that he was entirely right, Jenny had a crush on Lucas ever since last year, when Lucas came riding his bike down Cherry Road with that army sweatband around his head. But he was right in thinking Jenny liked liked him.

God, would Dustin really, really tell Lucas? 

“That’s a low move, man.” Steve comments.

Dustin remains unmoveable. “All is fair in love and war.”

Steve looks at him incredulously. “Are you that immature?”

“Fine!” Jenny shouts, lowering her bat. “I’m gonna tell them. But I’ll be sleeping over at Mia’s house, and since tomorrow’s saturday, I’ll wake up when I wake up. Don’t you dare call me to help you deal with this, understood? You’re on your own now. I’m done. You gotta deal with Dart by yourself from now on.”

“Understood.” Dustin puts out a hand for her to shake. 

She clenches her jaw, and shakes it. 

*

Her parents aren’t even surprised to hear that Jenny wants to go over to the Byers’ at nearly eight in the evening. A two-minute-long phone call to the Byers later to get an okay and she’s set to go. Jenny has an overnight bag with clothes, water and protein bars and several rocks and a slingshot already packed under her bed, made up since last December in case those agents tried to come for her in the middle of the night. She shoves her bedazzled bat inside her bag. It’s too big for it, and leaves a suspicious lump on her bag, but the zipper still closes and that’s all that matters. 

Her parents don’t comment on it, anyway. In five minutes they’re out the door and making their way to Mia’s house.

Mrs. Byers greets her on the porch, Mia bouncing in place next to her. Jenny rolls down her window and waves at them. 

Mia’s whole face lights up, a dimpled, close-mouthed smile appearing on her lips.

“You call me when you want me to pick you up tomorrow alright?” Mom says from the passenger seat. “Or call me if you decide to spend another night.”

“Sure, mom. Bye! Love you.” She scoots forward to give each of them a kiss on the cheek, then scrambles out of the car. 

“Enjoy!” Dad calls out through the window.

Jenny barely pays him attention, and throws herself at Mia, who catches her with both arms around her shoulders. They spin in place, giggling, while Jenny’s mom and dad say their goodnights to Mrs. Byers from inside the car.

Behind Jenny and Mia, the door opens and Mike sticks his head out. “Could you two be any louder?”

His eyes are red, and his lower lip looks bitten raw. As Jenny watches, Mike pulls on a bit of dry skin on the corner of his mouth with his teeth, blood welling up on it. 

Disturbed, but not wanting to show it to Mike Wheeler of all people, Jenny scoffs, and opens her arms to him, making grabby hands his way. “Aw, Michael, you want a hug too, is that it?”

Mike rolls his eyes, and disappears inside the house.

Jenny and Mia glance at each other, rolling their eyes.

Mia enters the house, and Jenny follows her, halting right on the open door. 

She blinks at the living room, taking it in. Then tilts her head to see into the kitchen.

Yup. It looks just about the same.

She doesn’t know if she should just go back outside to her parents and hightail out of the house. 

Jenny had thought the lights had been a bit weird last year, but she hadn’t wanted to pry. Mrs. Byers had been out of her mind with worry for Will. But this?

This isn’t normal.

“Are those...Will’s?” Jenny asks, touching a paper covered in hasty scribbles of crayon that’s glued onto the light switch.

Mia grimaces, tugging at the bottom of her shirt self-consciously. “Yeah. C’mon.” Mia nudges her hand, urging them to continue to her room.

The entire house looks the same: filled with papers on the walls, on the floor, and even on the ceiling, rough crayon drawings of blue and black and brown lines, slashed carelessly over paper. Some sheets are ripped in places where the crayon was pressed too harshly, some are wrinkled and hastily smoothed over. 

Not only is every inch of every surface covered in paper, but the house is also freezing. It’s barely 45 degrees outside, and yet, all the windows are open. 

A cold breeze flutters through the house, silent as a ghost but as tangible as an ice cube down the shirt. The kitchen curtains billow over the sink. The half-open bathroom door swings back and forth in its hinges. On top of that, the Byers’ house had never had the best illumination. With the sheets of paper all around, casting ghastly shadows amidst all the yellow lighting, and the deathly silent and cold atmosphere of the semi-lit hallway, the Byers’ place looks and feels like something straight out of a horror movie. 

Worried, Jenny turns her eyes to Mia, remembering how badly she'd dealt with her mom’s spiral last year. Over the summer, Mia had confessed to her that she never wanted to see Christmas lights ever again. 

It had been hard trying to convince her own parents to take out the christmas lights from their tree just so Mia could spend the day at their house. But she had done it, for Mia.

So what does this whole mess mean to Mia now? Will she get an aversion to paper? Will she never step foot inside the art classroom to keep Jenny company ever again, because all the supplies will freak her out? Will Jenny have to hide her crayons?

Mia’s eyes are glazed over, her bangs all over the place. Her eyes are red at the corners, as if she’d been crying. 

God, how Jenny wishes she could just - just whisk Mia away and just tie her to her couch, so they could watch movies and rot away in front of the TV and not worry about alien monsters that may have come back from the DnD version of Hell just to try to kill them and their one superpowered friend all over again.

Jenny might be feeling a bit hysterical herself. She had never felt so terrified in her entire life, like she had last year. And she doesn’t - she doesn’t want to feel like that again, not ever. 

But now, she just might. 

There’s a demogorgon on the loose, after all.

They get to Mia and Will’s room, shutting the door softly behind them. Jenny drops her bag by the door, nodding at Will, who is sitting down on his bed next to Mike. His gray sweatshirt has a huge sweat stain along the collar, his eyes wide and raw-looking, and he’s sweating, hair wet at his temples. 

Jenny glances down at where Will’s knee is pressed against Mike’s fighting back the urge to smile.

Jenny admires Will’s ability to be so close to Mike, despite his obvious crush on the other boy. 

Or maybe it’s not so obvious, and Jenny has just had privileged information and a good position to watch them interact. Mia never told Jenny anything, though Jenny had hinted that she knew about it many times, going as far as revealing the family secret that her Uncle Leonard was sort-of married to another man back in New York. But the one time Jenny had outright implied that she knew about Will, Mia had sort of ignored her, so she hadn’t tried again. It had raised the question if Mia even knew about it.

Still, Jenny had done her best to speak positive things about gay people around Mia and Will, to see if she could try and undo the damage that their dad had done, but it was hard to get through to the twins. Mia had never said anything bad about gay people though, so Jenny hoped she’d be nice to Will when he eventually came out.

Anyways. 

It’s been hard, for her, to act normal since she started being aware of her crush on Lucas. Maybe Will can do it because him and Mike have been friends for so long, and are so close to each other.

“Hi, Will.” Jenny greets, waving at Will.

“Hi, Jenny.”

Forgoing Mia’s trundle bed, already pulled out with two pillows set aside, Jenny and Mia sit on Will’s bed, facing the boys. 

Mia starts putting Jenny up to speed on what had happened that day. Apparently, Sheriff Hopper had come to the house in the morning, he and Mia had argued, and it ended up with him driving her to a cabin in the woods, where El had been all this time.

“Hopper found her about two weeks after…” Mia doesn’t need to finish the sentence.  “El lied to him yesterday and ran away from the cabin to see us. El is speaking now, much better than she did last year. She told me they had this huge fight - all of their windows were broken, because she used her powers on him. She also threw a book at Hopper’s head.”

Next to her, Mike’s jaw is clenched, his hands shaking with anger. 

For once, Jenny is in complete agreement with him. She kind of wants to find Sheriff Hopper and use him as a piñata.

“Good for her.” Jenny huffs, crossing her arms. 

“Yeah. So, uhm...Hopper had this box filled with newspaper cutouts, these articles and old documents. And it had information on a woman named Terry Ives. Turns out she’s El’s mom - El’s name was supposed to be Jane.” 

Mia proceeds to tell her about the experimentation project the Lab had been accused of, about El trying to find her mom with her powers, and the words she’d heard her mom say, repeated over and over: Breathe, sunflowers, rainbow, four fifty. 

“We don’t know what that means, but Hopper said we could see El tomorrow, and I was thinking we could help her figure it out. All of us.” Mia says, pushing her bangs away from her face. 

“I can't wait to see her again.” Jenny bounces on the bed, making Mia fall against her side. 

Mike nods, moving against the headboard to lean his knee against Will’s once again. 

For a moment, Jenny’s reminded of when the four of them were little: they’d pitch a fort in the Wheelers’ living room on Halloween and tell ghost stories around a single flashlight. Then later, they’d fall asleep watching movies, after eating all their candy, Mike and Jenny sandwiching Will and Mia in the middle, because they usually got scared from the movies. 

It’s a nice memory. But Jenny remembers then that she’s here for more than just a sleepover. 

“I went to Dustin’s after class today.” She starts, already dreading Mia’s reaction. “He found Dart.”

Jenny tells them about going to his house, finding out Dart had eaten Mews. Told them their stupid plan of luring it into the cellar with bologna slices, about recruiting Steve Harrington for demodog disposal. About Dart running away through a hole in the wall.

“It got away?” Mia asks, voice trembling. 

Jenny notices her rubbing her left wrist and reaches out to still the other girl’s hand, squeezing it tight before letting go. 

Mike, who is as much of a helicopter mom as Jenny, stretches his leg until it bumps Mia’s knee, gently nudging her with a socked foot.

“Yeah.” Jenny says, “But Dustin and Steve are handling it tomorrow. Lucas and Max too, probably.”

Mia looks down at her hands. Her fingertips are pink from the cold, palms scratched up still from Halloween. 

She picks at the healing scabs on the meat of her palms. Mike nudges her again, waiting until Mia looks up from her hands. 

“It’s going to be fine. You’ll see.” He tells Mia, then looks back at Will. “We’ll talk to El tomorrow, we’ll ask her to help us, then we can destroy those things once and for all.”

Neither Mia nor Will seem particularly soothed by that.

Will says he’s tired soon after, so they go about getting ready to sleep. Will just curls up and lies down. 

Mrs. Byers had already prepared a sleeping bag, set aside blankets and pillows for Mike, so all that’s left is for Mia and Jenny to change and for all of them to brush their teeth. 

Mia, Jenny and Mike brush their teeth in the bathroom, standing elbow to elbow in the sink and alternating the middle spot to spit. Then Jenny changes clothes while Mia and Mike wait in the hallway. 

They bid Mrs. Byers goodnight and walk back to the bedroom. 

Jenny sees that Jonathan’s bedroom door is open, a trail of papers creeping inside his room. Jonathan isn’t inside, though. There’s only Chester curled up on his bed, eyes glimmering in the darkness. 

Now that Jenny thinks about it, she hadn’t seen Jonathan this entire time, and it was pretty late by now. 

“Where’s Jonathan?”

Mia stops for a moment, “I didn’t tell you - He and Nancy are doing something to, I don’t know, incriminate the Hawkins lab? The government? They were going to tell Barbara Holland’s parents the truth.”

“What?” Jenny whirls around to look at Mia, alarmed. Upon seeing the worry reflected in Mia’s eyes, Jenny back tracks, calming herself down and going for a joke. No use in piling up more worry on an already crappy night. “Well, good for them, I think. Why didn’t we take his bed, then?” 

Mia bites her cheek, “He was supposed to be back by now.”

Shit. Jenny shuts her mouth and doesn’t ask anything else.

They lay down to sleep, Mike mumbling everyone a goodnight before cocooning himself like a caterpillar in his sleeping bag, on the other side of Will’s bed. Jenny and Mia stay awake, sharing Mia’s bed, curled towards each other like two commas, Jenny with one of Mia’s hands between hers while they talk. 

“This will be over soon, I know it.” Jenny whispers, “Like we’ll get the sheriff in on this whole thing with Dart tomorrow, and we’ll have the adults to help us this time. They’ll figure it out.”

Mia bites down on her lip. “I hope so, but...”

Jenny understands. It’s hard to hope that things will be over so soon. 

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

Jenny felt like she was on the edge of a cliff. It felt like a movie, when things were starting to gear up towards a final battle that the protagonists couldn’t see. 

“I hope it ends soon.” Jenny says. “Maybe we can all go together to Mr. Neary’s pumpkin patch. We didn’t go this year, yet.” 

Since they were ten years old, on the day after Halloween, Jenny and Mia made their way to Mr. Neary’s farm, to help him dispose of the unsold pumpkins by smashing them. Michaela Neary had invited everyone in their History class to smash the pumpkins one year, and Jenny and Mia had been going back to the farm ever since. They even got to take home the smallest and weirdest pumpkins they could find for a few cents, which they carved into bizarre shapes and set it out for Will, Mike, Dustin and Lucas to judge. 

Last year, Jenny had won, even Mike resignedly admitting hers had been the scariest pumpkin he’d ever seen. Two days later, Will and Mia had gone missing. Jenny had never had the opportunity to bask in her victory.

“There were no pumpkins this year.” Mia whispers back to Jenny. “Mom left all our decorations for the last minute and when we got there to buy pumpkins earlier in the week, Mr. Neary said the farm was hit by this freak plague. They’re all rotten.”

Disappointed, but still hoping to keep the tradition going, Jenny shrugs, offering another possibility. “Then we go to Mr. Jones’.”

“Same thing.”

“What? Really?” Jenny asks, reeling. “How? Well. Maybe - I don’t know, we could go see Old O’Dell’s farm. He has these cool running geese or something. Max would probably like to come with. Ooh, I know! Remember that old Mill by Cornwallis? Maybe we could -”

 “Maybe we could all go to sleep.” Mike groans from the other side of Will’s bed. 

Jenny sticks her tongue out at him in the dark. Mia giggles.

“I know you just stuck your tongue out at me, Jennifer. Real mature.”

“Go to sleep, Michael.”

“I would if you just stopped talking.”

“Sorry, Mike.”

“‘s okay, Mia. You were whispering.” 

“Goodnight, Michael.”

“Goodnight, Jennifer.”

 

*

Jenny wakes up in the morning with Mia kicking her shin. 

She blinks awake, about to kick Mia back and turn around back to sleep when Will shoots up in bed gasping. 

“Will?” Mike’s head immediately pops up on the other side of the bed, eyes wide and glazed over with sleep. “Wha’s wrong?”

It’s Sheriff Hopper, Will tells them. 

He thinks Hopper is going to die.

That wakes Jenny right up. She shakes Mia awake and they scramble up, still in their pajamas to go wake up Mrs Byers. They find her in the middle of the living room, sitting on the floor and staring at the walls, the phone right next to her hip.

Mia stops at the end of the hallway, Mike hovering anxiously next to her. Will looks at them both and takes two steps into the living room, but pauses, looking back at Jenny. 

Now that it’s up to her, Jenny walks forward to nudge Mrs. Byers.

Mrs. Byers doesn’t take the news well.

She has them all go back to Will’s bedroom, where she pulls out another sheet of paper and what’s left over of Will’s set of crayons, and puts it on the desk before Will. Jenny sits on the bed while Mike and Mrs. Byers hover anxiously over Will’s shoulder as he draws. 

Mia fell still as soon as her mom pulled out the crayons, and hung by the door, anxiously twisting her hands. 

Maybe this will be another thing for her, just like with the christmas lights. 

“I’m gonna take Chester out to pee.” Mia whispers to Jenny. 

Jenny just wants her to be okay. 

She would take Mia out of this house and wrap her up in blankets and never let her go if she thought it’d do any good. 

It wouldn’t. 

“I’ll shout if anything happens.” She tells Mia, who nods, before running out of the room.

Nothing happens besides Will drawing on a random page taken out of the phonebook. Five minutes later, Mia is back and they have an asterisk shape amidst the same blue and black lines spread all over the house. And no idea of what to do with it.

“Maybe he already drew this place.” Mike offers, swiveling his head around to inspect the walls and floor. “We could try to match it?"

Mike heads to the kitchen, Mrs. Byers to the living room, while Mia tackles her mom’s room and Jenny takes Jonathan’s room. She looks at the trail of papers taped over Jonathan’s wardrobe and music station, spinning on her heels to glance at a few shapes that maybe look like what Will had drawn underneath the asterisk. It had looked like an intersection of sorts, but did it have four or five lines branching out from it? Jenny suddenly can’t remember.

“Here!” Mike yells from the kitchen. 

Jenny runs out to the hallway, Mia coming out of her mom’s room a second later.

Mike’s pointing at the Byers’s fridge, where Mrs. Byers immediately glues Will’s most recent drawing, marking an X on it with a red crayon. 

But knowing where Hopper is in Will’s drawing doesn’t translate into an actual, findable place. Hopper’s there, and probably dying, but like Mike says, they still have to figure out where the X actually is

Jenny honestly has no clue where they could even start - Will’s drawings don’t look like any map she’s ever seen. They need coordinates, references, something to help them figure out where the hell is X.

As if some invisible script of their lives had just marked his cue, Mrs. Byers’ boyfriend knocks on the door. 

And turns out he’s good at puzzles.

After a small amount of hesitation, which, fair, Mr. Bob quickly figures out that all of Will’s drawings are, in fact, a map - a map of Hawkins. He points out Lovers’ Lake and Lake Jordan. Which means…

“That’s Sattler’s Quarry.” Jenny points out a patch of wall next to the kitchen, smiling when Bob nods at her.

“Good eye, kid. And if you follow it - ” He walks over to the living room, pointing at the corner between the walls. “That’s Eno River.” 

What Will had drawn had been in fact roads. Or pathways. Recognizable only because they left empty spots where the major bodies of water were located. 

God, Jenny’s so glad that she’s surrounded by nerds all the time. She would have never realized something like that.

She’s also glad that she doesn’t have to do any math and just has to help hold the tape as Mike, Mrs. Byers and Mia measure the distances between the spots Mr. Bob had recognized earlier. 

“I’d say X is...maybe,” Mr. Bob starts, almost two hours later, tilting his head this way and that at the map of Hawkins he’d pulled out from his car. Jenny, Mia, Mike, Will and Mrs. Byers stand around him, anxiously peering down at the map as he traces a large black circle on it. “Half a mile southeast of Danford?”

Jenny tilts her head at the map, trying to read the little words on it. Wellington Road. Isn’t that where the pumpkin patches are?

 “Oh, Bob!” Mrs. Byers throws her hands up, swoops down to plant a big kiss on Bob’s cheek, “Thank you! Thank you!”

Mrs. Byers tears the paper out from under Mr. Bob’s hands, and immediately heads to the front door. Jenny shares a bewildered look with Mia, before they and the boys go running out after Mrs. Byers.

“What are we - are we really going now?” Mr. Bob shouts after them.

Jenny jumps down the porch steps, running forward and throwing the car’s backdoor open for Mia to get in. She freezes for a second, remembering that she’d left her bag back in Mia’s room. 

Shit. She doesn’t have her bat or her slingshot. They’re going in to save Hopper barehanded. 

Mrs. Byers also freezes on the driver’s door, but she’s clearly preoccupied with Mr. Bob, who is still following after them. She whirls around, map in hand and stops him before he can come down the porch stairs. 

“Bob, I’m sorry, but you can’t come.”

He pauses, throwing a confused glance at Jenny and the others. “What? But I just -”

“The car’s full, and it’s - it’s just a stupid thing really, the kids love their games.” Mrs. Byers says, sounding a bit unhinged, letting out a nervous laugh. 

“Joyce, you know I don’t want to push, but it doesn’t look like it’s something stupid.” Mr. Bob steps forward and lays a hand on Mrs. Byers’ arm, squeezing it comfortingly. 

Mrs. Byers takes a deep breath in, as if about to start arguing. “Bob-”

Mia’s already inside the car, watching Mrs. Byers and Bob through the windshield of the car. Standing so close to Mia, Jenny hears Mia’s breath cut off at Bob’s gesture, but then Mrs. Byers starts talking again and Jenny hurriedly slides into the car’s backseat next to Mia.

She really doesn’t want to hear the adults arguing. They should have already been out of here to find Mr. Hopper. 

Will is already seated at Mia’s other side. Mike’s sitting at the front, and all four of them are breathing heavily from the short run to the car, an air of anxiety and urgency hovering between them as they watch Mrs. Byers and Bob argue outside. 

“Do you think El knows that Hopper’s missing?” Mike asks from the front seat.

A jolt runs through Jenny, her hand darting out to squeeze Mia’s arm, “I totally forgot about her! What if she’s with Hopper? Did you see her in your dream, Will?”

Will shakes his head, eyes wide. 

Okay, at least El isn’t about to die. 

However - she must be alone in Hopper’s cabin.

“Then we should go get her!” Jenny urges, turning her head back to Mia, “Do you remember where the cabin was?” 

Mia opens her mouth, then shakes her head helplessly, face screwing up with guilt.  “Kind of - I don’t know.”

“Shit.” Mike curses, slapping a hand against the door. “Shit, we should have - we should have gone to her as soon as we knew that Hopper was missing. She would have helped us find Hopper and we wouldn’t be here wasting all this time! Shit!”

Oh god. Jenny hadn’t even thought of that. She had completely forgotten that Eleven wasn’t dead anymore.

Had never been dead, actually. 

If they’d found her, she could have used her powers to find Hopper. They wouldn’t have had to measure everything out and try to find Will’s drawings on a map. She would have just led them to wherever he was.

“Mia doesn’t know where she is anyway, Mike.” Will points out. “It wouldn’t have helped.”

Whatever Mike had been about to reply, they’ll never know because Mrs. Byers hops in the driver’s seat, shutting the door with a slam. 

Bob watches them through the windshield, worried. Apparently, he’s staying behind.

Mrs. Byers passes the map over to Mike, “Tell me where to go.”

*

They drive around Wellington Road and the surrounding dirt tracks for hours. They find nothing. 

After the third hour looking, Jenny has ripped the map out of Mike’s hand. Her and Mia have their heads together, trying to read with the car moving so much. Bob had said that the spot he marked gave them a radius of about three miles to look at, and they haven’t been successful so far.

“I told you there’s nothing.” Mike says, looking over his seat at them. “There’s nothing here.”

“A three mile radius isn’t exactly precise, Michael.”

“Kids, let’s not start this again.” Mike and Jenny mumble apologies to Mrs. Byers. The woman looks at Jenny and Mia through the rearview mirror, “Are we - are we close?”

“We’re in the vicinity.”

“Maybe we should try to ask one of the farmers?” Mia suggests,  “If Chief Hopper was here they might have seen something.”

“Turn right.” Jenny and Mia snap their heads around to Will. Mrs. Byers and Mike too. Will is wide eyed, but doesn’t seem to be as freak out as he was earlier that morning, a determined glint in his eyes.  “I saw him.”

“Where?!” They all ask at once.

“Not here! In my now memories! Turn right!”

Mrs. Byers pulls on the wheel.

The car makes a sharp turn, Will and Mia’s combined weight flattening Jenny to the car door. The car bounces off the asphalt and onto the field, and Jenny nearly bites off her own tongue as her teeth clack together. 

They run through a stack of hay and a wooden sign. Jenny’s screaming, Mia’s too, even Mike, until Will is suddenly yelling at Mrs. Byers to stop.

Mrs. Byers slams her foot down on the brakes. 

In the middle seat, Mia stretches out her arms to stop Jenny and Will from flying to the front, both legs bracing against the back of Mike’s and her mom’s seats.  The three of them still go lurching forward, Mia letting out a pained sound when her knees slam into her own chest. The car rocks at the abrupt stop, and Jenny slams her head back against her seat. 

Ow.

Mrs. Byers twists in her seat. “Are you kids okay?”

Mia’s hunched over her knees. Will’s grip on the door handle might have left a dent. 

Jenny gives Mrs. Byers a shaky thumbs up.

She looks out through the windshield, and right up ahead it is: Chief Hopper’s police cruiser.

“Superspy,” Mike gasps, looking back at Will with wide awed eyes.

Mrs Byers clips off her seatbelt. “Kids, I need you to stay here.”

 “Mom, no. It’s not safe!” Will shouts, gripping the back of Mike’s seat.

“It’s why I need you to stay here!” She shouts back, motioning at them to stay with her hand as if they were dogs, “Stay here!”

Mia gets up until her back’s touching the car’s ceiling, and climbs over the front seat to her mom’s place. Jenny and Will lean into the space between the front seats, and they all watch as Mrs. Byers comes up to a rough line of churned earth, disappearing into what seems to be a large crater in the ground.

They wait a minute. Two minutes. Jenny feels like her heart is going to come out through her throat.

“I don’t like this.” She says, at the exact same moment as Mike. At any other time she’d have glared at him, disgusted that they seem to share the same brain at the weirdest of times, but this time she doesn’t. She’s too worried about Mrs. Byers. 

Mia scrambles for the door handle, and throws herself out of the door. Mike follows a moment later. 

Jenny hesitates, looks at Will. 

He still looks sweaty and pale, but his eyes seem clear when he looks at her. He seems anxious, but there’s a strange glint in his eyes that makes all the hairs on Jenny’s neck rise.

“Your mom’s gonna be fine.” She tells him, thinking he’s probably worried. “C’mon.” 

And they’re both spilling out of the backseat.

All four of them huddle around the hole in the ground, peering down at it. It stares up at them, dark as the inside of the demogorgon’s maw even though it’s just after noon and the sun is high above their heads. A cold breeze wisps out of the hole in the ground, carrying the scent of wet earth and decay, and Jenny shivers, stepping back to curl her arms around herself. 

Mia hugs her from the side, rubbing down Jenny’s arms, though her own arms are riddled with goosebumps. They’re all dressed in their pajamas still, except for Mike, who had gone to sleep in yesterday’s school clothes, but at least Will and Jenny’s pajamas have long sleeves, while Mia’s is just a t-shirt.

“Are you seeing anything?” Mike asks Will, “In your now memories?”

Will shakes his head. 

Suddenly, there’s the roar of an engine behind them. 

Jenny snaps her head up, whirls around on the balls of her feet, heart lurching to her throat when three white vans come towards them from the road, white paint glimmering in the sun. She glimpses the bold HAWKINS POWER AND LIGHT written on their sides and feels like she’s just gone back in time.

It’s suddenly last November again and she’s on Cherry road, biking for her life while they get chased by government agents.

But this time there’s no El to flip the vans over, no El to save them. 

At least there’s no El at all for them to find. 

More vans arrive, and men in white space-like clothes and those terrible blue overalls come out, wielding flashlights, walkie-talkies, metal boxes and long metal things, with prongs at the tips. 

Will and Mike huddle protectively around the girls, and Jenny will never admit how comforting it is to feel Mike’s arm against hers.

They watch as the men walk around, shouting orders and inspecting the crater that Will’s mom had gone down. The four of them barely move a muscle, afraid they’ll get noticed if they move as much as a muscle.

It mostly works, until Will suddenly makes a noise as if he’d just been punched in the stomach. 

Next to Jenny, Mia grunts, staggering against Jenny’s side.

A second after, Will doubles over, and falls to the ground, limbs seizing. 

“Will!” Mia shouts, dropping to her knees next to him. 

Mike kneels next to her, hands flying over Will’s body, before he puts a hand on Will’s shoulder. Will is jerking back and forth, small punched out cries falling from his lips. 

“Will!” Mike shouts voice high with terror, “What’s wrong?”

Mia turns Will’s head, hands squeezing his cheeks. Will’s eyes are rolled back in his head. 

Jenny’s body goes hot, then cold with dread.

Will’s body goes stiff, his mouth opens and a sound unlike any other Jenny’s ever heard leaves his mouth. It’s like dozens of microphones being turned on at once, that high-pitched shriek of interference, but times infinity, in multiple different pitches. Her hands fly to her ears as she falls back to the ground. 

Mike jumps away. Mia is the only one who stays leaning over Will, hands on his cheeks.

Will shakes, and shakes and shakes. It feels like the shrieking will never stop.

Until it does. And Will starts screaming instead.

The agents surround them at once, one of them kneeling down to grab Will. Mia throws her elbow at him, hitting him in the chin. He recovers fast, snatching Mia by the arm and trying to wrench her away from Will.

“Let me go!” Mia shrieks. “Will!”

“Mia!” Mike jumps forward, trying to pull her away from the agent. 

Jenny watches from the ground. She can’t feel her legs, can’t even get up to help her friends.

An agent grabs Jenny’s arm, and something snaps inside her. 

She swings her fist, like her uncle had shown her, sending his glasses flying to the ground. More agents yell, and they’re surrounding Mike and Mia, and another agent comes and grabs Jenny’s arm again. Jenny kicks out and they grab her leg. Mike yells again, this time for them to let Jenny go, running to Jenny and shoulder checking the agent holding her leg, sending him to the ground. Jenny grabs Mike’s arm, and he pulls her up, shoving her behind him. She glues her back to him, Mia doing the same next to her. But there are too many agents surrounding them. Mike’s shouting and Mia’s crying, and Will still hasn’t stopped screaming.

Mrs. Byers comes out of the hole, surrounded by agents. Sheriff Hopper’s behind her, coughing and wheezing, and covered in dirt. As soon as he sees the ring of agents surrounding the three of them, he yells at them to let them go. 

None of them listen, and it only makes some agents come up to him to hold him back. 

Mrs. Byers runs to Will, screaming his name.

It’s a mess.

The Sheriff manages to shrug off the agents holding him, and strides up to the three of them. He grabs Jenny by the arm and pulls her behind him, dragging Mike along - it hurts, and she’ll probably bruise, but at least she and Mike are hidden by the Sheriff bulk. Mia’s clinging to Sheriff Hopper’s other arm, still crying. Mrs. Byers hasn’t even looked at Mia, shaking Will on the ground and begging for him to wake up and snap out of it, and Will is still screaming, curled around his stomach as if someone had slashed him open and was rooting at his insides with claws for hands.

There’s too much happening at once, too much noise. Jenny feels her heart in her throat, all limbs covered with pins and needles. 

Numb, she barely resists when the agents pry Mr. Hopper away from them, and stuff them all into vans. Will and Mrs. Byers are shoved into one; the Sheriff in the other; Jenny, Mia and Mike in a third van. 

An agent pushes Jenny inside and she stumbles, falling over Mia’s legs. Jenny stays where she is the whole ride, clutching Mia’s knees. There are no seats on the back of the van, just a cold metal surface, which they slide over on every twist and turn. 

It barely feels like a minute passes, before they stop again.

The doors open. Mike’s the first to crawl out. 

Outside, Mrs. Byers is screaming Will’s name.

And Will is still screaming, a terrible, hoarse sound.

Jenny grips the back of Mike’s shirt, takes Mia’s hand and doesn’t let go.

The Sheriff materializes next to them, and the three of them stick like glue to his back, almost stepping on his heels at times. Some agents pull away the Sheriff, who tries to roar at them to let him go, but he ends up wheezing and coughing, slumped against a wall.

Whatever happened in that hole in the ground had clearly affected Chief Hopper. He looks ill.

An agent shoves Jenny’s shoulder, urging her to keep walking. Mike opens his mouth as if to yell at the agent, but Jenny shoves Mike’s arm to keep him quiet. Now that her sanity’s returned, the mere idea of trying to fight back is ludicrous, and most of all, dangerous. 

These agents have guns, for Christ’s sake.

They have to be quiet. They have to comply. They’re outnumbered here, and shouting won’t do anything good.

They keep walking until the nurses wheel Will into a room. A dozen nurses and doctors flutter around his bed, but no one seems to have the answer as to why he’s still screaming.

A nurse pushes Mike’s shoulder, “You and your friends need to get out.”

Mike’s gone catatonic, staring at Will with tears in his eyes.

The nurse goes to push him again, but Jenny yanks him back by his shirt tails before she can touch him.  

“We got it.” She spits out, glad that her voice doesn’t shake around the huge knot in her throat.

There are a couple of chairs out in the hallway. Jenny kicks them together, pulls Mike back by his shirt and pushes Mia forward by a hand on her elbow and makes them sit down: Mia in the middle, Mike and Jenny at the sides.

Suddenly, Will stops screaming, and the lack of sound suddenly seems as bad as the abundance of it.

There’s only the sound of Mrs. Byers’ crying, of the nurses and doctor shouting at each other. 

For a heart-stopping moment Jenny wonders if he’d died, but then guesses that Mrs. Byers wouldn’t just be crying if he was dead. She’d be screaming.

Mia leans over her knees, long hair fanning down around her legs like a curtain, the tips of it touching the floor. Jenny rubs her hand over Mia’s back, ignoring how her fingers shake. Mike’s staring at a spot on the wall, blankly.

“Mike.” Jenny tries, hating the look on his face. Nothing. “Michael.”

He blinks, looks over at her, dark eyes far away. “What?”

She doesn’t know what she wanted to say. She’d just wanted to make that blank look leave his face. 

“Nothing.”

Grumbling, Mike squeezes his eyes shut, awkwardly craning his neck back to lean his head against the wall.

Now that Jenny’s sitting down, she notices how much her legs ache. She stretches them out across the hallway, delighting at the dirty looks the nurses and doctor bustling through the hallway throw her way. She doesn’t pull them in, and actually slides down on her seat so her legs cover almost the entire width of the corridor. A nurse even has to jump so as to not trip over her ankles.

Serves them right for what they did to El. 

For a moment she wonders if the agent that had walloped her in the head that night at school is at the lab, and her hands itch for her softball bat. 

Then she remembers that the agent is dead. Ripped apart by the demogorgon. 

What was left of his body was still in pieces in the hallway when the cops and paramedics took Jenny out of the science classroom.

Her hands don’t stop itching for her bat.

Next to her, Mike has straightened up in his seat, and has gone back to staring blankly, this time at the door that Will had gone through. Mia’s back is shaking, and Jenny can feel her crying through the hand she has on her back.

Jenny goes through what had happened in the farm inside her head, and her brain halts at what she remembers.  Mia had stumbled into Jenny right before Will fell to the ground shrieking.

“Mia,” She starts, suddenly remembering that Mia had looked sick when she came up to Jenny, Lucas, Mike and Will at the field, suddenly bending over her knees as soon as Will had snapped out of his fit. “Did you - did you feel anything? Like, feel feel?” 

Mia raises her head, pulling her hair away from her face with her forearm. Her eyes are red, her cheeks wet and puffy. She wipes her eyes with the back of her knuckles, “What?”

“Back at the school, on the football field - that whole thing with Will. You felt something then, didn’t you? Did you feel anything like that now, at the farm? You made a noise right before he had a fit.”

Mia glances from Jenny to the floor, then around to Will’s door, then back again. Jenny can practically see the gears spinning in her head - very very slowly - as she processes what Jenny had said. 

It’s alright, Jenny can be patient.

“Did you feel what he felt?” She asks again, because, no, actually, she can’t be that patient.

“I felt…” Mia looks down at her hands. Her palms are scraped up and bleeding, covered in dirt to the wrist. Her bare arms are covered in goosebumps. “It’s like - this time it felt like what I had felt back at school, but - not.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.” Mike pipes up, oh so helpful, on Mia’s other side. 

He leans down over his knees to look at Jenny, peering out from behind the curtain of Mia’s hair. 

“I - it felt -” Mia raises her hands, lays them back down at her sides again. “Back at the school it felt like there was something being shoved in my-” She stops herself, falling completely still. Even her breathing has stopped.

“Mia?” Jenny asks, alarmed. 

Mia blinks, blinks again. She looks at Jenny, at Mike, then back at her hands. She crosses a leg over the other, twisting her legs a second time at the ankles. 

“Back at the school…I - it felt like I couldn't breathe. Like there was this weight shoved inside my mouth” She continues, shaking her head. “Back at the farm I felt like - My stomach burned. You know when you throw up, but there’s nothing in your stomach, so it’s just bile and acid? It felt like that, but all over.”

“And then Will doubled over and started screaming.” Mike whispers.

Mia nods, leaning back against her chair. Jenny shares a concerned look with Mike, before she too leans back in her chair.

“And how are you feeling now?”

Mia shrugs, “Almost the same.”

Twin telepathy. Jenny knew that was a thing, even though Mia and Will were convinced it wasn’t real.

A nurse passes them by and all three of them fall quiet. She enters Will’s room, the door shutting behind her with a click. Jenny realizes then that they haven’t been whispering or anything inside the lab, and feels a cold rush go through her. What if the agents had heard everything? 

What if they now wanted to take Mia in, to poke and prod at her like they’d done El, like they’re probably doing with Will right now?

Mia leans back over her knees, arms crossed above her head. Jenny rubs her hand against her back. Mike pulls some locks of hair from under her elbows. Jenny and Mike trade a single loaded glance. 

He seems to be able to read her mind at the strangest of times, but now, Jenny doesn’t begrudge him that. 

They will not let their best-friends suffer under the hands of the scientists and doctors at Hawkins’ lab. Not today, not ever. 

Notes:

Mike wheeler: *breathes*
Jennifer Hayes: I'm about to cut a bitch

Mike Wheeler: I must protect my best friends with my life
Jennifer Hayes: you know what, you can stay

Chapter 9

Notes:

WARNING: Billy's POV deals with graphic childhood abuse and homophobia, because Neil Hargrove is canonically an abusive piece of shit

As always, take care of yourselves, and let me know in the comment if I should add more warnings

 

 

Steve Harrington couldn’t believe that this is what his life had become.

Maybe he should have realized his life was heading straight to chaos when he knocked on Jonathan Byers’ house and found himself face to face with his girlfriend pointing a gun at him.

Maybe having Nancy Wheeler, the love of his life, look him in the eyes and tell him he was bullshit had also been a sign. 

But he knew his life had started going downhill before all that, back when he saw Barb heading out to the pool with her hand wrapped in a dishcloth and hadn’t said a thing. 

Either way, this was his life now. He just had to roll with it.

After the little blonde girl had gone to the Byers’ place, Steve and Dustin had looked around his neighborhood in search of the demodog - as if that huge thing he’d beaten with a bat last year wasn’t enough - to no avail. 

They split up hours later, because it was already dark and late, but they had agreed to regroup the next day to look around the surrounding neighborhoods and the woods. 

And so dawned saturday. Steve got his baseball bat, an old shirt and a jacket, as well as a bandana to keep his hair out of his face if needed, and went to meet up with Dustin. After an awkward but somehow wholesome breakfast with Dustin and Mrs. Henderson, they had been free to go. However, Mrs. Henderson still didn’t know that Mews, the cat, had been eaten by an alien, so Dustin and Steve had been tasked with “finding” it, and letting the neighbors know to look for it. 

It made Steve feel bad, but it was Dustin’s mom, it wasn’t his problem if the kid wanted to lie to her. 

He hoped the fact that Dustin got his house cat killed and still lied to his mom about it weighed on the twerp’s consciousness for the rest of his life.

It turned out to be a good way to find out if the demodog had been active in the nearby neighborhoods. They spent the morning knocking on people’s doors to ask if they’d seen the orange cat, and since they were at it, asked if any of their pets had gone missing recently. 

Or you know, if any of the neighbors had happened to find any mauled remains of any small animals anywhere around their properties.

It was okay until one lady whose parrot had gone missing yesterday actually burst into tears on her front door, certain that it had died a terrible death. Steve had hastily apologized and shoved Dustin out of her porch, cursing that at some point in the last 24 hours he’d decided to abandon his efforts of apologizing to Nancy and taken up the position of babysitter. 

When lunch came around, in the form of delicious sandwiches made by Mrs. Henderson - which they’d kept in a lunchbox in the back seat of Steve’s car - they tried calling Lucas Sinclair, Dustin’s friend. Lucas’s sister had picked up and called them nerds for using the supercom, which fair, but still stung, because Steve was included in that category now. And the walkie talkie wasn’t even his.

Dustin had then smacked his forehead, bemoaning that he didn’t have the number of his newest friend, some kid named Max that Steve had no idea who could possibly be. Calling Mike was a dead end, and they didn’t try the Byers, per Dustin and little-blonde-girl’s previous agreement. They even tried the Sheriff’s station, but Chief Hopper wasn’t there either.

“Maybe, instead of trying to find the damn thing, we should be drawing it to us, don’t you think?” Steve asks, as soon as Dustin hangs up the phone on Flo from the Sheriff’s station. 

Steve and Dustin have walked all the way into town, and honestly? His feet are killing him. He has a car for a reason. 

Dustin thinks Steve’s idea is great, which, of course, it was his idea, so they head to the butcher shop to get some of those chunks of fat and bone which are usually on clearance. Steve’s got money but no way in hell is he wasting that on food for baby demogorgons.

As they’re hauling buckets of the stuff into his car, Steve bemoaning the fact that his car will smell like rotten meat for weeks, Dustin receives a call in his walkie talkie. 

It’s Lucas.

“Well, well well, look who it is.” Dustin mocks, putting his hands on his waist. Steve rolls his eyes at the kid’s dramatics, and slams down the trunk. They need gasoline next. Jonathan had tried to fry the monster last year, and maybe he had a reason for that. 

Steve knows next to nothing about this thing. A second-hand idea is the best he can do right now.

“Sorry, man. I had to chaperone my stupid sister to the arcade and it was turned off.”

“Well, while you were off having sister problems, Dart grew again, he escaped and I’m pretty sure he’s a baby demogorgon.”

“What? What do you mean escaped? Escaped from where?”

Wasn’t the blonde girl supposed to put Lucas up to speed?

“Didn’t Jenny tell you? Nevermind then - I’ll explain later. Just meet me and Steve down at the gas station by your house. We’re heading there now -”

“Steve? Steve Harrington?”

“- but bring your binoculars and wrist-rocket.”

They’re all set, and there’s still gasoline to be bought. “Alright, let’s go.” Steve tells Dustin, waving his hand.

“Just be there, stat. Over and Out.” Dustin tells Lucas, shutting off the call. Or whatever it is that you do to turn off a walkie talkie.

It’s a short drive to the Camping & Hunting store. Dustin says it’s closer to the gas station near Lucas’ house than the butcher shop, so they have to be fast. They buy a couple of containers of gasoline and a few lighters, as well as some nails and a hammer to put new nails in his bat. 

The cashier, Mr. Nicholson, eyes them weirdly. 

“Don’t you know the Byers boy and that girl?” 

Steve glances down at Dustin, confused. “Uh- yes?”

“You kids huntin’ monsters again?”

Steve blinks at Mr. Nicholson. “Uh-”

“Yes?” Dustin answers.

Mr. Nicholson nods, as if he expected the answer, finishing ringing up their stuff. “What the hell do y’do with all that gas? And the nails?”

“We, uh -” Steve looks down at Dustin, who shrugs. “we uh…”

“You know what? Never mind that. Should’n’ve asked.” He reaches his hand for the money, Steve hurries to give it to him. “It’s just that there was a mighty hollering behind my house last night and something ate our cat. Left it gutted by the woods. My daughter saw the whole thing from her bedroom window and said it was some kind of rabid dog or somethin’, so you kids just be careful out there if you’re thinking of going into those woods.”

“Will do, Mr. Nicholson.” Dustin says, tugging on Steve’s jacket. 

“Yeah, sure. Have a good day, Mr. Nicholson.”

They gather up their things and leave the store in silence. 

“Shit.” Dustin curses. 

“What?”

“There’s a random villager that knows about the monster, Steve!” Dustin shouts, “Do we tell the government? Do we shut up and not say anything? What if they find out Mr. Nicholson from the Camping store knows about the fucking demogorgon and think we told him? What if they kill Mr. Nicholson?!”

Steve pulls him back by the shoulder, urging him to look him in the eye. 

It’s sort of touching that while living in the middle of a literal horror plot out of some stupid sci-fi novel, Dustin still has the brainpower to worry about someone who isn’t even involved, and most likely won’t even remember this exchange next month. 

“Dude. Chill out. Mr. Nicholson will be fine. Now let’s go find Lucas, alright?”

*

They filled all their gas containers and it’s still another half an hour for Lucas to arrive. Steve and Dustin had bought some potato chips to eat, and were sitting on the trunk of his car sipping on some sodas that Steve had also bought.

Dustin has been bringing him up to speed with everything that has happened so far.

“So let me get this straight.” Steve starts, looking back at Dustin. “You kept something that you knew was dangerous, just to impress some girl you just met?”

“That’s grossly oversimplifying things.”

“Why would a girl be interested in some nasty slug anyway?”

“An interdimensional slug? Because it’s awesome.”

“Even if she thought it was cool, which she didn’t, I just think you were trying way too hard man.”

“Not all of us can have your perfect hair.”

Before Steve can reply, Lucas comes riding down the street on his bike, with a redhead sitting behind him on the seat.

“Oh shit, it’s her.”

Steve glances between Dustin and the girl. “That’s the girl you were trying to impress?”

“Yes, now shut up!”

Lucas stops in front of them, panting from the ride. The redhead frowns at Steve, her blue eyes nearly electric. What was with these little girls and their piercing eyes?

“Max!” Dustin greets, then at Lucas. “You brought her.”

“Of course. She’s a party member, remember?”

“He didn’t tell me anything, just threw rocks at my window like a big stalker.” Max says, hopping off the bike. She’s dressed in a bright green jacket and blue jeans, and something about her seems familiar. “Who are you?”

“Steve Harrington.” Steve introduces himself. “You?”

“Max Mayfield.”

It clicks. “Oh. I’ve seen you hanging around Hargrove.”

Max snorts. “Billy? Yeah, he’s sort of my brother. Stepbrother.”

“Oh. Fair.” Steve swallows down the urge to tell her that her brother is a major dick, but downs the rest of his coke instead. He throws the can on the trash he’d conveniently parked right next to. “So, this talk is nice and all, but don’t we have a demodog to catch?”

Lucas and Max share a glance. “A what?”

“Jenny named Dart’s species.” Dustin says, beaming. “It’s a Demodog!”

Steve rolls his eyes and slides off his trunk, watching as Dustin does the same to see if the kid will trip and break a bone or something. He doesn’t, so Steve heads to the driver’s door. 

“You kids can catch up on the way there.” He tells them. “Put your bike in the trunk and get in!”

*

Dustin tells Max everything, from the moment Will went missing to yesterday’s events, minus the part where he kept the demodog in his storm cellar, and that he did most of it to impress her.  

But Steve’s got to hand it to him, the kid’s got a knack for storytelling. It also helps that most of what he’s saying, Steve knew nothing about. Like the monster in Will and Mia Byers’ room wall. Them finding the fake body in the quarry. A government experiment kid with superpowers breaking Troy Walsh’s arm with her mind. 

Dustin tells them about Eleven being a government experiment, complete with the things Jenny and Mia had told him about Eleven’s time in the lab - the vaccinations, the scars. Dustin mentions en passant something about ‘doing things she didn’t want to do’ that lights up huge alarms in Steve’s head, but he gathers it’s about using her powers, and not other things. 

At least, he hopes it’s not other things.

Dustin tells them about El’s ‘father’, a creepy agent that the demogorgon had killed last year. Tells them about what went down in the school after Jonathan, Steve and Nancy had fought the monster at the Byers’ place. The agents bleeding from their eyes, the monster tearing them all apart. The monster breaking down the door to their classroom, intent on killing Dustin and his friends.

Nancy hadn’t told him any of it.

This was the first time Steve was hearing about any of this.

They’ve already started putting out a trail for the demodog to follow when Dustin tells them this Eleven girl had killed the monster, or so they thought then.

“We aren’t so sure now.”

Apparently El had been dead and showed up again, recently? And the Byers kid had been vomiting slugs and seeing shadow creatures? Like what the fuck.

Steve still hasn’t wrapped his head around that part.

Max has taken it all surprisingly well. Apparently, Jenny had told her most of what had happened, save some part or other, that she asks Dustin or Lucas, and even Steve to clarify, though Steve’s mostly useless.

Max throws a handful of meat over her shoulder, bright yellow gloves clashing horribly against her hair, and doesn’t even wrinkle her nose at the smell. Steve’s been walking behind them all to hide all the faces he’s been doing. Steve can sort of see why Dustin thought showing her an interdimensional slug would win her over.  

“But why do you think the monster’s not dead?” Steve asks Dustin.

“Because Dart is exactly like it. I mean, not exactly like it. He’s not the demogorgon, but he’s close. Maybe he’ll turn into the demogorgon after.”

Steve shudders at the thought. “Let’s hope we find it before it does.”

“Is it- is it really that bad?” Max asks, faltering for the first time.

“Honestly.” Steve tells her, “It’s worse than you’re probably imagining. I freaked the fuck out when I first saw it.” He notices what he just said and quickly amends it. “But then I bashed it in the face with my baseball bat.”

Lucas snorts. “After you ran out of there, you mean.” 

“What did you say?”

Lucas shrugs, throwing meat on the ground. They’ve reached the train tracks, they aren’t far from the old junkyard now.

“Jonathan told Mia, and Mia told me.” Lucas says, “We talk.” He turns to Max, smiling, voice full of swagger, “I, on the other hand, hit the demogorgon with my wrist rocket as soon as I saw it enter the classroom.” 

Max isn’t impressed. She looks worried. “Were you scared?”

Lucas stops, smile faltering, then vanishing. “Yeah, I was.” 

Dustin clears his throat, either jumping in to save his friend or to stop Lucas from looking cooler than him. 

Because Lucas, Dustin’s friend, was clearly into Max too. Shit. 

“So now, there’s one demodog out in those woods, probably more.” Dustin says, “And it has a taste for cats. Yesterday, he killed Mr. Nicholson’s cat.”

“The black one that hung around the Camping store?” At Dustin’s nod, Lucas groans. “Aw, man. Should have known that thing would be racist too.”

“Racist - what?” Dustin shouts incredulously, “He eats cats, Lucas! And he killed - he killed a ginger cat too. That’s not racist.”

“It is.” Max says, “Racist, that is.”

“Some people do say gingers don’t have souls.” Lucas nods his head. “Don’t you remember Kelly in first grade? Walsh and Dante made her cry just because of her hair. But two weeks later she was cussing me out, so I’m not that sorry for her.”

How did they get here? 

Honestly, these kids.

“Walsh and Dante are the ones that attacked you at the quarry?” Max asks.

Lucas nods. “Yeah, you know the one who sat in front of Mia in history on monday?”

“Oh. He didn’t seem that much of a bully.”

“Jenny punched him in the face last December. He hasn’t bothered us since.”

“Sick.”

“I know.”

Lucas walks right next to Max, their heads bent towards each other. 

Oh no. This is bad. 

This is going to break Dustin’s heart. 

That kid doesn’t deserve to have his heart broken.

They reach the junkyard by the time the sun sets. Steve watches the light hit the broken cars and the old bus, and straightens his shades.

“Yeah, this will do just fine.” He tells Dustin, hoping he can help him look cooler somehow. “Good call, dude. This plan of yours is going to work.”

Dustin whips his head to Steve, wide eyed, but so do Lucas and Max. 

“This was Dustin’s plan?” Lucas asks, disbelieving. 

“Sure was. But I’m in charge.” 

Steve puts them to work. They need a way to fortify the bus, and make a few safe spots for them to hide behind, in case they need to watch from outside the bus. There are a lot of metal sheets and heavy things, like barrels and tires and huge metal boxes. They separate the ones that are too rusty to use, the ones that are too heavy to be carried by one person, and quickly have their piles ready. 

Somehow Dustin and Lucas manage to keep talking while hauling heavy metal sheets around.

“So you haven’t heard from Mike?” Lucas whispers, thinking he’s being quiet when he’s really not.

Dustin trips over his feet, almost face planting over a blue and rusted metal sheet. “No.” 

“or Will?”

“No.”

“Hopper?”

“No! No one is around, why do you think I’m with Steve?”

Steve takes offense to that. He knocks the chair he’s holding against the side of the bus, startling both boys. “Hey, dickheads! Quick chatting like old maids. How come the only person helping me out is the random girl who has nothing to do with any of this? It gets dark in like, forty minutes, let’s go!”

“Alright, alright! God!”

“What an asshole!” 

*

It’s dark by the time they’re all set up and the bait has been doused in gasoline, a trail of it leading straight to their fortified bus. The redhead had found a ladder at some point, and made it so they could climb up to the roof of the bus. It’s the perfect watchtower, especially after they put some tires up there. Pretty genius, if you asked Steve. 

If they didn’t die a bloody death tonight, he would so be coming back to this place. The sky is pretty clear out here, and the roof would be the perfect spot to lay down with Nancy to watch the stars.

Then he remembers he and Nancy aren’t even together anymore, and he sort of wants to get back in his car and drive himself back home, get under his bedsheets, and watch some dumb girly movie that will make him cry.

He stays.

Hours pass.

And nothing of the demodog from hell showing up. 

Steve hasn’t seen the thing yet, and despite Dustin’s rather tame description, he can’t help but imagine something as terrifying as the demogorgon had been. He flicks his lighter on and off, thinking about those spindly members, and that grey skin. The shrieks that had chased him into his nightmares as the thing burned on the Byers’ hallway. 

“How did you do it?”

Steve blinks out of his trance to look up at the redhead girl. “Do what?”

She sits on a bus seat across from him, hair bright even though it’s night. “How did you wrap your head around this whole thing?” She gestures around them. “From what Dustin said, you had nothing to do with any of it, and you sort of…got thrown into it. Dropped in without even a parachute. Face to face with the monster, actually.”

Steve looks up at the stairs, where Lucas has been on the lookout with his binoculars. Dustin is outside the bus, somewhere in the fog, watching for the demodog. Neither seem close enough to hear what he has to say.

“I don’t know if I ever did.” He admits. “I just - I couldn’t leave Nancy and - even Jonathan, there, to fight that thing alone. I saw that thing dropping from their ceiling and it was…awful. We had absolutely no chance. But I couldn’t just leave them.”

“So you stayed.”

Steve shrugs, lighting up his zippo. He stares at the flames, flicks them off, blinking at the blue afterimage it leaves. He sees a shadow move outside the bus, and his heart stops for a moment, but then he sees the hat and decides to ignore Dustin hovering outside the door like a creep.

“I’d say you can still leave, but by now you really can’t.” Steve tells her. “It’s dark out and it’s one hell of a trek back and I can’t drive you.”

“I’m not scared.”

He looks over at her. She has her arms crossed, hair tucked behind her big ears. She looks ridiculously young, and Steve was suddenly reminded of Holly, Nancy’s little sister, telling Steve she wasn’t afraid of the dark. 

This summer, he’d gone over to the Wheelers’ and had to spend the night because of a huge storm that hit them all out of nowhere. The power was out, and they only had candles. Nancy’s parents had gone to sleep in their room, and Mike was crashing on Nancy’s room because Steve was there, but Holly had wanted to sleep with Nancy too, so the two girls had slept on the bed, while Mike and Steve got the floor. 

Steve hadn’t minded. It felt nice not to be alone in his huge house while a storm passed through. Mike and Nancy’s bickering made him feel nice, like he had a family for once.

Holly had woken up in the middle of the night and started crying, because Nancy had blown out the candles when they went to bed. Steve had woken up fully, while Nancy had just groaned at Holly to stop crying and rolled over in bed, falling back asleep. By the time Steve realized neither sibling was going to wake up, his eyes had gotten used to the dark enough that he could see Holly’s teary face over the edge of the bed. 

He had decided to take matters into his own hands. And it had been simple enough, in the end.

Why are you crying, Holly?  he had asked.

I’m not crying.

It’s okay if you are. Are you scared of the thunder?

No.

The dark then? 

Nu-uh.

Well, I’m scared of the dark. I always sleep with a light on, you know. I’m really scared right now. Since you’re not scared, can you help me not be scared anymore?

She had stopped crying, and had reached out her tiny hand at him in the dark. Steve had held it, squeezing her fingers softly.

Yes. She had said, voice still wet and whiny, but serious enough that it made him smile.  I’m not scared so you don’t have to be scared. I’ll protect you.

Thank you, Holly. I don’t feel afraid anymore.

She had fallen asleep holding his hand.

But Max isn’t a four year old afraid of the dark, who can be easily distracted. Still, Steve tries the best he can. “It’s fine if you are scared. You’d be crazy not to be. Just - we’ll do our best to make it out of here alive, alright? Dustin, Lucas and I, we got your back.”

She nods, uncrossing her arms. She looks up at the roof of the bus, awkwardly waves her hand towards it. “I’m just gonna…”

“Yeah, go right ahead.” As soon as she’s gone, he leans to the side, to see out of the bus door. As expected, Dustin is right there. “You can come inside, dude.”

He walks in, mouth thin. “Didn’t want to interrupt whatever you had going on there.”

Steve has to stop for a moment, to process what he’d said. “What? Ew. She’s like, twelve.”

“Whatever.”

“Don’t ‘whatever’ me. What the hell, dude. Ugh.”

Dustin does seem a bit more apologetic. “Sorry…It’s just -”

He doesn’t finish his sentence, looking up at the ceiling of the bus with a downtrodden expression. It doesn’t help that they can hear Lucas and Max talking upstairs. 

Then Steve remembers Dustin, earlier, when they were sitting in his car, Not all of us can have your perfect hair.

“Fabergé.”

Dustin screws up his face. “What?”

Steve points at his hair with his lighter. “The Hair? It’s Fabergé Organics. Use the shampoo and the conditioner when your hair is damp - not wet. Damp, you hear me?”

Steve is pretty sure that if Dustin had a notepad, he’d be writing it down right now. Steve can practically see the kid engraving Steve’s words into that head of his. “Damp, not wet.”

“Then you do four puffs of the Farrah Fawcett hairspray.”

A smile appears on his face. “Farrah Fawcett spray?”

Honestly, this is what you get for trying to help middle schoolers. What is even his life. 

“Yeah,” He leans over his knees, pointing his lighter at Dustin and lighting it up for effect. “You tell anyone I just told you that and your ass is grass. You’re dead, Henderson, you understand?”

“Yep.” The idiot has the gall to try and look earnest. 

Steve shakes his head, but flicks off his lighter.  “Okay.”

A roar cuts through the night, high and metallic, like scraping a chair against the floor, setting all of Steve’s arm hairs on end. He and Dustin scramble to look out of one of the windows. But there’s nothing outside, just that damn fog.

“You see him?”

Steve shakes his head. “No.”

“Lucas!” Dustin shouts, “What’s going on?”

“Hold on!” There’s a moment of tense silence, where Steve only hears his own heartbeat, echoing in his ears. “I’ve got eyes! Ten - Ten o’clock!”

A shadow moves when Steve looks where Lucas directed. 

There it is. 

 The shadow has the shape of a dog, but bigger, and where there should be a snout, there’s nothing. The head is just this weird oval shape, lost amidst the fog. He points it out to Dustin.

“What’s it doing?” Dustin asks.

Steve doesn’t know. It doesn't seem to be doing anything.

It’s also not taking the bait. 

“Why isn't it taking the bait?”

“Maybe he’s not hungry.” Dustin answers.

A flash of Nancy’s hand, wrapped in gauze flashes in his mind. There were knives, sitting on the Byers’ coffee table, amidst the bullets and the wire-wrapped bat, that night he went to Jonathan’s house. Steve had traced the scar left behind on Nancy’s palm as she explained to him everything that had happened. Or at least, what she had told Steve was everything.

Jonathan said it’s drawn to blood, she had said, we had to bait it somehow.

The memory of Barbara Holland, her hand wrapped in a dishtowel as she headed to his pool crosses his mind too.

“Maybe he’s sick of cow.” He whispers.

Steve knows what he has to do.

He steps away from the window, fighting the fear choking his throat. Dustin looks up at him, terrified. Their eyes meet, and somehow it steels him. Steve can’t show Dustin how scared he truly is.

I’m not scared so you don’t have to be scared. I’ll protect you.

He walks to the bus door.

“Steve? Steve? What are you doing? Steve.”

Steve turns around, taking his lighter out of his pocket and tossing it to Dustin. Dustin catches it, and Steve picks up his bat from where it had been leaning against the wall of the bus.

“Just get ready.” He tells Dustin, and this time, he can’t keep the tremble out of his voice.

He steps outside, bat raised. Swallows around his dry throat when he hears the bus door being shut behind him. This close to the ground, the fog’s thick, barely revealing the old cars and the safe spots they’d made around the bus by piling up heavy metal things. 

The creature could be anywhere.

There could be multiple creatures, all around him right now.

Steve spins the bat around his wrist, fixing his grip. There’s a weird growl from behind some cars, high-pitched, somehow. Eyes fixed in that direction, Steve walks towards their bait, whistling as if to call a dog.

“C’mon, buddy.” He whistles again, swinging his bat from one side to the other. “Dinner time.”

A shadow right up ahead. 

The growling stops. 

“C’mon, buddy. Human tastes a lot better than cat, that I promise ya.”

He can see it now, half-hidden by the fog. Crouching a few feet ahead, right in front of him. 

Then the fog shifts, and finally. 

He can see the creature in its entirety. 

Steve had never taken a really good look at the monster back at the Byers’ house. When he remembers that night, he just remembers the flashing lights, that glistening gray skin, and its skeletal limbs that ended in huge, deadly claws. His brain hadn’t been able to comprehend its head, its mouth, or even its swift movements as it advanced upon the three of them, too consumed by terror to even try.

This time, the creature is crystal clear. It crouches, like a rabid dog, its limbs abnormally long. Its muscles glisten in stark relief, its stomach sunken, as if starved. The head, despite the lack of eyes, stares straight at him - and it opens, letting out a low high-pitched growl, revealing its flower shaped mouth.

The terror from last year floods Steve’s veins. The bat nearly falls from his grip. His mouth tastes sweet, like bile, and his legs tense with the urge to run.

But he can’t run this time. Dustin and Lucas and Max - they’re depending on him. Depending on him not to be afraid.

 “Steve!” Lucas shouts, voice strangled. Steve’s heart slams against his chest, “Watch out!”

He gasps in a breath through the knot in his throat, “A little busy here!”

He can’t afford to look away from the thing. But it stays there. Still. Just staring.

“Three o’clock! Three o’clock!” 

It’s the pure terror in his voice that makes Steve look. 

On the pile of cars behind him, another creature appears, its mouth open, fangs shining. Two others appear on the ground, on each side of the rusty red car, coming out of the fog like a nightmare made flesh.

All of his courage dies a swift death.

There are four of them, and just one of him. 

He won’t win.

“Steve!” He hears Dustin shout. There’s the squeak of the bus doors opening. “Abort mission! Abort!”

He starts looking back at Dustin, but the first creature moves, its whole mouth opening as it shrieks and charges at Steve.

He jumps out of its way, rolling on top of the hood of a car and landing on his knees. The demodog’s paws slide on the metal, and it crashes against the seats inside. Steve barely has the time to get up when another blur of movement comes at him from the side. He snaps his head towards it, his arm swinging along with his spiked bat, catching a creature straight in the face and sending it flying back.

The kids are yelling at him to run, to move, to get to the bus, the door of it open and waiting. The creatures are growling, low metallic sounds that he feels in the back of his throat. 

Steve spins on his heels and runs.

He feels them following, a displacement of air near his heels that make him think of long limbs and claws. Steve grabs Lucas’ hand, jumping through the door just in time to land on his back and kick it shut with his foot.

The creature slams against it, screeching. Dustin and Lucas are screaming. Steve had landed on top of Dustin, who moves like an eel behind Steve’s back, trying to get out from under Steve. Steve grabs onto a seat and hauls himself up, staring out through the windshield of the bus. 

One of the creatures crashes against the door again, and Max screams. 

“The door!” 

Steve doesn’t know who yelled it, doesn’t even know if it was him, but Lucas grabs a metal sheet and holds it against the door with both his legs, braced against one of the old leather seats. 

There’s a bigger crash, and the whole bus rocks to the side, sending them stumbling to the wall.

A clawed paw breaks through the metal sheet on the door. 

Steve jumps to hold the door with his legs as well, then grabs his bat, screaming, and swings it as hard as he can, holding himself only with his abs. The arm doesn’t budge, continues to claw at the inside of the door, and it’s like the nails haven’t even pierced its skin. His abs burn. Steve brings his bat down again, and again, and again. Fuck. He can barely breathe.

Through the rush of blood in his head, he distantly hears Dustin calling out for help in his walkie talkie. 

“Is there anyone there?! Mike? Will? God, anyone!” 

The arm on the door retreats. Steve falls to the floor, arms pounding with the beating of his heart. The creature throws itself against the bus doors, making the whole thing rock again. On the opposite end of the bus, the kids scream, running towards the stairs in the middle of the bus. 

“We are at the old junkyard and we. Are going. To die!”

The arm appears on the door again, Steve sits up again and swings, finally clipping it with a nail and sending a spray of blood over his stretched out legs.

Suddenly, there are two heavy thumps against the ceiling. 

The four of them freeze, Max with her hands and one foot on the ladder.

She looks up at the ceiling, and Steve knows what’s up there. 

He scrambles to his feet, shoes skidding over the blood by the door. 

The demodog on top of the ladder growls. Max screams.

“Out of the way, out of the way!” Steve pushes her away. The creature stares down at him through the hole in the ceiling, petaled mouth open and dripping. 

Steve shouts, fueled by the terror in his gut. “You want some?! Come get it!”

The creature roars, head snaking into the bus. Steve knows he can’t fight it. It’s too small inside the bus, there’s not enough room for him to swing. 

Steve can’t protect the kids. He can’t.

He grips his bat, willing to try.

But the thing stops roaring, mouth closing up. It leans back on its haunches, head tilting up, as if listening to something far away.

It makes a soft thrill in the back of its throat, then retreats. 

It jumps off the roof, rocking the bus. 

Steve stares at the opening in the ceiling, eyes dry and burning, frozen.

Roars echo outside, and he snaps his head to the window, raising his bat. A second passes, in utter silence, then two. Slowly, Steve heads to the bus door, opening it just an inch. He tries to slip through the gap with his bat in front of him, but the door snaps, opening all at once.

He bites his lips, eyes flying around the junkyard. 

Something moves in the fog - a demodog, running.

Running away from them.

“What…Happened?” Lucas asks, climbing out of the bus. 

Max’s voice shakes. “I don’t know.”

“Did Steve scare them off?” Dustin asks. 

Steve leans his bat on his shoulder. 

“No. No way.” The creature had been about to eat him, he’s sure. He turns to the kids, thinking of the monster melting into the floor of the Byers’ hall. “They’re going somewhere.”

*

 Billy is getting himself ready for his date with Carrie Winston. 

The Four Horsemen by Metallica blasts from his speakers as he flicks on his lighter, putting the flame to the end of his cigarette. He inhales, leaning back his head, and exhales the smoke through his mouth and nose, jumping to the guitars of the song. He puffs some spray in his hair, gets that curl to fall just right between his eyes. He grabs his cologne next, puts it on his wrists and elbows, and then shoves his hand inside his pants to put it on his hips, and on the insides of his thigh, next to his dick.

He looks at himself in the mirror, meeting his eyes and grinning. He looks hot as fuck in these jeans and his red shirt makes his eyes look bluer than usual. He winks at his reflection, running his tongue over his teeth.

He twists his torso, and light catches on his earring. On his necklace. 

His eyes are drawn to the pedant peeking through the top of his shirt, the smile on his face vanishing. 

Saint fucking Christopher. The satan-follower turned Christ-follower, turned martyr who carried Christ across some river.

Saint of surfers and mariners, his mom had said, before she had given him a pendant that was an exact match to the one she had around her own neck. 

Turns out Saint Christopher was the patron of travelers too. 

He wonders if his mom had prayed to him, before she left. St. Christopher was the patron saint of children too, but Billy had stopped praying to him long ago.

Billy meets his own eyes in the mirror, catches a glimpse of something too vulnerable in them and sneers. He wrenches his hand away from his necklace, unaware he’d been gripping it in the first place, and leans close to the mirror, staring deep into his own eyes. 

He had the same eyes as her.  The same eyelashes. The same golden curly hair. His father loved to talk about that last one, loved to grip it in his fist.

Man up. He tells himself, blowing smoke against his face. You’re going out tonight and that bitch means nothing to you. 

His eyes are his own. His hair is his own. His dad isn’t home.

Billy winks at himself, a grin stretching the corner of his mouth.

A knock on the door. Billy eyes snap to it, dread curling in his stomach.

“Billy?” It’s Susan. 

Fucking Susan. Wasn’t she still out with his dad? What was she doing back? Was his dad back too?

“Yeah? I’m a little busy in here, Susan.” He calls out, pretty fucking nicely. 

But then again, Susan was sort of nice. She treated him well, made his favorite dinner on his birthdays and always referred to him as her son. Perhaps, he would hate her less if she hadn’t just stood there and watched his father beat him to a pulp on that day that made them leave California.

“Open the door, right now.” His father's voice comes from the other side of the door, making him freeze.

He sounds too placid to be angry, too loud to be calm.

Billy leaves his cigarette on his side table. 

Speak of the devil. 

He opens his door, careful to school his features into a neutral expression. “What’s wrong?”

His dad clenches his jaw. Him and Susan must have just gotten back from wherever the hell they’d been all afternoon, still in the clothes they’d put on to go out that evening.

“Why don’t you tell us?”

This isn’t happening, not again. 

“Because I don’t know.” He tells his dad, eyes flicking to Susan. 

Had they found out he was seeing someone tonight? Had Maxine opened her fat fucking mouth again? 

He was going out with a girl this time, it was supposed to make his dad happy and to get him off his back. Why the hell did they look mad? Did they think this was like the last time? 

But Susan isn’t disgusted, like she’d looked then. She’s worried. “We can’t find Maxine.” 

“And her window was open.” Dad completes. 

Fuck. 

Fuck, fuck, fuck. 

His mind races, trying to figure out the last time she’d seen the girl. Fuck. Billy hadn’t seen her the entire afternoon, ever since they got that knock on the door. The little bitch had told him it was just mormons. He hadn’t believed her of course, but he hadn’t seen anyone when he’d opened the door later, and then she’d gone and locked herself in her room. 

Turns out she had just slithered out of her window, like the snake she was.

So that’s why she hadn’t answered when he called her for dinner. He thought she was just in a pissy mood because he broke her skateboard. 

That had been a dick move on his part, admittedly, which is why he hadn’t bothered her for the rest of the day. 

He should have fucking known better than to take pity on fucking Maxine.

Billy looks back in his room, anxiety and anger twisting his stomach. 

“Where is she?” Dad asks, voice raised. 

“I don’t know.”

Dad smiles, and Billy’s heart starts racing in his chest. “You don’t know?”

“Look, I’m sure she just…I don’t know -” Billy swallows, a nervous smile on his face. “Went to the arcade or something. I’m sure she’s fine.”

He steps away from the door, hoping to put distance between him and his dad, eyes to the ground. 

But his Dad enters his room, filling the entire space just with his presence. “You were supposed to watch her.”

Billy rolls his shoulders to rid himself of the tenseness in them. If he could just get past his dad, he’d get to leave his house and be on his way to his date. He grabs a random dark jacket and pulls it on, feeling it settle over him like a second skin, emboldening him. 

He gets cocky. He gets stupid.

“I know, Dad. I was. But since you guys were three hours late, well… I have a date now.” He says, realizing his mistake halfway through and finishing his sentence softer than before, turning around to stare his dad straight on. “I’m sorry, okay?”

His dad crosses his arms, looking over at Billy’s mirror. At the cologne and the hairspray that Billy hadn’t thought to put away.

Dad nods his head at them. “So that’s why you’ve been staring at yourself in the mirror like some faggot instead of watching your sister.”

The word makes something ugly rear its head in Billy’s chest.

“I have been looking after her all week, dad!” He raises his voice. God, he’s so fucking sick of Max. Of Dad. Of Susan. Dad raises his eyebrow and Billy’s heart slams in his chest. “Okay?! If she wants to run off then that’s her problem, alright?”

His dad glances back at Susan, and so does Billy. Dad hasn’t moved an inch, but Billy can feel his anger growing, occupying the room like a toxic cloud. Billy’s legs tighten up, urging him to move. His album is still playing, the guitars hurting his ears, too damn loud.

“She’s thirteen years old, she shouldn’t need a full time babysitter.” Billy continues, moving to turn off his music. “And she’s not my sister -”

Dad strikes when he has his back turned, shoving Billy against the shelves next to his closet. Billy manages to turn around and not get his face smashed against his shelves, and his dad grips him by his jacket, getting right up in his face. 

Billy stares at him, hatred and fear burning in his veins. His breath is loud in the quiet room, his fear clear as day. He’s shaking too, and he hates it. Hates how weak he is, how scared and pitiful. Hates it so fucking much.

“What did we talk about?” Dad says, deceptively soft.

Billy clenches his jaw, and doesn’t answer. He knows this game. He isn’t playing it tonight.

Pain bursts across his cheek. His head snaps to the side before he even registers the slap. 

His father’s hand grips him by the jaw, forcing his head back up as he raises his pointer finger. “What. Did. We talk about?”

“Respect and Responsibility.” Billy says, lightheaded from lack of oxygen, as his breaths leave in short, fast puffs. 

Too short. Too fast. 

He’s shaking, still.

“Yeah, that’s right. Now - apologize to Susan.”

Billy blinks the dark spots out of his eyes, glances at Susan at the door. The woman meets his gaze for a second, before looking away. Billy looks back at his dad.

Hatred pierces his chest, deep like a spear through the heart.

“I’m sorry, Susan.” He says.

“It’s okay, Neil, really -”

“No.” Dad raises his voice, “It’s not okay. Nothing about his behavior is okay. But he’s going to make up for it.” His dad lets him go, turning his back on Billy. “He’s gonna call whatever whore he’s seeing tonight, and cancel their date. And then.”

Dad turns to him. 

“He’s going to find his sister. Like the good, kind, respecting brother that he is. Ain’t that right, Billy?”

Billy swallows, face burning. 

“Isn’t that right?” Dad shouts, advancing on him.

It takes everything in Billy not to flinch, not to look away, not to let the tears he can feel gathering in his eyes fall. His dad hates it when he cries. “Yes, sir.”

Dad exhales through his nose. Billy tenses. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you.” 

Billy doesn’t dare look away from his father’s eyes, and repeats himself louder this time. “Yes. Sir.”

“Find Max.” Dad orders in a whisper, dark eyes promising just what will happen to Billy if he doesn’t obey him.

Dad turns around, walks out the door, Susan closing it behind him. 

Billy squeezes his eyes shut, holding down the sob wanting to crawl up through his mouth. His hands are shaking, and his thighs hurt, as if he’d run a marathon. Tears roll down his cheeks and Billy bares his teeth, grabbing a random bottle on the shelf behind him and throwing it to the ground. 

Fucking Maxine. 

He was going to find her. 

And he was going to make her pay.

He would start at the arcade, and if that didn’t work? Well, he’d go pay a visit to her little friends. What was the name of that blonde girl again? 

Jennifer fucking Hayes. 

Billy grabs his car keys and his pack of cigarettes. Neil glares at him from the couch when he walks past the living room. Billy could once again see the promise in his eyes, could see just what would happen to him if he came home empty handed.

Billy would make sure he didn’t come back empty handed. 

*

“You’re positive that it was Dart?”

Dustin nods at Lucas. “Yes, he had the same exact yellow pattern on his butt.”

How had Dustin seen that? Steve most certainly hadn’t.

“But he was tiny two days ago.” Max says.

“He’s molted three times already.”

Wait, what? Steve turns to Dustin, “Molted?”

“Molted. Shed his skin to make room for growth like hornworms.”

What the hell are even hornworms. Steve shakes his head, sweeps his flashlight out to the trees around them. They’re back on the train tracks, making their way back to Steve’s car.

“When is he going to molt again?” Max asks Dustin.

“It’s gotta be soon. And when he does, he’s going to be fully grown, or close to it. So will his friends.”

Steve snorts. “Yeah, and he’s going to eat a lot more than bologna slices and a cat then, Dustin.”

“Wait. Bologna slices?” Lucas asks, pulling back Dustin. The four of them stop, Lucas holding Dustin by the shoulder. “Dart ate bologna slices? Where?”

“No. What? No, he… back at the Hunting store.”

“What are you talking about?” Steve said, confused. “You gave those to him.”

Max, who had come to stand next to Steve, turns to him. “What? Why?”

“Dustin was trying to lure it out of his house and into his storm cellar.”

“Steve!”

Oh fuck. Right. Dustin hadn’t told that particular tidbit in his story. He’d told them he’d found the thing, but not that he’d been keeping it in his house and lured it to his cellar. Right. Fuck. Oh well.

“What? Wasn’t Jenny going to tell him yesterday, anyway?” What was the harm in telling him now?

“I knew it!” Lucas turns on Dustin, “You kept him!”

“No! No, No - I - I…”

Steve, Max and Lucas stare at Dustin. 

“He missed me. He wanted to come home.”

“Bullshit!”

“I didn’t know he was a demogorgon!”

“Mia and Will literally told us, Dustin.”

Max huffs next to Steve. “Guys, who cares right now? We have to go.”

She’s right. Steve doesn’t like the fact that they’re just standing in the woods, shouting, in the middle of the night, when they’d just seen a handful of demodogs. He doesn’t know how Amanda Byers had managed to run through these woods after just seeing her brother get abducted by the demogorgon last year. He’d have frozen in fear and gotten killed by the demogorgon before he could even take a step into the woods. 

“I care! He put the party in jeopardy! You broke the rule of law!”

“I - I didn’t!”

“And just now, you tried to lie to me! What happened to our most sacred rule, friends don’t lie?”

“I didn’t lie to you!”

“Yes, you did!”

“Guys -”

A branch breaks in the woods. Steve snaps his flashlight away from the arguing trio, sweeping the tall, dark trees. 

There’s a low, sibilant sound that sets his hair on end.

“Your little pet could have had us for dinner!”

“That was not my fault!”

Another sound, from a different direction than before. And another. They join in a chorus, like cicadas in the summer. Steve shudders, terror squeezing his stomach.

“Hey, guys?” Steve calls. The sound grows louder. “Guys!”

They stop arguing. Steve turns his flashlight back to the woods and raises his bat, following the sound. A moment later, he hears two pairs of footsteps following behind him.

“Hey, hey, Guys! Why are you heading towards the sound?!”

Steve can’t argue with Max’s logic, but he’s pretty sure the sound is coming from far away. He thinks. 

He hopes.

They have to know where it’s coming from. 

Max ends up following, in the pocket of space between the three of them, since she’s the only one without a flashlight. They come up to a cliff, overlooking the woods. Distantly, to the left, there’s Hawkins, covered by clouds of fog. Steve can see a few cars driving down Cornwallis, and the road near his house. 

“It’s the lab.” Lucas says. He has his binoculars to his face, pointing at some point to the right. Steve can’t see anything, this far away, but he thinks he sees a few lights amidst the trees where Lucas is pointing. “They’re going back home.”

Steve looks at Dustin, who looks at Lucas, who looks at Max.

“You guys ready for some more walking?” Steve says, swinging his bat up to his shoulder.

“Are you insane?” Max asks, looking wide-eyed between the three of them. “Why are we heading there, if that’s where the monsters and those government agents are?”

“We haven’t heard of the others in ages.” Dustin tells her. “The whole day, in fact. Now the monsters are just…going there? Out of nowhere, when they could have eaten us? The last time the monster got drawn to something, it was to a carnage, and El had just blown up the heads of a dozen agents.”

“She didn’t blow up anyone’s heads.”

Dustin throws his arms up, “But there was blood, Lucas! Hear me out - what if El got caught by those agents while she was running through the woods, Mike, Jenny and the others found out somehow, got Hopper, and they all went in there to save her?”

Max turns to Steve. Steve shrugs, “I just thought we could look around from the outside and see what the hell caught their attention. I was thinking more along the lines of…if there’s a leader demogorgon that’s calling them back, and if they have an evil lair or something, we should know about it?”

Max bites her lip, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Do you guys really think Jenny and Mia could be in danger?”

Lucas and Dustin share a look. But then a branch snaps where they had been, and the four of them whirl around to it, Steve dropping his flashlight and holding his bat with both hands, sure that a demodog had followed them through the woods.

But it’s not a demogorgon they find. 

It’s…a child? 

With brown curly hair and a huge jacket that’s clearly not theirs. 

“El?!” Dustin and Lucas say at the same time.

Steve snaps his head to the boys, then back at the girl. This is Eleven? The girl who had powers?

She winces at the lights Dustin and Lucas are still holding to her face, an arm raised to cover her eyes. There’s a dark smudge on her wrist. Steve can’t see it exactly, but he remembers Dustin telling Max earlier about everything that had happened last year. He’d said Eleven had a tattoo on her arm, marking her as a numbered experiment. 011. 

Oh shit. The experiment girl. With powers. Was right in front of him.

The girl nods her head. Dustin and Lucas lower their flashlights, both running to her. 

Dustin gets there first, and throws his arms around her. 

“Why did you run away?!” He shouts, clutching her close to him.

Lucas hovers around them, “We looked everywhere for you!”

Eleven, who had her eyes closed as Dustin hugged her, opens her eyes and steps away from Dustin. Lucas jumps in to hug her, and she holds tight to the small of his back. Max shifts next to Steve. El’s eyes turn to her, then to Steve. 

She steps away from Lucas. Her dark eyes are also, somehow, piercing. What the fuck was up with these tiny preteens.

“Hop called. Earlier. He said he was gone for long time…because ‘something came up’. He said he will be home soon.” The girl says, speech stilted, and awkward. “He wasn’t home soon. And I looked for him.”

Lucas nods, “Like you searched for Will?” 

Steve shares a glance with Max, remembering what Dustin told them about El’s powers.

El nods. “Hop was…worried. Scared. Mike was…yelling. He said ‘it’s a trap’. That he ‘has to warn them, it’s a trap’. Mia and Jenny…were with him. Holding him.” She demonstrates, curling her arms around Dustin’s arm and chest as if to hold him back, “They wear clothes like mine, back home. I didn’t find Will. I found you next.”

I didn’t find Will. She said. 

Nancy had told him only once about El trying to find Barbara, and from what Nancy told him…

Hadn’t El not been able to find Barbara because she was…dead?

“They are in the lab then. They’ve been there long enough to wear those medical clothes too.” Dustin concludes, to Steve’s relief, because he didn’t understand anything. Dustin snaps his fingers, “Something must have happened to Will then, Mike told us he was acting weird - shit, the demodogs are going to them! We have to go!”

Fuck, what if the kid is dead already? “Hold on, Dustin! Dustin!”

But Dustin and Lucas have already left, running. El made as if to follow, but didn’t go after them, hanging back, head turned to Max and Steve. Steve trades another glance with Max, annoyed at the boys, and bends down to pick up his flashlight.

They walk up to El. 

“Hey, uhm, El. Eleven. I’m, uh, Steve.” He introduces himself, scratching his chin with his flashlight and nearly blinding himself by pointing the beam at his face. “Ow - I’m Steve Harrington. Nancy’s bo- uhm, friend. Just friend.”

Max holds out her hand to El. “I’m Max. I don’t know if you remember me. Uh - we’ve met before, at the school.”

“You yelled at Mike.”

Steve’s eyebrows go up, but it does check out with the girl he’s seen today. Max winces, crosses her arms. “Mike was being a dick.”

El stares at her for another moment, then smiles. “Mia likes you.”

“Oh.” Max startles, glancing up at Steve. “I like her too. She’s my friend. I think.”  

Steve can only see Dustin’s and Lucas’s flashlights by now. “Uh - I think we really should get going.”

They run to catch up with Dustin and Lucas, which isn’t hard as both boys had stopped to argue about which way they should take to the lab. Steve tells them both to shut up and get on already.

Max sometimes walks up ahead with Lucas, then sometimes hangs back to walk with Eleven, who has attached herself to Steve’s side for some reason. Maybe because of the flashlight. 

Dustin and Lucas seem to know the way to the lab, and whenever they falter, El nudges them in the right direction. Lucas and Dustin bicker the entire time, still on that same discussion from before about Dustin breaking the rule of law or something. El doesn’t seem much of a talker, doesn’t even open her mouth, except for once, when Lucas insists that Dustin lying was a capital sin against the party and Max asks what that whole thing means and El just sagely nods her head, saying, friends don’t lie.

Doesn’t really explain anything, but Steve doesn’t feel like asking for elaboration. He’s getting tired, and the adrenaline from before has completely worn off. His feet are killing him. Steve hasn’t walked this much since he dropped the track team in eighth grade.

Dustin has no problem with asking questions though. After about half an hour of walking, he turns his flashlight on El. “You know, you haven’t told us yet how you are not dead.”

El nods. 

Lucas and Dustin stare back at her, waiting.

El clearly hasn’t understood it’s a question. “He’s asking how you’re here. He wants to know why you’re alive, and not dead like they all thought.” Steve explains. 

El nods again, this time furrowing her brows, thinking. “I…was in the Upside Down.”

Oh shit. That place that Will went to? Where the monsters were?

“Mike was right. You did shadow walk back there.” Lucas says, before fear crosses his face. “Is the demogorgon alive too?”

El shakes her head and relief courses through Steve. 

Thank fuck. At least they have that going on for them.

“What’s shadow walking?” Max asks.

“It’s a D&D spell. You can travel long distances using the Plane of Shadow, in a short period of time.” Dustin explains, “You can travel between two places in the material plane or any other plane that borders the Plane of Shadow, like, in this case, the Upside Down. You can carry another creature with you as long as you touch it.”

“The Upside Down is where Will was.” Steve says, thinking about Dustin’s explanation. “And the..Shadow Plane is…what exactly?”

They turn to El, who’s deep in thought.

“The black place. With…water, on the floor. I go there to find people.” She tells them.

“Black place?” Max asks her.

El looks back at the redhead, nodding, “Nothing around me. Until I look and find people. They -” She motions with her hands in front of her.

“Appear?” Max suggests.

El frowns at her and Steve jumps in to explain, feeling as though he was talking to Holly, having to explain things that the little girl didn’t understand. “Like, just show up in front of you, like Dustin and Lucas are right now. One moment they weren’t there, and then they were.” 

“Yes. They appear there. But they are not there. Just pictures. And sounds.”

“Shadow walking doesn’t allow spionage.” Dustin says, as if it mattered. “This sounds like you can spy on people.” 

“Can people know that you’re there?” Lucas asks, stepping over a big rock.

El shakes her head. “No. Except Will. And mama. And…demo- demo…”

“The demogorgon.”

El nods at Max.

“Wait ‘mama’? Do you have a mom now?” Lucas asks, at the same time as Dustin.

“The demogorgon? Shit!”

El looks between them, as if confused as to who answer first. She ends up just nodding. 

“Wait.” Dustin says, just catching up to Lucas’ words. “Is your mom as psychotic as your papa?”

What’s with the mama and papa thing? Who was Eleven’s papa again?

Eleven frowns, looking up at Steve.

“What?” He asks her.

“What’s…Sy-koh-tic?”

Nice. He’s a dictionary now. “Psychotic? That’s like…crazy evil.”

“Oh. No. Mama’s nice. Just sick.”

“Oh, that’s good then. Not your mom being sick, but you know, her not being as crazy evil as your papa was. Wait, since when do you know about her?”

“Yesterday.”

“Oh.”

“That’s like…pretty recent.” Lucas adds.

El just nods her head.

They get to a ravine, and Steve helps El and Max go down, letting them lean on his arm and offering his hand when they have to jump between rocks.

“Can you find anyone, anywhere?” Max asks Eleven, panting. They have just reached the bottom of the ravine, and the woods are getting thinner as they hopefully get closer to the lab. 

For a moment, Steve thinks he can see some lights up ahead, but as he narrows his eyes at the woods, there is nothing there now.

“Yes.” El answers. 

“When can’t you find someone?”

Dustin and Lucas snap their heads to El. 

El bites her lip, looking away. Steve’s earlier concern returns, and El’s next words just confirm his fears.

“Dead. When person is dead.”

Notes:

Steve adopts two more little nuggets

Chapter 10

Notes:

Here we go, folks

 

 

It’s gotten dark outside by the time the doctors finally allow them into Will’s room. 

They’ve all been given changes of clothing, green sterile scrubs that make Mike shudder just from looking at them. 

Hopper has returned from wherever they’d taken him, skin still pink and hair wet, also in green scrubs. Mrs. Byers had been taken to one of the meeting rooms to talk to Will’s doctors. 

Mike, Jenny and Mia bring the chairs from the hallway to Will’s room and set them by the bed. Will lies on the bed, a handful of monitors surrounding it, thick black cables sneaking out of his shirt to connect to some of the monitors. But he’s asleep, and not screaming anymore. His skin is pale, his eyelids dark and bruised.

Mike sits down, leaning his head on his hand, and watches him. Now that they’ve stopped and sat for a while, exhaustion has started to creep in. His feet hurt. He’s so tired he could fall asleep sitting up. Jenny was already asleep, curled into a ball on her chair, her head on Mia’s left thigh, braids nearly touching the floor.

“You can sleep if you want to.” Mia whispers, leaning next to his ear. 

Mike turns his head to her. This close, her eyes are vivid green, like the end of a bottle. But under the harsh white lighting of the Lab, the yellow around the pupils is much more pronounced. It sort of reminds him of her tiefling character, Orianna, whose eyes were entirely gold. 

Mike wishes they were playing D&D right now. He wishes this was one of the campaigns where they defeat the monster and miraculously make it out alive. 

He wishes they weren’t living through this again. 

Real life didn’t have dice rolls, spells and divine powers. Here, Mike didn’t have a sacred sword or a shield, he couldn’t heal with a touch of his hand. Mike only had his weak hands and his weak arms, and his weak legs to keep him alive. 

Mike only had that, and his oath, to protect and stand by his Party til the very end. 

Contrary to friends don’t lie, the oath of their entire group, this one was an oath that only Mike knew about. Aid others, protect the weak, and protect those entrusted to your care were his oaths as a Paladin, which his friends were very much familiar with, but protect your family no matter the cost sounded too corny to say out loud, so Mike never did.

But the truth was that in real life, Mike made for a very shitty paladin. Will was hurt, once again. El was missing, again. And here Mike was, stuck watching from the sidelines, reacting to everything that happened instead of having his god predict what was to come. Here, he was unable to lead, unable to protect, unable to heal. 

Praying to Tyr wouldn't do anything in this situation. There wasn’t much justice in the real world.

“It’s fine.” Mike whispers to Mia, “I’m fine.”

“You can say that you’re tired, Mike.” She insists. “Look, I’ll watch him, alright? I’m sure that in a few hours we’ll be out of here.”

Her bangs are all clumped together to the side of her face. She’d tried washing her face in the sink that’s in Will’s room, and gotten rid of most of the dirt and sweat that had accumulated from their ten minute stint in the farm field, but her hair is still wet and dark, sticking to the skin of her forehead and neck. Jenny had done the same, but she had braided her hair before, so at least her hair was dry. Mike had vigorously scrubbed his face, and was pretty sure he was in the same situation as Mia, so he couldn’t really say anything about her appearance. 

Besides, he had other things to worry about, like the bags under her eyes, for instance, as dark as the bruises on Will’s eyelids, and her shaking hands, which she tries to hide by tapping her fingers against her thigh. 

Mike reaches out to still her hand, having a strange sense of deja vu. Her hand is cold, like Will’s had been yesterday when they talked about spying on the Shadow Monster in his room.  

He wonders if Mia still feels like she’s burning, like she’d said earlier in the hallway. 

Once again, he wished he could use Lay on Hands in real life. 

“You’re the one that should be asleep.” He tells her, holding her hand tighter and hoping that it would do something.

Mia shakes her head. She looks around, leans closer to his face, whispering. “I’m sorry I didn’t know where El and the cabin were.”

Mike frowns, “What? No, that’s - you don’t have to be sorry. Honestly, I think it was for the best. Clearly, they’ve been watching us. We would have led them straight to El if we had tried to go get her.” Mike squeezes her hand, but Mia still looks bothered. “What is it?”

“I feel like - I feel like all I’ve done is react to things.” Mia blurts out. She glances over at Jenny, who’s asleep. “I’m not even sure I react to things. They just happen and I’m this - this useless lump of tears. Last year you all had to protect me all the time and all I could do was cry and, and I don’t know. It’s just…It’s all happening again and it feels like I’m the same as last year. I’m sick of it. I wish I could do something to help.”

Mike lets go of her hand to put an arm around her shoulder, squeezing her arm. Mia leans her head against his shoulder, hair tickling his neck. 

“You have been helping.” At her incredulous look, he continues. “You have. You found out Chief Hopper had El all this time, and you went there and talked to her. You helped her figure out who her mom was, that’s not nothing.”

It was more than Mike had done this entire time. And just thinking about Hopper hiding away El for an entire year filled him with fury. 

Chief Hopper was supposed to be on their side. Mike had trusted him.

And what had he done? He’d lied. To Mike and the others, El had been dead for an entire year, and Hopper had never done anything to make them think otherwise.

Mike had trusted him, and he didn’t trust many adults, much less adult men, because his own dad was a joke, and Lonnie Byers - the other adult he’d been the closest to because of Will - had been downright evil. 

But then Hopper had come, and he was everything that Mike wished his own dad was. He had cared about them when Will went missing, he’d rescued Will from the Upside Down, and Mike still remembered the way he’d picked up Mia, back at the quarry when they found that fake body, and guided them all to his deputy’s car. His hand had been warm on the back of Mike’s neck, then, and for a moment, Mike had leaned into it. 

He wishes his dad had at least done that when he got home, but no. Mom was the only one who hugged him, Dad just stood there and watched him cry.

Mike had trusted Hopper. 

That wasn’t a mistake he’d make again.

 He wishes he had Jenny’s bedazzled bat. He’d beat Hopper with it like a piñata. 

Suddenly, a noise comes from the bed. 

Will’s eyes flutter. He shifts on the bed, hands twitching at his side. 

Mike jumps up, chair screeching. Jenny startles, lifting her head from Mia’s thigh. It's enough room for Mia to slip out from under her and stand up by Will’s bed next to Mike. 

“Will?” Mike says, low so as to not scare him. Mia shifts closer to her brother’s head, her hair brushing Mike’s arm. She reaches out a hand, touches Will's bare arm.

Will gasps, eyes snapping open. 

Mia wrenches her hand away as if she’d been burned.

Mike looks anxiously between them both, heart racing in his chest. “Are you okay?” He asks them, eyes jumping from one twin to the other.

Mia frowns. “There’s something wrong.”

“What?” 

“I don’t know.” She takes a step away from the bed, shaking her head. Jenny is there in a flash, touching Mia’s elbow. 

Will looks around at them, a line between his brows. There is something…off, about him. Mike didn’t know what. He looks…too calm, for someone that had been screaming his head off only hours ago. Mike might have felt relieved that he wasn’t in pain anymore, if Mia hadn’t said that something was wrong.

“Maybe we should get a doctor.” Jenny says.

Should they? Weren’t these the doctors that had done experiments on El? How could they know they wouldn’t just do the same to Will?

Mia nods at Jenny’s words. Mike stares at her for a moment. 

He trusts her judgement, especially when it comes to Will.

“I’ll get one.” Mike says, reluctantly. 

He goes to the door and peeks his head out. The corridor was L shaped, with them right at the corner, and the hallway in front of them had a set of wooden doors closing off the rest of the hall. There was no one standing guard by it, but in the hall to their right, there was a soldier standing by another set of blue doors, a huge gun in his hand.

“We ne-” Mike’s voice cracks horribly, but at least the guard turns his head towards him. He’d be embarrassed about it if he wasn’t so terrified about purposefully drawing the guard’s attention. “We need a doctor!”

The guard nods, opens the door to call someone and Mike hurriedly slips back into the room. He leaves the door ajar, and settles back at Will’s side. 

They stand around Will in silence until the door opens again, the same doctor that had seen to Will earlier that day the first person to come through. Two other doctors come behind him, followed by Mrs. Byers and Chief Hopper. 

“I’d suggest you hang back for a moment.” The doctor says, gesturing for the three of them to go wait by Mrs. Byers and Hopper. 

Glancing for a moment at Will and his strangely placid expression, Mike obeys, reluctant. Mrs. Byers puts an arm around Mia, her other hand settling on Jenny’s shoulder. Mike chooses the farthest side from Hopper, putting both his hands in the pockets of his coat.

The doctor checks the monitor around Will, pulls out a stool from under the bed and shines a penlight into his eyes.

“Do you know your name?” He asks.

“Will.”

“Your full name?”

“William Byers.”

 My name is Will, short for William. 

“Do you know who I am?”

“A doctor.”

Will had been coming to the lab since the beginning of the year, he was supposed to know the name of the doctor.

“Have we met before?”

Will hesitates. The wires taped to the sides of his head made Mike sick to his stomach. They remind him of El, and the round scars at her temples.

“I don’t remember.”

Mrs. Byers shifts nervously from one foot to the other. Mia was biting her lower lip, eyes wide as she stared at Will.

“All right. And what about this guy here?” The doctor asks, pointing at Mike.

Will turns slowly to him, with the same placid expression. Mike’ stomach turns, suddenly dreading Will’s answer. He raises a hand to wave at Will, the memory of doing the exact same thing when he first saw Will at the school playground, years ago, flashing behind his eyes.

Will looks at him. And looks. He doesn’t answer. 

Mike shares a look with Mia, fear climbing up his throat. What if whatever happened back at the field had messed up his brain somehow? That noise hadn’t been natural…hadn’t been human. What if this was the result of the shadow monster messing Will up somehow?

“It’s okay.” The doctor tells Will. “Take your time.”

“That’s…my friend. Mike.” Will says, finally. 

Mike feels tears welling up in his eyes, from sheer relief. Mrs Byers smiles at him, and he gives her a small smile back, glad that at least Will seems to remember him. 

He wouldn’t know what to do with himself if Will didn’t remember him.

“What about me, kid?” Hopper asks, voice gentle. He’s smiling too, eyes crinkling at the corners. Mike’s too happy about Will remembering him to make a face at Hopper, though he’s filled with the urge to tell him to shut up and leave. “Do you remember me?”

Will shakes his head. 

Mike’s stomach plummets. 

“They said you helped save me today. Do you remember that?”

Will shakes his head again. 

The doctor asks him if he remembers anything from earlier that day, and this time Will’s quick to answer.

“I remember they hurt me.”

A flash of Will, screaming and falling to the ground, clutching his stomach flashes through Mike’s head, him crying and screaming as they wheeled him into the lab, all those nurses and doctors touching and pulling and prodding him. 

He’d kill them all for having hurt his friend. 

A cold hand touches the back of his and he startles, not realizing he had his hands at his side, closed into fists. He lets Mia curl her cold fingers around his wrist, secretly glad for the support and hoping it comforts her as much as it comforts him.

“The doctors?” The doctor asks.

“No. The soldiers.”

Soldiers? When had the soldiers hurt Will? Had it been in the van, during the ride here? 

“The soldiers hurt you?”

Will nods, a flicker of something passing behind his eyes, the first chink in this plain mask he’s adopted. “They shouldn’t have done that. It upset him.”

Mia’s hand squeezes his wrist. 

The doctor takes something from his folder, a picture that Mike can’t see, and shows it to Will. “You said ‘upset him’. Is that him?”

Will nods, eyes wide. He looks scared. The doctor, on the other hand, doesn’t seem surprised, and not even a little bit alarmed. 

“I want to try something. It might seem a little odd at first, but I think it can help us understand what’s going on here.” He puts a hand on Will’s shoulder. Mike wants to yell at him to take his hands away from his best friend. “Okay?”

Will nods. 

After confirming it with Mrs. Byers, the doctor goes out the door with the other doctors for a few minutes, and when they return, one of the other doctors is wheeling in a metal box, with a weird brown root in it. 

A rotten smell of decay and spoiled milk fills the room. Mike wrinkles his nose and steps to the side, away from it. 

The second doctor takes out a blow torch, and lights it up. 

“Now, Will, I want you to just let us know if you feel anything, okay?”

Jenny hops up to sit on the counter behind Mike and Mia. After a moment, Mike does the same. Mia stands next to him, leaning against his knee. Hopper has moved closer to Mrs. Byers, holding her shoulders as if to comfort her.

Or restrain her.

The second doctor puts the blowtorch near the thing in the box, the thing that must be from the upside down, if the doctor is about to do what Mike thinks he is.  

“It’s a vine,” Mia whispers next to Mike, to Chief Hopper. “Like you said.”

Hopper nods, but remains quiet. 

A low buzzing fills the room, a weird, clicking noise growing louder as the blowtorch gets even closer to the vine. Will shifts in his bed, clutching his chest. Mike glances at Mia, remembering what they’d talked in the hallway, and finds her staring, wide eyed at Will, hands white-knuckled on her knees.

Will has said something. Mike snaps his head to him. Will had said something and he’d missed it.

“A sting?” The doctor asks Will, “Where?”

“At my chest.” Mrs. Byers makes as if to move forward, but Chief Hopper holds her in place. The second doctor puts the blowtorch closer to the vine. There’s the sound of something sizzling, the clicking gets louder, like a shriek and Will hisses, sitting up in the bed, “It’s burning!” 

He gasps with pain. 

Mike hops down from the counter. Next to him, Mia’s hands curl into fists. 

On the bed, Will snaps his head back, all the muscles on his neck tensed as he yells, “It burns!”

The shrieking gets louder. 

“Where?” The doctor asks.

Mike’s heart races in his chest. The sound of sizzling filling his ears.

“Everywhere!” Will screams. 

The vine moves, striking against the glass side of its box. Jenny and Mia flinch back on either side of Mike. Will screams again.

Mrs. Byers shouts, “That’s enough!”

But despite Mrs. Byers’ cry, the doctor with the blowtorch keeps burning it. 

Hopper jumps forward, between Will and the other doctor.

“Stop! You heard her, that’s enough! That’s it, we’re done!”

The doctor takes the blowtorch away.

Will’s screaming cuts off, but his monitored heartbeat is still fast, and just as loud as his gasping breaths. Mike glances at Mia, finds her jaw clenched, and sweat shining on her brow, sliding down the sides of her face.

The doctor leaves the room, telling Mrs. Byers and Hopper to step out with him. Mike, Mia and Jenny stay huddled and silent by the counter, as the rest of the doctors file out. 

As soon as the last one’s gone, Mia breathes out, sliding down the counter to sit on the floor.

“Are you okay?” Jenny asks, peering down at her. “Is it…”

Mia shakes her head. “It’s not that…just…I hate this.” 

Without warning, Mia pulls herself back up, and stumbles to the door, falling down on her knees by it. She opens the door an inch, tilting her head so she can look out of it. 

Mike glances at Jenny, and they both jump to go after her. They crouch above Mia, Jenny in the middle and Mike on top, the three of them looking down the hallway, where the doctor is talking to Mrs. Byers and Hopper.

“...when a typical virus attaches itself to its host, it duplicates, it spreads, essentially hijacking the host. A virus is alive, it has an intelligence. That’s not unusual. What is so unusual here is that the virus…the infected hosts seem to be communicating.”

Mike thinks of Mia, feeling what Will feels. Of Will, feeling what that vine had felt. Is Mia infected too? With this virus? Did the shadow monster infect Will, who then infected Mia? Was it his time in the Upside Down that had infected him? Was that why he’d throw up the slugs?

“It has some sort of…Hive intelligence, and it’s connecting all the hosts.” The doctor continues, “The good thing is, a virus can be cured. We will continue to run tests and we’re going to see what we find.”

“What happens when he can’t remember anything?” Mrs. Byers asks, voice choked up. Fear weighs heavy in Mike’s chest upon hearing it. There’s something inherently awful about hearing a mom cry, and he’s known Mrs. Byers long enough that she’s like a second mom to him. “When there’s nothing else in there? What happens when my boy is gone?”

The doctor doesn’t answer her. Hopper pulls her into his arms as she starts crying. 

He looks down the hall, his eyes finding Mike’s.

Mike straightens up, away from the door. Jenny and Mia have pulled their heads away too, and Jenny stares back at Will, worriedly. Mia is looking at the ground, eyes shining. She blinks and Mike sees a tear trail down her cheek before she hastily rubs it away with the back of her hand.

“So we’re sick?” Mia says, voice thick. “That’s it?” 

Mia looks over at Will, and gets up. She stares at Will, brows furrowed. Will looks back, but his expression is still calm and even, as if it were any other day.

She steps up to him, leaning over him in the bed, nose almost touching his. Will doesn’t look alarmed, or bothered by the closeness, just keeps staring. 

“Tell me you know who I am.” Mia grits out, angry. “Tell me who I am, right now.”

“You’re my sister.” Will whispers.

Mia nods her head, jaw clenched. “And what else?”

Will hesitates. He hesitates. 

Fear twists Mia’s features.

“You’re my twin.”

“I was born eleven minutes before you.” She says, eyes watering, “Mom says that you only started breathing because I made you breath. So now I’m telling you to keep remembering me, don’t you dare forget about me. And our family. You fight back against this - this thing, you hear me? Tell me you won’t go away.”

“I won’t go away.” Will whispers, an his voice cracks, heavy with an emotion Mike can’t name. It’s the first time he sounds like himself since he woke up.

Mike walks around the bed to get a better look at Will’s face. He’s staring straight into Mia’s eyes, a tear rolling down his face. 

“I won’t go away.” Will says, just as shakily.

That seems to be enough for now. Mia nods her head and steps away from the bed. She wipes her face with her forearm, turning her face to the windows.

It’s dark outside. A glance at the clock shows it’s almost ten.

“I didn’t call my mom.” Mike blurts out, unthinkingly. “I was supposed to tell her if I was staying another night at Will’s.”

Jenny steps next to him, shoulder touching his, “Yeah. Me too.”

Mrs. Byers returns a while later, without Hopper. She tells them he’s just stepped outside, saying that he had someone to call. 

El. 

She must be all alone in the woods. 

A shudder goes down his spine, dread as cold and tangible as an ice cube down his shirt. There’s the shadow monster, giant and invisible, that Will had seen in the football field. Dart is somewhere out there, grown and wild, and there’s probably more things like him out there too. These vines that Will had drawn are all under Hawkins, poisoning everything, rotting the pumpkin farms, and poisoning his friend, taking away his memories until nothing will be left of him.

Mike goes back to his chair and drops heavily down on it. After a moment, Mia sits down too. Jenny stays standing, staring up at the clock.

Mike should try and fall asleep, but he doesn’t think he could, even if he wanted to.

An hour passes. Hopper comes back and sits next to Mrs. Byers. Then two hours pass, with only the ticking of the clock and Will’s monitored heartbeat. It’s almost midnight now.

Mrs. Byers gets up from her chair, striding out of the door. 

Soon enough, there’s the yelling.

“Let me through!”

Hopper frowns. He glances over at Mike and the girls, then at Will, and gets up too, leaving the room after Mrs. Byers.

“You said that an hour ago!”

“She’s right, why can’t we see him?”

Will’s gone rigid in the bed, head raising up to stare out through the open door. The monitor starts beeping faster as his heart rate increases.

“Will.” He whispers, but Will doesn’t seem to have heard him. “Will?”

He touches Will’s shoulder calling him again. Will startles, whipping his head around to stare at Mike, eyes wide. 

“What’s wrong?” Mike asks, confused. “Are you hurting again?” He glances at Mia, but sure enough she doesn’t look like she’s in any pain.

Mike looks back at Will in time to see him stare at Mia, eyes dark and intent, and then back at Mike. “I saw something.”

“In your now memories?”

Will nods, turns on his side to lean close to Mike’s face. 

“The shadow monster.” He says, “I think I know how to stop it.”

*

They’re all taken to a conference room, where pictures of Will’s drawing, just like they hung at the Byers’ house, cover a long, oval table. 

Mrs. Byers seems freaked out that they’ve apparently gotten into her house in the time they’ve been inside the lab. 

Will sits in the middle of the table. Mike sits next to him, looking over the pictures, ready to help if Will needs it. Mia sits on his other side, Jenny next to her.

“Sam, this is ludicrous.” One of the doctors tells Will’s doctor. 

“Just - give him a moment, ok?”

“We don’t have time -”

“Hey, Jackass, won’t you do us all a favor and shut up. Ok?” Hopper cuts him off. He’s leaning on the window behind them all, arms crossed. 

Will gets up, walking around the edge of the table. Will’s doctor, this Sam guy, pushes the other doctors away from the table, clearing space for Will to walk. Will stops at the side of the table, pointing to a pile of pictures. Jenny kneels up on her chair, tilting her head to see it better.

“It’s there.” He says.

“What’s there, Will?” The doctor asks.

“I don’t know. I just know he…doesn’t want me to see there. I think it’s important.”

The doctors and the soldiers usher them out of the room. Hopper insists on going with the soldiers, while Mrs. Byers, Mike and the girls are sent back to Will’s room to wait. 

They’re sending people to deal with the Shadow Monster and the vines, dressed in those space-suits they’d seen earlier back at the farm. From the movement in the halls while Mike and the others are heading back to Will’s room, they’re taking those long metallic weapons with prongs at the tips that they’d seen back at the farm too. 

“I think those are flamethrowers.” Jenny whispers, when she catches Mike looking at a soldier carrying one of those weapons. Mike meets Jenny’s blue eyes, piercing even in the bright lights of the labs, which wash out her blonde hair and freckled face. “If they’re planning to burn the Shadow Monster to ash and that thing is connected to Will, what do you think it’s gonna do to him?”

The question echoes in his head the whole way to Will’s room.

It’s pretty late, almost one a.m. by now, and Will says he’s tired. They turn off the lights in the room, and let him lie down, while Mike, the girls and Mrs. Byers sit on the chairs by his bed. 

Mike still can’t fall asleep, especially after what Jenny said. He keeps waiting for Will to start screaming like he’d screamed earlier when they burned the vine, keeps waiting to see if this time they’ll see the burns on him too, if the monitor above his head will flatline as soon as the shadow monster is dead.

 Jenny was asleep again, this time, laying down with her head on Mrs. Byers’ thigh. Mrs. Byers has tried to get Mia to sleep but she couldn’t either, and sits next to Mike just as awake. 

She’s been staring at Will this whole time, almost without blinking. 

Mike keeps thinking of D&D monsters too, that have the power of infiltrating someone’s mind. It’s stupid and useless but he can’t help himself - it’s somewhat calming, and helps him pass the time. There’s the Brain Mole, whose attack could lead to insanity. The Cerebral parasite, which inhabits the astral and material planes. The Intellect Devourer, which houses itself within the body of the mind he’s just consumed, assuming the person’s character to deceive and kill others. The Mind Flayer, which sees humans as cattle to feed upon, found only in the underground. According to the monster guide, Its skin is a sickening mauve and it glistens with slime, exactly like demogorgon.

“I’m sorry.” a whisper comes from the bed.

Mike looks up at Will. 

“What?” Mrs. Byers asks, reaching out a hand to touch Will’s arm. Mike thinks she’d have gotten up if Jenny wasn’t asleep on her leg. “What do you mean, sweetie?”

Will whimpers, voice choked up. “It made me do it.”

Will sounds like himself again, and he sounds terrified. Mike had only ever heard him sound like that a few times before, when El had contacted him through the supercom and the radio at the school. And when…

When Mike had been talking to him about the Shadow Monster, right after he got to the Byers’ yesterday. 

Mike had trailed his hands over the drawings on the wall, sat by Will’s side as he spoke about the thing spreading out over Hawkins, about remembering the ‘now memories’ all the time. 

Just think about it, Will. Mike had said, you’re like a spy now. A Super Spy.

“Who? Who made you do what?” 

“I told you.” Will says, his voice sounds angry now, but he’s still crying, “They upset him. They shouldn’t have done that, they shouldn’t have upset him.”

What if he figures out we’re spying on him? Will had said, What if he spies back?

And Mike had said, foolishly. We won’t let him. 

But he wasn’t a paladin in real life, he couldn’t foresee events. He couldn't sense when something was wrong. 

But there had been someone who could. Someone who had felt it as soon as Will woke up, and had said that there was something wrong.

Will wasn’t their Will anymore.

“The spy.” Mike says, mouth numb with terror. He snaps his head towards Will and Mrs. Byers. “The spy!”

The Shadow Monster had found out they were spying, and had used his double agent to send them straight into a trap. This whole thing was a trap. It would be expecting them at the spot Will pointed out on the map. 

Will was leading all those soldiers to their deaths.

Mike jumps to his feet, running out of the room. This time, there are two guards stationed outside the wooden doors that Hopper had gone through to follow the soldiers. Mike keeps running, hoping he’ll be able to get past them before they can stop him, but they grab him by the arms, pushing him away.

“I need to get through!” He shouts, “It’s a trap! It’s a trap, I need to warn them! It’s a trap!”

The guards shove him back, and he falls against two sets of arms. Mia and Jenny stand behind him, holding him up.

“Let us through!” Jenny yells, holding something above her head. It’s Will’s clipboard, the metal clip at the top reflecting the hallway lights like a knife. “Let us through or I’ll bash your heads in!”

Both of the guards reach for their guns. The one on the right holds out a hand. “You don’t want to do that, kid.”

“Let us the fuck through!” She shouts again, voice strangled.

Yellow lights flood the corridor and they all freeze.

They look up, and an alarm starts blaring.

And for the first time, Mike knows what’s going to happen. What’s already happening. 

He doesn’t need his god to tell them what is to happen.

He knows.

“We’re too late.” Mike says, “We’re too late!”

He runs back to Will’s room, Jenny and Mia behind him. They skid to a stop at the foot of his bed. 

Mrs. Byers is there, wide eyed. “What’s happening?” 

“We’re under attack.” Mike tells her, pacing around the room. The creature would be coming to them next. Will is leading it right to the lab. “He did it.” He points to Will, who has sat up in bed, staring at them, dark eyes wild. Dark eyes. 

How could Mike not notice it before? Will’s eyes aren’t this dark.

“He’s the spy!” He shouts at Mrs. Byers, “He killed those soldiers, and he’s going to kill us too!”

Will screams, sitting up in his bed, “He’s lying!”

“Mike, what are you saying -” Mrs. Byers starts, coming closer to Mike.

“He’s the spy!” He shouts at her, “He’s been spying on us for the Shadow Monster this entire time!”

“Let me go! Let me go!” Will screams. 

There’s the sound of flesh hitting flesh and Mike looks back at Will in time to see Mia hit the wall by Will’s bed. Jenny jumps away from the bed too, where she’d been holding down Will’s other arm. 

Will takes something out of his arm: a syringe, blood spilling out of his arm. 

“What did you do?!” He screams, pushing off the bed towards Mia, syringe in hand. “What did you do?!”

Jenny gets between them both, shoving Will back against the bed as he advances on Mia. The syringe goes skittering to the floor, and Mike hurries to kick it away in case Will tries to grab it. Mrs. Byers holds Will by the arms when he tries to get up, whirling him around to look at his face. 

Will looks mad, eyes wide, hair everywhere. His teeth are bared, sweat rolling down his face. 

“What did you do? Let me go! Let me go! Let me go!” His voice is shrill. Shivers go down Mike’s spine. He clamps his hands above his ears, shaking all over. “Let me - What did you…What did you do…What -”

He starts slumping, legs growing uncoordinated.

 Mrs. Byers catches him as he blacks out. 

Mike looks at Mia. 

Panting, she nods her head at Jenny, who holds up three vials in one hand. “Sedative.” Jenny says, “Saw the doctor putting it there earlier when they blowtorched the vine.”

“We need to leave. Like Mike said - we need to leave now.” Mia adds, pushing away from the wall. She picks up Will’s arm, pulling him up with a groan. Mrs. Byers catches on to what she’s doing and picks up his other arm. 

Mike and Jenny get out first. The alarms are blaring, yellow lights flashing and leaving blueish afterimages across the corridor walls. There are screams up ahead, so Mike runs to the right, the others following behind him. 

Jenny runs at the front, trying to open doors and finding most of them locked. 

There’s a scream, then a growl, from close by. On the end of the hall, a woman crashes through the locked doors, falling to the ground with a strange, dog-like creature on top of her chest. It shakes its head, opens its five petaled mouth, and bites down on the woman’s face as she screams.

Closer to the creature than the rest of them, Jenny shrieks with terror. 

The thing raises its head, jaws dripping with blood.

The woman’s face is gone. A mess of blood and red and bone left behind.

“Jenny!” Mike shouts, pulling her by the back of her scrubs. He twists the first doorknob on the right, and it opens. He shoves Jenny inside, holds the door open for Mia and Mrs. Byers to carry Will in. 

The thing at the end of the hallway stares at him, petaled mouth opening before it leans down to bite again at the woman’s disfigured face. 

Mike feels his stomach roiling, and gags. There are screams coming from everywhere, growls and gunshots echoing from both ends of the hallway. Something claws his shoulder, shoving him forward.

Mike twists around screaming - but it’s Hopper, huge hand grabbing onto his arm and throwing him inside the room Mike had opened, slamming the door shut behind them both.

Mike stares at him, uncomprehending. Then the last minute slams into his consciousness, fast and devastating as a car crash. The flashing lights, the dog-like monster. The woman’s disfigured face, a mess of red flesh and pale bone. Blood pooling on the floor under her head. 

His eyes spot a trashcan and he beelines towards it. He’s barely aware of the pain as he throws himself down on his knees and promptly throws up. 

A cold hand slides under his hair, at the nape of his neck. Mike jerks, about to throw his elbow at whatever it is, but Mia’s voice stops him.

“You’re ok, Mike. Breathe.”

His stomach cramps, but nothing else comes up besides bile and a horrible hacking noise that has all his hairs standing on end. Mia pulls him away from the trashcan, holding his weight and letting him fall against the wall before letting go. Jenny throws a pile of papers on top of the trashcan, stifling the smell.

People are still screaming outside, but there are no gunshots anymore.

“What - Oh god.” Mrs. Byers gasps, looking at the far wall.

They’re locked in some kind of surveillance room, Mike notices then. Dozens of TV screens are stacked one next to each other, rows and rows of them, showing the entire facility. Will’s doctor must have come in with Hopper, because he steps to the wall of monitors, hand to his mouth. 

There are dozens of creatures inside the building, walking past every hallway. Bodies lie on the floor, on every TV screen, some piled on each other. 

The creatures prowl among them, leaving trails of black blood beneath their gnarly paws. 

Mike feels sick, the urge to throw up coming again. 

Jenny whimpers. She’s holding onto Mia’s shirt and arm, eyes full of terrified tears. “They’re demodogs, just like Dart. There are more of them” 

The lights flicker. The monitors blink out. 

The lights flicker again, and shut off, plunging them into darkness. 

The lights flicker again. The lights inside the room don’t return, though those outside the window remain on. They barely light the room, but it’s enough for the doctor to find his way around to an emergency box under one of the shelves. 

There’s a flashlight in it, its light weak and yellow. But it’s enough, for now.

Now that he can see them, Mike inches closer to Mia and Jenny, glancing back just to check that Will is still passed out. Will’s doctor is pointing his flashlight at the shelves again, pulling some boxes out of them. 

He pulls one out, and puts it on the desk sitting to one side of the room. 

Jenny nudges Mike’s shoulder. She’s still holding those glass bottles full of sedatives in her hand, and a syringe still in its wrapping. “Can you put it in your pockets?”

He takes them from her and stuffs it inside his jacket, glad that this jacket is the one that has zippers on its pockets.

Hopper takes the flashlight from the doctor and holds it above his head while the doctor takes out a folder from the box, spreading the papers inside it over the desk: Five maps, detailing each floor of the Hawkins Laboratory, every room, corridor, door and window traced in black ink. 

The doctor quickly grabs a red pen to mark out the nearest exit. 

They have to get to the other end of the floor, where the stairways are located, the doctor says, and from then on, go down two floors, towards one of the side doors, the nearest exit to them, and also, the closest exit to the front gates. 

But there’s no use. 

All the doors leading to grounds outside are locked, and without power, there’s no way of opening them.

*

Steve and the kids walk through the woods in silence.

He stares at the back of Eleven’s head, thinking about the girl’s words. He doesn’t want to believe it, but there’s a strong possibility that Will Byers is dead or dying. 

It’d explain why the others were in the Lab in the first place. 

God, and even if Will wasn’t dead, they would all be dead soon. Those demodog things are heading to the lab, if they haven’t gotten there already. Mike, Amanda, Jenny, Hopper, Mrs. Byers and everyone else still in that place were at risk.

Maybe Max was right. Maybe they shouldn’t be going there. 

Steve only had his baseball bat with him, and it had done nothing against four demodogs. It’d be absolutely useless if there were more demodogs in there. From the howls and roars they hear through the woods the closer they get to the lab, there seemed to be a hell of a lot more than four. 

What could his bat do against a dozen of those things? A hundred?

Could the soldiers at the lab do anything to kill those things?   

Would the soldiers be enough?

God, how he wishes Nancy was here. At least she had a gun.

There’s the distant sound of a car to their right, coming from beyond the trees. 

“Guys, did you hear that?” Steve calls out, “I think we’re near the lab.”

“Or a road.” Dustin huffs, but they all walk faster.

Steve can see a light up ahead, long, like the headlights of a car.

“Hello?” A voice shouts, “Who’s there?!”

“Is that Jonathan?” Lucas whispers, hurrying to the treeline. Before he can go far, Steve pulls him back by the top of his backpack, motioning for him to hang behind him.

“We don’t know if that’s him. Let me go first.”

Everyone was right. Steve walks out of the woods onto a road, and behind it is what he thinks to be the lab, a giant concrete building in the distance, surrounded by fences. And it is Jonathan, there in his car, on the road.

And Nancy.

“What are you doing here?” Nancy asks, getting out of the car and marching towards them.

“What are you doing here?” Steve asks her. 

He’d stopped by her house yesterday, and she hadn’t been there. Had she been with Jonathan this whole time?

“We’re looking for Mike and Will.”

“And Mia.” Jonathan adds.

Steve clenches his jaw, deciding to forget about it for now. “El says they’re in there.” He motions with his chin to the lab gates.

“El?” They asks at the same time.

Steve turns his head back. “You guys can come out!”

Lucas and Dustin come out first, followed by Max. El steps into view from behind Max, but she’s not looking at Jonathan or Nancy. She’s looking at the hulking shadow of a building beyond the gates. 

Steve looks at it too. The lights flicker inside it, revealing the windows of three distinct floors, before they blink out, slowly, like Christmas lights. 

“Why is it all dark?” Max asks.

“There’s no power.” Jonathan says. He sounds distant, his eyes shining with tears as he stares at the building. A loud, high pitched roar comes from the lab’s direction, echoed by a dozen others. “We can’t get inside.”

“But El can.” Dustin says. “Can’t you, El?”

They all look at Eleven. 

El looks at them like a deer caught in headlights.

“You could unlock it. Or just blast it away.” Lucas offers. 

The kid shakes her head at them, taking a step back. She bumps into Max, who hesitantly puts her hands on the girl’s shoulder, comfortingly.

“I can’t. No. No.” El cries, voice choked. “No. No.”

But Jonathan has clearly seen a glimmer of hope, and he’s clutching at it with both hands. “El. Will and Mia are in there. We need to get inside and get them out.”

El continues to shake her head, jaw clenched. “No. I can’t. They hurt us.”

“Yes.” Jonathan agrees, getting closer to El, who stays frozen under Max’s hands. “But they will hurt Mia, Will, my mom and Mike if we don’t get to them. Do you want them to get hurt?”

El shakes her head, eyes watering, “No.”

“Then you have to open the gate.” Jonathan begs, voice frantic. “We have to get inside El, please.”

But it doesn’t seem to work. El doesn’t want to open the gate, seems to think she can’t, even with Dustin and Lucas trying to convince her otherwise. Steve bites his lip, looking at Max, who seems just as lost as him, her hands still on El’s shoulders, trying to be comforting. Jonathan and Nancy are visibly too distressed to reason with the girl. 

Steve doesn’t know much about El, having met her less than an hour ago, but…it doesn’t hurt to try.

“El, look at me.” Steve starts, ignoring the looks the others throw his way.

The girl’s big brown eyes stare up at him, wide and scared. 

Something in Steve’s chest twists.  When he was little and his parents were away, Steve used to sit by the mirror in his mom’s bedroom the entire day. He would eat next to it, talk to himself looking at his eyes, strut around and pose and sing in front of it, just to pretend he wasn’t so alone. At nights when it was dark and the creatures in the woods outside the bedroom windows were loud, he’d get scared. Sometimes he’d make a fort around the mirror and curl up beneath a blanket, staring at his own eyes in it and not looking away until sunlight started streaming through the window. 

He's mostly grown out of the habit, but sometimes, when he’s sitting alone in his big dining room, having dinner by himself, he stares at the long mirror hanging on one of the walls and pretends.  

El’s eyes remind him of himself - scared and lonely and so guilty. Steve used to blame himself for not being good enough for his parents, and he knows the kid is blaming herself for not being able to overcome her own fear and open that gate.

“Dustin and the others told me all about what you did for them last year.” Steve says, keeping his voice calm, “Like the time you flipped a whole van for them to get away on their bikes, and the time you beat up those shitheads, Dante or Walter or whatever, with your mind when they tried to come for the others. You did do all that, right? They weren’t exaggerating?"

El nods her head. “They were mouthbreathers.”

Steve snorts despite himself, “And then you blew-…uh, made all those agents bleed from their eyes at the school, and even after passing out, you still managed to kill the demogorgon.” 

“Yes.” The girl whispers, still staring deep into his soul.

“Then what’s stopping you now? You sound powerful as hell to me.”

"It's not safe.” The girl whispers. “Home isn’t safe. They hurt us.”

Steve thinks of what Dustin had told him about Eleven’s time in the lab. He searches for the scars that Dustin said laid at her temples, but her curly hair hides most of the sides and top of her head. 

“We know it isn’t safe.” Steve agrees, “Which is why we need to get Mike, Amanda and Will, Mrs. Byers and even Hopper out of there. Because there’s not only those agents that hurt you in that building, but also dozens of monsters just like the one you fought back at the school. We can’t open that gate but you can. We need you to open this gate, El.”

Eleven’s eyes are still wide, but the fear is gone. Her lower lip trembles, and all she needs is a little push.

“If you won’t do it for us, do it for your friends. Do it for yourself, El. You’re not the little kid they hurt anymore, you’re powerful and you’re with us - they won’t ever put a single finger on you again while we’re around.” He taps his bat on the ground to emphasize his point, “Got it?”

El clenches her jaw and nods.

“We need you to help us protect your friends.” He drives the point home, swinging his bat up to his shoulder. “Now, I’m asking you again. Can. You. Open. That gate?”

“Yes.”

Steve smiles and winks at her, satisfied when the girl smiles back. “Atta girl.”

El brushes off Max’s hand and marches towards the gate, staring up at it with her hands clenched into fists. Dustin and Lucas run to her, standing around her each with a hand on her shoulder. Even Max goes along, standing close by. El closes her eyes and raises her hand.

Steve feels Jonathan and Nancy standing on each side of him. When he looks at them, Nancy’s smiling, and even Jonathan looks impressed.

“What?”

“I didn’t know you were good with kids.”

“Pft.” Steve sniffs, “I’m good at everything.”

Jonathan snorts. 

Steve rolls his eyes, and shrugs, a little embarrassed about having been so…mushy in front of Jonathan. “Sometimes people just need to hear it from a total stranger to believe in it.”

There’s the sound of creaking metal. El’s hand shakes. A deep groan comes from the motor next to the gate. Something breaks with a loud boom, and the first gate slides open in a blink of the eye, sparks flying from the tracks beneath its little wheels. 

The other one behind it does the same, a second later. 

Eleven lowers her hand, looks back at them. 

The girl really had powers. 

And now, the gates were open. 

*

“Can’t we break the glass on those doors?”

The Doctor shakes his head. “They are made of glass-clad polycarbonate, that’s bullet-proof glass. It’s made to resist explosions and heavy impacts, including our M16 rifles.”

“Fuck.” Hopper swears, passing a hand over his face. “Isn’t there any way to open them? Force the locks or something?”

Next to Mia, Jenny clears her throat. 

“Isn’t there, like, a manual bolt?” Jenny asks, voice shaking. Her hand is tight around Mia’s wrist, almost cutting off the circulation to her hand. 

Mia can’t complain, though, she’s clutching Jenny’s arm just as hard, her fingers aching. 

Mia feels like she’s about to throw up any second now. She can smell the blood outside the door, like pennies or a wet spoon, but it’s not just that - there’s something rotten over it all - the smell of human waste and that familiar scent of curdled milk, so strong it seeps through the crack beneath the door, like ghostly hands reaching for her throat. 

It’s nauseating, even more so in the stuffy warm air of the room they’re locked in.

“We would need a master key, which is the responsibility of the head of our department. He’s the one who keeps the keys for our maintenance personnel.” Dr. Owens says, pointing at the closed door. The gunshots and screams had stopped completely a while ago. Mia doesn’t want to think about why that is. “And he should be somewhere out there.”

“Is there any way to turn the power back on?” Mike asks. He’s standing on Mia’s other side, shoulder touching hers. 

Dr. Owen sighs, “Still wouldn’t override the lockup procedure. We would need our security staff for that.”

Hopper huffs, waving the flashlight around. “What kind of safety procedure is this that doesn’t allow for anyone to leave in case of an emergency?” 

“The kind of procedure that is more worried about keeping dangerous things inside the building, Chief.” The doctor insists, staring up at Hopper. The lights blink on for a long second, illuminating Hopper, who glares down at the doctor, jaw clenched.

“Good fucking job it did too.” 

“Aren’t there any windows we can use?” Mom cuts off the brewing discussion. 

“All our windows are fixed, with grills on the outside.” Dr. Owens gestures at the window of their room. Beyond the blinds and the glass, Mia can see them, thin iron rods, forming long rectangle shapes, like bars in a cell.

“How do you know?” Hopper asks the doctor, voice tense.

“I’ve worked in this building for the last ten years, Chief.” The doctor replies, clearly out of patience, “Don’t you think I’ve looked out of the windows?”

“But are all of them like that?” Jenny asks, and Mia admires her for being able to just - step in the middle of an argument like that. Mia feels her hands shaking and Hopper’s aggression isn’t even directed at her. “Like all of them?”

The doctor opens his mouth, ready to dismiss Jenny’s idea, but closes it again, thinking. 

“There may be some windows that we can open.” He says.

He leans over the floorplan on the desk, takes out another sheet of paper and puts it right next to the first, motioning for them to get close. 

Jenny and Mike crowd over Mia's shoulder to look down at the page. Mom and Hopper stand on the other side of the doctor, also inspecting the floor plan. It’s too dark in the room to read the little lines clearly, even with Hopper’s flashlight, but the shapes are clear: the wide, long rectangle that depicts the building, the many lines and squares and traced dots to mark rooms and doors and corridors. 

There are so many lines, so close together, that Mia can barely distinguish one from the other. What are windows and what are doors? Where do the walls end and the doors begin?

“What are we looking for, Doc?” Hopper asks, impatiently.

“Fixed windows.” Dr. Owen answers, and taps a small spot on the left of the first page. In the shapes that Mia recognizes to be the outer wall, there’s a small rectangular shape with a line in its middle, between the external and internal sides of the wall. “Windows are these segmented parts, but we have to find anything that’s not this type of window. Those are the ones with grills outside. Except for the conference rooms on the second floor - those don’t have grills, but the glass is bullet-proof.”

“You kids check the first floor.” Mom says, drawing Mia’s attention. Mom nods with her head at the sheet of paper on the right, then at the one in Dr. Owen’s hand. “We’ll look at the ground floor.”

“Ok.” Mia says, leaning close to the paper her mom pointed out.

Though Hopper is doing his best to shine the flashlight on both sheets, it’s still difficult to make out so many thin lines.

“Found one.” Mike whispers, pointing at a spot on the far back corner. 

Jenny makes a noise in the back of her throat. “Me too.”

“How I miss being young.” The doctor mumbles, right next to Mia.

Mia squints at their floor plan. The windows Jenny and Mike had found are both in the bathrooms. Like the walls, their thinner rectangles have nothing inside, but their lines are thicker. There’s also a thin rectangle on the outer part of the wall, as long as the window segment. 

“What are these ones?” Mia asks him.

“Doesn’t matter. Anything that’s not a fixed window, we can open.” The doctor says at the same time Hopper says, “I can’t find anything on the ground floor.”

Mia, Mike and Jenny raise their heads to look at the adults. Hopper looks up at Mom, who shakes her head.

“Me neither.”

The doctor exhales through his nose, stressed. He glances at the first floor plan, then looks back at Hopper. “It’s a fourteen foot fall.”

Hopper clenches his jaw. “We can make it.”

“A fourteen foot drop?!” Mom says, voice strangled.

“It’s our only option, Joyce.” Hopper says through a clenched jaw, “We can - if one of us goes down first, then the other two hold the kids out through the window. It’ll make it easier for the one on the ground to catch them. I’ll go first.”

“What about Will?” Mia asks, glancing back at her brother, who’s still unconscious. 

She can still hear him screaming at her, feel the force with which he’d shoved her against the wall. Mike had been shouting, Will had been trashing, the alarms were blaring and everything was happening all at once, until Mia saw Jenny holding up a syringe and those bottles. 

Mia had looked at Will’s arm - bare and still bruised from where the doctors had drawn blood earlier - and acted.  

“Same thing.” Hopper says, already moving towards the door. He puts his ear to the wood, and they all hold in their breaths. “It’s clear.”

Mike sucks in a terrified breath next to Mia. “We’re just going to go?”

Jenny puts a hand on his arm. “We don’t have another choice, Mike.”

Hopper steps away from the door, crouching down in front of Mia, Mike and Jenny. “Here’s what we’ll do. You kids are staying between the three of us, alright? Be careful when you walk and don’t look too much at the - the things you’re going to see out there. We have to walk fast and be quiet. I’m going first and looking around the corners. Doc, you carry Will. Joyce, you’re going at the back.”

“What if we hear something coming?” Mia asks in almost a whisper. 

She’s so terrified it’s getting difficult to talk. Her limbs are tingling, her hands numb and useless at her sides.

“Then you tap my shoulder. Or your mom’s. We can’t make a single noise. And we have to be on the lookout for those things. Luckily for us they’re big, they have claws and are not worried about the sounds they make.” Then to mom and Dr. Owens, he says, “I’ll get us some guns.”

Hopper twists the handle on the door slowly, and opens the door an inch to peek outside. Finding the hallway clear, he quickly swings it open and slides out. 

Mia stares at the dark sliver of the corridor, heart in her throat. The yellow alarm lights are still flashing outside, painting the farther wall in a sickly ochre shade. There’s a brown smear close to the ground, in the shape of fingers. 

Bile rises to her throat when she realizes it’s blood. 

A shadow appears at the door and she freezes, but it’s just Hopper again, a rifle in one hand, a handgun in the other. He swings the rifle on his shoulder and passes the handgun to Mia’s mom. He shows her how to flick the safety on and off. Point. Squeeze.

The doctor picks up Will. Hopper raises his gun. Mike grabs the back of Mia’s shirt while Jenny grabs her hand. Mom gives the three of them an anguished look, but quickly steels herself, and nods at Hopper.

“Let’s go.”

They move slowly out of the surveillance room. 

Mia barely breathes, and certainly doesn’t look down at the sticky floor beneath her feet, ears pricking as she does her best to listen for those creatures. Demodogs, Jenny had said they were called, like Dart. 

They fall into the formation that Hopper had ordered them into as they walk down the hall, back towards Will’s room.

They’ve barely taken ten steps when they reach their first body.

In front of Mia, Jenny snaps her head to the right, her hand squeezing Mia’s tight enough to hurt, nails digging into the back of her hand. Mia steps on something soft like fabric. She looks down on instinct. It’s just a white hat, but as she’s looking back up, her eyes get caught on something else: a figure slumped against the wall.

Her brain takes in the clothes, the blood, the eyes, and she immediately looks away. But it’s too late - she’s already seen him.

It was the same guard that Mike had yelled at, begging to let them through the doors. One of his eyes was gone, in its place, a wide open wound slashing down to his chin. There’s no nose left. His cheek leans strangely against his shoulder, half of his throat torn off. 

Behind her, Mike’s breathing cuts off. He steps on her heel, hand pulling on her shirt, and only then Mia realizes she’s stopped walking for a second.

She’d have stood there, frozen in a loop of horror, if not for Jenny forcibly tugging at her hand, making her stumble forward. 

She looks at the blonde hair on the back of Jenny’s head and doesn’t look anywhere near the floor again.

Even when her shoes slide on something wet, even when she trips and kicks something heavy and soft, only staying on her feet thanks to Mike’s hand on her arm.

They turn the corner of the L shape, reaching the hall of Will’s room. The hall where they had waited and waited for hours earlier that day. There are streaks of blood everywhere, and she knows there are more bodies strewn over the floor, without even looking. The wooden doors that had been locked earlier are shattered, small pieces of it hanging onto the hinges. Mia steps over a big piece of it as the yellow lights flash overhead, illuminating the deep claw marks against its dark surface.

She thinks of the guard’s face, and has to blink through the dizziness that leaves her sweating and cold.

They reach the stairwell, stepping around bodies as skillfully as if they’d been doing it their whole lives, instead of just for the past who-knows-how-many minutes. Thankfully, the door hangs open, so Hopper just walks right through it, the rest of them following.

There’s another dark shape on the landing between the floors - another body, she knows. Mia stares at the handrail’s blood streaked surface and doesn’t look down at it.

They reach the second floor landing. The door is also open, so Hopper holds out an arm, gesturing at them to flatten themselves against the wall. The doctor stops right behind Hopper, breathing heavily through his mouth, struggling to keep holding Will over his shoulder. Jenny, Mia and Mike huddle close together. Mom is right behind them, and she smiles nervously at Mia when their eyes meet.

A low growl, like an indrawn breath, comes from the door. 

They all freeze.

Hopper presses his head against the wall, and Mia does the same. Her bangs are sticking to the sweat on her forehead, a few long strands caught on her cheeks and lips. She raises the hand Jenny’s holding, and brushes them away, not untangling their fingers. Jenny’s fingers are cold and sweaty, tasting like salt and dirt. Mia wants to hold them tight to her face, to hide her eyes in the palm of Jenny’s hands and go away - to pretend none of this is happening and that it’s still December, and she’s in Jenny’s room, letting Jenny draw all over her cast. 

They don’t move a muscle until the creature walks away from the stairwell doors. 

Hopper reaches over and slowly closes it, careful not to make a noise. 

Mia is suddenly, absurdly, sad that she can’t thank the janitor that just saved their lives by oiling those hinges sometime this week. 

He’s probably dead by now.

They climb down another landing, getting, finally, to the first floor. They are supposed to take the right as soon as they leave the stairwell, if she’s recalling the map correctly. They should pass one intersection and stop at the second, where they should turn right again. They should reach a wider hall, then, where the elevators are, and turn left. The bathrooms would be right up ahead. 

They turn right as they step out of the stairwell. There are less bodies on this floor, and there’s no sign of any creatures as they cross the first intersection. But it’s when they’re getting to the second intersection that Hopper stops.

He turns around, gesturing with his rifle for them to go back. Mia hears it then - claws on the floor, coming from the hallway to their left.

They crowd over each other trying to get back as fast and as silently as possible, mom taking up the lead now, her handgun raised, her arms shaking.

They walk fast to the previous intersection, turning left. 

But the sound of claws on the floor doesn’t get dimmer. If anything, it sounds like - 

Like there’s another set of claws, right up ahead.

Mike must hear it too, because he taps her mom’s shoulder desperately. Mom freezes, gun raised. 

Mia whips her head around to look at Hopper, and he also has his rifle raised, pointed to the way they had come from.  

They’re trapped.

Mike’s breath gets faster. Mia grips Jenny’s hand tighter, her own hands sweating.

Dr. Owens shifts Will on his shoulder, and moves to the wall, opening a door to their left that Mia hadn’t even seen. It’s made of the same dark wood of the walls, it doesn’t even have a handle, it just slides to the side revealing a supply closet filled with cleaning supplies. The doctor mouths urgently at them to get inside.

Mom pushes Mike, Mia and Jenny in first. It’s a supply closet, full of cleaning products, buckets and mops, so it’s not only small, but it’s already cramped. The three of them are pushed back to the very end of it, their backs pressed against the shelves. Mia’s shin bumps into a bucket, she trips, tries to brace herself on Jenny and nearly overturns the bucket and the mop inside it. 

Mike catches the mop, but ends up caging Mia against the shelves, both of them unbalanced and leaning on Jenny. Mia tries to get some stability and blindly puts down her foot to the side, stepping inside the bucket, water seeping through her shoe and covering the bottom of her scrub pants.

She doesn’t have time to worry about the sound of sloshing water, Hopper is already inside the closet and pulling the door closed, plunging them into a terrifying semi-darkness that makes her already racing heart slam against her throat. Mia blinks, and her eyes adjust to the thin light creeping through the cracks of the door, enough for her to see Mom helping Dr. Owens hold up Will’s limp body, to see the barrel of Hopper’s rifle visible above his shoulder, pointing to the ceiling. 

A tense, expectant silence fills the cramped space. 

Hopper looms at the front of the group, between them and the door. Waiting.

There’s a growl outside the door, the clicking of claws on the floor. 

Mia brings her free hand up to her mouth to muffle her breathing, a tear escaping her eyes as she squeezes them shut. Jenny whimpers next to her ear - barely the beginning of a terrified keen, and Mike’s arm shoots past Mia’s chin to cover Jenny’s mouth, fingers tight against her jaw.

The sound of claws stops right in front of the closet. 

All the hairs on Mia’s arms stand on end, her fingers trembling violently. 

Then the sound of claws move away from the door, farther and farther still, until they can barely hear it turning the corner on another end of the hallway.

Mike lets out a relieved, but no less terrified, breath, slumping against Mia. Jenny’s crying quietly against his hand.

It takes an eternity for Hopper to crack open the door again. When he does, the yellow lights reflect off the sweat on his face, on his wide eyes and the thin line of his mouth. He flicks his fingers, telling them to start walking again.

They pass the intersections, now free of creatures, and get to the hall with the elevators again, where Hopper stops, just at the corner. Mia ducks her head under Hopper’s arm to see the hall beyond, and understands at once why the surrounding corridors had been free of blood and bodies.

They’re all concentrated here.

There are two women slumped against one of the elevators, pieces of their arms and legs leaving a trail in front of them. There’s a man lying with his stomach torn open in front of another elevator, and two more men to his right, one on top of the other, and even another one without his arms, doubled over an overturned plant. Mia sees the bottom half of a man’s legs leading to the hallway on their right, a pool of blood beneath him. 

Her stomach turns, brain sputtering out for a moment when she realizes the legs stop abruptly at the waist. She gags, tearing her eyes away to blink furiously at the wall.

She blinks at the wall, and blinks again, trying to clear the image from her head, but it does nothing - her mind is a loop of nausea and horror, and she can’t stop thinking of where the other half of his body could be. 

Hopper steps out into the hall and freezes as an alarm starts blaring through the hall.

Mia jumps in place, almost screaming at the sudden noise, but manages to stop herself just in time.

After a moment, Hopper moves forward, looking to one side, then the other, only to freeze, eyes locked on something in front of him.

Slowly, he points his weapon up. Not taking his eyes off the spot, he motions with his elbows for them to move, jerky and urgent. Dr. Owens and Will go first, not looking at where Hopper’s pointing his gun. Then Mike and Jenny run past him, holding hands, also not looking. And then Mia, with mom holding her elbow. 

Mia makes the mistake of looking.

There’s a demodog at the end of the hall, its flowered head crouched over something on the floor, its back turned to the three of them.

With a sickening lurch in her stomach, she realizes that the something is a body. The demodog is not just crouched over it - it’s eating it.

Her head spins, her lips going numb as a sudden dizziness washes over her. Hopper bumps Mia with his elbow, walking backwards. Mom pulls her at the same time he moves, but Mia’s foot gets caught on Hopper’s heel and she stumbles, catching herself on her left foot.

Her wet left foot.

Her shoe makes a loud squelching noise at the sharp movement, water seeping out from the bottom.

The creature stops eating. 

Lifts its head.

And turns right over its shoulder, sightless face staring straight at them.

Hopper takes a hand away from his rifle and shoves Mia and her mom, face pale and his eyes wide. “Go. Now!”

She doesn’t need to be told twice, letting go of her mother’s hand, spinning on the tips of her feet and running, the creature’s blood curdling screech echoing behind her. 

Hopper shoots as they run, the deafening noise making her ears ring. They reach the bathroom seconds later, feet skidding on the floors as they make a sharp turn into the room. Hopper slams the door shut behind them, so hard that the walls shake. 

“We have to go. I only nicked that thing.” Hopper says, panting. “Where’s the window?”

Mia whirls her head around, finds Mike and Dr. Owens standing by the window on the opposite wall, Will lying on the floor next to them. It’s a small, awning window, close to the ceiling. Mike has to step on top of an urinal to reach it. 

“We can’t open it!” He shouts, voice strangled with fear.

“What?” Hopper strides to them, “Let me try!”

Hopper tries with both hands, grunting at the effort. He turns his head to Dr. Owens, teeth bared. “Didn’t you say we could open this window?!”  

“It’s not a fixed window!” Dr. Owens shouts back. “We should be able to open it!”

Hopper slaps the glass, throws his elbow against it, a grunt of pain leaving his mouth. The hinges move, and the window cracks open. 

A bang makes Mia jump, whirling around to stare at the door. It shakes, another loud bang coming from it as the creature outside throws itself against the wood. Jenny screams, jumping closer to Mia and her mom.

“It’s open!” Hopper shouts as the window finally jerks open, and throws his rifle to Dr. Owens, “Hold it!”

He doesn’t look at the doctor to see if he caught it. In a single movement, Hopper climbs on top of the urinal and places his foot on the windowsill. He pushes his feet out first, turning to his stomach and squeezing out of the window, lowering himself down outside the wall with his hands. Mia sees the top of his head as he looks down, sees his fingers let go as he makes the jump.

 A shout comes from outside a second later, filled with pain. 

Mom stands on her tip-toes on the urinal, crowding against the window to see outside, “Hopper?!”

“I’m fine!” Hopper answers, sounding anything but. “Get the kids out!”

“I’m sending Will!”

Mom and Dr. Owens pick Will up from the floor. The creature in the hall outside the bathroom throws itself against the door again, a high screech tearing through the air.

Mia whimpers, a violent shiver wracking through her. Jenny grabs her by the arm, nails digging into the inside of Mia’s elbow, pressing both of them to the wall farthest from the door.

Mike holds Will’s floppy head and Mom supports his torso and arms while Dr. Owens passes Will’s legs through the window. Mom tilts Will’s upper body up, so he can slide out of the window. 

The creature outside the bathroom howls, a long sound that Mia feels deep in her bones.

Mom and the doctor are holding onto Will’s forearms, most of his body already out of the window.

“Let him go!” Hopper shouts, and they let go.

Mom gasps, looking out of the window. The creature slams onto the door again, claws making a terrible sound as it rips off pieces of wood. 

“Joyce! I’m gonna need you!” Hopper shouts a moment later, voice strangled.

Mom looks between the window and Mia, her eyes wide. “I can’t - the kids -”

“Joyce!”

Dr. Owens grabs mom’s shoulders, pushing her to the windows. “I got this, Joyce. Go!”

“No! My kids -”

“I’ll get them out safely.” The doctor promises, looking deep into her mom’s eyes. “Go.”

Mom twists her lip, tears rolling down her cheeks. She puts a leg over the window, then the other, then twists herself so her stomach is pressing against the windowsill, arms holding her up. She jumps.

Mia doesn’t hear any sounds come from outside

The doctor turns to Jenny, “You go next.”

Jenny lets go of Mia’s arm, moving to the window. 

There’s another bang as the creature throws itself against the door, but this time, the wood shatters. 

They whirl around. The creature roars in the doorway, flowered mouth opening up to reveal rows and rows of teeth.

Mia and Mike scream. 

The creature lunges. 

A weight shoves them violently to the side and Dr. Owens opens his arms, taking their previous spot. Mike hits the sink first with a sickening sound, but he catches himself on the plumbing beneath, breaking the pipe. Mia falls on top of him, neck hurting from whiplash. Water explodes over them, soaking them and the floors.

The creature lands on top of the doctor, claws out.

Jenny screams as the creature rips the doctor’s chest to shreds, red blooming over the front of his lab coat.

Mia rises to her knees, grabbing Mike’s shirt, trying to get them both up. He’s shaking his head like a dog, dazed, water soaking his hair and face. Mia's left ear is waterlogged, muffling all sounds and messing with her balance. She barely sees Jenny bolt around the monster, but feels the pull as she grabs Mia’s wrist and drags both her and Mike up.

Mia’s knees creak, thigh aching as her shoes slip on the water. Wet hair sticks to her face and obscures her vision while the three of them race out of the bathroom. They go crashing against the wall outside, and come face to face with another demogorgon staring at them on the end of the corridor.

“Go, go, go!” Mike screams shoving them away from the wall.

There’s another bathroom right next to the one they were in and Mia shoves Jenny inside, shoes slipping. Mike closes the door and Mia locks it behind them. She’s barely taken her hand away when a creature slams against it, shaking the entire wall.

The plaster above the doorway cracks and falls, showering them with white powder. It sticks to her wet hair, her eyes, but Mia barely feels it, already turning around and running for the window that should also be there.

The creature throws itself at the door again, at the same time Mia skids and crashes her against the farther wall, Mike grunting next to her where he’s done the same. They’re in the female bathroom now, so there are stalls where the other bathroom had urinals. Mia throws the last of them open and the three of them hurry inside, Jenny locking it right behind them. 

A hysterical laugh slips past Mia’s lips. 

What good would a stall door with a gap the size of her wrist between its doors do to stop a demodog?

The overhead lights blink on and off. Mia climbs over the toilet, then puts a knee on the toilet paper dispenser mounted on the wall. She tries to open the small window, but it’s stuck, just like the last one.

Mia screams, throwing her entire weight against it. Her wrists take the brunt of the impact, and she feels it in her whole body, joints shouting with pain. Something makes a sound, and her wrist burns, but she doesn’t have. Time. For. It.

Mike steps next to her on the toilet, leaning over shoulder to help her push. 

The creature throws itself against the door. There’s a loud crack of splintering wood.

Jenny cries out, clutching the back of Mia’s pants. 

Mia and Mike shove at the window again at the same time and it swings open. Mia overbalances, knees slipping on the wall and she falls on the paper dispenser, teeth biting through her lower lip.

Her mouth floods with blood. Jenny helps her up while Mike sticks his head outside, shouting for Hopper and Mom. “HOPPER! JOYCE! Over here!”

“Just go, Mike!” Jenny screams at him, climbing on the toilet seat and shoving the back of his thighs up. 

“I can’t! I’ll die if I jump from here!” Mike screams back. “HOPPER!”

Blood slides down Mia’s chin and she spits some of it out, getting up from the floor. “Jus’ go!” She tells him. 

The creature throws itself at the door again, making all three of them scream. It’s now or never. They have to go.

Mia and Jenny have to help Mike up onto the toilet paper dispenser, holding his arm as he gets up on the window to swing his legs out.

The door breaks, startling them. The creature roars as it runs into the bathroom, claws slipping on the floor. Mike’s legs tumble out of the window, pulling his whole body out. Jenny and Mia are dragged up the wall, still holding onto his forearms. 

“Let go!” He yells at them.

They let him go and he falls. 

Mia hopes Hopper catches him. 

“Go!” Jenny yells, and Mia’s already climbing up on the toilet dispenser too, stretching her leg as far as she can to hook her heel on the window and pull herself up. Her stomach hurts from the effort, her arms straining to hold all her weight. Jenny grabs her wrists, pushing her out and pulling herself up at the same time.

The creature screeches and jumps over some of the stall doors, perched on top of it like a gargoyle for a moment, before it topples down under its weight. 

Jenny screams. Mia swings her legs out of the window, trying to grip the outside wall with her toes. Her legs are heavier than she anticipated and her whole body slips out, just like Mike’s did. Mia’s armpits slam against the windowsill and she screams at the pain. But Jenny’s still holding her forearms, and Mia’s weight helps to pull her up. She crowds the window right alongside Mia, face first, elbows pointy and bruising as they press down on Mia’s forearms in her haste to get out too. 

Jenny moves up, ready to pull her body and there’s enough space between her back and the top of the window for Mia to see the bathroom behind her.

And the claws that appear on top of the stall behind Jenny.

The creature pulls itself up. Mia sees a hint of a flowered mouth, wide open, as it jumps.

Mia sees Jenny’s wide blue eyes, terrified. 

Her blonde hair sticking to her forehead as the creature’s claws sink onto her back.

Jenny’s face slams down hard against the windowsill. There’s a loud sound of something breaking, her face bounces, and there's a gash on her nose, her lip splitting like an overripe fruit. Blood sprays over Mia’s eyes. 

Jenny’s weight becomes unbearably heavy on her forearms, before it suddenly isn’t. Her hands slip from Mia’s, and she slides back into the bathroom.

Unbalanced from the sudden lack of weight, Mia’s body falls out of the window.

She tries to hold on with her fingers, scraping the raw against the sill. It’s useless, her body is too heavy, her fingers too weak.

Mia slips, and falls, Jenny’s screams following her all the way down.

Chapter 11

 

 

It takes less than a second for Mia to hit the ground. 

Someone grabs her legs, then her sides, and her head slams against something hard. They fall. She lands on something soft, head splitting with pain, but she doesn’t care. She squirms away from the arms holding her and staggers up to her knees, head spinning, not even aware of the hands helping her up by pushing her back. 

Her eyes are fixed on the window as she waits, and waits, swaying on shaking knees.

Jenny isn’t coming out of it.

Jenny isn’t coming out of it.

“JENNY!” Mike shrieks, piercing and filled with something that Mia’s brain can’t understand. refuses to. “JENNY!”

But Jenny doesn’t appear at the window.

The window is empty, a gaping maw of darkness. She can’t hear anything over the sound of blood rushing in her ears, the sound of Mike screaming Jenny’s name. Still - her brain fills up the blanks, playing catch up on the last seconds against her will. The sound of Jenny’s nose breaking, the hollow sound of her head slamming against the window. Claws puncturing something wet and hard. All the breath rushing out of Jenny’s split lips in a chilling wheeze before her body fell backwards.

Her screams as she fell.

Mia tries to breathe in. Can’t. Something crashes inside the building, and for a moment, she thinks she hears a scream.

There’s the sound of an engine. Of a familiar door creaking open. The sound of tires squealing on asphalt. And a familiar voice, shouting. “C’mon! Get in!”. The sound of a car’s horn. 

Something about it seems out of order. Like she’s skipping ahead and then back on different scenes of a movie. She hears Jenny’s head, slamming against the window. The sound of tires. The doctor yelling at them to go.

A hand pulls her up by the shoulder, almost wrenching it out of its joint. Mia strikes out with her elbow and hits something straight in the jaw. 

Her mother grunts with pain, but doesn’t let go. She shoves Mia in front of her, uses her other arm to throw Mike in front of her too. Mia falls on all fours, but Mom picks her up by the back of her shirt and pulls. 

She doesn’t know where her legs are. The ground sways beneath her feet, but she gets them under herself anyway and runs to the car. 

The back door is open. Mia hasn’t seen anyone opening it. Hopper’s already on the other side of the car, lowering himself and Will inside. Mia vaults into the seat, Mike right behind her, throwing himself on top of her back and over Hopper’s legs. Mom slams the door shut. The car peels out of the driveway, sending all of them lurching back.

For a moment there’s only the sound of their breathing, heavy and fast. Then -

“The others are outside!” A girl shouts and it takes a second for Mia to recognize that it’s Nancy. 

Nancy’s on the passenger seat, and El too, sitting sideways on Nancy’s lap. 

“How many others?” Hopper asks. Mia blinks up at the underside of his jaw. What is he talking about?

“Four!” Jonathan - It’s Jonathan, her brother - shouts. They drive straight over a speed bump. Mia’s weightless for a moment, falling out of the window, then just as fast she’s slamming back down on the carseat, Mike’s weight crushing her ribs. 

“We won’t fit! Get to the parking lot. My car is there.”

Jonathan grunts, makes another sharp turn that sends Hopper and Will sliding against Mia, who falls back against Mike, all of them flattening Mom to the car door.

For a moment, Mia thinks she’s going to burst - like an overripe fruit, like Jenny’s lip on that windowsill - but Jonathan straightens the car and suddenly she can breathe again, trying to get her knees under her to see if she can get anything to grip on and hold.

Jonathan steps on the breaks. Mike’s arms press Mia down into the seat, Mom’s hand pulling him by the shirt to stop him from flying over the front seats. “Jonathan!”

“Sorry!”

The car has barely stopped and Hopper’s already opening the door and stepping outside. He takes a second to lean Will back against the seat before he slams the door closed, so loud Mia’s ears ring. Or maybe they’ve already been ringing for a while. Her face’s wet, her left ear heavy with water, and maybe that’s what’s making everything seem so strange, why it seems she’s rocking on a boat in a stormy ocean, despite being on something so solid as the leather seats she’s known for years. 

Mike crawls over Mia, throwing an arm around Will’s shoulder to hold him up. Without Mike on top of her, Mia kneels on the car seat, to look through the rear window, at the looming building behind. 

She can see the window from here. It’s still dark and empty.

Outside, Hopper gets into his car. A moment later, it rumbles to life, tail lights flashing. 

Jonathan reverses his car, makes a wide turn, and drives them to the gates. He presses down on the horn and they speed right through four figures, all waiting around near the security check. 

Nancy leans her head out of the window, “Jonathan, we have to wait!” 

“They’ll catch up!”

When they pulled that body that looked like Will from the quarry last year, Mia had felt like she was watching it all through a pair of binoculars. It all happened so far away from her body, that she barely remembers it - only flashes. The fabric of Chief Hopper’s uniform under her cheek. The flashing police lights. The taste of her own vomit as she threw up on her living room floor. 

Jenny’s hands had been cold over her eyes as she tried to protect Mia from seeing the body. Then she’d taken her hands away and said look at me, and Mia had done just that and seen her eyes, washed out to grey by the darkness of the night, her blonde hair frizzy and wild from the ride to the quarry. 

Now, Mia closes her eyes and sees Jenny’s face - her blue eyes wide and terrified, her blonde hair stuck to her wet forehead. Mia opens her eyes and sees the claws sinking into Jenny’s shoulders. Her lip splitting over like an overripe fruit, the gash of her nose that showed bone, the blood spraying across Mia’s face.

Mia’s stomach lurches. She gasps, hands coming up to her cheeks. 

Her fingertips come back slick, and there’s red under her nails. It’s blood.

Jenny’s blood.

“Baby, stop, stop - you’re going to hurt yourself.” Mom cries, voice wet, as she pulls Mia’s hands away from her face. Her brain catches up, and Mia realizes she’d been clawing at her cheeks, a terrible keening noise coming out of her lips.

Mia takes her hands away as if burned. She pants, mouth hanging open as she tries and fails to drag in a breath of fresh air. The air inside the car is salty with their combined sweat, wet from the water that soaks her and Mike, and reeking of blood and fear. Mia licks her lips and tastes fresh copper, from her own flayed lip or from Jenny’s, she doesn’t know. 

She wants to throw up all the same.

Mike’s crying next to her, barely able to breathe between his sobs. Mom has an arm around Mia’s stomach, and with the other, she pulls Mike in by the side of his head. He smashes his face against Mia’s neck and continues to cry. 

Mia keeps trying to breathe, looking blindly at the windshield. She catches her brother’s wide eyes in the rearview mirror and looks away.  El and Nancy are staring at the three of them over the back of the passenger seat, horrified.

“Jenny?” El asks. 

Mia’s eyes instantly flood with tears. A sob claws itself out of her throat, taking her entire heart with it.

She cries and cries, then screams against the top of Mike’s head. Mom presses her hand into her mouth to stop her, and she wants to bite it. 

She continues to scream.

Against her neck, Mike does the same.

No one answers El’s question. 

*

She’s aware of every single little second of the drive to her house.  

This is nothing like last November. Her brain knows exactly what happened, and still, it seems like it wants to keep her here, stuck inside her skin, with no way out.

They stop in their driveway, lit up by the familiar orange light of their porch. Mom opens the door, her hand warm on the inside of Mia’s elbow. Mia’s sobs had died out into a stunned silence a few minutes ago as she stared, uncomprehendingly at the dark trees of Mirkwood. 

Mia brushes the hot tears that are still falling from her eyes with the back of her hand, catches a glimpse of something on her arm, and her entire brain grinds to a halt.

She brings her arm close to her eyes, finds pink half moons all over her elbow and her wrist from when Jenny had gripped arm in the bathroom. Long lines of pink from where she had tried to hold on as the weight of the monster pulled her down.

Mia jerks her arm away from herself. 

If she could have cut it off and thrown it away, she would. 

As it is, she wipes her mouth and nose on her other forearm, and forces herself to look. 

Jenny’s dead, her brain tells her. Jenny’s dead and this is the last thing she’ll ever give you.

No more glitter stuck to her hands, no more lip gloss on her cheek. She won’t find blonde hairs on her scrunchies anymore, won’t skin her knees because Jenny accidentally pushed her too hard. She won’t feel the pull in her scalp as Jenny tries and fails to learn a new hairstyle using Mia’s hair. No more doodles on the palm of her hand during boring classes, no more accidental scratches when Jenny breaks a nail without noticing it. No more oranges shared between them during lunch, or cold fingers straightening her bangs by their locker.

Jenny’s dead, Mia’s brain tells her. 

It doesn’t feel real. 

Dead, dead, dead, her heart repeats.

What does it even mean? She knows that Jenny’s not - here. Jenny should be clinging to her shoulder, squeezed between her and Mike, but she’s not. She won’t ever be again. 

How can Mia even start to comprehend that - that gap, that void? What does ever again even mean? 

It doesn’t make any sense. 

She looks at the half-moon marks on her elbow. She saw it. Jenny’s blood is still drying on her face. The sound of her nose breaking is still echoing in her head to the beating of her heart, so why does it still feel…fake? Like Jenny is just out of sight. Like she’s just riding on Hopper’s car with the others, and at any second now, Jenny will get to her porch, will open the car door, complaining that she’s taking too long, only to grab Mia by the hand and drag her inside the house? 

Shouldn’t it feel different? Shouldn’t everything scream that she’s gone and that she’s not ever coming back?

Her body is still inside the lab, her mind whispers, insidiously, making her head spin dizzily. Those monsters are eating it.

A hand closes around hers. Mom’s cold fingers tugging her out of the car gently. “C’mon, baby, let’s get you inside.”

Mia lets herself be pulled out. Mom leads her inside, arms around Mia’s shoulder. On the other side of the car, Mike’s also being led out by his sister. She hadn’t noticed that he was still inside the car, sitting right next to her. She didn’t know when the car had stopped.

Jonathan and El stand side by side near the headlights of Jonathan’s car, silent.

The Sheriff’s cruiser drives up the Byers’ driveway. Mia pulls away from her mom, turning to stare at the car, even though the headlights make her eyes hurt. The car stops. 

Steve Harrington is the first out, followed by Dustin and Lucas. And Max. 

Hopper is the last one out, his door closing with a dreadful sense of finality as he locks the car behind him.

Jenny doesn’t come out of the car.

Numb, Mia lets her mom turn her around and take her inside the house.

There’s a dizzying sense of disconnect when she looks inside the living room. She doesn’t know what she expected to find, but she still finds herself surprised at seeing the house exactly as they had left it when they went to find Hopper. Will’s drawings hung from the floor to the ceiling, their furniture pushed away to make room for the interconnected vines on the floor.

Had it only been yesterday? Not even twenty four hours ago?

Jenny had been here.

There’s a light on in the kitchen. A shadow moves and mom lets out a strangled gasp, hand tightening around her wrist, pulling Mia behind her.

Mia goes, a ship adrift in the sea. She should feel - something. Fear, perhaps. That bolt of adrenaline zipping down her arms. But she barely blinks. And it turns out that it’s Bob, just Bob. Standing in the kitchen.

“Joyce, finally! I was so worried. There were these people here and - What happened?” Bob stops on the dining room doorway, his dark eyes wide as he glances between Mia and her mom. He strides forward, arms raised towards her, and Mia doesn’t have it in herself to flinch away.

Bob takes her face, tilting it this way and that, hissing. “Oh my god, there’s blood! What happened to your face?”

There’s a series of thumps on the porch. Hopper runs through the open door, panting, wildly looking around their living room, gun in hand.

“Whoa! What the hell!” Bob shouts, throwing out his arms towards Hopper, palms open. “Jim, what are you doing?!”

Hopper blinks at Bob for a moment, before collapsing against the doorway, holding his gun to his forehead. “Sorry, Bob. Thought you were…nevermind. C’mon, kids. Coast is clear.”

Mike appears first, walking by himself this time. He strides past them, to the hallway, head low. His dark eyes glimmer, heavy with tears, as he walks past her. 

The bathroom door slams closed, a moment later.

Nancy, El and Jonathan come next. Jonathan has Will in his arms, and he gently sets him down on the couch. Then in comes Dustin, Lucas, Max and at last Steve, who closes the door behind him.

“What -” Bob starts, looking around at all of them. “Is this - is this part of the game?”

Mia laughs, abrupt and unexpected. Right. They’d told Bob this was all part of a game.

A fucking game.

Mom looks at her as if she is a bomb about to go off. “Baby, let’s go drink some water okay?”

Mia nods, sniffling. Hot tears have started to roll down her cheeks again but she doesn’t have the strength to brush them away.

In the dining room, Mia pulls out the chair closest to her and drops herself down on it, crossing her arms on the table and lowering her head on her arms. Her neck is a lump of pain down to the middle of her shoulder blades and her legs buzz beneath her, muscles spasming as if she was still running. 

Mia rolls her left wrist and winces at the pain. 

She doesn’t remember what happened to make it hurt.

There’s the soft thump of a cup being set down by her head. She straightens up, and finds everyone standing around the table, anxiously staring at each other. Max is standing behind the chair across from Mia, Lucas and Dustin on each side of her, Steve next to Dustin. Hopper’s by the entryway, brows furrowed, his eyes hard and trained on the wall. 

Nancy and Jonathan are the only ones not there. Mia can hear Nancy’s voice in the hallway, asking Mike to open the bathroom door. 

Mom nudges a glass of water closer to Mia’s hand. Bob appears behind her, a first aid kit in one hand and a wet dishcloth in the other. 

“Maybe we should clean you up first.” He says, “We don’t want your water to taste like blood.”

He passes the dishcloth to mom, who kneels down by Mia’s chair. Mia opens her mouth mechanically, lets her mom dab it gently over her lower lip. Mia doesn’t even hiss at the burn. Now that she’s thinking about it, she can feel that her lip is swollen to twice its normal size, a huge gash running across the length of it from where her teeth had dug in.

She thinks of Jenny’s lip splitting open, the noise her nose had made as it broke. Mia doesn’t remember biting down on her own lip. 

“We don’t have numbing cream.” Mom says. “Bob, can you get me some ice?”

It’s Hopper who answers. “On it.” He says, followed by the sound of the freezer opening and shutting. 

He comes back with the bag of peas over his wrist, the same one Mia had used last year, and a handful of ice cubes. He passes those to Mom, who wraps them in the bloody dishcloth. She presses them to Mia’s lip and this time she winces at the cold.

She takes the bag from her mom, gingerly holding it to her mouth.

“I have to make a call.” Hopper says, already walking to the phone. “Joyce?”

Mom has her head in her hands, but waves her hand at him, as if to say it was fine.

Lucas clears his throat, glancing at the others. 

Mia looks up at him, and knows what he’s going to ask before he says it. 

“Where’s Jenny?”

Mom lifts her head, but Mia answers first. 

“Dead.” She says staring straight at Lucas. 

She sees the emotions pass through his face, clear as a picture. Confusion. Denial. Fear. 

Confusion again.

“What?” He wrinkles his nose, staring at her as if she’d started to speak in tongues. “No, I’m asking where Jenny is.”

Mia looks at Dustin, who stares at her, open mouthed. Max’s eyes are shocked wide, infinitely blue.

Mia turns back to Lucas, and suddenly, her mouth doesn’t feel like her own. She doesn’t know what makes her say it. Why she does it, but her mouth opens and the words come out anyway.

“She’s dead.” She says again. “She’s dead.”

“Mia.” Mom says, hand clutching Mia’s knee. But Mia isn’t done. 

She can’t feel the words she’s saying. Her mouth is swollen, her tongue is dry and three times too big. Her hair is drying against her neck and her clothes cling to her from head to toe, and she’s trembling. She should be cold but she’s not. 

She can’t feel a damn thing.

“One of those things grabbed her as we were climbing out of the window. It ate her!” She’s shouting now. Why is she shouting? “It fucking killed her!”

Lucas’ eyes fill with tears. And Mia feels it then, like a spear through the chest - Guilt.

“Her hand slipped.” She’s crying again. Mom pulls Mia’s forehead to her chest and she sobs against her mom’s neck, mouth open, “She should’ve gone out first. I couldn’t grab her - I couldn’t - I couldn’t save her. I went first and she’s dead.”

Jenny’s dead, Mia’s brain tells her. 

Dead, dead, dead, her heart repeats, each beat sending another spike of pain through Mia’s entire body. Her heart beats in her chest and it hurts. 

Dead, dead, dead, it says.

Jenny’s dead. Mia couldn’t hold her, couldn’t slip out of the window earlier, couldn’t pull Jenny down with her.

Jenny’s dead and it’s her fault.

*

“Dr. Sam Owens and Jennifer Hayes.” Hopper is saying to the phone. “I don’t know how many people are in there! I don’t know how many people are left alive. I am the police! Chief Jim Hopper. Yes, the number that I gave you. I will be here.”

Hopper puts the phone back on the receiver.

“They didn't believe you, did they?” Dustin asks, sniffling.

Mia looks up at the clock. It’s just past 2 in the morning. 

Mike had come out of the bathroom at some point, and Mom had convinced him to change into some of Will’s and Jonathan’s clothes. Mia herself has changed into new and warmer clothes, one of Will’s sweaters and her brown sweatpants. Mom had pulled her wet hair away from her face in a ponytail, clipped her bangs out of her face with some of her glittery barrettes - the only ones Jonathan had found lying on her dresser. 

Mia doesn’t know who had given those to her. Probably Jenny.

They’re all sitting on the dining room table, Dustin, Lucas, Mike, Max, Mia and El. Steve is leaning against the wall, arms crossed. Jonathan and Nancy are sitting on the floor, cross-legged. Bob had made hot chocolate for all of them, with Marshmallows, before Mom pulled him away to her bedroom to explain everything. Nancy’s and Jonathan’s mugs are empty on the floor, Steve had put his in the sink a while ago, and the others are still finishing their drink. 

El has a little marshmallow in her hand, squeezing it between two fingers as tears come out of her eyes every now and then. She hasn’t started drinking her hot chocolate yet.  

Mia hasn’t touched her drink either.

Neither has Mike.

“We’ll see.” Hopper answers Dustin. Mia doesn’t remember what Dustin had asked.

“‘We’ll see’?” Mike sneers, voice loud in the deathly silence of the kitchen. “We can’t just sit here while those things are out there!”

But Hopper isn’t having any of it. He looks tired. Worn down. “We are going to stay here and wait for help, okay?” he says, voice stern, “We can’t - we’re staying here, where it’s safe.”

Mia clutches the knitted throw from the couch closer to herself, pausing when she finds that she can’t remember when it came to be wrapped around her. 

Oh right. Jonathan had draped it over her shoulder a few minutes ago, before he sat on the floor with Nancy.

Hopper leaves the kitchen. Mia stares at her drink and tries not to blink. 

“We can’t just - sit here.” Mike says, brushing a hand down his face. “She can’t have - Jenny can’t have died for nothing.”

His voice breaks on her name. Mia swallows the urge to cry. 

“What do you plan on doing, Mike?” Max asks, her voice soft. “Mrs. Byers said there were dozens of those things out there.”

“A whole army of them.” Dustin agrees with Max, voice numb, his eyes unfocused. 

Mike stops. Lifts his eyes. “His army.”

There’s a strange emphasis on ‘his’, that everyone immediately notices.

“What do you mean his?” Steve asks, pushing away from the kitchen sink.

“The Shadow Monster.” Mike says. “It got Will, that day at the school. The doctor said it…infected him like a virus. He has some sort of connection to its hosts.”

“Like a hive mind?” Nancy asks from her spot on the floor.

El’s head goes from one person to the other, confused. “Hive…mind?” 

Mike’s eyes soften. He blinks hard for a moment, breathing in slowly, and turns around to look at El. “It means they share the same consciousness. The same brain. Every member of the colony works together, doing everything that the others do, like bees.” 

Steve shakes his head, “Slow down, guys…what? Hosts?”

“Will is connected to the tunnels, That’s why he was screaming when they set it on fire.” Mike says, more than asks, looking around the kitchen. “And the demodogs, the Upside Down…everything.” Mike gets up from his chair. “The Shadow Monster is connected to everything, including Will. If the vines feel pain, so does Will, and so do those creatures. The Shadow Monster controls the hive mind, It’s their brain.”

“Like the Mind Flayer.”

They all turn to Dustin. 

“What?” Max, El, Steve, Nancy and Jonathan ask at the same time.

Dustin scrambles up from his chair, almost knocking it to the floor. He disappears into the hallway, and returns a moment later, clutching a book. 

Hopper, Mom and Bob trail behind him, looking confused.

“What’s happening?” Mom asks.

Lucas shrugs. His cheeks are still gleaming from half-dried tear tracks.

“The Mind Flayer is a monster from an unknown dimension.” Dustin begins, opening the book on the table. It’s Will’s Monster Manual. Dustin flips through the pages and seems to find what he was looking for. He taps his finger on the paper, and reads: “It’s found only in subterranean places, as they detest sunlight. They are greatly evil and consider the bulk of humanity, and its kin, as -” He cuts himself off, then continues, clearly ignoring whatever he’d read. “‘It enslaves races of other dimensions by taking over their brains with its highly developed psionic powers.’ El, Have you ever seen anything like it, when you went to the Upside Down?”

El, who had been leaning over her elbows on the table to peer curiously at the picture of the monster in the book, startles. A curl falls in front of her eye and she brushes it away, her tattoo peeking out from under the sleeve of her shirt.

“Seen it?”

“Yeah, this thing.” Dustin taps the figure on the book. A monster wearing a cape, tentacles curling out of its head, like an octopus. When El shakes her head, Dustin wrinkles his nose. “Well, maybe not exactly like it…”

Jonathan appears next to Hopper then, clutching a sheet of paper. Mia hadn’t seen him leave. It’s Will’s drawing of the Shadow Monster. 

“This. Like this one.” He says, putting the drawing in front of El.

El frowns at it, tilting her head this way and that. And shakes her head again.

Hopper sighs, at the end of his rope. 

“Dustin -” Hopper takes a deep breath in and out, clutching the bridge of his nose. “That. Is a game. It’s not real.”

“It’s not just a game, it’s - it’s a manual.” Dustin snaps, voice breaking. “The Monster Manual. And unless you know something that we don’t, this is the best metaphor for understanding what the Shadow Monster is.”

“Analogy.” Mia and Bob speak at the same time.

Dustin glances at them, “That’s what you’re focusing on? Fine - analogy, for understanding what it is.”

“So this Mind Flamer thing -” Nancy starts.

“Flayer.” Dustin interrupts.

Nancy clenches her jaw, takes a deep breath in and out. “Mind Flayer. What does it want?”

“To conquer us, basically. It thinks itself as the superior race.”

Steve makes a noise, like just now he’s starting to understand everything. “Like the germans?”

“Germans?” El asks.

Dustin looks between El and Steve. “uh…the Nazis? Yeah, sure, if the nazis were from another dimension.”

“It wants to spread and take over other dimensions.” Mike continues Dustin’s explanation.

Lucas leans over the table, “We are talking about the destruction of our world as we know it.”

Steve throws his hands up. “Great! Great - that’s just - wow.”

“So if we kill this thing.” Nancy starts, picking up the book from the table. “We kill everything it controls?”

“And how do we kill it?” Hopper asks, derisively, “Does it say there, in your manual?”

Really? This is as close as they’re getting to an explanation for what is going on. Jenny is dead and Dustin is trying to do something against the thing that killed her. And Hopper is doing what? Criticizing him for no good reason?

“Do you honestly have a better idea?” Mia pipes up, raising her voice. “Did you even know anything about the mind flayer before Dustin explained it just now? You only know Dr. Owens' explanation on this thing - and you weren’t even there when that thing took over Will in the lab. That looked nothing like some, some virus to me. He looked like he was possessed!”

“And I thought we were waiting for that army of yours, weren’t we?” Mike doubles down on Hopper, standing next to Mia’s chair, voice just as derisive as Hopper’s had been. “Even if they do come, do they even know how to stop it? You clearly can’t just shoot this with guns.”

“We don’t know that.” Hopper argues, “We don’t know anything!”

“We know it killed everyone in that lab! Soldiers with guns and flamethrowers! You shot it and it did nothing!” Mike shouts, “It still killed Jenny!”

Mia pretends she hasn’t heard him. Hopper deflates. The tension that was brewing in the room is gone, like a popped balloon.

Lucas sighs, “We also know those things are going to molt soon, and probably grow into the same monster that chased us last year. That is, if it even is an earlier form of the demogorgon and not something else entirely.”

“We also know that it’s only a matter of time before those tunnels Hopper talked about reach this town, giving its entire army unlimited access to everyone in it.” Dustin adds. “It wants to spread and it doesn’t care about us, puny humans.”

“So we have to kill the Mind flayer.” Mia tells Hopper, “And we are going to do it whether you want to or not. We can’t just wait around for some soldiers to show up and hope they somehow kill all the demogorgons.”

Hopper kneels down next to Mia’s chair, his voice low and soft as he looks up at Mia. It reminds her of the day when she was found in the woods. His voice had been one of the first things she had heard after she stopped screaming for her brother.  

“I want to kill it too, Mia.” Hopper says. “But we don’t know how to deal with it. We don’t even know where it is.”

“We know it hates fire.” Mia points out, then tilts her head at the living room. “Besides, we have him.” 

Will lies on the couch under the window, peaceful. 

 Mia grits her teeth. Like a cigarette thrown carelessly on dry grass, the sight of him makes fury run through her entire body, as vicious and consuming as a bushfire. 

There’s not even a scratch on him.

“He’s connected to the Shadow Monster.” She spits out, glaring at her brother’s sleeping body. “He can tell us exactly where he is, how to kill it even.” 

It’s his fault this happened. It had all been a trap. If he hadn’t called those monsters to them, Jenny would still -

Mia shakes her head. Where did that come from? That wasn't Will in there, that wasn’t her brother. Her brother wasn’t to blame for Jenny’s death. He was - possessed or something, it wasn’t him.

Wasn’t it? A voice whispers in her head. He seemed to know exactly what he was doing when he sent the creatures after the soldiers. 

“If anyone knows how to destroy this thing, it’s Will.” Mike says, agreeing with her. “And I know he’ll want to help us kill it.” 

“But I thought we couldn’t trust him anymore?” Max asks, “Isn’t he a spy for the mind flayer now?”

“Yeah, but…” Mike’s face falls. But then eyes widen as he realizes something. “He only told him where we were because he knew we were at the lab. The Mind Flayer must know that he’s with us, but he still hasn’t attacked. Which means he needs Will awake - Will has to know where he is to send those creatures after us again. He can’t spy if he doesn’t know where he is.” 

Mia frowns. “But we’re home, Mike. How can he not know?”

Mike thinks for a moment, then snaps his fingers, “The shed.”

The fire turns to ice in her veins, that low simmer of anger being immediately replaced by fear. 

A shudder goes down Mia’s spine. “No.”

“Why not?”

Mia got up from the table, clutching her blanket tighter around her. “We’re not locking him in there!”

Mia hasn’t stepped inside the shed since last November. Most days, she couldn’t even step on her backyard, all the terror from that night they’d been chased through their house coming back as if she was reliving it. 

Will hadn’t stepped foot in there either. She’d see him staring at it, though, sometimes, eyes a million miles away.

Whenever she asked about it, Will never said anything. Mia didn’t know exactly why he didn’t want to go in there, but as far as she knew, it was for the same reason she didn’t want to enter that place. 

She couldn’t make him relive that night. She wouldn’t make him.

“He wouldn’t even know it was the shed!” Mike argued, “We just - we could just take out everything that’s in it and like, cover it with some blankets so he doesn’t know where he is.”

Mia opens her mouth to argue, but finds she can’t. As far as they know, Will isn’t even - in his body. What if she’s arguing for the sake of the thing that killed her best friend?

“Fine.” She tells Mike. There’s a new clarity settling through her mind, as if a fog was being lifted in the face of something to do, a recognizable task with an end in sight. “Fine. That might work.”

Mike and Hopper step outside to take a look at the shed. When they return, Hopper calls Jonathan, Bob and Steve to help him clear the place out.

Dustin and Lucas have the idea to use old newspapers to cover the walls, and volunteer to go get the ones mom had thrown out at the beginning of the week. Nancy had said she could help Steve put up blankets and some trash bags inside the shed, disappearing through the back door along with mom’s staple gun. Mom had gone to the clothesline, to get blankets and linens. Mike, Max and El were rooting around the house, looking for other supplies: blankets, duct tape, cardboard, and anything else they thought would be even remotely useful. 

Mia was left alone on the kitchen table, and told to sit, and rest, like a dog.

She can’t even muster up much indignation. All she wants to do is lay down on the couch, curl herself into a ball and never wake up. She wants to grab Jonathan’s walkman, lock herself in her room and just forget about everything. To forget about interdimensional monsters and blood-thirsty demogorgons. Forget about Jenny’s lip splitting like the skin of an overripe fruit, forget the sound her head had made as it struck the windowsill. Forget about the half-moon bruises on her elbow.

Forget that Jenny is dead, and is not ever coming back.

Her skin buzzes as though bees had crawled under it. She gets up and goes out to the back door, intent on marching to the shed and demanding to help them somehow, but her feet freeze on the doorway, hovering just over the steps. 

Outside, Bob is helping Hopper move out the table from the shed, the same one she’d hid under when the Demogorgon appeared between her and Will. 

She sits down right there on the steps. 

Here she could see Hopper, Steve and Nancy working around the shed. Could see Dustin and Lucas throwing trash around and hear Mike and Max explaining to El the difference between silver tape and normal duct tape. For a moment, it feels normal, like Jenny would come out of the shed’s door, holding something from their childhood in her hands that she’d forgotten all about to show Mia. Then Jenny would sit next to her and they’d talk, and pretend they were doing something when mom came around to ask why they weren’t helping anyone.

But Jenny doesn’t come out of the shed. She doesn’t sit down next to Mia.

Steve comes out of the shed, holding Mia’s old Big Bird plushie that had turned into Chester’s chew toy and throwing it on a pile of Christmas ornaments and other old things. 

She feels like crying again. Jenny had stolen it from her, on her first day of kindergarten.

Mia’s nails go back to the bruises on her elbows, digging deep.

The pain clears her head some, and with a start, Mia realizes she hasn’t seen Chester since that night in Jonathan’s bedroom. He wasn’t in the house, hadn’t shown up, so far. 

“Excuse me.” El says, tapping Mia’s shoulder. Behind El, Max and Mike are holding the dining room chairs, all wrapped up in silver tape and cardboard. El is holding all sorts of cords and wires in her hands, and the gallon of ammonia that they keep under the sink for heavy duty cleaning.

“I’ll help.” Mia grabs the gallon from El, and the four of them climb down the stairs to the backyard.

Mia counts the steps to the shed. One, two, three, five, seven, ten. 

They stop by the open door, in the square of light that spills outside over the grass. 

What if this plan of Mike’s doesn’t work? What if Will finds out where they are? What happens if he sends those demogorgons to their house? 

They don’t know if Will is still even in that body. What if the Mind Flayer has taken over completely? 

What happens if it all works out, if they find the monster and kill it, but they still lose Will?

Mike and Max go around Mia to walk inside, but El hangs back a moment, eyes fixed on Mia. She reaches up to touch the barrette that’s holding back Mia’s bang with a frown.

El takes her hand away, and for a moment, Mia thinks she won’t say anything. But she does, voice low and incredibly comforting. 

“We will help Will.” She says, each other enunciated clearly, showing that she sounded out each one in her head before speaking. “You’ll see.”

She holds out her hand to Mia. Mia takes it.

*

Mia, Mike, Jonathan, Mom and Hopper stay in the shed with Will while the others go back to the house with Bob.

Hopper pours some of the ammonia into a cotton ball, and passes it under Will’s nose.

He wakes up gasping, dark eyes wide and wild.

Mia has to hold back her own gasp. Will’s eyes are a deep, dark brown, instead of the usual haze, and his skin is pale as a corpse’s. 

Mike takes her clenched fist from her side, and laces his cold, clammy fingers through hers. She squeezes his hand, glad for the company. Now that Will is awake, the same feeling from back at the lab comes back - like a burning beneath her veins. 

Her head feels fuzzy, and it’s hard to blink and keep her eyes open. It reminds her of a few days ago, when she and Will had sat on the couch and he had put his head on her shoulder. 

It’s like I’m falling asleep, he’d said.

Will - or the thing in Will’s body - looks around at them, looking so much like her brother when he’s just woken up that Mia fights not to throw herself down next to him and just cry like a baby on his shoulder. 

But then, his eyes snap to attention inhumanly fast when he - it notices the binding around its body. The thing wearing Will’s body tries to squirm out of the wires they’ve tied around him, and the illusion of it being her brother shatters.

“What - what’s going on?” He squirms on the cardboard-covered chair, head whirling around to stare at the covered insides of the shed. “What is this? Why am I tied up? Why am I tied up?”

Mom kneels down in front of him, “Will, we just want to talk to you. We’re not going to hurt you.”

Her voice is soft, quiet and cautious in a way Mia hasn’t heard in years. It was the same tone she’d used when she sat them all down on the dining room table and told them that dad was never coming back. 

It gives her a strange kind of whiplash, bile rising up to her throat and a strange double-image overlaying Will on the chair, of herself on that couch as mom crouched in front of her and asked, in the same tone of voice, if her dad had ever hurt her before.

She shakes her head and turns her attention back to Will, watching as the thing snaps its head to the lights they’ve turned towards him, not even squinting at their brightness. 

“Where am I?”

Hopper kneels next to mom, the drawing Will had made of the Mind flayer in his hand.  

“Recognize this?” Hopper asks. Will shakes his head, but his eyes linger on the picture, and no one is convinced. “Do you recognize this?” Hopper insists.

Will shakes his head again, more frantic. Mom puts a hand on his knee. “Hey, we just want to help you, baby. But to do that we have to understand how to kill it.”

Why are they talking to it as if it was still Will? Haven’t they realized yet that that’s not him?

“Why am I tied up?!” Will shouts, cutting through the hushed atmosphere of the shed. Mia flinches back, held in place by Mike’s hand. “Why am I tied up?! Why am I tied up?!” Hopper puts his arm around Will’s shoulder, to stop him from hurting himself as he starts to squirm. But Will only thrashes harder, snapping his head back against the wooden post, the one that supported the ceiling, which they’ve tied him to, neck straining. “Why am I tied up! Why am I tied up!”

This time it’s Mike who steps back, holding Mia’s hand in a death grip and pulling her with him. Jonathan walks over to her other side, and Mia takes his arm, knowing he needs the closeness as much as she does. 

Will screams, and the lights flicker. 

Terror makes Mia’s heart slam in her chest, and her eyes fill with tears. For a second, it’s like she’s back at that night that Will went missing, clawing at the latch on the shed door as the lights flickered, feeling the demogorgon’s looming presence behind her back. 

“Let me go!” Will screams, “Let me go! Let me go! Let me go!”

He repeats it over and over again as Hopper holds him down to the chair. Mom tries to make him calm down but he keeps screaming. 

The hum of electricity gets louder, pressing down on Mia’s ear.

She can’t help the pained noise that leaves her throat as the pressure mounts and mounts. Will’s eyes snap up, looking straight at her, despite the blinding lights turned on him. She waits for the recognition, waits to see Will behind those brown eyes.

It never comes.

Will looks away from her, sags against Hopper’s grip.

“Let…me. Let me go. Let me go.” Will pants, quieter. He turns to mom and he looks sick, his eyelids bruised a deep purple, his lips dry and colorless. 

The lights stop flickering. The buzz of electricity fizzling out. 

Mom sits on the chair in front of Will. “Do you know what March 22nd is?” She asks.

Will stares at her, not blinking.

“It’s your birthday. You and your sister were born eleven minutes and twenty seconds apart from each other. Do you remember that, Will?”

Will doesn’t say anything. It’s not her brother in that chair but…it seems like mom knows it. But she’s still trying to reach him, somehow, through the thing sitting in front of them.

“When you turned five, I gave you that huge box of crayons, do you remember that? It was the first time you invited Lucas, your friend, to come to our house, and he gave you that star wars toy you’d been begging me to buy for weeks because Lucas and Mike had ones just like it. And I thought you wouldn’t like the gift I gave you, but you -  You didn’t even take the toy out of the box. You just wanted to draw with the crayons I gave you, that entire day. And the first thing you drew was our family. You, me, Jonathan, Mia. And Chester.” Mom’s voice wavers, “You must have used all - all 120 colors on the box. I was so proud. I hung it up in the fridge.”

Will stares at mom, eyes darting over her face. Jonathan squeezes Mia’s hand, and Mia swallows around her dry throat, blinking hard to dispel the fuzziness in her head.

“Do you remember when Dad left?” Jonathan asks. Will turns to his voice, and Mia lets go of Jonathan so he can step forward, out of the hiding place behind the lights. He sits on the ground next to Will. “We built Castle Byers just like you drew it, and it took ages because you and Mia didn’t know how to use hammers. She hammered your thumb and it stayed purple for weeks.” Jonathan and Mom laugh, wetly, before they turn to Will. “It rained the entire time we were out there and we still stayed. And we all got sick for a week after that. But we finished it, didn’t we?”

Mike makes a small sound in the back of his throat, and Mia knows he’s going to talk too.

“Do you remember the first day that we met?” Mike says. There’s a tear running down his cheek, but he doesn’t brush it away, “It was the first day of kindergarten. I knew nobody. I had no friends and -” His breath hitches, more tears falling from his eyes. He steps forward out of the shadow behind the lights, bringing Mia along with him. “And I just felt so alone and so scared but then…I saw you on the swings and it looked like you were alone too. I just walked up to you, and I - I asked. I asked if you wanted to be my friend. And you said yes. And you pulled a girl from the rope climbers near us, and turns out she was your sister. Your names were weird and I had two friends at the end of the day when I had started out with none.Asking if you wanted to be my friend was the best thing I’ve ever done.”

Mike takes a shaky breath in. Will stares up at him, his lips trembling. 

There’s an expectant silence, and Mia decides to fill it.

“You know who I am.” She starts, surprised to find that her voice doesn’t shake at all. “You’ve always known who I am. Mom says you were born quiet, not breathing. All blue. She says I knew that something was wrong because I screamed and you - you recognized me somehow. And you took in your first breath. You started crying and mom was so relieved because she thought you wouldn’t make it.” She bit her lip, breathed in deep around the knot on her throat. “When mom told us that story you said to me that it made sense that I’ve been yelling at you since the moment we were born.”

Will’s eyes are brown and wrong on his face, but Mia makes herself hold his gaze. That fire from before catches again, filling her head with smoke and fury, deeper than she’s ever felt it before. It burns away the fuzziness in her head, fills her limbs with a manic energy that makes her take a step closer to Will, letting go of Mike’s hand.

“I told you this when we were at the lab.” She continues, her voice biting. Mom and Jonathan startle at the change in tone, looking back at her. “I said I’d make you not forget about me, just like I made you take your first breath, thirteen years ago. I told you to fight back. I told you not to go away. And you promised me you wouldn’t. Will, my brother, promised me he wouldn’t, but he did go away and you’re in his place and you’re not him.”

“Mia -” Hopper starts, but Mia ignores him. She gets close to Will’s face, ignoring the way mom pulls her wrist, and Jonathan tells her to stop. 

Their way hasn’t been working, she’s going to try it her way. 

This past year, when Will was quiet and snappish and keeping secrets from her, Mia had found her own way of making him talk.

The others think Will has been infected since that day at the school, but Mia’s starting to think differently. The Upside Down has been inside Will for months - it has been tormenting him, making him see things and act in ways her brother never would have acted. 

Will would never keep secrets from her, wouldn’t be mad at her for caring about him. Those slugs were the first symptoms of the infection. The Shadow Monster was just the generalization of the disease. 

Will may be somewhere in there but this thing is at the front, this thing that stole her brother’s mind and called those things to kill them. 

This thing wearing his face was responsible for Jenny’s death. 

“Do you know who Jennifer Hayes is?” Mia spits out, nose nearly touching the thing’s nose. “I met her a few weeks after you met Mike, and I was so glad I had made a friend that wasn’t through Will. Everything we had was shared and I never minded it, but for once, I had someone that was just mine.”

Mom pulls her back, but she wrenches her wrist out of her grasp. Will is looking up at her and it must have been a trick of the light, but for a moment she could swear there was a fleck of greenish-blue in them.

But she blinks and all she can see is brown, and she sneers at the thing wearing her brother’s body. 

“Jenny plays softball and she’s part of the theater club. She wants to be an actress, and she had it all planned out for us to move out of Hawkins and become big artists in New York as soon as we graduated. She had art classes with my brother, Will, and she loved him from the moment they met. And you killed her.”

Will reels back as if slapped. There’s redness creeping around his eyes, and their color doesn't change, but she knows this - she recognizes this, because she knows her brother’s face and expression like she knows her own. 

Will is almost crying, not the monster. 

Good, Mia thinks, because she also knows what comes next. 

She has to press harder. Mia has to make the thing’s control over her brother break. She has sharpened the knife, but now she will drive it home. 

The anger simmering in her veins helps, whispering just the right words into her ears. For a moment, she sees red. 

She wants to hurt this thing wearing Will’s face, wants to hurt Will. She wants to reach inside his chest and tear his heart to pieces, leave it wounded and bleeding. Make it a twin image to her own heart.

“You killed her and Will let you. Will promised me he wouldn’t go away but he lied to me, he went away. Will was weak and he let you take over him!” 

“I didn’t!” Will shouts and his voice isn’t shrill for the first time. “I’m here!”

Mia grabs onto his arms, nails biting. “Then how do we kill it, Will?! Tell us!”

Will squeezes his eyes shut, shakes his head. Mia’s vision goes fuzzy at the edges, some invisible force pressing down on her head, but she’s still angry, and she’s quick to shake it off. “It’s your fault she’s dead, tell us how to kill it now!”

“That’s enough.” Hopper says, and a pair of arms pick her clean off the ground. 

Mia bares her teeth, she squirms in Hopper’s grasp, hooking a foot around the door of the shed to stop him from taking her outside.

“The gate!” Will sobs, before his body starts shaking, his head snapping to the side. He screams, voice doubling like they’d turned on two radios at once on the same station. He gasps, and when he shouts again, his voice is his own. “You have to close the gate!”

Mom grips his face in her hands, cradling the back of his head so he doesn’t bash his head against the wooden pole. “Will!”

Will’s head snaps to the side, then he stops crying. 

When he lifts his head, his eyes are calm again, and dark brown. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

Mom starts crying, and lets go of his face. Will lurches forward, his ties cutting into his arms. 

“Where am I!” He shouts in that double voice. The lights start flickering again. “Where am I!”

“Both of you, out.” Hopper says, putting Mia down. Mia looks at him, unbalanced, and Hopper jerks his head at her and Mike. “Get out now.”

“Where am I?! Where am I?!”

There’s a roar of an engine, the sound of gravel sliding on their driveway. Mia’s and Hopper’s heads snap to the flaps of cloth they’d strung over the shed’s door just as someone rings their doorbell.

Someone rings their doorbell. 

No one ever used their doorbell, it was an old and horrible thing, that made a sound more like one of those rubber chickens than a proper doorbell. Everyone that visited them knew not to press it. But they hadn’t received new visitors in years, and no one ever used it, so they had never bothered to fix it.

But Will and the thing in his body recognizes it at once, and it closes its eyes.

“Hey! Can you hear me?” Mom asks Will, putting a hand on his knee.

“He knows.” Hopper says, “He knows where we are.”

Chapter 12

 

 

As soon as Max’s little friend introduced herself to him that day in the parking lot, Billy had kept an ear out for the name Jennifer Hayes. 

It paid off the very next day, when he heard the grocery store cashier asking a Mrs. Hayes how she was. 

“Lily, how many times do I have to tell you to call me Abigail?” The blonde woman on the line in front of Billy had said, opening her wallet to pay.

“Sorry, Mrs. Hay-Abigail.” The teenager had apologized, smiling around her braces. “Mom asked me to thank you for that fleece blanket you gave Rupert. They’re coming back from the maternity ward today, if you want to come visit.”

After promising she’d stop by, the woman had left with her groceries. Billy - who was just buying beer for his dad and some cans of tomato paste for Susan - had quickly paid for his groceries and followed her to the parking lot. It made him feel like a creep, but he’d waited until she pulled off the parking lot and followed her home.

She’d pulled up to a pretty little yellow house, not far from the grocery shop. There had been a man sitting on the front steps in the sun, reading a book. Her husband, Billy gathered, as the man had left the book on the ground and gotten up to greet Abigail with a kiss.

Billy had left as soon as the couple entered the house with the groceries, noted the number by the front door and tried to remember the address.

After he leaves his house to look for Max, Billy drives to the arcade first. 

It’s far from their house, but they’re still open despite the late hour, some type of marathon gaming going on. He hangs around for half an hour just to make sure Max isn’t there at all, before he leaves. 

Then he thinks of that little yellow house and drives around Hawkins trying to remember where it was. He takes a wrong turn because all these fucking streets look the same, but finally, after some more driving, he recognizes a tree on someone’s yard and manages to recall where he should be driving to.

A few moments later, he stops at the little yellow house. 

There’s a light on, despite the late hour. Billy gets out of his car and rings the bell.

The man who’d been reading a book in the sun opens the door, a furrow in his brows. 

“Can I help you?” He asks. The man is good looking enough, with salt and pepper hair and a strong square face, his eyes a deep blue behind his gold-rimmed glasses. His sleeves are pushed up to his elbows and - well, Billy can certainly appreciate those forearms.

“You must be Mr. Hayes.” Billy greets with a smile. “I’m Max’s step-brother, Billy.”

Recognition sparks in the man’s eyes, thankfully. “Oh, Max! Jenny’s friend. Sure. What can I help you with, son?”

Billy ignores that last word, fighting to keep the pleasant smile on his face. His cheek throbs, as if to remind him what had happened earlier, and what his real father would do if he didn’t find Max.

“Max told me about the sleepover but she forgot her stuffed bear back home.” He points with his thumb at the empty backseat of his car. “I just saw it and she usually can’t sleep without it, so I thought I could give it to her, you know?” He says the last part in a whisper, as if he was sharing a secret with Mr. Hayes.

Mr. Hayes nods, but glances at the clock on his wrist, troubled. “Well…it’s pretty late, I don’t know if Joyce’s still awake. But the girls usually sleep late when they’re at the Byers’.”

Joyce? Byers? Like those kids that went missing last year?

Fuck, that little bitch isn’t here. 

The man frowns, “But why did you come -”

“I lost the address.” Billy quickly says. “My dad dropped Max off earlier but he went out with Max’s mom. Max should have left the Byers’ address at home but I couldn’t find it anywhere, just Jenny’s.”

“Of course, of course. C’mon.” Mr. Hayes says, as if Billy’s half-assed lie made sense. He opens the door wider. “Step in, I’ll write it down for you.”

Billy hesitates, trying to give the man a pleasant smile. “I don’t want to be a bother -”

“Our daughter’s friends and their family are never a bother. Come in, it’s late.” 

Mr. Hayes steps to the side, motioning for Billy to get in. Billy clears his throat, nervously touches his earring and steps inside. 

In front of him, a cream and white staircase leads to the second floor. To his right, there’s a wall filled with family pictures, most of them of the blonde little girl he’d met at the school’s parking lot and a chubby blonde baby, who is probably also her. 

Mr. Hayes turns left on an open doorway, leading Billy to the living room, which has a long couch and some armchairs, and a brand new TV. Some glitter pens are scattered over the coffee table, a book on Shakespeare sitting on the arm of the couch. There are clothes on one cushion of the couch, looking like they’ve just been pulled out of the clothesline and set aside to fold. Up ahead there’s the kitchen, where the blonde woman from the grocery store is, sipping on a glass of red wine.

“Who was that - Oh, hi.” Abigail Hayes says, straightening up from where she was leaning against the kitchen aisle. 

The man nods his head between them, “Honey, this is Billy. Max’s step-brother. Billy, this is my wife, Abigail.”

Abigail Hayes smiles, and for a moment, Billy is breathless. Her blonde hair is loose around her shoulders, golden waves framing her face. She’s wearing a white sleep dress under her robes, which she politely ties at the waist as she walks around the aisle towards Billy. 

“Pleasure to meet you, Billy.” She holds out a hand for him. Billy takes it, lightly shaking her warm hand before letting go. “Not that this visit isn’t welcome, but…is everything okay? It’s a bit late.”

Billy opens his mouth, but his brain seems to have forgotten how to speak. He hadn’t paid attention to her face back at the grocery store, but God she looks so much like -

Like -

“Max forgot something at home but Billy lost Joyce’s address.” Mr. Hayes answers for Billy, snapping him out of his stupefied silence. He’s rooting around the kitchen drawers, a notepad in hand.

“Oh, alright.” She accepts it, just as easy-going as her husband.  “The pen is in the third drawer.” Abigail tells her husband. 

She’s standing in front of Billy, her feet bare. She looks up at him and it’s the strangest feeling, because she isn’t looking at him like most of the middle-aged moms in this town have looked at him so far. 

There’s not a hint of a leering smile, not a single lock of hair tucked behind an ear or a bitten lip. She just looks at him, a line between her brows, and her eyes are a different shade of blue than her husband’s, more electric. It sort of reminds him of Max’s.

“Oh, dear, what was that?” She asks, tapping her own cheek.

Billy’s hand goes to his cheek automatically, eyes widening, before he pulls it away. Shit. 

No pretending he has no clue what she’s speaking of. 

“Oh, you know how it is.” He says, smiling. Billy doesn’t know if they’re the type of parents who don’t want their children around troublemakers, so he plays it safe. “Took a ball to the face during basketball practice.”

Mr. Hayes laughs, deep and loud by the sink. He’s found a pen. “I lost a few glasses to those cement balls they keep at the school.” Mr. Hayes touches the pen to the paper and tries to write down the address, but it clearly doesn’t work. He does a few loops with it, but sighs. “Pen’s dry. Do you mind waiting a few moments for me to grab another one?”

Billy minds. He very much minds.

“No, sir. It’s fine.”

“Alright, just a minute then.”

Mr. Hayes leaves and Billy tenses. He looks down at Mrs. Hayes and forces himself to relax, cocking his hip to the side and smirking. Surely, now that her husband is gone she’s going to make her move.

“You and Max are from California, right?” She asks instead, walking back to her glass of wine on the kitchen aisle. “How are you finding Hawkins?”

Boring. Terrible. Suffocating. “It’s fine.”

Mrs. Hayes laughs and Billy blinks, unaware of what he did to get that reaction. 

“Yeah, right. I moved here from New York, Billy. I know how boring a little town like Hawkins can feel after living on a place like the golden coast.” She doesn’t go back to her glass of wine, like he’d been expecting. Instead she walks over to the pile of dishes set aside to dry, and takes a normal glass, tilting it towards him. “Do you want water? Or anything else? We have juice, and soda.”

“Uh.” Billy blinks, not sure how to respond, looking back over his shoulder at the living room doorway. Has it been a minute already? “No, thank you.”

“Tiramisu?” She asks, hand touching the fridge’s door. “My husband made it for dinner tonight.”

Billy shakes his head, putting both hands inside his pockets. He is hungry. The last time he ate had been hours before his dad got home. He’d been counting on seeing how his date would go, to know if he’d eat something or not.

There’s a moment of silence. Billy can hear Mr. Hayes walking around on the first floor. 

“Nice earring.” Mrs. Hayes says, and Billy’s eyes cut back to her, wary. 

He dissects the compliment in his head, finding no double meaning. It hadn’t sounded malicious, or like she was stroking his ego. Her eyes were heavy with sleep and her teeth were stained purple from the wine, and there was no attempt at looking seductive or anything of the sort. 

She said it like a mom would, when telling a child she didn’t know that she liked their dinosaur shirt or something. Just to strike up a conversation. A compliment to make the kid forget about their shyness and start talking about something they liked.

“Thanks.” He says, something warm curling in his chest. For a moment he forgets about the anger and the fear that had driven him here. The Hayes’ house is warm, there are clothes to be folded on the couch, and this lady that looks like his mom hasn’t leered at him once. 

“Found it!” Mr. Hayes calls, right behind Billy. Billy startles, hands closing into fists in the pockets of his jacket. 

He hadn’t heard him come downstairs. 

The man gives him a sheet of paper with Byers’ house written at the top, an address, a phone number, and directions written in a long, flowy script beneath the name. There’s more on the back too, another phone number, written right under the name Hayes. “I put some directions since you’re new in town, and put our number there too. Seems like Max didn’t pass it along to you.”

Billy takes the paper, eyes flying from one parent to the other. “Uh, thanks, sir. Sorry again for interrupting your night.”

Mr. Hayes waves his hand. “It’s not a bother at all, Billy. You and your step-sister are welcome anytime you need it.”

“When you get there, tell Jenny we said hi.” Mrs. Hayes says from the kitchen, shaking her head fondly. “She hasn’t called since yesterday.”

“Yeah.” Billy nods, already walking to the door, eager to leave this strangely comfortable place behind. “Sure. Thanks again.”

The cold night air hits like a slap to the face as he steps out of the house. 

It helps to clear some of the sheer weirdness of this entire interaction out of his head. 

Billy gets in his car and pulls off, pretending he doesn’t look at his rearview mirror, and that Mr. Hayes doesn’t wait at the door until Billy has turned around the corner.

It’s a long drive to this Joyce Byers’ house. 

Billy has no idea who that is. He had heard of the name, of course, it seemed like the Byers had been the news of the town last year, and people whispered their names at the school every single day. On Tuesday, he’d overheard some girls saying don’t go to the woods, you don’t wanna end up like Zombie Byers, do you? on the line of the cafeteria. And then back when Tommy was taunting Steve in the showers, he’d said Nancy had run away with ‘the freak’s brother’. When Billy had asked Tommy who that was, he’d said it was some dude named Jonathan Byers. Maybe the freak was this Zombie Byers he’d heard the girls talking about.

It’s dark on this stretch of road, so Billy has to drive slowly so as to not drive straight into a tree. By the time he’s turning on the last curve written down on the paper Mr. Hayes had given him, half an hour has passed. 

There’s a lone house up ahead, and the clock on his dashboard shows it’s almost three am. 

Shit. It’s pretty fucking late. It’s been almost two hours since he left his house.

He curses again, when he sees there are four cars parked in front of the Byers’ house: a hulking police cruiser, a little green Pinto looking laughably small next to it, then a dark Beemer and a beat up Ford. 

“What the fuck?” Billy whispers, getting out of his car. The lights are on, and as he walks to the front porch, the curtains on the window move. 

He sees two boys, one wearing a cap and one with curly brown hair, before another face joins them: Max’s face.

The three of them duck out of sight as soon as Billy catches Max’s eye, and anger flares in his chest. 

Seething, Billy marches to the door and waits. 

A moment passes and no one opens the door for him, despite them seeing him just now. Billy smiles and runs his tongue over his teeth, furious. He thinks about just slamming his fist against the door and yelling for Max to come out right the fuck now. Thinks about kicking open the door and dragging her out by her fiery red hair.

But something about his encounter with the Hayes’ makes him not do any of it. 

Maybe it’s the way that Abigail Hayes looked like his mother. 

Or maybe it’s the fact that there’s a police cruiser outside the house.

Billy decides to press the doorbell instead. 

The noise makes him startle - a loud, shrill squawk, like a rubber chicken being squeezed, and he pulls his hand away, staring in disbelief at the tiny little button. 

The noise stops. He hears voices inside, frantic and loud. Many voices. 

What the hell did that little bitch get herself into?

The door swings open, and Billy comes face to face with Steve Harrington, of all people, and a girl from his year. It takes a moment for him to remember her name. He had seen her at that Halloween party…she was the one who spilled the drink all over herself. What was it - Right. Nancy Wheeler. 

“What are you doing here?” She asks, voice frantic, half-whispering.

His eyes flick from Harrington to her, at their weirdly scared faces. Behind them a short man appears, face concerned but he doesn’t say anything. 

Billy doesn’t think that that’s Joyce Byers.

Billy shows his teeth at them, too angry to smile, “I’m looking for my step-sister, Maxine.”

“Well, she’s not here.” Harrington says, hands on his hips.

“Strange,” Billy glares at him, at Nancy. “Because a little birdie told me she was here.”

Harrington has the fucking nerve to shakes his head at him. “We don’t know her.”

“Oh, really?” He argues, “Small. Redhead.” A bit of a bitch, he wants to say, but doesn’t because there’s some random man behind them that he doesn’t know. “Doesn’t ring a bell?”

“No, man, sorry.”

The fucking idiot. He’d seen her through the window. Her and some weird little kids too. And Steve fucking Harrington still dares to lie to him about it in his face? He steps up to Steve, but he forgets the words he was planning on saying when a door suddenly slams open inside the house. 

Harrington, Nancy and the man whirl around to look, and Billy takes the opportunity to shove them aside and barge in. 

“What the -” Steve starts, before Nancy says louder than him, indignant. “You need to leave!”

Billy looks around the living room but the couch’s empty, no sign of Max or those kids, though the couch throw is on the floor.

“Hey, hey, hey -” The man stops Billy, a hand on his shoulder. He’s not very tall, barely comes up to Billy’s nose, his frame round and soft. Billy clenches his jaw, staring him down. 

“Let me through.”

Multiple steps come fast from inside the house. A short woman with bangs appears through a doorway, followed by some guy his age, who has a fucking child thrown over his shoulder, and two other kids around Max’s age: a girl with a busted lip and dried blood on her neck, and a boy with dark black hair in a too big sweater.

Billy’s heart skips a beat, his eyes darting around in search of Maxine. He doesn’t know what the hell she got herself into, but if he sees a single scratch on her, he’s pounding Pretty Boy Harrington’s face into the floor.

“Where the fuck is my sister.”

There’s the sound of a door shutting, heavy boots crossing the hardwood floors. A huge man comes from the back of the house, with a brown rifle in his hand. He looks around the dining room, his eyes finding Billy’s on the doorway to the living room. There’s a storm brewing in them, his anger hanging like tornado clouds over his head.  

Billy’s heart stops, before kickstarting in his chest again when four kids pop out behind the man: the boy with the baseball cap, a dark-skinned boy, the curly-haired boy he’d seen at the window and Max. 

Fucking Maxine. 

At least she seems unharmed by these freaks, though her face is sweaty and her cheek is streaked with dirt.

But Billy is distracted from the infuriating sight of his step-sister by the cop picking up something from a wall. It's another fucking rifle, bigger than the other one. The man moves, and Billy takes two steps back, cold shooting through his veins, bumping into Nancy, but the man is huge, and too close. 

His long legs reach Billy before Billy can run away.  

“Who the hell are you?” The cop snarls. Billy’s heart slams in his throat. He opens his mouth to answer it, but the man shakes his head, dismissing Billy, and raises his voice to the other people in the room. “It knows where we are. They’re coming.”

The cop raises the smaller rifle at the guy who’d carried the kid inside. “You know how to use this?”

The guy takes too long to answer, so the cop turns to Harrington. “Can you use this?”

“I can!” The girl, Nancy Wheeler, says. 

The cop throws the gun at her without a second thought, and she grabs it, immediately readying it and aiming at the door. The cop raises his rifle, the bigger, military-looking one, and points it at the window. 

What the actual fuck. 

They are coming? Who the fuck are ‘they’?

Someone tries to grab Billy’s arm, but he wrenches it out of their grip. The short man from before holds his arm again, this time shoving him to the side hard enough he goes stumbling over to the couch. 

“What -”

“Shut up.” Nancy tells him as Billy is forcefully placed behind her. 

Harrington stands next to her, twirling a baseball bat with fucking spikes around his wrist that he’d brough out of fucking nowhere. The curly haired kid, whose gender Billy isn’t so sure anymore, stands between Harrignton and the cop, their arms raised. The remaining kids are standing behind the four of them, Max next to the kid wearing a cap, both of them behind the dark-skinned boy, who has a slingshot in his hand. The other kids that had come in behind the woman with bangs are still huddled behind her. The dark-haired boy is holding some sort of golden trophy in his hand, the girl with the busted lip standing empty-handed and clearly terrified. There’s a bowl-haired kid passed out on the couch, in medical clothes, the guy around Billy’s age that had carried him inside standing protectively in front of him.

Billy can’t take it anymore.

“What the hell is going on!”

“Shut up!” Five distinctive voices yell at him.

The short man squeezes his arm, and hisses, “Be quiet.”

Something about his voice makes Billy instantly shut up, a sixth sense he’s honed by living his entire life with his father. They’re all waiting for something, the silence tense and expectant. The kids’ breaths are loud, all of them clearly terrified.

He’s about to ignore all his instincts and demand them to tell him what’s going on when a growl comes from outside.

But it’s not any growl that Billy’s ever heard.

No - it doesn’t sound like a dog, or a bobcat or anything he can recognize. It’s too high, too metallic, like an indrawn breath recorded on a shitty tape or metal pipes being rubbed against one another.

“Where are they?” Nancy asks, voice full of fear.

Another growl, louder still. A shadow blurs past the window, heading to the side of the house. Nancy points her rifle at it. 

The cop and the curly haired kid continue to stare at the front window and door. Billy’s eyes fly from one direction to another, a prickling in the back of his neck, some animal instinct urging him to not move a single muscle, not even to open his goddamn mouth.

“What are they doing?” Nancy asks again, and Billy wants to yell at her to shut up, for a change.

There’s a series of clicks, a wheezing growl, and the living room window explodes. 

The kids scream. A creature unlike any other Billy’s ever seen jumps through the window. Time slows down, and it’s almost like the thing freezes mid-air. The thing’s jaws are open, except that it’s not a jaw at all, it’s rows and rows of teeth and lips in the shape of a flower, flaps of oozing red skin and teeth, all flared like a cobra’s hood. 

Billy blinks, and blinks again. 

And he realizes it is frozen midair.

The curly haired child has both her hands up towards the creature. With a shout, she brings her arms down, and the creature’s ripped to pieces right in front of his eyes.

Another creature breaks through the dining room window, flipping the table with a deafening crash. Nancy Wheeler turns to it and shoots once, twice, thrice, before the curly haired kid marches towards her and sends the creature flying away deeper into the house with a wide gesture of her arm. It gives a choked off yelp, like a dog kicked, and doesn’t come back.

More growls make Billy snap his head around. Two creatures crawl over the broken front window and climb down to the couch beneath it. Another creature breaks down the door, roaring at them with its flower mouth, loud enough to make his head hurt. 

The man with the rifle and Nancy shoot at them, the sound deafening in the small room. The two creatures by the window snap and snarl, but they seem to not be able to move out of the couch - something keeps them back as the man and Nancy continue to shoot, uselessly, at them, their claws sliding desperately against the couch’s upholstery, tearing it like soft butter. 

But the third creature seems to shake off the invisible force and jumps, mouth open and slobbering, claws outstretched, headed straight for the gap between Nancy and the wall. 

Which is exactly where Billy is standing, completely unarmed. 

Billy has a split second to realize he’s about to die, before a hand in the middle of his chest shoves him back and down to the floor. 

Harrington appears above him and swings his bat, smashing it against the creature’s head. 

It flies to the side, dazed. One of the two creatures by the window drops dead, head in pieces. The arm of the other explodes and it shrieks, a sound that chills Billy down to his bone. 

Harrington jumps on the creature he’d hit, bringing his bat down again and again and again, shouting. But it’s not doing much beyond making thick blood fly onto the walls and enraging the creature further.

“Steve!” Nancy shouts, turning her gun on them. Harrington jumps out of the way, but her gun clicks, empty. 

Cursing, the man with the rifle turns his gun away from the armless monster and shoots. Billy can see the bullets hitting the creature, but it shakes them off like they were paintball shots. It roars at them, and Billy’s so close he can smell its breath. The scent of rot, blood and something like spoiled meat fills his nose, making him gag.

The three-legged creature by the window is slammed against the ceiling by an invisible force, shaking the entire room. It drops to the floor, unmoving. The kids scream, and the woman with bangs covers Max and the girl with the busted lip from the shower of plaster that comes from the ceiling. The two other boys are huddling behind the kid with the slingshot, who lets his rock fly to the other side of the room, straight into the mouth of the creature the Man with the rifle is shooting at.  

The creature closes its mouth, a shrill, hacking noise coming out of its throat. The curly haired kid makes a cutting motion with her arm, screaming, and the creature’s head gets severed from its body.

For a moment there’s just the sound of their breaths. 

Then another moment passes and there’s still no other growls or roars, no sound of claws scurrying outside. 

The man with the rifle lowers his rifle and a collective breath seems to leave everyone. 

As if on cue, the curly haired kid drops to the floor, saved from falling on her face by Nancy, who grabs her by the back of her shirt, lowering her to the ground like a bag of food.

“What the fuck was that!” Billy finally shouts, getting up from the floor. The others turn around to look at him, as if only then remembering he was there. “What the fuck?!”

*

Mia drops next to Will’s head on the couch, legs trembling. 

“What the fuck was that?!” The blond guy shouts again, getting up from the floor. “What the fuck!”

Mia had never seen him before. He must have been the person who rang the doorbell.

“Billy, shut up.” Max says, advancing on him. 

Billy? Max’s brother, Billy? 

“What the fuck was that, Maxine?” He growls, taking a menacing step towards her. 

Steve appears between him and Max though, bloody bat touching Billy’s chest. “Don’t take another step.” He threatens. 

“Everyone, calm down.” Mom says, hands flying to the sides of her head. “Just - just calm down.”

Mia can sympathize with her mom. There’s a headache starting right behind her eye from all the stress and terror and adrenaline from the last - hour? Five minutes? How long has it been since Billy rang the doorbell and those creatures arrived?

Dustin sits on the floor right next to Mia’s legs, and buries his head in his hands, shoulder hitching as if he was crying. 

Mia puts a hand on his back, rubs small circles on it. 

“El? El?” Nancy shakes El’s shoulder but the girl doesn’t wake. Hopper runs to them, followed by Mike. Lucas watches them go, but stays next to Max, who seems to be in some kind of glaring contest with her brother. 

“Why don’t we all talk in the kitchen. Calmly” Bob says behind Billy. His voice isn’t trembling a bit and Mia stares at him in awe. “It’s been a terrifying five minutes and it’s the only room in the house without a corpse in it.”

Billy looks down at Steve’s bat, still dripping with demogorgon blood and gore, and sneers at Max. “Fine.” He spits out, turning to face Bob. “Where the hell is the kitchen?”

Bob and Billy go, Max and Lucas too. Mom squeezes Mia’s hand as she walks past her and Dustin, also headed to the kitchen.

Jonathan nods his head, “Alright. I’m gonna put Will in my room.” He kneels down next to the couch. “You want to come?”

Mia blinks, not expecting him to talk to her after what happened in the shed, and shakes her head. 

Jonathan accepts it easily, and the couch dips under Mia as Jonathan takes Will away.

“You take your hands away from her.” Mike snaps, drawing Mia’s attention.

He’s crouched next to El and Nancy, baring his teeth at Hopper. 

“What is wrong with you?” Hopper asks, immediately touching El’s arm again.

Mike slaps his hand away, and Mia tenses at the sound. Even Dustin lifts up his head.

“Mike.” Nancy chastises, curling a hand over his arm.

Mike pulls his arm away violently, not looking at his sister. “What is wrong with me? What is wrong with you?”

Hopper sighs, as if he’d seen this coming, “Let’s talk inside.”

“No, I’m not going anywhere with you.”

Oh. 

Right. 

It had taken a while. Mia had expected Mike to explode at Hopper as soon as they saw each other in Will’s room back at the lab. 

“Mike -”

“No!” Mike shouts, pushing Hopper’s shoulder. “You had her for an entire year! You lied to us, you lied!” 

Hopper grabs him by the arm and gets him up, none too gently. ”We’re going.”

He drags Mike away without a word from Nancy. Mike bats at his arm like he’s a feral cat. A moment later, the bathroom door slams shut.

El jerks on the floor at the sound, sitting up with a gasp. There’s blood all over her face, streaming from her nose. She sneezes and a glob of clotted blood slides down the side of her mouth

Nancy curses, Dustin makes a gagging sound. Steve takes a dish towel from the dining room floor and passes it to El with a grimace.

Billy’s raised voice comes from the kitchen. “That doesn’t explain those creatures!”

“Max, Lucas, why don’t you go to the living room?” Mom suggests.

“No, Max, stay!”

“I’m not your dog, Billy!”

She can hear Mike’s voice too, muffled, and yelling at Hopper in the bathroom.

“Protecting her? Protecting her?!” Hopper says something, too low to be understood. “So what, I should be thanking you? Jenny’s dead and it’s your fault!”

“Maybe we should go outside.” Dustin whispers.

“Maybe.” Mia agrees.

None of them move. 

Steve kneels next to El, patting her back. “You did great, kid. Without you we’d be toast.” 

“Why toast?”

“If you hadn’t hid El, we wouldn’t have been in that place and Jenny would be alive! You disgusting, piece of shit liar! Liar!”

“It’s an expression.” Steve tells El. “We’d be burned, like toast. Uh - we’d be in big trouble.”

Mia’s stomach lurches. Her mouth floods with saliva, and she takes careful breaths through her mouth so as to not throw up, feeling cold and feverish all over. 

El recognizes Mike’s voice shouting, and looks worriedly at the hallway. “Mike?”

“Not your problem, kid.” Steve says. “Just ignore it.” 

Nancy, who is helping clean up El’s face, grimaces but nods at El when the girl looks at her worriedly. 

Max and Lucas come storming into the living room then, Max’s face the same color of her hair. She throws herself down on the couch next to Mia. Lucas doing the same on Mia’s other side. 

The corpses of the demodogs are still thrown around the living room, in pieces. A breeze blows through the broken door and window, carrying the smell of rot and blood.

Mia leans her head back, feeling the room spin around her. Her mouth’s dry and tingling. She must have bitten her lip open again, because there’s blood inside her mouth. 

Her face goes hot, her throat gets tight. Sweat slides down the sides of her head.

“Mia?” Max asks, and Mia can’t even pretend and tell her she’s fine.

“Help me lie her down.” Lucas says before his hands, warm and sweaty, tilt her to the side, until her head falls on something warm that scratches her cheek - Max’s jeans.

Someone grabs her ankles and her heart lurches. She kicks out, but a hand grabs her foot before it can connect. 

“Hey, it’s just Steve.” The hand moves from her foot and carefully positions her legs over the couch, on a stack of pillows. 

Moving her legs had made her even more nauseous, though. Mia squeezes her eyes shut, trying not to throw up. She’s shaking now, cold and hot all at once.

Nancy and Steve start talking over her head in hushed, worried tones. She can feel Dustin’s hair tickling her arm, and Lucas’ weight as he sits on the arm of the couch near her feet. El blows her nose on the dishtowel, causing Max to make a disgusted sound above Mia’s head. 

Someone strides into the living room, footsteps she doesn’t recognize, and Mia cracks her eyes open.

“Max, let’s go.” the Billy guy calls out.

Max sets her jaw. “I’m not leaving.”

“Like hell you are. Let’s go, now. Dad wants you back home yesterday and there’s something seriously fucked up with these people.”

“No.”

Billy exhales like a raging bull.

“Dude, can’t you just stop?” Steve huffs, “She’s clearly not going.”

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re saying, Harrington.”

Mom and Bob come through the dining room. Mike and Hopper appear at the mouth of the hallway, Jonathan behind them. Mike’s hair is all messed up, his face wet.

“We need to move.” Hopper says.

“What about the gate?”

“What gate?” Nancy, Max Lucas and Dustin ask her mom, at the same time.

Mom trades a look with Hopper, before taking a deep breath in, shakily. “Will told us that to kill the Mind Flayer, we need to close the gate.”

“Max, come on.” Billy grits out, ignoring the others and leaning over the arm of the couch to grip Max’s arm. Steve is there in a flash, pushing him away.

“Back the hell off, Hargrove.”

“The same gate El opened last year?” Lucas asks, ignoring the two teenagers. 

Mom nods, eyes on Steve and Billy. 

“You opened it before.” Mom says, when the boys don’t immediately start a fight and just stand there glaring at each other, and turns her face to El. “Do you think you could close it now, if we take you to it?”

“I’ve seen this thing, Joyce.” Hopper interrupts, “Back at the lab, Owens showed it to me. It’s - a hundred times bigger than the other one was. It spread - all those tunnels lead to it. That place must be crawling with those dogs.”

“Demodogs.” Dustin corrects. 

Hopper blinks, incredulous at Dustin. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Not dogs. Demodogs. Jenny was the one who named them.”

“Step aside, Harrington.” Billy growls again.

Hopper has had enough, with a growl he steps towards Billy and Steve and shoves them away from each other. “You, boy.” He points a finger at Billy’s face, who pales dramatically. “I don’t wanna hear another word coming out of your mouth, understood?”

Billy glares up at him, shoulders heaving up and down, and doesn’t respond.

“I can do it.” El says around the dishtowel pressed to her nose.

Hopper huffs, turning around to El. “You’re not listening to me.”

“I am listening. I can do it.” El insists.

Mike sighs, stepping closer to El. “Even if El can do it, we have a problem. If we kill the Mind Flayer, the brain, the body dies.”

“Wasn’t that the whole point?” 

Mike shakes his head at Nancy. “I was thinking - Back at the lab, when we saw the soldiers getting ready to burn those vines, Jenny said to me: ‘If they’re planning to burn the Mind Flayer and it’s connected to Will, what is that going to do to him?’. She was right. If El closes the gate and it kills the Mind Flayer and his army…”

“That includes Will.” Dustin finishes. “Closing the gate is going to kill Will.”

*

Mom, Jonathan, Hopper and Bob go to Jonathan’s room to see Will. 

Mia drags herself up from the couch, vision turning black at the edges and stumbles after them. 

She makes it there by the skin of her teeth, too busy trying not to throw up to realize that Mom’s  already talking. 

“ - we keep giving it what it wants.”

“You’re right.” Bob puts his arms around mom. “You said that Will is a host to this virus that connects all of them, right? If it’s trying to make Will be surrounded by an environment it likes…I don’t think we should be seeing this as a virus at all, and more like a parasite. Viruses don’t care if their hosts die with them, parasites do. This thing is trying to keep Will alive, and infected so it can keep itself alive. We need to…” He trails off.

“We need to make Will an uninhabitable host.” Jonathan says, kneeling by the bed.

Mom nods her head, “We need to burn it out of him.”

“But it needs to be in a place he doesn't know this time.” Mike says, next to Mia. She jumps. She hadn’t noticed him standing behind her. El and the others are hanging behind him, craning their necks around to see Will’s prone body. “Somewhere far away.” 

“I know a place.” Hopper says, looking at El. 

The adults snap into action. Hopper talks about his cabin, while Jonathan picks up Will and Mom grabs blankets from the closet. Hopper explains the way to get there to Bob, who listens to everything attentively, all of them moving for the front door. 

“Denfield. Oak Tree. Turn right on a dead end. Five minute walk in the path between the trees.” Bob recites it back once Hopper’s done, standing next to the cruiser parked outside. Jonathan is putting Will in the backseat of his car, wrapped in the blankets mom gave him. 

The rest of them spill out onto the porch. Mia, Mike, Dustin, Lucas, Max and El to one side, Billy, Steve and Nancy to the other. 

“See if any of you can find heaters - or anything that gets hot in the things you took out of the shed.” Mom tells the teenagers. Steve and Nancy nod at her, and go running to the backyard. 

Billy watches them go, hands curled into fists at his sides. 

Hopper unlocks the cruiser, stopping to inspect something on the side of it. “Those fucking dogs. Come on, El.”

Mike turns El around to face him. Her face was mostly clean of blood now, just the hint of a stain next to her nose. “You need to be careful, okay?” Mike says, “I can’t - We can’t lose you too. Not again.”

El throws her arms around Mike, eyes closed. She opens her eyes and looks at Mia over his shoulder.

Mia sees something hardening in them, a steely determination that wasn’t there earlier. “You won’t lose me.” El whispers. Then pulls away from Mike. “You won’t lose me too, not again.”

“Do you promise?” Mike asks, voice wavering. 

El reaches up to wipe his face, which is how Mia realizes he’s crying again. “Promise.”

Nancy and Steve come running back to the front yard, some of their portable heaters and their old electric oven in their hands. Mia walks around the others and down the porch steps, ready to get into the car, but Mom stops her with a hand on her shoulder. 

“You’re staying.”

Mia looks up at her, not understanding. “What?”

“You’re staying here with the others.”

“What?” She rears back, “No! Why?”

“You’re not okay, Mia.” Mom insists, “With everything you just saw - and we were just attacked by those things again. You and Mike need to stay behind and recover.”

Mia scoffs, “You were there too!”

“But I wasn't!” Mom shouts, guilt heavy in her voice, “I wasn’t there! Not like you and Mike were! Do you have any idea of what I felt, when I looked up to that window and didn't see any of you coming out? When I heard you screaming?”

Mom’s eyes are full of tears, her whole face twisted with grief and pain. Mia’s eyes start to water too, heart twisting at the sight of her mom in pain. 

“Then Mike was coming out through the other window and you were dangling up there, and then you - you fell. You fell and Jenny didn’t come after you. It was a miracle that Hopper even managed to catch you with the way you fell. You could have died -” Mom breaks off, crying now. “You have to stay. I can’t lose you, baby.”

“But I know the way to Hopper’s cabin.” Mia argues, also crying. “I’ve been there before. I can help you guys.”

But mom’s not listening. She gently pushes Mia’s shoulder, shaking her head. “Bob’s got it. You’re staying and that’s final.”

El and Hopper get into their car with the loud sound of slamming doors. Nancy inches past Mia’s mom, getting into the backseat of Jonathan’s ford, grimacing, her feet light on the gravel driveway, as if she was trying not to be seen or heard. 

Mia points at Nancy, astonished and furious all at once, “But she’s going!”

“You. Are. Staying.” Mom commands, already lowering herself into the backseat of the car. Jonathan was in the passenger seat, Bob driving. Mom closes the door, pushing Mia away through the window again, “Go.”

Mia bites down on her lip hard, fresh tears sliding down her cheeks at the pain. She marches back to the porch, arms crossed. Max hugs her on the steps, a bit awkwardly, and somehow, her hair still smells a bit like shampoo. 

It’s nice, and for a moment, Mia lets herself lean onto her shoulder.

The cars start behind her, engines loud. Mia turns around in Max’s arms to watch the driveway, sniffling. 

Jonathan’s car disappears into the dark road first, Hopper’s cruiser right behind it.

“C’mon, shitheads.” Steve calls, walking past Billy and shoulder checking the blond boy. “Let’s get inside.”

Her house is a mess. Will’s papers are still all over. The window’s broken, glass and wood and bits of the wall all over the floor. There’s a huge crack in the ceiling where El had slammed the demogorgon, and her door lies in pieces on the floor, deep claw marks on the dark wood. 

Mia shudders in Max’s arms, glad when the other girl squeezes her tighter. 

“What are we doing with those?” Lucas asks, pointing to the demogorgon corpses strewn all around. There’s a head near the couch from the first one, blood and bits of its body and legs on the walls and the ceiling. There’s one, it’s head blown off, right under the window, and the other one that El had smashed into the ceiling lies near one of the cupboards, its missing leg by the door. 

The one that Steve had whacked with his bat before El killed it had been dragged out to the porch by someone already.

Even the dining room was ruined. The table was broken and turned on its side, glasses, hot chocolate and shattered mugs on the floor. A demodog was crumpled by the kitchen doorway, dead, a bloody crater left behind on the wall it had hit.

 “We’re putting them outside. Come on.” Steve says, slapping Billy’s arm. Billy, whose eyes were glazed over, snaps to attention, looking affronted at Steve.

“What?”

“You’re helping me get those things out of the house.”

“No way in hell I’m touching one of those things, Harrington.”

“We’ll just wrap it around something.” Steve rolls his eyes, gesturing impatiently with his hands, “Just help me with the damn things.”

Billy bares his teeth, but after one glance at the kids around them acquiesces. “Fine.”

They get the mostly intact demodog by the door first, and carry it outside, groaning at its weight and at the smell. 

Mia looks at the blood on the door and the walls. She can’t do anything about the ceiling, but she can try to fix the rest. 

She feels awake again, a clarity overcoming her thoughts. She has a clear assignment now.

“I’ll clean the rest of it up.” Mia announces, heading towards the mudroom to grab some brooms and rags, and a bucket. 

She doesn’t want her mom to get home and see the house in this state.

She fills the bucket on the kitchen sink with cold water, staring at the stain on the wall. How does one get that stain out? Baking soda? Bleach? Does interdimensional-monster blood work the same as human blood?

“Here.” Lucas says, grabbing the broom and the dust pan, “Me and Dustin will help with the glass.”

“Thanks.”

“Can I do anything?” Max asks. She and Mike have moved the broken dining room table to the corner of the room, clearing out a bit of the space. 

Mia nods at her. “See if you can grab some of the blankets and stuff we used to cover the shed. And the staple gun. We could at least put a blanket over the windows.”

They clean up the house in silence, starting in the living room. Dustin and Lucas sweep away the glass and wood from the hardwood floors, throwing all the trash on a big cardboard box they’d found in the mudroom, while Mia scrubs a wet cloth against the wall, with little success at removing all of the bloody stains. Steve and Billy walk around with the corpses, and sometimes Max gives a body part to them using the dustpan, which they take out back with the corpses. 

Mike had been moving the big pieces of broken furniture into one of the bins outside, but when he comes back from throwing out the last piece of the table, he starts pacing on the doorway, giving no sign that he’s starting another activity.

“Mike, would you just stop already?” Lucas scowls, waving the broom. 

“You weren’t in there, Lucas.” Mike snips back, “That lab was swarming with hundreds of those demodogs.”

 “The chief will protect El.”

Mia huffs, giving up on the walls and moving to the floor. “I think El is the one protecting Hopper.”

Mike points at Mia and looks at Lucas as if to say, See? I have all the reason in the world to be worried.

Steve and Billy show up at the front door then, having just disposed of the last body. 

“Listen, dude, if the coach calls a play, bottom line is: you execute it.” Steve says, cleaning his hands on a blue and white Christmas dish towel he’d used to wrap around his hands. 

Mia wrinkles her nose at it. She doesn’t think they have any more dishtowels to use after today.

“Okay, first of all - this isn’t some stupid sports game.” Mike points out. “And second, we’re not even playing, we’re on the bench.”

Billy snorts. He’s leaning on the wall next to Max, watching her struggle to staple the blanket over the broken window and not lifting a finger to help. He looks away from her, at Steve. “Wheeler’s got you there, pretty boy.”

Mike scrunches up his face,“How do you even know my name?”

“My point is -” Steve interrupts. “My point is…”

They wait for him to finish, but he opens and closes his mouth like a fish, floundering. 

“You don’t know what your point is.” Max says, rolling her eyes.

“No! No - I mean -” Steve looks up, then deflates with a sigh, “Yeah. Mike’s right. We’re on the bench and there’s nothing we can do.”

“That’s…not entirely true.” Dustin disagrees, “I mean those demodogs, they have a hive-mind. When they ran away from the bus they were called away by the others.”

Mia raises her brows at him, she doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but… “You’re saying we should call them away from the lab?” 

“We would be drawing them away from the gate if we do.” Lucas points out. 

“And we would be clearing the way for El.” Max finishes, staring at Lucas. 

“And then we all die!” Steve shouts, throwing his hands up. “Honestly, what part of that is not clear to you shitheads?”

“That’s your point of view.” Dustin counters.

“It’s not my point of view, it’s a fact.”

Mike runs out of the living room, shouting, “I got it!”

Dustin and Lucas get up and run after him, Steve too, exasperatedly rolling his eyes. Billy whispers at Max, “Has anyone told Jenny’s parents that she’s dead?”

Mia drops the bloody cloth she was holding.

“What did you say?” She asks Billy. His blue eyes widen for a moment, he clearly hadn’t expected her to hear him, but he quickly covers it up by flashing his teeth at her in a smarmy grin, tongue on his eye-tooth. 

“I said, has anyone told the Hayes that their daughter literally died?” He repeats himself. Max slaps his arm. He just glares her down until she looks away. “Has anyone even thought to tell her parents that the girl is literally dead?”

Mia doesn’t know which is worse - to hear the way Billy speaks Jenny’s name, as if he’d known her, and had any right to call her Jenny or the way that he’s completely right. 

She hadn’t thought about Jenny’s parents at all.

“Why do you even care, Billy?” Max cuts in, “Stop being such a dick.”

“I don’t, but they asked me to tell her hi. Guess I can’t pass the message along now.”

Mia’s head feels disconnected from her body, like a guillotine had dropped down from the heavens and taken her head. 

She can practically see Jenny’s parents waking up tomorrow - or later today. Mrs. Hayes frying eggs in the kitchen, Mr. Hayes sitting on the table, reading a book. They would wonder at what time Jenny would be calling them to pick her up. She’d already spent two days over at Mia’s after all, and today was a sunday. 

They had school tomorrow.

 “ - And over here, this is like a hub - what’s going on?” Mike halts on the doorway, dark eyes narrowing.

Max is glaring at Billy, who stares, unimpressed at his step-sister. Mia doesn’t know what expression she’s making. Her heart’s breaking all over again. She can see Mrs. Hayes' face, incredulous with grief and despair when they tell her the news, as clearly as she can see Jenny’s lip splitting open on that windowsill.

“What the hell did you say, Hargrove?”

“Nothing that concerns you, Harrington.”

Mia blinks hard. Shakes her head like an etch-a-sketch. Her head feels empty for a moment and she forces that feeling to stay. She can’t recall what she was thinking, and she doesn’t try to.

“What were you saying, Mike?” She asks, sniffling. 

Mike looks between her and Billy, but continues to speak, though a bit more hesitant. “I was thinking we could set fire to that hub point that Will pointed out on his map.” He taps his foot on a drawing on the ground, at the place where all the tunnels met, marked out in blue crayon.  “We enter the tunnels through the place Hopper dug that hole, we get to this place, and maybe if we set it on fire -”

“Yeah - that’s a no.”

“The Mind Flayer would call his army.” Dustin continues over Steve, as if he hadn’t spoken.

“They’d all come to stop us.” Lucas adds.

Mike nods his head at Lucas, “Then we’d circle back to the exit and by the time they realized we were gone -”

“El would be at the gate.” Max finishes, staring at Mike with a smile on her face, eyes glimmering.

“Do these nerds always speak like this?” Billy asks Steve.

Steve ignores him and claps his hands together, making all of them jump. “Hey!” 

The others give him dirty looks at the loud noise, which he ignores, gesturing between them with the dishcloth thrown over his shoulder. “That - is not happening.” 

“But -”

“No no no no no. No buts!” He places both hands on his hips, “I promised I’d keep you shitheads safe and that’s exactly what I plan on doing. We’re staying right here, on the bench. And we’re waiting for the starting team to do their jobs, does everybody understand that? Billy, back me up here.”

Billy looks at Steve, then at the others. “I’ll drive you kids.”

Steve whirls around at him, wielding his dishcloth like a limp sword, “What the fuck, dude!”

“Look, Harrington, yeah, it’s dangerous as fuck, but at least their plan is not that stupid.”

“They could die!”

“Yeah, and apparently a kid already died, don’t you think they know the risk?”

Mia looks away at the ceiling. She thinks of her mom, telling her to stay. Feels Jenny’s wrist slipping from her hands. 

Here’s what her mom doesn’t understand - Mia can imagine what she had felt when they didn’t come out of that bathroom window. She had seen Jenny, her best friend, die in front of her, and she could do nothing. What mom felt, watching from the ground, is the exact same thing that Mia knows she will feel if - when El and Hopper get killed because of those demodogs. It’s what she will feel when Mom and Jonathan’s plan of burning the Mind Flayer out of Will fails - or worse, succeeds, and it’s still all for nothing, because El and Hopper didn’t manage to kill the monster, because they were dead and torn apart, their bodies eaten and never found again at the bottom of that hellish lab. 

Just like Jenny.

The Mind Flayer will keep hunting the rest of them afterwards, sending dog after dog after dog, and this time, they won’t have El there to save them.

And Mia is sick, she’s sick, of doing nothing. Sick of just reacting.

“We were running away from those monsters when one of them got Jenny.” Mia starts, worrying at the busted skin of her lower lip. Steve looks at her, hair falling in front of his dark eyes. She’s suddenly reminded of the first time she’d seen him, barely two years prior, when he knocked over a soup display and pretended it was pure coincidence that he had bumped into Nancy and Mia at the grocery store. 

This Steve is different. Older and made of something tougher than the other one. More scared too. 

“We were in a building with - with bullet-proof glass doors and electronic locks and there were dozens of soldiers, with handguns, rifles and huge flamethrowers. We were careful, we had a plan. And still, Dr. Owens and J-Jenny died. They died because of some stupid -” Mia chokes on air, squeezes her eyes shut, “stupid -” she can’t say it, can’t say how it’s her fault that the demodog heard them in the hallway and started chasing them, how selfish she was at going up the window first, how they were too slow, how it’s all her fault. “We could all die if we go, but playing it safe didn’t help us at all. We’ll always be in danger as long as those things and the Mind Flayer are out there, hunting us. If I die then at least I know I was doing something to help.” 

Billy rolls his eyes, “That’s touching, kid.”

The sarcasm on his voice makes Mia reel back, flushing red with embarrassment.

Max clenches her jaw, placing both hands around one of Mia’s. “Shut the hell up, Billy.”

“You know what, Max? I’m getting sick and tired of your attitude.” Billy snaps, putting up three fingers. “And that was strike number three. No one tells me what to do, much less you. You should be fucking grateful that I’m not dragging you back to our house right now.”

Max’s face is full of fear. Alarms ring in Mia’s head but she’s too - too tired to do anything. Thankfully, Steve steps in between Billy and Max.

“Lay off, Hargrove.”

Billy turns to him, teeth bared, “What did I just fucking say?”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard you, now you listen to me -”

Billy punches Steve in the face.

Billy punches Steve in the face. 

Steve falls to the floor, groaning and clutching his nose. It’s bent in a weird shape, a cut going across the bridge. Blood bursts off of it, bright red.

Mia sees the moment that Max snaps - the fear burns off her face like water sprinkled on a hot top, replaced by pure fury. She clenches her jaw, blue fire in her eyes, and grabs the nearest thing - the trophy Mike had been holding earlier - and smashes it as hard as she can between Billy’s legs.

Billy grunts, caught off guard, and falls to the ground, clutching his dick. But Max isn’t done. She lets go of the trophy, grabs Steve’s bat from the wall and walks towards Billy. 

She kicks his legs open and pulls up Steve’s bat, setting it on her shoulder, teeth bared. “Consider this a warning. You try and mess with me and my friends again, and I’ll crush your dick. You will listen to me now, understood?”

Billy doesn’t say anything, only stares up at her from the floor, eyes full of hatred.

Max slams the bat onto the ground between his legs, so hard that Mia sees the shockwave travel up her shoulders and down her back -  the nails embedding themselves on the floorboards an inch away from Billy’s crotch. 

“Say you understand!” She screams.

Billy swallows, then acquiesces. “I understand.”

The nails make an ugly sound as she pulls the bat out of the floor. She walks to Steve and holds out her hand for him. 

Steve takes it, and Max pulls him up, leaning her entire weight back. 

She looks back at the others.

“Are we going or what?”

Mike throws an awed look at Mia. 

“That was amazing.” He whispers, voice tinged with awe.

Surprisingly, Mia feels her mouth quirk up at the corner, “I told you she was.”

*

They grab the leftover cans of gasoline in Steve’s car, and all of Jonathan’s, Mia’s and Will’s old swimming goggles, from the days they religiously attended the swimming lessons at the public pool. Billy had swallowed his pride and his hatred and followed them along. He and Steve get Jonathan’s goggles: two scuba glasses in red and blue. Lucas gets a round one that covers his nose, which was once a part of a snorkel set that belonged to Mia. Dustin, Mike and Max get normal goggles, the kind that water always manages to get inside, no matter what you do. Mia takes the newest one of them all: the one she kept in her room, that Jenny had bought her this summer, after she accidentally scratched Mia’s old ones by dropping them on the public pool’s parking lot.

They also get scarves and bandanas from Mom’s and Jonathan’s closets, rubber cleaning gloves and reinforced weeding gloves and winter gloves. They get rope from the shed, and the first aid kit from the kitchen. Billy’s been tasked by Max with finding every lighter in the house, as well as rocks from the yard for Lucas’ slingshot once he’s done. And while Steve and Max take food and water from the kitchen, Mike and Mia go to Mia’s bedroom to grab their backpacks. 

Mike’s bag is by the door, where he left it after coming from school on friday. 

Right next to Jenny’s.

Mia stops when she sees it. Stares at it. 

The pink backpack sits innocently against the wall, covered in glitter and puff-paint stars. 

Jenny has had this same backpack since sixth grade, and her mom had written her name on the bottom of it in large black letters, which Jenny had decorated with tiny stitched flowers. It was too small for her softball bat, but Mia could see she had tried to stuff it inside anyway. It was forcing the stitching on the top of the bag, a small section of the zipper pulled open from the strain.

Mia blinks hard, not wanting to deal with any more tears, and gets hers and Will’s backpacks from the other side of the room, ignoring Jenny’s bag. She and Mike empty their backpacks over the side of the bed, leaving their contents on the floor to deal with later. 

Mike goes running out of the door first, but Mia hesitates at the doorway, glancing down at the floor.

She takes Jenny’s bedazzled softball bat from her backpack and joins the others in the kitchen.

They get into Steve’s car, because Billy had refused to let them inside his Camaro, and drive to Merrill’s Farm. Steve drives, because he doesn’t trust Billy not to put his car into a ditch and kill them all. Billy has a map in his hand, yelling and cursing at Steve as he tells him which way they’re supposed to go.

“You’re supposed to turn left on Mount Sinai.”

“Here?”

“Is that street Mount Sinai? I don’t fucking think so.” A moment later, “I said left!”

“But I am turning left!”

“You’re turning right, Harrington! Do you even know how to drive?”

“I’m sorry.” Dustin whispers to Mia while Billy and Steve argue.

The five of them are squeezed into the backseat, with Mike in the middle. Mia and Lucas, the lightest ones, sit on top of Max’s, Mike’s and Dustin’s knees, clutching the headrests of the front seats and crouching so their heads don’t hit the ceiling on every bump of the road. Steve isn’t exactly going slow, or avoiding any potholes.

Mia looks back at Dustin, confused, and inhales deeply by reflex, “Did you -”

“No, I didn’t fart. God. Really? No, I’m sorry about Dart.”

Lucas sighs, “Dustin, I told you -”

“But it is my fault isn’t it? I blackmailed Jenny into going to Mia’s house and as far as we know, Dart was the one who - who killed her. I was stupid and I compromised the Party. I’m sorry. I can’t tell you how much. I’m really sorry.”

Mia tightens her death grip on the top of Billy’s headrest, looking down at Dustin. “It’s not your fault. It’s the Mind Flayer’s fault. He was the one that killed Jenny.”

“But I -”

She cuts him off.

“We could think of all the ‘if’s in the world, Dustin. What if we hadn’t gone to the lab, what if El had been there. What if we had been just…just a little bit quicker. What if I hadn’t stepped in that bucket, what if Jenny had gone out of that window first.” Her voice gets tighter at the end, but Mia clears her throat, and keeps going. A strange burning sensation starts at her hands, like she’d dipped them in hot water, and she lets go of Billy’s headrest to rub her hands together. “We can’t know what would have happened. Jenny’s dead, and that’s what happened. It’s no one’s fault but the Mind Flayer.” She lies.

It’s her fault too, she knows. Jenny wouldn’t be involved in any of it if it weren’t for her.

There’s no use in Dustin, who had nothing to do with it, to beat himself up about it.

The burning sensation continues, spreading over her arms. Mia drags her nails down from her shoulder, digs them into the half-moon bruises on her elbow.

They get to the farm, park the car by the hole Hopper had dug on the ground, and get ready by the trunk of the car, putting on goggles, tying up bandanas and scarves around their mouths and noses, and putting on the gloves. Hopper had said the air was toxic, and Mia remembers how long it had taken for Will to be able to breathe normally again, after his week in the Upside Down.

“We shouldn’t be doing this.” Steve says looking down the edge of the hole. Mike’s tying one of their longest ropes on the back bumper of the car. “We should get back to the house -”

“Steve!” Dustin cuts him off, “I understand your concerns, but. A party member requires our assistance, and it’s our duty to provide that assistance. And I know you promised the others you’d keep us safe - so keep us safe.”

Dustin throws Will’s borrowed backpack and the spiked baseball bat at him. Steve takes them.

Max’s step-brother looks over the hole too, red scuba goggles on his forehead. “So who’s climbing down first?”

Dustin and Lucas try to convince them to rock-paper-scissors it. Max climbs down into the tunnel before they even finish speaking. 

Billy goes right after her, cursing. Mia follows him, and then the others. Steve is the last to get down.

The tunnels are darker than Mia expected. The beam of their flashlights doesn't seem to get far, and mostly illuminates some weird dust motes that seem to be all around them. The air in the tunnels is cold and musty, almost wet. It clings to the insides of her nose, and her throat.  She can’t hear anything besides her heartbeat and breathing, and the sounds of the others around her. No wind, no night sounds. Nothing. 

“C’mon, it’s this way!” Mike shouts, voice muffled by his bandana. 

In his hands is the map that he’d drawn of the section they’d planned on walking to, a crude copy of Will’s vines made with black crayon and a huge red X where the hub is supposed to be.

Steve runs up to him, snatches the map out of his hands. “None of that! I promised the others I’d keep you all safe, so if any of you little shits die, I’m getting the blame, got it dipshit?” He turns to the others, beaming his flashlight straight onto Billy’s face. “From here on out, I’m leading the way, got it? Hargrove can go at the back. C’mon, let’s go! Move it!”

They stumble along the tunnel. The ground’s uneven, full of ups and downs and sudden holes. Mia steps over raised vines, nearly twists her ankles on some weirdly placed holes, and orients herself by trailing a hand on the right wall, which seems almost squishy beneath her gloves. 

The burning sensation from before has also spread down to her legs, and she feels sweat gathering above her eyes. Mia wipes it away with her forearm, and wonders if it’s just anxiety. 

At some point, Dustin trips and almost falls flat onto his face. Mia grabs him before he can, though, jarring her wrist again.

She hisses. Dustin apologizes.

“It’s fine.”

Billy shines his flashlight on them. “Get on with it.” 

But Dustin isn’t listening to him. The boy has his head turned up, staring at the ceiling. “What the hell?”

Billy turns his flashlight up, and a jet of white motes and steam sprays down on them.

Mia feels the cold air hit the uncovered skin of her forehead and her entire body flinches back. Dustin screams, jumping away as if he was being burned alive. He trips on his gallon of gasoline and falls, taking Billy with him.

“Ah! It’s in my mouth, it’s in my mouth!” Dustin screams, clawing at his own face. 

Billy swears, and shoves him to the floor, hurriedly pulling the bandana and the goggles away from Dustin’s face. Dustin blinks up at him, terrified, but whole, no burns or anything else on his face. 

Dustin touches his own cheek. “Oh. I’m okay.”

Billy shoves him down with an angry growl and marches away. 

What an asshole.

Mia helps Dustin up and drags him by the arm until they catch up with Max's step-brother.

A few minutes later, Mia’s so hot that she needs to pull out her sweater, which she ties around her waist, under her backpack. She barely feels the cold air of the tunnels on her heated skin.

The others have come to a stop a few feet ahead. Mia climbs over a particularly tall vine, drops down with an impact that she feels in her teeth, and knows they’ve reached the right spot. 

The chamber is much taller and wider than the tunnel they’d come from, almost perfectly circular. There’s a raised knot of vines in the middle, and multiple other tunnels branching out in every direction.

They’re quick to drench it all with gasoline, using the cans and even the pesticide sprayer Lucas had found in Mia’s shed. 

Mia’s eyes burn, sweat condensing inside her goggles. She wipes her brow with her bare forearm, wincing at the unpleasant feeling of wet hair against the nape of her neck. It feels like she spent the entire day in the sun, without stepping into the shade once, her skin tight and hot.

Her stomach lurches, suddenly, making her drop her gallon of gasoline. 

Something crawls up her neck and she swats at it, the slap echoing loudly against the walls. 

Lucas and Max turn to her, and surprisingly, so does Billy.

Mia takes her hand away from her neck, expecting to find blood or some other fluid that indicates she’d killed something, but there’s nothing. The crawling sensation moves to her jaw, her cheeks, out from the back of her throat and over her tongue. She leans forward retching, but nothing comes out.

“What the fuck.” Billy says, coming up to her.

“I’m fine.” Mia gasps out, forcing herself to straighten back up, not wanting him to touch her. 

“You better be.” Billy says. Around them, the others have started to run back to the tunnel they came from. Billy shoves her arm, urging her to move and she nearly screams at the touch. “Let’s go.”

They get to the tunnel just in time. Steve takes out his lighter, lights it, and launches it at the trail of gasoline.

Fire bursts through the ground, long tongues of bright white fire licking at the vines on the floor, climbing up the walls. A long, metallic note rings through the air. Vines snap up from the walls, twisting violently amidst the flames. 

“Let’s go!” Steve shouts, shoving them further back into the tunnel. “Let’s go!”

They run without a care for who’s in front and who’s at the back. Mia’s runs along blindly, feeling as if she was in that hub, burning alive. 

Howls and shrieks of fury echo from the tunnels behind them.

Suddenly, the burning sensation stops. 

A weight Mia hadn’t known she was feeling lifts from her mind, as if someone had reached their hands inside her skull and scooped everything out with a spoon. It’s so abrupt and unexpected she stumbles, catching herself on Dustin’s back. Someone’s hand holds her arm, helping her straighten up - and it’s Billy. His brows furrowed and…not exactly worried, but definitely bothered, as he quickly rights her up and shoves her shoulder to keep them moving. 

“Oh my god oh my god oh my god - ” Dustin’s shouting, still running, “oh my god, oh my god!”

Mia continues running by sheer motor memory. She barely knows which way is up and which is down.

“This way!” Steve shouts, up ahead.

Someone gives a cut off shout, and falls with a loud thump on the ground. It’s Mike, a vine wrapped over his shin.

“Help!” he yells, strangled, “Help!”

The backpack Mia had forgotten she was carrying lurches to the side, straps digging into her collarbone. Billy has taken Jenny’s bedazzled bat from it, grabbing it with both hands

“Get the fuck back!” He shouts at the others, and swings down.

The vine spasms. Billy strikes at it again, and it bursts. Dustin and Max help pull Mike up, Lucas running his hands frantically over Mike. 

“Are you okay, holy sh-”

Lucas’ words are cut off by a loud screech, coming from way too close to them.

Mia looks over Dustin’s shoulder and feels her entire body go limp and shaky with fear.

There’s a demodog about a foot away, its flower head closed and turned on them. 

It stands between their group and the direction they should be running towards. 

Their only way out of the tunnels.

Mia grabs the nearest person - Max - clenching her fingers around her arm. Max’s hand flies to Mia’s shirt, gripping it tight. Mia feels a large hand on her shoulder, flicks her eyes back to see Billy with one hand on her and the other on Max, ready to pull both of them back behind him.

“Dart?” Dustin calls.

The creature moves. 

Lowers its head. 

It gives a soft thrill, as if it recognized the name.

No way. 

How the hell does Dustin know that that’s the creature he’d kept in his house? It looked nothing like the pollywog-like creature that they’d seen at the school only days ago.

Dustin takes a step forward.

“Dustin, no!” 

“Dustin!”

 “Get back here, Dustin!”

 “Get away from it!” They shout all at once.

Dustin shushes them, telling them to trust him and Mia can only watch, frozen with fear, her heart in her throat as he steps closer to the creature, and kneels down in front of it.

At any instant, the creature will launch itself on him, and rip open his throat. She can see its flower head opening and engulfing Dustin’s head, the blood dripping down its fangs. She can almost hear Dustin’s screams, the sound that his skull will make as it breaks under the creature’s teeth.

“Hey, it’s me.” Dustin says, taking off his goggles. “It’s your friend, Dustin. It’s Dustin. You remember me?”

The creatures gives another soft thrill, lips wavering as air slips through them.

“Are you going to let us pass?”

It opens its mouth and roars. 

Mia jumps back, bumping into Billy’s chest. The boy’s hand holds her down, bruisingly tight.

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry about the storm cellar. It was a pretty douchey thing to do.” Dustin reaches back to take off his back pack. “Are you hungry?”

“He’s insane.” Lucas whimpers in fear, and Mia and the others hurry to shush him. 

“I’ve got our favorite.” Dustin continues, pulling something that crinkles like the wrapping on a candy bar from his backpack. “Nougat.”

The creature inches closer. Dustin opens it, sets the caramel bar on the ground. 

“Eat up, buddy.” Dustin says, voice soft but shaking. His arm comes up behind him, frantically telling them to go around the creature.

Mike moves first, slowly walking to the creature and hopping around it, sprinting a few feet ahead as soon as he passes it. Mia doesn’t have to be told twice, and does the same as him, followed by Max, Lucas, Steve and Billy. Dustin walks to them, eyes not straying from Dart, and pulls down his goggles.

“Goodbye, buddy.” He says.

The creature looks over its shoulder at Dustin, and gives a low mournful thrill, but returns to its food, ducking its head.

Mia can’t muster up a single good feeling about it, not relief or gratitude or even pity. 

It eats the candy bar and all she can think about is if this creature had been the one to murder Jenny. If it ate her best friend the same way it was eating the candy on the floor now.

Dustin turns on the balls of his feet and urgently hisses at them to go.

They run back through the tunnels, flashlights waving around. Mia’s vision shakes and she loses her balance, but it’s only when Max and Lucas also stumble next to her that she realizes the problem’s not with her.  

The ground is shaking. The walls too. 

“What was that?” Max yells.

Growls and shrieks come from the tunnel behind them, much, much closer than before.

“They’re coming.” Mike’s voice rings out, crystal clear despite the cacophony coming from deeper inside the tunnel. “Run!” He shouts, “Run!”

They run, tripping over vines, stumbling into each other and pulling at whatever pieces of clothing they find to keep themselves up. The tunnel becomes lighter, the hole they’d climb through right ahead. Steve spots the rope first and sprints to it, turning around and opening his arms.

“C’mon! Let’s go, hurry up!”

Max jumps into his arms, and he heaves her up to the edge of the hole. Billy appears next to him and helps him launch her out. As soon as Max’s feet are gone, Lucas comes next, grabbing onto the rope and being pushed out of the hole by the two teenagers. Mike goes next, his hands pulled by Max while Steve and Billy push each of his feet. Steve grabs Mia’s arm and she jumps up on the rope, feeling Steve’s and Billy’s hands closing around her ankles and pushing her up. 

She flies up through the hole. Lucas’ hand appears in her field of vision and she grabs it. As soon as Steve’s and Billy’s hands let go, another clamps around her foot. It’s Dustin, arms already peeking out of the hole. She brings her legs in and helps pull him up while Mike and Max pull his arms.

Lucas shouts down at the tunnel, telling Steve and Billy to come up. The growls get louder, followed by the thunderous sound of paws striking the earth. 

They’re not going to make it.

Billy appears first, pulling himself out using only the rope. He’s barely pulled his hips out and he’s already turning, sitting on the edge and pulling the rope up, feet braced on the other side of the hole. 

His arms bulge through his jacket as he struggles to pull up the rope. Steve gets pulled out with it, crawling out from between Billy’s splayed legs. 

He leans his elbows on Billy’s knees, and heaves himself up, drawing a pained groan from Billy. The others help by pulling Steve to the side, grabbing his arm, his backpack and his jacket. 

He lands onto the cold earth on top of Dustin and Mike.

Billy topples to the other side, panting. Mia cranes her neck to look into the tunnel just in time to see hundreds of demodogs running by the exact spot they’d been in.

And she knows exactly where they’re headed.

“El.” She whispers, dread curling around her heart, as thick and choking as the smoke climbing up towards the sky.

*

Hop was right. This gate was bigger than the one she remembers.

El had opened it, that day she first saw the monster. 

She had been afraid when she went with Nancy and Jonathan and Steve to help her friends. She had been afraid when she saw Mia, all covered in blood. She had been afraid when she counted her friends, Mike, Mia, and Will, and hadn’t seen Jenny.

Jenny should be there with them.

Jenny was dead. Mia had said so. 

Friends don’t lie.

It had been a strange thought, but seeing Mia’s blood covered face made El think that she wanted friends to lie.

But friends don’t lie.

Hop brought her back Home, her first Home, the one that was cold and scary, where people hurt her, the one that she hadn’t wanted to come back to. Hop brought her there and El went, because she had to close the gate.

She had to be brave. For her friends.

She wanted - no, she hoped to find Jenny. Mia said Jenny had been left here. Many of her brothers and sisters had never left Home. Just like Jenny.

El had looked for her, as she and Hop went inside Home. As they walked the corridors that Eleven had never seen before, as they walked down the stairs that Eleven had been in only once in her life.

Or at least, she thinks she did. The stairs are…familiar. And she thinks she had been there once. But she doesn’t remember.

There was blood everywhere. People too. All dead. The monsters, demodogs, as Dustin said Jenny called them, had killed everyone. They had killed Jenny.

The monster had killed all of Eleven’s siblings too.

The thought goes away from her mind before Eleven can try and remember the monster. Eleven shouldn’t think of it anyway. She was in front of the gates now.

The gates she had opened. The gate she had let the monster come out through. The gate that had killed her friend, Jenny.

Eleven had to be brave, for her friends and for Jenny, but she was so afraid. They were in the same place Papa used to take her, to put her in the bath. Eleven had been so afraid when she saw those doors. Had been so afraid when she went down the lift. She had known the lift. Papa had taken her down it many times when she was little. She had been afraid when she heard the monsters in the hallways. Was afraid when dust floated everywhere and the lights turned on and off, and it became cold and dark like in the other place, the Upside Down, as her friends called it.

Eleven had to be brave. For her friends. But she was so scared.

The gates were bigger than anything she had ever seen and Eleven was afraid. Afraid that she could not be brave, that she could not close the gate, as Jonathan had told them they could.

But Hop is here next to her, tall and safe. He hadn’t left her alone. He was here, to protect her.

Eleven reaches for his hand now, his big, warm hand, that is bigger than her own. She feels a bit brave when his fingers close around hers and squeeze. 

Hop stops the lift, and she looks at him, at his dark eyes turned red by the light of the gate. Eleven doesn’t know what to do, but Hop teaches and he protects, and so she looks at him for an answer.

He nods at her, eyes serious, in the way he did when Eleven asked the meaning of a word when she was too tired to think, but that Hop knew she already knew the meaning, all that she had to do was stop, breathe and think.

Eleven stops. Breathes. And thinks. 

She had been so afraid when she opened this gate. She had been all alone in the In Between place, all alone with the monster. She had been so afraid, more afraid than she had ever been in her life, and the gate had opened with her screams.

Maybe now, to close, she needs to not be afraid. She needs to be brave.

Eleven opens her hand, and reaches towards the gate, willing it to close.

She imagines the edges of it, red and alive like a wound, closing, scabbing over, the way her knees did when she fell and hurt herself in the woods. The way they did after Hop picked her up in his arms and put a band-aid on it, and the bad-aid fell off and the wound scabbed over the very next day. Eleven had poked at it, at the rough scab, and it had hurt very little. Until a few days later, the scab was peeling, and she picked at it with her nail, pulled it off to reveal a shiny pink scar under it.

Back Home Eleven had never had scabs or band-aids. There had been stitches and bandages, and a never-ending hurt that she never got to see turn into a scar.

She is a bit similar to this gate, she thinks. It’s open and bleeding, and Eleven sometimes still feels like she’s open and bleeding. Bleeding fear and pain. Fear of everything that had happened, everything that could happen. Never-ending, never scarring.

Maybe this gate is Eleven’s wound.

She needs to close it. She needs to put a band-aid on the wound, so it could scab and turn into a scar.

Maybe Eleven herself would hurt less, then.

Eleven thinks of it closing, and feels the blood trickle down her nose. 

She focuses on the red light, feeling a pressure behind her eyes. She knows this, has known this her entire life, and she can almost hear Papa in her ear telling her to focus now. Can almost hear the beeping of machines and see the very white rabbit he’d put in front of her, one day. The one she had had to turn to blood and bones and death with her mind.

The one she had to kill.

Anger sparks in her chest, like the matches Hop used to light the fireplace in the winter. She feels her chest burning, like the dry logs that caught flame.

The bunny had died, and El didn’t want it to die. It had been so pretty and soft, and had leaned into El’s hand when she tried to pet it.

Papa had slapped her hands, then. Had told her she was not to touch the bunny. That she was to reach out with her mind and kill it. 

Jenny had died, and El hadn’t wanted her to die. Jenny had been her friend. And El hadn’t seen her for a whole year. And now - when Eleven could finally see her again, could hug her and hold her hand and see her beautiful blonde hair and pretty smile - she was gone. Dead. Left behind at Home, along with her brothers and sister who had never left.

The burning in her chest grows brighter, anger bright and blazing. The pressure in her head becomes too much, too painful. Eleven wrinkles her nose and reaches out another hand towards the gate, feeling that she needs to let this fire out somehow, or she will burn herself whole.

Jenny appears in her mind. Jenny with her clothes full of color and her room with the fluffy rug, white like the little rabbit Eleven had once killed. Jenny had brought Eleven into her room. Had given her a sprite and Eggos, and had let Eleven curl up in her rug. She had given Eleven her colorful barrettes and her pretty clothes and for a moment Eleven had had hair that was as blonde and as pretty as hers.  Jenny had hugged her, had held her hand and given her water and told her to rest when she was tired, and she had been the best friend she had made. 

Sometimes, Eleven thought she liked Jenny more than she did Mike. Was it unfair to think that? Mike had been her first friend, but Jenny…

Jenny had been like her sisters. 

And now, like her sisters, both little and big, Jenny was dead.

Eleven had lost a year with Jenny, a year where they could have done things like in the TV, like eating ice-cream and shopping and going out to parks and going on rollercoasters. A year where Jenny could have made her laugh and could have made her happy and she could have made Jenny happy in return. 

Hop had not let her have her year with Jenny. Papa and the people at Home hadn’t let her have a year with Jenny.

Eleven feels the pressure behind her eyes grow, and blood trickles down her other nostril. She feels the fire burning down her arms, heavier and bigger than anything she’s ever felt. 

Eleven should be brave, and she’s not afraid anymore, but now, she’s angry.

She grits her teeth, hard enough that her head aches. Her eyes burn as she glares at the gate. 

Slowly, the edges of the gates begin to close, burning like paper when you set it on fire.

The wound was closing. 

It felt as pleasing as it did when Eleven was angry and alone in the cabin, setting fire to old newspapers in the fireplace just to watch them burn.

But then something appears on the other side, dark as a shadow, and so big, she can’t even tell where it begins and ends. There are arms, and a head, long and not like anything she’s ever seen, and once again she’s afraid. She’s small and little and staring at the monster in the dark for the first time and she’s afraid.

 She hears Hop breathe loudly next to her, hears him…gasp. She wonders if he’s afraid too.

She knows he is afraid too.

Growling comes from somewhere. Eleven can’t see it, but she can hear it, coming from the bottom of the cave they’re in, coming from the walls, then from the ceiling of the lift. 

Hop shouts, the flashlight of his gun washing over Eleven’s face as he turns and shoots at something in the dark.

Eleven flinches at the noise, heart hammering in her chest. Hop is afraid and she is afraid and there are monsters on both sides of the darkness. 

She can’t do it. She can’t close the gate.

Hopper continues to shoot. He shoots and shoots and shoots until he can’t anymore.

He can’t protect her anymore. And he’s scared.

Eleven has to protect them both. And to do that, she needs to be brave. How can she be brave, when she’s so scared?

She screams, frustrated, trying to force it closed, but as she watches, the edges of the gate, of the wound, are opening again. The monster behind it reaches out, across the light and the edges of the gate, out into the world.

Eleven can’t let another monster out, not again. She can’t let it kill Hop. She can’t let it kill her friends.

She can’t let it kill another one of her friends.

Memories pass behind her eyes. Memories of fear: Papa making her do things she didn’t want to, carrying her through the cold hallways of her Home when all she wanted was to lay down and sleep. Her and her friends running through the school, from men that had been sent to take Eleven back Home. Jenny being struck in the head by one of them. Lucas screaming when the monster broke the door

The bad men had hurt Jenny. Had hurt Mia and Mike and Dustin and Lucas. They had hurt Hop. The monster Eleven had set free had almost killed them.

And it was trying to do so again.

Memories of anger come next, bright and burning: A boy holding a knife to Dustin’s throat. Hop shouting at her that she couldn’t leave the cabin. Finding the papers and the pictures. Hop lying to her about her mother. Her mother’s voice saying  Breathe, sunflowers, rainbow, 450.

Eleven had never met her mother. Had never had someone like Joyce was to Mia and Jonathan and Will. Papa hadn’t let her.

The monster reaches out one limb made of shadow. 

She can’t let the monster hurt her friends. Can’t let the monster hurt Hop. 

Eleven screams, burning from the inside. Her vision turns red like the light all around her and she finds that she is not scared, not angry. It’s a different feeling, one she can’t give a name to. Eleven needs, and that need is not to run and hide, and it’s not to reach out and hurt. No.

She wants to protect. She wants to stand in between Hop and the monster like Mia had once stood between her and Lucas. Like Mike had stood between her and Papa. Like Hop had stood between her and the lift doors, between her and Home.

The moment she had fallen and hurt her knee, and opened a wound in the world.

A memory of Dustin, yelling that she was his friend and that she was crazy, passes through her head. Mrs. Byers, telling her they’d be here for her no matter what echoes in her ears. She remembers Lucas, standing in front of her friends, pulling back his wrist-rocket and letting the rock fly at the monster.

She thinks of Hop dancing in the cabin, making her dinner in the kitchen. Thinks of Jenny’s eyes, so blue, finding hers in the Gym, of her smile as she had hugged Eleven tight to her chest.

Eleven will put herself in between this monster and her friends, her family. She had done it once, she will do it again.

Eleven reaches out with both hands and pushes.

Power lifts El off the floor. The shadow monster stops, beating at Eleven’s powers like a moth against a closed window, trying to pierce through the glass of Eleven’s powers to strike at her and Hopper.

Eleven thinks of Jenny - the first time she’d seen her, biking up the hill by the powerlines near Mike’s house, with Mia on the back of her bike. Thinks of Jenny taking her hand and leading her to Mike’s bathroom, gently cleaning her nose with a piece of toilet paper. Thinks of Jenny and her soft rug and the way she had thought it was cool when Eleven had popped off the cap of her soda bottle. Thinks about Jenny opening the bathroom door at the Byers’ house last year, and asking if she was okay. Saying it was okay that El couldn’t find Will or Barbara, that they could try other ways, that El didn’t have to do anything more than what she could. That Eleven should rest and not hurt herself because there was no need to.

That their friends would find a way to help her, because that's what friends do.

Eleven thinks of Jenny trembling with fear at the back of the classroom, when the monster broke down that door. Thinks of Jenny wielding her bat, ready to defend Mia, despite her fear.

El screams, feeling as if her entire face was about to burst, her feet hovering above the floor, her head at the same height as Hop’s.

She thinks of Jenny, who was dead and gone, and would never come back again. 

El screams feeling as though her eyes would pop out of her head. Blood seeps into her mouth and she feels the veins around her eyes bursting as she pushes and pushes.

She was gone. Gone. Gone, gone, gone. Killed by the monster in front of her. 

Mike, Mia, Hopper, Dustin, Lucas, Mrs. Byers. They’d all be gone too, if the monster standing in front of her continued to live.

She has to protect them. She will protect them.

Eleven pushes, and watches as the shadow is forced back. She screams and watches as the edges of the gate burn closed, the edges of the wound scabbing over and healing. She pushes and the last wisp of shadow gets pulled behind the gate, which closes over, leaving behind a dark scar, proving it had been there once, but that it had healed.

Eleven is not being hurt anymore. She can start to heal.

Eleven feels her vision darken.

She expects the pain of the floor against her head as her body drops from the air - but there’s nothing. Two arms reach her before she hits the ground, cradling her close to a warm chest. 

There’s a hand on her face, so much bigger than her own, and warm too.

Hands that teach and protect.

Hop’s hands.

Eleven goes willingly into the darkness. She has closed the gate and saved her friends, and now…

She could rest.

Chapter 13

 

 

When they make it back to Joyce Byers’ house, half of the kids are asleep in the backseat.

Mike Wheeler and Mia Byers aren’t.

“Do you think she closed the gate?” Mike whispers to the girl, loud enough that Billy can hear it.

Billy glances back at them through the rearview mirror, only able to see the girl’s ponytail bobbing as she nods.

“Didn’t you feel it?”

Whatever response Mike gave her, Billy doesn’t hear it. 

He clenches his hands on his lap, wincing at the rope burns and cuts on his palms. His fingers ache from holding onto that rope so tightly, and he thinks he might have pulled a muscle in his left arm when he used the bat on that vine to help that Dustin kid. Or maybe it was when he dragged Harrington out of that hole. 

Billy had thought what happened back at the Byers had been the most terrifying thing in his life, but he’d been wrong. At least then he had confusion and sheer denial on his side. 

When he heard those howls coming for them from the tunnels, he knew exactly what was coming. 

That was the moment he’d been most terrified in his entire life, and it includes the day when his father found out he was fucking around with another boy. 

He was certain he was going to die when he saw that thing crouching in the tunnel in front of them. They didn’t have a gun. They didn’t even have that curly-haired kid with mind powers. Steve had his spiked baseball bat, but Billy only had a 30 inches long softball bat with rhinestones glued to it. He would have been able to do nothing if that thing had decided to kill him. 

His fear of his dad had seemed so stupid then, in that tunnel, facing that creature from an entirely different world. 

It still feels stupid now, more than an hour later, with his hands burning and his heart still racing. 

His father was just a man. Billy has faced something worse than him now.

Billy taps the grip of the bedazzled bat with his fingers, humming the Four horsemen beneath his breath. 

“You okay, man?” Steve asks, glancing over at him as he pulls into the Byers’ driveway.

Billy laughs, something ugly and angry, that he knows won’t do him any favors. “Really?”

Steve glances between him and the house, parking the car. “What?”

“You’re so fucking soft. I can’t believe you’ve been doing this since last year.” Billy gets out of the car and slams the door shut. 

Inside the car, Dustin and Lucas snap awake, heads whirling around. 

Max continues to sleep, because the world could end and that kid would still be able to sleep through all the trumpets and the fire. Max had always been a heavy sleeper. There was this one time that Neil threw Billy’s head against her bedroom door, with a sound so loud it had echoed in the hallway. She hadn’t even woken up.  

“I haven’t been doing it since last year.” Steve corrects, getting out of the car. “It happened once, last year. But I have been living with this mind-numbing terror and unwanted knowledge for a year.”

Billy rolls his eyes and opens the backseat door. Max spills out, this time snapping awake before she hits the ground. She catches herself with both her hands on the gravel, and glares up at him, blue eyes like fire. 

“We’re here.” Billy declares, turning around on his feet and climbing up the porch stairs.

He hears the others slowly make their way to the house behind him, and as he makes his way up the porch, his eyes get stuck on a stain on the floor. 

Earlier, he and Steve had removed the demo-whatever corpse that was lying on the porch, but they hadn’t been able to do anything about the stain it left behind. 

At least the smell was gone. 

Steve and him had moved all the corpses to the edge of the woods, to deal with later. But he sure as hell won’t be involved with that later. How does one even “deal with it”? Burn it? Bury it? 

However it was, Joyce Byers would have to deal with that and one hell of a reformation after this night was through. 

Billy moves to open the sheets they’d put up on the doorway, but the Byers girl - Mia - pops up next to him, and pulls open the flap of cloth before he can do so, running inside.

Billy rolls his eyes, but follows behind her. The house is so cold it hurts, but the broken windows and door seem to have helped to dissipate the smell of blood and death. The lights are still on inside, so at least the weird power power surge that happened back at the field hadn’t happened here, or if it had, it hadn’t fried the wiring.

Steve herds the kids to the kitchen, makes them drink water and eat pieces of cheese by pitting the boys against Max, who had already started eating by herself. He kept pushing food into their hands, saying that the kids were his responsibility now, and he didn’t want anyone passing out from low blood sugar and getting a concussion or something. 

Billy watches Steve flit around like a headless chicken while he drinks a glass of water by the sink. Then he grabs a peanut butter jar from the cupboard close to him and a random spoon that’s on the counter, hoping it’s clean. He’s eaten three spoonfuls by the time the kids finish their cheeses and cold butter sandwiches.  Steve had eaten an orange, which he’d found forgotten behind a melted bag of peas on the counter.

The Byers girl hasn’t eaten at all, despite being the first one to the kitchen. Billy’s only seen her munch on the corner of a square of cheese Steve had put into her hands, and it was still there, almost whole, and forgotten between her fingers.

Steve seems to notice it too.

“Byers.” Steve calls, “You have to eat at least a bit more than that.”

The girl shrugs, “I’m not hungry.”

“You haven’t eaten since dinner yesterday.” The Wheeler kid says. He’s visibly forced himself to eat his own sandwich, and half of the glass of juice in front of him. “You have to eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

Billy washes his spoon in the sink, plops it back in the jar and offers it to the girl. “Here.” 

She stares at him, then at the jar. 

“It has a lot of protein or some shit. It’s good if you haven’t eaten in a long time.” He shakes the jar. She takes it and holds the spoon like a dead bird in her hand. Billy rolls his eyes. “I cleaned the damn spoon. Eat up.”

She sighs, but ends up eating two spoons and then two full glasses of water when the thing sticks to the top of her mouth. 

Which had been just Billy’s plan.

They’re trying to decide what to do next when the phone rings by the kitchen. 

The Byers girl jumps as if someone had electrocuted her chair. “I’ll get it.”

The rest of the kids follow her anyway. Steve goes too, after a moment. Not really wanting to stay in the kitchen by himself, Billy follows.

The girl has answered it already. “-weren’t here, sorry.” Someone says something on the other end. “Yeah, we’re fine. Have you heard from - Okay, I’ll tell the others. See you soon, mom. Love you too.”

She hangs up and turns to the others, “Mom says that Hopper and El are fine. They closed the gate and should be getting here soon. Things went well on her end too, Will’s not - not possessed anymore.”

The kids breathe a sigh of relief, and even Steve hangs his head, scrubbing at his face with his hands. Billy feels all the exhaustion from the last hours slam into him like a semi-truck, and blinks hard to fight the urge to just curl up right there and then and fall asleep. 

It’s almost five am now. Soon enough the sun will come up. 

Billy doesn’t know how he will deal with Neil when he gets home. 

The kids decide to go to sleep, and wait for the others already in bed. Dustin suggests they shower, because they don’t really know what the air in the tunnels was made out of, and on the off chance it was radioactive or had some kind of biological weapon in it, it was best if they got rid of it and their clothes as soon as possible. 

The Byers girl springs into action, with an energy that Billy doesn’t understand. She grabs a bunch of plastic bags for them to place their dirty clothes in. Then she leads the kids to her room, tells them where they can get some of hers and her brother’s clothes, then comes back to the hallway to offer Billy and Steve her older brother’s clothes and his room.

“But Nance and Jonathan will be back soon.” Steve argues, “We can’t take Jonathan’s room.”

“Just put some blankets on the floor for them. We already got the sleeping bags for Lucas and Mike in my room.” She sighs, rubbing her eyes with a knuckle - the only sign that she’s even tired, aside from her bruised and bleeding face. “Look, you can’t sleep anywhere else because we still don’t have a door or a window in the living room. It’s freezing.” She waves a hand at them, “Just do whatever. Me and Max are getting the first shower.”

She points them to the drawers they can look into for clothes and leaves. 

Billy grabs some sweatpants and a shirt from those drawers, deciding to just wear his boxers inside out, because he had taken a shower right before he left home. Steve makes a face at the clothes, grabbing pants and a shirt, but no underwear.

“This is a serious breach of privacy. Why can’t we sleep in the living room?” Steve mumbles, putting the clothes on top of one of the towels Mia had left for them over the bed. 

“The kid’s right, Harrington. It’s freezing out there. And it stinks like death too.”

Steve stops, thinking about it, and acquiesces with a shake of his head. “Yeah. I wonder where Hopper and that guy will sleep though. In the same room as Mrs. Byers?”

Billy wiggles his eyebrows at Steve. 

Steve grimaces. “Ugh. Gross, dude.”

“Old people have sex lives too, Harrington.”

“Joyce’s a mom.”

“Moms have sex lives too.”

“There will be three people in there.”

“The more the merrier, right?”

“Oh, fuck you.”

“Keep wishing, Harrington.”

They sit on the floor of the hallway and wait for the girls to be done in the bathroom. They’re actually quicker than Billy expected, coming out about ten minutes after they’d gone in, all scrubbed pink and smelling like soap. Max has her long hair in a bun on the top of her head, and has changed into Mia’s clothes, which are a bit small on her legs. The Byers girl doesn’t have that brownish-red stain of blood on her neck anymore, though her busted lower lip seems to have opened up again. She’s holding the towel against it, the ends of her damp hair dripping on the floor.

“You guys can go in now.” Max says, “Mia says not to worry about running out of hot water.”

Steve nods, getting up from the floor. “Thanks, Max.”

“One at a time or locker room style?” Billy asks Steve, also getting up. His legs hurt from running through the tunnels, and now that his muscles have cooled down, he can feel the bruises from Steve’s elbows forming on his thighs. 

Steve makes a face at him, “Why would we even do that?”

Assuming he’s talking about the latter, Billy shrugs. “It will be faster. You take your shower, duck out of the spray and I get right in. I think it’s what the girls did.”

Truth is, Billy doesn’t really feel like spending any time alone right now. He thinks that if he got in there now, without anyone else to keep his mind on, he’d stay under the spray forever, and maybe never come out again. And he still doesn’t feel safe, even knowing that the curly haired kid with powers had managed to…close whatever it was that needed closing. He feels hunted, thinking he’ll see another one of those things as soon as he turns his back. 

It fucking sucks. 

Steve’s entire face twists even further. “I can’t believe you were thinking about twelve year old girls taking a shower.”

Billy’s mind is painfully tugged back to the present.

“Fuck off, Harrington.” Billy scowls, “that’s fucking disgusting. Max is my step-sister.”

Steve raises his eyebrows, but there’s mirth in his eyes now, his mouth lifting up at the corners.

Billy sees what he’s done. 

He punches Harrington’s arm, drawing a pained grunt from the boy. “Shut the hell up. Are we doing this or not?”

“Yeah, yeah sure.”

The Byers’ bathroom isn’t as small as Billy expected. The floor is made up of yellow tiles from the sixties, the same color of the window and the shower curtain. The upper part of the wall is green, but with the lights on, they look more blueish, making the white tiles covering up the rest of the wall seem almost the same color. 

Billy hangs by the laundry hamper and starts taking off his clothes. Steve ignores him, places Jonathan’s clothes on the closed toilet lid, and also starts pulling off his shirt and pants. 

Billy had seen him naked in the shower, back at the school, but he hadn’t exactly looked - Tommy Hagan was right there, and that stupid asshole had a big mouth. 

Steve was fit, and Billy hadn’t lied when he said that a pretty boy like him had nothing to worry about. Billy would have considered making a move on him if he wasn't so painfully straight and obviously still in love with the prissy Wheeler girl. 

Or not so prissy - the girl had handled that rifle like a pro.

Steve steps into the shower before Billy can finish taking off his pants. He doesn’t pull the curtain shut, so Billy leans against the wall and lets himself look at Harrrington’s reflection in the mirror. 

The mirror’s surface is foggy from the hot water, except for the middle, where the girls must have wiped it to take a look at themselves. He can see Harrington through it: the dark hair sticking to the back of his neck, the long line of his spine, his muscled back wet and defined. Steve turns to his side before Billy can look further down, but like this, Billy can see his closed eyes and pink lips, open and wet as he ducks his face under the spray. 

It’s almost worse.

Steve opens his eyes, turns his head to the mirror and Billy looks away, pretending to be staring at the floor. It’s a miracle that his body hasn’t reacted so far - maybe it’s too fucking tired to even get it up.

Steve washes his hair, and even uses the conditioner. After he’s done, Steve steps out of the shower, wrapping himself in a towel, and Billy moves past him to get into the tub.

The shower spray is weak, but hot, and at least they don’t have to worry about it turning cold before they’re done. Billy quickly scrubs himself down with soap, pours some shampoo in his hair and scrubs it off as fast as he can. He rinses it all off and puts a bit of the conditioner on the ends of his hair. 

He might be smelling like strawberries now, but Harrington can’t exactly tease him for this if he’s done the exact same thing.

Once he’s done, he wraps a towel around his hips and steps out of the tub. Steve’s already pulled on Jonathan’s sweatpants, and is toweling his hair dry. Billy dries himself up as best as he can in the steamy air of the bathroom, and pulls on the red flannel pants he’d borrowed, wincing at how it sticks to his thighs. 

Jonathan’s legs are much thinner than his, that’s for sure. Billy feels like one wrong move and he’ll rip these things apart.

When they get out, the boys are waiting in the hallway. Dustin’s asleep again, his head leaning on Mike’s shoulder. Lucas and Mike are talking in hushed whispers. 

“I hope he’s okay.” Lucas says. 

“He will be - you heard Mia. She said everything went fine.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean he’s okay.”

“Dipshits.” Steve calls, kicking Dustin’s foot. The boy blinks awake, staring blearily up at them. “Go clean some of that stink for heaven’s sake.”

Mike makes a face at Steve, but is the first to run into the bathroom, Lucas and Dustin following at a more sedate pace.

Steve turns to Billy. “I’m gonna hang out here until -” 

The sound of a car pulling up to the Byers’ driveway makes him cut himself off. Billy and Steve stare at the front doorway for a couple of moments, in tense silence. 

A hand appears through the flap on the cloth soon after, pulling it aside. It’s Joyce Byers, and that short guy, Bob. 

Nancy comes right behind them, holding the cloth aside for Jonathan to step through. He’s carrying the kid again, but the kid’s awake this time. His forehead is pressed to his brother’s cheek, his eyes ringed with deep purple bruises. 

Will Byers looks sicker than before, cheeks hollowed out as if he’d lost half his weight in only a couple of hours.

Jonathan puts him down on his feet, steadies the kid when he sways. Joyce and Bob tell something to the teenagers, too quietly for Billy to hear. Then Jonathan and Nancy split off from the adults, who take the kid away to the kitchen. 

Nancy and Jonathan come towards the hallway, stopping in front of Steve and Billy.

“Hey.” Jonathan croaks out, voice rough. Nancy puts her hand on his arm. Whatever happened wherever they were, it must have been rough as hell. Jonathan’s eyes are red, and Nancy’s hair lies limp against the sides of her face, wet in some places, her eyes just as haunted as Jonathan’s.

“Hey, man.” Steve nods at Jonathan, voice soft in a way that makes Billy want to cross his arms and glare. “Nance. How did it go?”

Jonathan squeezes his eyes shut. 

Nancy is the one who answers. “It was terrible. There was this - this dark mass. It just - came out of Will’s throat. At least he’s normal now, so. It worked.”

Steve nods as if any of that had made sense. “What did you guys do?”

Jonathan shakes his head, a short bark of laughter leaving his mouth. “We burned it out of him.” 

Steve and Billy look at each other, Billy freaked out, and Steve worried. Nancy glances up at Jonathan, also worried. 

“Maybe it’s best if we try to sleep for a bit.” She says, hesitating. “Who’s in the bathroom?”

Steve’s about to answer, but Jonathan cuts him off. “Are those my clothes?”

Billy looks down by instinct at the grey long-sleeved shirt he’s wearing and the red flannel pants. “You sister gave us free reign of your drawers.”

Instead of getting mad, demanding they take off his clothes - like Billy would have done - Jonathan just nods his head. 

“The kids are taking Mia’s room.” Steve adds, “Mia said the four of us could sleep in yours.”

“Nancy takes the bed, then. I can - there are some old sleeping bags in the shed, I’ll go get them.” 

Billy shakes his head. “Your sister already took those.”

Jonathan sighs, “We’ll take the blankets then, if she hasn’t taken those too.”

Jonathan directs Steve and Billy to the cupboard in the living room. Billy and Steve come back with three thick blankets, two of them knitted and one of them a duvet as heavy as Billy. They lug it back to Jonathan’s bedroom, finding him and Nancy sitting on the bed, some more fleece-like blankets piled neatly on the floor next to the bed.

Billy and Steve start rolling their blankets out on the floor, to form make-shift mattresses. Jonathan gives them some sweaters from his closet to use as pillows. 

His clothes smell nice, like he's put some type of cologne on them, and not like they’ve been in the closet for too long. 

Small mercies.

Nancy starts arguing with Jonathan when he insists on sleeping on the floor and having her take the bed.

“It’s a queen bed, Jonathan. I don’t have to sleep in it alone.”

Jonathan glances at Steve, who’s staring at the floor, pretending as if he wasn’t listening to the conversation.

“I’m more than willing to hop up on there with you, princess.” Billy pipes up, smirking as lewdly as possible at the girl.

Nancy sneers at him. “You’re disgusting.”

The smile slides off his face. He had meant it as a joke. 

“It was a joke. You’re not even my type, full offense.”

“Jonathan, just take the damn bed!” Steve explodes, drawing their attention.

“Yeah, as long as you two don’t start fucking, it’s fine.”

Steve reaches over and swats Billy’s arm. “Dude, shut up.”

There’s a knock on Jonathan’s door. Billy hears the boys’ voices outside in the hall. Whoever it is knocks again.

“It’s open.” Steve calls out, when neither Nancy or Jonathan do it.

The man that had gone off with the curly haired kid opens the door, almost as tall as the doorway. He takes a step into the room, carrying the smell of smoke and wet rot. 

Billy forces himself not to freeze, carefully pretending to make the bedding under his knees just right.

“Just wanted to check in on you kids.” The man says, “The gate’s closed. Your mom is helping your brother take a shower, but we should be heading to bed soon - all of us. If any of you need anything, knock on Joyce’s door.”

The four of them nod and the cop nods back, but before he can leave again, Billy gathers up some courage and gets up. 

“What am I supposed to tell my dad tomorrow?” He asks the man. Billy has guessed by now that he must be a cop, seeing as he had left in the police cruiser earlier. “Max and I were supposed to have been back by now.”

The man sighs, “I’ll give the station a call, see if your parents have called them up. I’ll just say I…” He glances in the direction of the front door, thinking. “That you blew a tire on some random road, and I found you there. I brought you over to the Byers because your sister knew Mia and it was closer than your house.”

“She’s my step-sister.”

“I don’t really care.”

“Won’t he ask why you didn’t take them home, though?” Nancy pipes up.

Billy thinks for a moment, but he already knows what he’ll say to his dad. “Leave that to me.”

His dad wouldn’t like to have the cops knocking on his door in the middle of the night, and Billy knows it. 

If he said he’d asked Hopper to take them to the Byers’ because it was where he’d found his sister, and he’d thought better than to just ask the cop to take them back home, Dad will accept it.

If he doesn’t…Well, Billy’s taking the fall of this night either way.

After the cop’s gone and Nancy and Jonathan have left to clean themselves up, Billy walks over to Mia Byers’ room to speak to Max.

The door’s open and the kids are all still awake. Mike and Lucas are wrapped in blankets sitting on the foot of the bed. Dustin sits against the headboard, the three of them staring at the curly haired girl with powers, who is sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed, facing the door. The area beneath her nose and around her mouth is stained with blood, but she doesn’t seem hurt, and isn’t even as dirty as the others had been when they got to the house. 

Max and Mia Byers are sitting down on the trundle bed, closer to the door. Max is braiding Mia’s dry hair as the curly-haired girl watches, Max’s own red hair already braided up.

There’s a space left empty on the bed by the Dustin kid. Billy wonders if it is for the Will kid, or for Jenny.

Though Mia, Mike and the curly-haired girl had already turned to the door as soon as Billy appeared, Max hasn’t. Billy knocks on the doorframe to draw his step-sister’s attention. 

Max’s head snaps up, fingers stopping at the end of the braid.

“What?”

“We’re leaving as soon as I wake up tomorrow.” Billy answers, “If dad asks, we blew a tire and the cop drove us here because I asked him to. We didn’t call because it was late. You came to the Byers yesterday and tried to have a pajama party without my say so, got it? I’m not the only one that’s getting grounded because you got involved in this shit.”

Max nods, surprisingly compliant.

“Good talk.”

Back at Jonathan’s room, Billy quickly throws himself down on his makeshift bed. Steve lies on the other side of Jonathan’s bed, covered up to his head with one of the fleece blankets Jonathan had left for them. 

Billy looks to the side, and finds he can see Steve’s face across from him, through the underside of the bed.

Steve Harrington had caught his eye as soon as Billy saw him at Tina’s party. 

The sunglasses, the tight jeans and the hair had drawn him in like a moth to a flame. And he’d heard so much about this King Steve, that he’d made up this hulking, cool as fuck, asshole of a guy in his mind. Tommy Hagan had told him Steve was the undefeated keg king, the life of the party and the most popular guy in school. The girls threw themselves at his feet, and even though he wasn’t the smartest, the teachers all ate out of his hand. 

King Steve occupied a position that Billy coveted in this shitty, small-town high-school. 

Back in California, he’d been at the top of the food chain, which had given him enough freedom to have his hook-ups without the other guys tattling. No one believed it when the random guy from the chess club said he’d been hit on by Billy Hargrove, resident womanizer and star of the wrestling team. Popularity was a matter of survival for him, and he was willing to rip the crown off this King Steve’s head with his teeth if he had to.

But then he met Steve Harrington, who completely ignored the heavier booze for the sake of sticking close to his girlfriend the whole night. Billy had seen how they danced together, the way he’d gently pulled her away from the punch bowl, how he’d run after her when she spilled that drink all over herself. 

He’d run out of the house alone, minutes later, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out they had fallen out. It had been confirmed the next day when Nancy stopped by the quad during Gym, and Steve had stormed back moments later with red cheeks and shaky hands. 

Tommy had moved for Steve, smelling blood on the water but Billy had called him back to talk about what moves they were doing next, holding him until Steve got himself back together. Steve had looked across the Gym at Billy, fire in his eyes, ready to continue their game.

Billy had felt it then - the dangerous first stirrings of a crush. 

He’d been ready to grind it to a pulp the very next day. But despite mocking and pushing Steve to the ground, he’d still felt a bit bad about it. The feeling of Steve’s hand in his followed him to the locker room, and then after the shower, the heat of his bare skin staying with Billy until he got home. 

His dad, sitting on the kitchen table with a beer in hand, had quickly made him forget all about it, though. 

And Billy had set up a date with Carrie Winston the very next morning.

Nancy and Jonathan get back into the room, then. Billy closes his eyes and pretends to be asleep.

They take the bed, settling down quietly and without talking. 

Billy listens to the others walking around outside in the hallway, listens to the shower cut off, to Joyce Byers’ voice walking past Jonathan’s door as she leads her other son to his room. 

At some point the house falls silent. 

The gray light of dawn creeps through Jonathan’s window.

At some point, Billy falls asleep, and dreams of running, and running and running.

Notes:

Billy Hargrove thirsting on main

Chapter 14

Notes:

WARNING: homophobic slurs

 

 

Mia doesn’t go to school on Monday. Neither does Will.

After everything happened the year before, Mia and Will had woken up at the hospital. They had spent the day with nurses bustling around and doctors coming in and out of their room. Mia had put a cast on her wrist. Will had done a million different exams. 

Mia had been discharged first. Their friends came to visit and Jenny spent the night. When Will was discharged, a week later, all of their friends and their parents had gathered at the Wheelers’ house for a small reception party. And after the winter break, both of them had gone back to school.

It felt like closure, somehow, to have all that terror and running around clear cut by the time in the hospital. For life to slowly trickle down into something calmer, to something good.  

It felt like everything would, eventually, get better.

This time around, it’s different.  

They all wake up late on sunday. Max and her step-brother Billy leave first, as soon as they’ve finished their breakfast. Steve drives Nancy, Mike, Lucas and Dustin back to their respective houses, while Mom and Hopper get ready to go to the Hayes’. Bob says he’ll stay behind to look after Jonathan, Will and Mia.

Mia had wanted to go to the Hayes’ too, but neither Hopper or Mom had allowed it.

They were going over to tell them that Jenny was dead. And that wasn’t the job for a kid, apparently. 

Never mind that the kid had seen everything.

That the kid was the cause of it. 

After they go out, and Jonathan holes himself up in his room, Mia takes a shower and spends the rest of the day in bed, staring at the ceiling, her wet hair slowly drying over her pillow. 

Sometimes, she startles awake, unaware she’d even slept, swearing she’s heard a growl, or the sound of claws on their floor. Sometimes she hears the TV in the living room, the sound of a generic laugh track eerily distorted by the echo in the hallway. 

But most times she wakes up and hears nothing but hers and Will’s breathing. 

Will sleeps the entire day, not getting up for the bathroom or to eat, not even moving. Mia would think him dead if it wasn’t for the steady rise and fall of his chest, which she stares at for long moments every time she snaps awake, just to make sure.

Jonathan had knocked on the door of their room to ask if they wanted to eat three different times throughout the day, and so did Bob. A few hours after the sun went down, Jonathan had come into the room and laid down with Mia on her single bed, curling warmly around her back.

He doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t say anything about Jenny, or that things will be better. He just holds her, calm and steady, and before Mia notices it, she’s shaking in his arms, tears sliding down her temples to wet her hair on the pillow.

Mom gets back when it’s completely already dark outside and Jonathan’s fallen asleep behind her. Mia hears the car coming up the driveway, hears muffled voices through her door. 

When Mom opens the door to her room slightly, Mia already has her eyes shut, pretending to be asleep.

Mom stays at the door for a few seconds, silent, before softly closing the door behind her. 

Later, she comes into the room and curls up on Will’s bed, hugging him to her chest until she falls asleep.

Mia doesn’t sleep that night, not only because she had slept through most of the day, but also because now that it was dark, she can’t relax long enough to fall asleep. 

Flashes of memories keep appearing behind her eyelids like fireworks: the demogorgon breaking the wall of the bathroom down. The taste of blood in her mouth. Jenny’s hands pulling her up to the window. The texture of the wall against her arms and stomach. Jenny’s nails, sliding across her arm as she was pulled down. 

Was Jenny’s body still in the lab? Had the demogorgon disfigured her, like it did all the other scientists?

Mia keeps imagining it: the sound of it eating her.

Nauseous and filled with a coldness she never felt before, Mia lies in Jonathan’s arms, hoping for morning to arrive.

Monday dawns, just as quiet and lethargic as the day before. Will finally wakes up and Bob comes to their house with breakfast for all of them. Hopper is with him, but not El. 

Hopper tells them some government agents showed up at the station this morning, and that they’re coming to their house next. 

Mia spends the day in Jonathan’s room with him and Will while the agents inspect every inch of their house, cleaning the remains of the demogorgons from the other rooms and taking the bodies back to the lab. Jonathan puts on The Clash’s Combat Rock to drown out the sound of boots stomping outside the room. Mia doesn’t know if she’s grateful for it. The guitars hurt her ears, and not listening to the agents outside makes her skin crawl and her knees shake, but just thinking about the alternative - sitting in silence and listening as the men turned their house inside out - makes her heart beat faster in her chest. 

At some point, Mom knocks on the door to warn them an agent is coming inside. Mia and Will huddle around Jonathan’s legs under the covers, Jonathan sitting up with his chest above the sheets, and a warm hand on each of their heads, guarding. 

Mia feels like she’s five years old again, terrified and small as she sees shadows of people moving around the room through the blankets.  

After the military are gone, and after mom has given Mia a cup of water with sugar because she almost passed out from getting out of her bed, Mike calls Mia’s supercom. School is over for the day, and though Mike wanted to come to her house, he won’t be able to, because he’s grounded, but that he’ll try tomorrow. Lucas and Dustin are the same - Lucas is grounded after not telling his parents where he was going on saturday, and Dustin for the mess in his mom’s cellar. She isn’t able to talk to Max because she doesn’t have the girl’s phone, but Mike said she was okay when they saw each other at school. 

Bob goes back to his own house at the end of the day, promising to return the next day.

Tuesday comes. Hopper stops by in the morning with El, deeming it safe to bring her around now that the military was too busy with cleaning up the lab to notice her. 

Jonathan shuts himself in his room after breakfast. Mia stays on one of the couches in the living room, staring listlessly at the sliver of the front yard she can see every time the sheets on the door waves with the wind. 

El sits on the floor next to Mia. She has one of Mia’s old books, Where the red fern grows, in her hands. 

Will is laid out on the other couch under the window, despite Jonathan telling him not to earlier because of all the blood and glass. Will had covered it with a blanket and laid down on it after Jonathan went to his room. He traces the blanket’s flower pattern with a finger, looking out of the broken window above him with a blank look on his face.

It’s a beautiful day, with a deep blue sky and dazzling sunlight. 

Mia stares at it until her eyes hurt, and thinks of Jenny’s blue eyes, so terrified, in the second before that creature had jumped onto her back.

It’s been two days. 

It’s just so…surreal, how everything, everything changed in just a weekend. 

Just a week ago Jenny had been worried about halloween costumes, and earrings, and the creep in the ice cream shop downtown and not -

Mia cuts that train of thought, and listens as her Mom calls the school, saying all three of them had come down with some random sickness, and weren’t to be expected until the end of the week. 

Bob shows up after breakfast, and Hopper leaves to go to work, letting El stay with them because he doesn’t want her to be alone again. 

When lunch comes around, Jonathan comes out of his room and they sit down at the tiny kitchen table to eat. Will eats little, moving his food around more than anything. Mia isn’t hungry, so she leaves her plate untouched. 

Once El finishes her own plate, she takes Mia’s and eats almost half of it.

After they’re done, mom clears her throat.

“Hopper and I spoke with the Hayes’ on sunday.” She starts. 

Mia is glad that she hasn’t eaten, because she immediately gets nauseous. Mom turns her eyes to Mia, and Mia glances away, at the dent on their kitchen wall. The agents hadn’t been able to scrub out all the blood, and the chemicals they’d used had left a yellowish stain on the paint.

“Hopper has been…helping them, to discuss things with the government agents. They will be holding the - the funeral, on friday. You kids don’t have to go unless you want to.” 

The only funeral Mia had ever been to had been for Will’s fake body. 

At least then she had the comfort of knowing he was still alive. Now, she knows that Jenny is dead. Mia had seen her die.

Or had she? 

Had Jenny died as soon as she hit the floor? Had she cracked her skull on the paper dispenser, or on the toilet and died before she could even feel the claws digging into her back? Had those creatures tore into her while she was still alive? Had she felt every bite, every claw? 

Jenny had screamed, Mia remembers that. Hearing the screams from the ground, looking up at the window and hoping Jenny would come out.

She can’t remember what Jenny had screamed. She thinks back to that moment, and suddenly, she can hear Jenny’s voice, crystal clear and terrified screaming for Mia as Mia watched from below.

Mia’s mouth fills with saliva. She swallows, fighting down her nausea. 

Had Jenny’s parents been able to recover her body? 

Would she be there during the funeral, lying inside a casket, with her body torn to pieces beneath all the flowers? Or would they bury an empty casket, because there had been nothing left to retrieve?

Mia feels Will’s eyes against the side of her head. Jonathan nudges her foot under the table.

“Okay.” Mia tells her mom, mouth numb. “I could…yeah.”

There’s a moment of silence where no one speaks. Bob is the first to break it.

“Perhaps it’ll be good for us to go.” Bob says, holding mom’s hand over the table. “I’m sure Mr. and Mrs. Hayes will be glad to have our support.” 

Mom twists her face as if she thought otherwise.

“And we’ll get to say goodbye to Jenny.” Jonathan says, voice choked. “I think it will be…good, for us to get a chance to say goodbye.”

Mia glances up at her brother. His eyes are full of tears, but he still tries to give her an encouraging smile when he catches her looking. 

Mia’s hit with the sudden realization that Jonathan has known Jenny for just as long as Mia. 

When Mia and her were little, Jonathan used to play with them all the time - he was the knight saving Jenny and Mia from the monster; he was a spy, like them, helping them jump over Mike’s neighbors’ fences to find the secret folder of documents that Mike had stolen from the russians before dying a tragic death in the arctic waters of the inflatable pool in hi backyard. Jonathan used to play pranks on Mia, Jenny and Will, at night, turning the lights off while they were brushing their teeth and making ghoulish noises in the hallway. When Jonathan started getting into photography, Jenny had given him her mom’s old camera, and a copy of The Decisive Moment on his birthday. Jonathan had even danced with Jenny in their elementary school graduation in Mr. Hayes’ stead, because Mr. and Mrs. Hayes had gotten caught up with work and had to leave early from the ceremony.

I’m stealing Jonathan from you, Jenny had told Mia once on one of their sleepovers at her house, It’s not fair. You have two brothers and I have none, you can share one.

Jonathan and Jenny had known each other for as long as Mia knew Jenny. 

Her mom too.

Mom had watched Jenny grow with Mia. 

Do you have any idea of what I felt, when I looked up to that window and didn't see any of you coming out?

And Will - Will had been as much Jenny’s friend as Mia had been. They had classes together that Mia wasn’t in. Sometimes they were the ones who arranged something for the three of them to do in town - like visit the library to scour through the new art section, go to the field behind Mrs. Gilespie’s house for the two of them to draw her lily-pad pond while Mia caught guppies with her hands. Will had told Mia more than once that there were things that his friends just didn’t talk about. Things that he felt like he couldn’t share with them, but that he felt like he could, with Jenny.

 “I’m not sure if I should go.” Will blurts out next to Mia.

Mom frowns at Will, “What do you mean, sweetie?”

Will’s eyes dart to Mia, then to the table. “You know.” He shrugs, “I’m - I’m the…r-reason she’s…”

He doesn’t finish his sentence. 

For a moment, a stunned silence fills the kitchen. 

“No, you’re not!” Jonathan says at the same time as mom. 

“You’re not the reason she’s dead, Will.” Bob agrees with them, reaching over to touch Will’s arm. “Why would you think that?”

Will hangs his head, sniffs. “I was the one who called those creatures to the lab. I let that - that thing take over me. Jenny would still be alive if I had just fought harder.” 

Oh.

Oh no.

The words she’d said back in the shed come back to her then, and Mia blanches. 

Mia had said he was responsible for Jenny’s death. That he had allowed the Mind Flayer to take over his mind. She had said those things to provoke Will, to make him overthrow the Mind Flayer’s grip on him. 

She hadn’t meant any of it.

Didn’t you? A voice says, deep inside her head. You wanted to hurt him.

“That’s not true.” She tells both Will and the voice inside her head, staring at the table. “It wasn’t your fault she died.”

 Liar, liar, pants on fire, the voice in her head croons. 

“The Mind Flayer did it.” El announces, dark eyes serious, not leaving room for discussion. “Not you. You’re not the monster. You saved us, Will.”

Mia hears the echoes of those words in Jenny’s voice. Jenny had said almost the exact same thing to El, after Walsh and Dante cornered them at the quarry.

Suddenly sick to her stomach, Mia pushes away from the table. “I need to go to the bathroom.” 

Mia gets up from the table and doesn’t look back. 

She locks herself in her room, and ignores Jonathan knocking, asking her to let Will in. Ignores when Mom knocks again hours later to tell her El is leaving. She ignores El’s soft spoken goodbye, and ignores Bob calling her to dinner. 

She lies on her bed, staring at the ceiling and doesn’t open the door.  

*

Mia isn’t entirely there during the funeral.

She puts on the same black dress she’d worn for Will’s funeral, the same black coat and shoes that she had vowed never to wear again. Will and Jonathan are wearing shirts in dark colors and black dress pants. Mom is dressed the same as she did last year, too, but her coat is new. Bob had bought it for her earlier this year.

They hold the funeral in the church by the cemetery, the same church Jenny got baptized in. 

The priest who speaks at the beginning of the ceremony had been the one to baptize her, and his voice gets tight when he reads a passage about children deserving the kingdom of heaven from the bible. 

Neither Mia or Will had been invited to sit near the front with the family. 

The Byers sat down between the Wheelers and the Sinclairs, Dustin and his mom sitting right next to Lucas. Max is on the pew behind them, sitting between her mom and Billy, and Mia can hear her sniffing every now and then. Unlike it had been at Will’s funeral, Dustin, Lucas and Mike are openly crying, and so is Will, who’s so red he’s the same color as Max’s hair.  

Mia isn’t crying. She doesn’t know why. 

She feels like screaming, and if she starts she thinks that she’ll never stop.

There’s a casket at the front, closed, with flowers on top of its dark, gleaming wood. White and cream chrysanthemums shine as bright as the sunlight peeking through the stained-glass windows, dotted with deep blue flowers - the same color of Jenny’s eyes - and yellow sunflowers. 

Sunflowers were Jenny’s favorite. Her mom used to grow them in their backyard when she was little. 

Was there a body in that coffin? 

Was Jenny in there? 

Was she in pieces? Had someone stitched her together? Had there been anything to be stitched together?

Mia clings to the hope that there had been, that some part of Jenny is still here, in this church, being celebrated one last time.

One of Jenny’s aunts is the one to make a speech about her, as Jenny’s mom and dad are barely able to sit up in the front row. Mr. Hayes has his head on his knees, and Jenny’s mom is openly sobbing as her sister reads from a piece of paper. A picture of Jenny stays propped up on an easel next to her aunt: it’s the same picture that the Hayes have hanging in their house: Jenny with her blonde hair pin-straight and tucked behind her ears. She’s smiling, freckles over the bridge of her nose and cheeks. Her eyes are the same color as the background, ringed with white from the camera lights. 

Jenny had showed Mia the picture, the day after she took it. Her parents had been taking family pictures to update their old family photos, which had been taken when Jenny was four. Mia had teased her, saying she looked like an elf with her hair tucked behind her ears.

She looks so happy in the picture. 

Mia can’t look away.

This is the last time she and Jenny are together in the same room.

Jenny’s uncles and some of her cousins, as well as her dad, carry the coffin to the cemetery next to the church. They lower her down into the ground. The priest says a few more words. Her parents cry, leaning on each other standing as they stand over the open grave. 

Will is crying against Jonathan’s side, and Mike has his hand on his back, face slack and emotionless, eyes far away. Mia hangs back with her mom’s arms around her, feeling guilty because Max had come to stand next to her to hold her hand.

Max was supposed to be Jenny’s friend. Now she’s here, holding Mia’s hand, and Jenny is in a coffin six feet under, having dirt thrown over her. 

The sunflowers on her coffin will never again see the light of day.

Afterwards, the reception isn’t held at the cemetery, like Will’s had been. They go back to the Hayes’ home. 

Mia almost doesn’t make it through the door. It’s only Mom’s hand on her shoulder that makes her step inside.

The Hayes’ house has always been a warm, inviting place to Mia. It was a second home, just like Mike’s house was. It felt lived in, and it held this kind of energy, something that Mia couldn’t explain, but knew that it came from a loving family living happily and at peace within its walls. Every time Mia visited, there were clothes strewn around, a book or two on the couch or the coffee table. The kitchen usually smelled like food and it was always bright inside, everything painted in golden shades of sunlight. She knew the smell of the pillows thrown on the couch, knew the texture of the carpet in front of the TV. Knew how water tasted in the pink plastic cup she could see in the glass cabinet above the stove.

And yet, without Jenny, the house seemed completely unknown to Mia. 

The house was cold, bleached colorless from all the black-clad people walking around. The conversations were hushed and serious. There were some finger foods on the kitchen aisle, the pale cookies and drinks set aside for the kids as appetizing as boiled zucchini.  The air smells like perfume. There are no clothes to be folded, or books on the coffee table. 

There’s only pictures of Jenny, now, surrounded by black frames.  

Mia sits on the couch, sandwiched between Will and Lucas, staring at a picture of Jenny in one of their school’s plays, Charlotte’s Web. She had gotten the role of Fern Arable, and of a little cow in later scenes. There, in the picture, she’s wearing her cow outfit: the white and black onesie and the cutout in the hape of a cow’s head complete with a pink nose above her brow. She’s smiling so wide, her eyes nearly don’t appear in the picture. 

Max sits on Lucas’ other side, Erica perched on the arm of the couch next to her, face puffy and somber in a way Erica never is. Dustin and Mike have settled on the floor by their feet, cups of hot chocolate in their hands. Will is with mom, far from Mia.

Mom is standing by the stairs with Bob and Max’s parents. Mia hears Susan, Max’s mom, saying that she wished they could have met under better circumstances, before their voices are drowned out by the other conversations in the room.

Hopper is there, and so is Mr. Clarke, who’s talking to Jenny’s dad, along with Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler - her arms empty, because Holly was too young to come to a funeral. Some other kids from their year are also there, some of them crying, and some of them just looking stunned, like they had their entire lives pulled out from beneath them. 

Jonathan and Nancy walk up to Mia and her friends, napkins full of cookies in their hands. They give two to each of them. 

Mia takes hers and eats it, hoping it’d help her to swallow down the knot in her throat. 

It doesn’t.

“What are they going to say?” Lucas asks Jonathan, eyes red. “About her.”

Jonathan shares a look with Nancy. 

“They’re saying she was hit by a car…when biking back from our house on sunday. A drunk driver hit her in that empty stretch of Mulberry road.” Jonathan says. “The driver rolled over and hit a ditch, and didn’t survive.”

None of them ask who the supposed driver was. Mia wonders if one of the dead agents had been blamed. Wonders if the military had driven one of their vans over Jenny’s bike, to support their cover story. Had they put a mangled and disfigured body in the driver’s seat after running the van over Jenny’s bike?

So many questions, none of which Mia truly wants an answer to.

After the reception ends, Mom leads Will, Mia and Jonathan to the door. 

Jenny’s parents don’t want to see them just yet. 

They hadn’t taken well to the news that mom had helped their daughter hide secrets from them. Secrets that, in the end, got her killed in the most gruesome and painful way.

The pain in Mia’s heart pulsates like a living thing as she leaves the Hayes’ home. 

Is this the last time she’s ever going to see it? 

On the way to the car, Will holds out his hand and she takes it, half-heartedly. 

He killed her, that voice whispers in her head, he’s the reason she’s dead.

Mia grips her brother’s hand tighter, telling the voice to shut up, because she knows very well who’s truly responsible for Jenny’s death. 

She could see it as a long string of cause and consequence, beginning almost exactly a year ago

If Mia hadn’t asked Will to carry her on his back, would the demogorgon ever have caught up to them? If Mia hadn’t told Jenny that Will was alive, and dragged her into their search for Will, would she have ever believed in the Upside Down? Jenny believed in the Upside Down because of Mia. Because she trusted Mia.

If Mia had been more careful, if she hadn’t stepped in that goddamned bucket, if she had paid attention to Hopper and stepped out of his way, then her shoe wouldn’t have squeaked, they wouldn’t have drawn the creature’s attention. Jenny would have been out of that bathroom first when the doctor called her over, and they would all have been safe.

If Jenny wasn’t Mia’s friend, she would never have ended up at the lab in the first place. 

If Jenny wasn’t Mia’s friend she wouldn’t be dead.

So she knows very well it’s not Will’s fault, despite what the voice in her head says and Will himself thinks. It’s not even Hopper’s fault, like Mike had accused.

No. It was her fault, as much as it was the Mind Flayer’s. 

And who carried the most blame? The interdimensional creature that existed to hunt and kill humans; or the human whose actions had put someone innocent, their best friend, in the path of such a creature? 

*

Somehow, life continues to happen.

Mia and Will go back to school on the Monday after the funeral, going back to the routine of lunches and homework and notebooks and blackboards as if Will hadn’t been possessed by an interdimensional monster that had killed dozens of people, as if Mia hadn’t been running from said dimensional monsters through a military laboratory only the week before. 

As if Jenny hadn’t been killed and eaten by those same interdimensional monsters.

Mia sits in class and Jenny’s desk is empty in front of her.  She has to take notes and listen to her teachers and do her homework on time and worry about tests and quizzes as if she hadn’t seen Jenny dying right in front of her eyes. 

She has to take showers and eat breakfast and get ready for school as if her best friend’s blood hadn’t sprayed across her face. 

Has to smile at Lucas and watch TV with Will and follow Max to her locker at school as if she didn’t know the taste of her best friend’s blood.

Mr. Clarke and Mrs. Simpson, their art teacher, try to talk to her on Wednesday, but Mia simply stands there and ignores them as they speak of being there for her should she need them. They must have realized that she hadn’t paid them much attention, because the next day, Principal Coleman had called her to his office, the guidance counselor standing next to him, and said that should she need to talk, she could come to Mrs. Johnston, that they understood the pain she was going through and that she should understand that she wasn’t alone in this trying time.

For a moment, Mia wants nothing but to throw her chair at Principal Coleman. 

Trying time. 

Jenny was dead, that was the farthest thing from just a trying time. 

Mia wants to scream in his face. Not even words, just sound, and pain. Let them try and understand that, then.

Mia had spent the entire meeting unable to speak, a knot of anger and grief twisting tight around her throat. She dug her fingernails into her elbows, but the pain didn’t help, not even a little bit. 

It was terrible to continue to live after Jenny had died.  

There had been a memorial at school for Jenny, the week after the funeral.  Mia had skipped it and hid in a toilet stall, staring at the graffiti on the walls that the janitor was yet to clean.

There, in someone’s handwriting, was over a dozen of tally marks in black ink, under three names and a question:

 

WHO KILLED JENNIFER HAYES?

ZOMBIE BYERS

DYKE BYERS

FREAK BYERS

 

Mia had counted each tally with her fingers. Jonathan was ahead, with ten lines under his name. Mia’s had six, while Will’s had three.

Mia took out a black marker from her bag, and made five lines under her own name. 

There, now it was fixed.

She knew about the rumours, of course. Students whispered where she could hear them, barely bothering to hide their mouths behind cupped hands and their stares as she and Will walked past them in the hallways. They wondered what had happened, why Jennifer Hayes had died. No one believed the story about someone from out of town. And all rumours had one thing in common: Mia and her freak family were responsible for it, somehow. 

Will Byers had been declared dead and came back to life, a real-life zombie case in Hawkins, just the year before. Mia had been missing for days, and was found wandering the woods alone near Cartersville. Mrs. Byers had been crazy that entire week, and had been seen yelling at her son in the middle of the town. And everyone knew that Jonathan Byers was a strange loner who had no friends.

Barbara Holland went missing in the woods near the Byers’ house too, Mia hears Stacy Johnston saying to Lizzie Owens one morning, and Jenny died coming back from the Byers’. Maybe their brother is a serial killer, like Bundy.  

Lizzie had twisted her nose, looked back over her shoulder. Her eyes had met Mia’s across the room, before she had turned back to Stacy. At least Bundy is hot.

Everything was terrible and still, life continued to happen. 

Mia was forced to live on after Jenny was gone.

It’s not fair, that the world continues to spin and the school bell continues to ring and Mia still has to worry about the homework that is due next week. 

It’s not fair that the ice cream shop downtown announces a new ice cream flavor, and Jenny will never get to taste it. It’s not fair that Madonna has launched a new album that Jenny will never get to hear. Dune shouldn’t have come out in theaters, because once Jenny had promised that one day she would read the books, and maybe, just maybe, this would be the push she needed, maybe she would have fulfilled that promise after watching the movie. It’s not fair that she doesn’t get the chance to read those books and it’s not fair that the thrift shop holds a sale on friday where all dresses are half off, and it’s not fair that for the first time ever purple mushrooms appear just on the edge of Mia’s backyard, instead of in the middle of the woods, and it’s not fair that it starts to snow because Jenny is not there to throw snowballs at Mia. 

Jenny will never be there again. She will never watch new movies and listen to new songs and play in the snow or buy a new dress. She’s stopped in time. She won’t ever grow up with Mia. Won’t ever have a first boyfriend or her first period or go to Hollywood and become a movie star. 

Mia finds a single blonde hair trapped inside the pages of her english notebook on a thursday and all air vanishes from her lungs. She finds another, trapped among the fibers of a sweater. And two other hairs stuck to a scrunchie on the bottom of her school bag.

She must have worn it at some point. Had Mia borrowed it from her? Had Jenny borrowed it from Mia? Mia can’t remember. She can’t ask Jenny if the scrunchie is hers.

Mia upends her school bag on the floor of her bathroom, a single minded desperation filling her chest, but she doesn’t find a single other hair strand.

Mom had taken Jenny’s backpack to Mr. and Mrs. Hayes, that day she went to give them the news. Mia had managed to smuggle Jenny’s bedazzled softball bat, but only because it was in Jonathan’s bedroom, for some reason. 

Four hair strands and a bedazzled softball bat. That’s all that Mia has left of Jenny.

Jenny is gone.

How? How can Mia be forced to continue here after Jenny is gone? 

Mia tries to wrap around the alien concept of Jenny just being gone when she’s lying around the house. When she’s at school. When she’s in the back of the car going to the grocery store with her mom. When she’s in the kitchen, doing her homework while Jonathan listens to music loudly in his room.

It’s impossible.

Still, her friends try to help.

She can see them trying. They eat in the parking lot, to get away from the rumours and stares. Lucas tries to pull Mia into random conversations that she hadn’t paid attention to, and doesn't mind when she just shrugs or agrees with Max. Max rides her skateboard and tries to teach her how to stand on the board and doesn’t get frustrated when Mia fails over and over again. Dustin puts his hand on her shoulder when he wants to draw her attention to something and Mike just stands close to her sometimes, when everything is too heavy. 

He just stands there, quiet and calm and Mia is reminded that he was there too. He knows. And though he doesn’t try to make her talk and doesn’t try to talk to her himself, he is still there for her, reminding her that he understands. 

None of them talk about what happened.

They don’t talk about the Upside Down or about demogorgons or the empty seat behind Mia in most classes. 

They talk about other things, instead. This week, Dustin’s mom had adopted a new cat, a siamese kitten named Socks. Mike says that Holly has begun to read on her own, with one of the books that belonged to Mike when he was little. Lucas immediately launches into a story about how Erica had stolen one of comics and used colored pencils to fill in every white spot on ever page. Max speaks of her step-brother, Billy, who hasn’t been as much of a dick as he used to be as of late, but who still likes to steal the paperbacks she keeps under her bed. 

Will tells them that Jonathan had volunteered to be the photographer at the Snowball dance.

“Oh, Nancy is volunteering to be a chaperone too.” Mike says. “I dunno why. All she’s gonna do is like, serve punch, or something.”

“My mom bought my suit for the Dance this week.” Lucas says, glancing at Max. Then he straightens in his seat, as if a thought had just occurred to him. “You guys are going right?”

Dustin and Mike nod their heads, though Mike’s face darkens. 

“Mom thinks I need to leave the house,” Mike says, sullenly, “And Nancy will be there, so now I have to go.”

“I bought a new jacket too.” Dustin tells Lucas. “And Steve’s driving me there.” 

“Steve? Harrington?” Lucas asks him, brows raised.

Dustin shrugs, but there’s a smile rising in the corner of his mouth. “Yeah. We’ve become friends since - uhm.”

Dustin’s eyes cut to Mia, smile vanishing. 

There’s a beat of heavy silence.

Max throws some of her red hair over her shoulder, pretending she the last second had not happened. “I was waiting to see if any of you were going. So, if you all go, I’ll go.” She glances at Mia, “Are you going?”

Mia hesitates. The Snowball Dance is this Saturday, the twenty-second, after which, begins their winter break. The dance had been postponed an entire week, due to what happened to Jenny, but time had passed, relentless, and now there were only two days left. 

Jenny had helped plan it. She had been looking forward to attending it since last year. 

Now, she would never get to see it. 

Mia has barely been able to get herself off her bed to come to school. She can’t bear the thought of attending a school dance and actively trying to have fun, as if nothing had happened.

“I don’t know.” Mia says to Max, shaking her head. 

Will’s face immediately falls next to her. 

After being possessed, Will had clung to every attempt at normalcy with both hands, and had been doing his best to pretend nothing had ever happened. He did his homework on time, he helped Mom cook, and carried the grocery cart in the store, and went to Mike’s house every week on his bike. He laughed at Bob’s jokes and watched TV with Jonathan and drew at the kitchen table as if nothing  had ever happened

Only then it occurs to Mia, that perhaps he would try and cling to this little bit of normalcy too.

When Mia doesn’t say anything else, Mike asks Will if he can borrow his Math homework. Will turns around to root in his bag, and the subject of the dance is quickly forgotten.

*

On the twenty first of December, over a month after Jenny died, mom receives a call from Mr. and Mrs. Hayes.

Mr. and Mrs. Hayes are moving back to New York, this weekend, and they want to speak to Will and Mia before they leave. 

 

“She said they want to see you, Mia. And you, Will. There are some things of…Jenny’s that they want you to keep. If you both want to, that is.”

Mia doesn’t even take a second to tell her mom that, yes, absolutely, she’s going.  

And yet, as mom drives her and Will to the Hayes’ that friday, Mia’s heart threatens to crawl right out of her mouth.

It’s stupid. She’s sat through this drive for most of her life. Never before had she felt this dread that sinks in her chest and makes her heart climb to her throat.  Yet, Mia starts to sweat when she spots that familiar tree on the corner of her street. Her hands grow numb as mom parks in front of Jenny’s house. She can barely breathe when mom opens her door and helps her out of the car. 

The front door is open. Inside, all the furniture is gone, boxes piled up near the walls. There’s the smell of fresh paint in the air and the space next to the stairs is empty of pictures. White sterile blinds are drawn over the windows, casting the living room in a bleached, bone-white semi-light. 

Mia feels as though she’s been punched in the stomach. 

Another piece of Jenny, gone.

Mrs. Hayes comes from the kitchen, then, the sound of her boots echoing loudly through the hollow house. Her hair is up in a ponytail, and she’s wearing a dark green sweater over exercise pants.

“Joyce.” She greets mom, without smiling. Her blue eyes pass over Will and Mia, impassive and cold, and Mia feels chilled down to her bones. Mrs. Hayes had never looked at her like that before. “Mia, Will. I set aside some things for you two in the kitchen.”

They follow her to the kitchen aisle, where a box sits with their full names scrawled over the side of it, in Mr. Hayes’ flowery script. 

Mia looks at the black and tan swirls on the stone counter and thinks about the many times she’d helped Mrs. Hayes and Jenny bake in this very same spot.

“Ethan and I were…packing up Jenny’s things.” Mrs. Hayes begins, voice tight, “We’re donating most of it to the church, selling some others…But we kept some things. Clothes, stuffed toys…And it occurred to us that as…her closest friends, her longest friends, you would - You might want to have something of hers, as well. To keep as a memento of - of our daughter. Of Jenny.”

Mia swallows hard, staring down at the box. It feels like it’s sucking all the light in the room, like a black hole. 

“Thank you, Mrs. Hayes.” Will answers, voice thick. “We really want to, uhm, have something to remember Jenny by.” 

Mia doesn’t say anything, can’t say anything. Her vision goes blurry, and something hot slides down her throat. 

She has a split second of terror, where she thinks it’s blood on her cheek. But then she tastes salt on the corner of her mouth and realizes she’s crying. 

Just crying.

Mrs. Hayes opens the box. She brings out two sweaters, a fuzzy one in pale pink and yellow, one of Jenny’s favorites, and one with black, red and white stripes. She puts a stack of pictures on top of the clothes, the stuffed lion with a sunflower embroidered on its left paw that Mia had given Jenny for her eighth birthday, a handful of colorful scrunchies and Jenny’s art supplies - her glittery pens, her watercolors and gouache paints, and a brand new hardcover sketchbook.

“We were planning on giving it to her on Christmas.” Mrs. Hayes says, tapping the sketchbook cover. “We kept the ones she’d drawn in already. But we made copies of some drawings for you two.”   

She takes out a stack of papers from under the sketchbook cover. The drawing on top is of Mia’s tiefling character, Orianna, dancing with Jenny’s halfling, Berylla. 

A smile rises to her face, unbidden. Mia remembers watching Jenny draw this, years ago, when they were coming up with the backstory for their characters. 

They had met in a tavern, and Berylla had decided to start a conversation with the infernal creature sitting alone on the bar. Unaffected by the usual mistrust that people usually have towards tieflings, a tiefling’ lot in life for the sin of their ancient bloodline, Berylla had been warm and friendly, and Orianna, who had been so starved of positive interactions since her mother was killed by villagers for bedding a cambion, had been helpless to resist the small creature’s bubbly charm. They’d run into each other a few days later in the market square, and Berylla had decided to help Orianna hide from the townspeople that thought she’d stolen from them. 

They started traveling together ever since, and a few years later, had run into Polaris, an old friend of Berylla’s and Mike’s paladin character, and joined his party as they traveled the continent. 

This drawing was of them dancing around a fire in their campground, a bunch of little purple flowers all over the grass, and a crown of it nested just next to Orianna’s antelope-like horns. 

Milkweed, she knew, though the flowers on the drawing barely resembled the real thing. 

Those were Mia’s favorite flower.

Will reaches into the box and picks up something from under the sketchbook, and Mia’s smile slides off her face like oil on water.

It’s a picture of Jenny, Will, Mike and Mia on the curb in front of the ice cream shop, a cone in each of their hands.Jenny’s between Will and Mia, a wide smile on her face, her hair in twin braids down the sides of her neck. Her knees are touching Mia’s and there’s a band-aid on her shin, and Mia’s elbow is leaning on her shoulder and they are both so happy in the picture. All of them are.

Mia doesn’t remember this being taken.

How many memories of Jenny does she not remember?

“We haven’t talked to you since…it happened and I’m sorry for it.” Mrs. Hayes says, drumming her nails on the counter. She’s staring down at the picture in Will’s hands, her eyes full of tears. “We couldn’t have asked for better friends for our daughter. You became part of our family from the moment she met you and -” Her voice cracks, and she clears her throat, before continuing, “and we love you both very much, we have always loved you like you are our own kids, and Jenny loved you too, so, so much. We shouldn’t have thrown you aside after  she - passed. But…I need you to understand that it’s been extremely hard for us to wrap our heads around - everything.”

Mrs. Hayes sniffs, brushing a tear away from her cheek with a hand. 

The knot around Mia’s throat is so big it chokes her. 

“I still don’t understand why Jenny didn’t tell us what was happening. Why any of you did not tell us. But - but it’s not her fault. It’s not your fault, for that matter. You’re the children in this situation. You should have never been put in that position of - of danger. You should have never been made to be afraid, because the government threatened you and those you love.” 

 “I’m sorry.” Mia blurts out, tears blurring her vision. Mrs. Hayes looks at her and her eyes are the same shade of blue as Jenny’s and Mia blinks and the tears are a never ending stream. “I’m sorry she was my friend. I’m so sorry I dragged her into this, I’m so, so sorry -”

Mrs. Hayes sobs, “Oh, baby.” 

She walks around the kitchen aisle and pulls Mia into her arms. 

She’s warm and smells like fabric softener and strawberries and like Jenny. She pulls Will in next to Mia, and clutches both of them to her chest, still crying.

“You shouldn’t be sorry, Mia.” Mrs. Hayes sobs above her head. “You shouldn’t be. You were her best friend. You were everything to Jenny.”

Mia sobs against Mrs. Hayes’ chest, gasping the scent of her, hands twisting at the back of her sweater. Maybe, if she stays here long enough she can pretend it’s Jenny and -

That thought is quickly wiped away by voices coming from behind her. She pulls away from Mrs. Hayes, wiping her face with the back of her hand. 

She doesn’t deserve this. She doesn’t deserve to hug Mrs. Hayes and cry on her, because she’s the reason Jenny is dead.

Mr. Hayes is talking in hushed whispers with mom in the living room, both of them tearful. He has a hand on Mom’s shoulder, squeezing it gently. He looks at the kitchen, and with a last squeeze to mom’s shoulder, he pulls away and steps into the kitchen.

“Abby, the truck is here.” He tells Mrs. Hayes. 

When Will pulls away from her arms, Mr. Hayes smiles at both of them. It’s a strained, tired thing that doesn’t reach his eyes. 

Mia feels as though she was being stabbed through the heart.

“Kids.”

“Hi, Mr. Hayes.” Mia sniffs, trying and failing to stop crying.

Mr. Hayes’ face crumples, but he quickly schools his features into a tight line of his mouth, “We have to say goodbye, now. We should get going with the movers.”

“Okay.” Mia nods, sniffing. Pain radiates from her chest to her fingertips, like a real wound had opened behind her sternum. She wants to hug Mr. Hayes too, but doesn’t dare to step closer, keeping her hands firmly in front of her. “Okay. I’m - I’m really sorry.”

Mr. Hayes looks up at the ceiling, eyes bright with tears. He blinks them away, and looks back down at Mia and Will.

“I’m sorry too.” Is all he says.

Mia, Mom and Will leave soon after, with the box of Jenny’s things in Mia’s hands. 

Will has started hiccuping next to Mia, and mom rubs a hand over his back. She has her other arm around Mia, gently steering her to the backseat of their car.

They drive home in silence. 

Jenny’s box sitting between Will and Mia in the backseat, like a silent, unbridgeable wall. 

*

Hopper and Eleven come to dinner that night. 

Mia and Will set the table, while mom and Bob are finishing up the cooking. There’s lasagna on the stove, and a chocolate mousse in the fridge, which Bob said had been a recipe passed down from his grandmother. Jonathan is grating cheese at the table, and every now and then he reaches under the table, as if to pass over a piece of cheese to Chester, only to stop himself and continue to grate the cheese.

No one had seen Chester since that night when Will covered the house in drawings. Maybe he’d been eaten by demogorgons in the woods outside their house. Maybe he’d run away, never to return.

It made Mia feel even more wretched. Her childhood dog has been missing for weeks, and Mia hadn’t even had the strength to go outside and look for him.

So she watches Jonathan’s face twist with grief as he continues to grate cheese, and imagines that Chester is happy and well, and has been found by someone nice, with kids for him to play with. She hopes he is being fed cheese under the table by one of them.

There’s a knock on the door. El and Hopper arrived.

“I’ll get it.” Will says, running to the front door. 

“Hi, Hopper! Hi, El!”

“Hey, kid. How you holdin’ up?”

“Hi.”

They’ve been coming to visit every week, El and Hopper. It had been a compromise between them - Hopper would sweep the Byers’ house to check if it was safe on Thursdays, and El would come visit on Fridays, and Fridays only. El seemed to be happy with this arrangement, and every Friday at eight o’clock, she and Hopper would arrive to Mia’s house, just in time for dinner, and leave just before ten rolled around. 

Mia listens to them greeting each other, then Will’s fast footsteps coming into the kitchen, followed by Hopper’s heavy ones. Mia glances behind her shoulder and Will and Hopper are there, El standing just behind them. Her footsteps barely make a noise on the floor.

When her eyes meet Mia’s, she smiles, walking over to the other side of the table where Mia is setting down forks and knives on both Mom’s and Bob’s places.

“Hi.” The girl says, her elbow warm against Mia’s.

“Hi, El.” 

The lasagna is ready only a few moments after Hopper arrives, so they sit down to eat. Bob, mom and Hopper are the ones doing the most talking - about the happenings in town; about Bob’s job; about their days in high school, because as it turns out they all attended school together. Bob changes the subject after a while, and asks Jonathan how his week went at school. The four of them talk, and Mia listens with half an ear, pushing bits of lasagna around her plate.

“You’re going to be the photographer at that school event right?” Bob asks Jonathan. “What is it called these days? The Snow Ball?”

“The Snowball Dance.” Jonathan replies, “They changed the name a few years back. They thought ‘Ball’ was too old-fashioned or something.”

“It’s a good thing they did.” Hopper replies, with a snort. “Back in my time it was called the Blue Ball, and we all know how well that went with the fifth-graders.”

Will and Jonathan snorts. El looks confused at them. Mia continues eating her lasagna and pretends that she doesn’t understand the joke.

“Hopper!” Mom tsks, widening her eyes at the older man in admonishment, but there’s a smile on the corner of her mouth as well.

He leans back in his chair, grinning. “Fine! Sorry.” His eyes turn back to Jonathan, his face completely unrepentant. “So. Photography? That’s a thing you do?”

Jonathan pokes at his lasagna. “Uhm. Yeah.”

“That’s cool.”

“What’s the Snowball Dance?” El asks, speaking for the first time that night.

All eyes on the table turn to her.

Jonathan, whose eyebrows had raised to his hairline, quickly clears his throat and leans forward over his plate.

“Oh! It’s a school party.” He’s quick to explain. “To mark the end of the term and the start of Winter Break - where the kids, uh, the students get to go to their homes and not have class for two weeks straight, through Christmas and New Years, only coming back in January. It has a theme: winter, so it’ll be decorated with snowflakes, uhm, blue everywhere. There will probably be snowmen for kids to take pictures with.”

“Real ones?” El asks, eyes wide and glinting.

“Oh, no. Wooden ones, I think.” Will answers. “The snowflakes are fake too. I saw a bit of this years’ decoration a while back. It looked really nice.”

“So there are no snowballs?”

Will cracks a smile, “No. Just dancing. If you want to.”

“You are a student.” El tells Will, tilting her head to the side. “Are you going to the Snowball Dance?”

The smile vanishes. “Uhm…yeah. I think.” Will says, eyes glancing at Mia.

“Jonathan will go.” El says, then turns to Mia. “Are you going to the Snowball Dance?”

Mia bites hard on her lower lip. El’s eyes are brown and wide and so earnest, and with her curly hair falling around her cheeks and eyes, she looks like a puppy. She was dead for a whole year, but she was not, and she is alive and Mia can’t lie to her.

“I don’t want to.” She tells El.

El frowns. “Why? Will said it’s nice.”

“It is. Nice that is. I…” 

How does she explain to El that she doesn’t feel like doing anything? That Jenny had been the one to help organize the Dance, and it was all Jenny had spoken about for months and now she won’t be there, and Mia can’t deal with that, she can’t.

“Are Mike and other friends going?” El asks, when Mia doesn’t say anything else.

“Yeah, they are.” Will pipes up, hazel eyes cautious as they stare at Mia and El.

El nods, face turning serious. “You should go. You’ve been…sad. Parties are fun, I think. I saw them on TV. Being with friends will make you happy too. It makes me happy.”

“El is right, honey.” Mom says, from across the table. “You should go. It’ll be good for you to go out with your friends, to get out of the house, to have some fun.”

Will nods his head frantically at her side. “Please, Mia. Jonathan will be there, I will be there…It won’t be the same without you.” 

Mia glances down at her plate, then around the table. Mom is looking at her, eyes full of hope. Jonathan is also looking at her expectantly, a small smile on his lips. Hopper and Bob are quiet, but also looking at her, eyes full of encouragement. El is the only one who is just looking at Mia, with no expectations, so Mia turns to her, about to just say no and deal with their crestfallen expressions.

She knows they’ve been worried about her. She knows she hasn’t been eating all that much, and hasn’t been sleeping, and hasn’t been to Mike’s on the times Will rode there. She has only gone to school and back, and it worries Mom. It worries Bob, who sometimes tries to get her to watch movies with him. It worries Jonathan, who has offered to drive her to Max’s house. She thinks it might even worry Hopper, who always looks at her, whenever he visits, a mix of pity and something else in his eyes.

A sudden idea crosses her mind then.

“I’ll go if El goes.” She blurts out. 

Of course Hopper won’t allow it. He’s so overprotective of El, that he would never even consider the possibility of her returning to their school just to go to a party, full of people he doesn’t know. This way, Mia doesn’t have to tell them no, because Hopper will be the one doing so. 

Mia smiles, sitting up straighter in her chair. “Then we all get to have fun, right?”

She doesn’t have time to bask in her triumph.

“Alright. I guess we can make that work.”

Mia’s head snaps to Hopper. He’s leaning back in his chair, the picture of relaxation. Next to him, mom has her mouth open in surprise. 

“What?” Mia asks, a the same time that El reaches forward to grab Hop’s wrist hard.

“Lie?”

Hopper smiles, and leans forward to put his other hand around the one El has on his wrist. “No, kiddo. It’s not a lie.”

“I can go? To Snowball dance?” El asks, eyes wide as saucers, rising from her chair.

 “Sure, kid. But!” He raises his voice as El jumps to his side, throwing her arms around his shoulder. “But - you have to stick to your friends. And Jonathan and Nancy, alright? No using your powers. And if anyone asks you’re -”

“Mike’s cousin. Like we told the teacher.” El says, nodding her head earnestly.

Hopper frowns. “Wait, what teacher?” 

But El has already stepped away from him, turning to the table with a wide smile and her eyes gleaming under the curtain of curly brown bangs. 

“I am going to the Snowball dance too, Jonathan!” She crows, dimples on her cheeks. “Mia and I will go!”

Jonathan raises a hand for her to high five, a concept that El has recently learned from him. El runs to him, to slap their palms together with a loud sound that makes Mia flinch in her chair.

Around her everyone is ecstatic at the news. Will is squirming in his seat. Bob cheers, while Mom claps with delight. Guilt weights heavy in Mia’s chest, like an anvil, pulling her down to the kitchen floor.

“Oh, why don’t the kids have a sleepover?” Mom is saying, oblivious to the way Mia’s ears have started ringing.  “This way El can get ready with us tomorrow. I can go through some of our old dresses, to see if I can find something to fit you, El.”

“No.” Mia shakes her head, panic growing in her chest. “I don’t want - El is going, now. You don’t need me there too.”

But both El and Will are already shaking their heads.

“No. You said, ‘I’ll go if El goes’.” El retorts, voice hard. “So if I go, you go. I am going. You will go too.”

“C’mon, Mia! Please?”

Mia shakes her head, trying to argue.  “But I don’t even have anything to wear -”

“Don’t worry about that, honey.” Mom says, waving a hand at her. “I’ll ring up Karen, she might have something of Nancy’s lthat might fit you. You don’t have to worry about anything.”

There’s a long silence in the kitchen, where Mia opens and closes her mouth like a fish, trying to come up with a counter argument.

If I don’t want to hadn’t worked, what would?

“F-fine.” She says, ignoring the way her voice shakes. “I’ll go.”

Dread mounts in her chest while everyone cheers.

“Guess that settles it, then.” Hopper says. “Trust us, kid. This will be good for you.”

Chapter 15

Notes:

This chapter fought me tooth and nail. In the end, I barely had any energy to revise it, so if there are any glaring mistakes or inconsistencies, lemme know in the comments

 

 

Getting ready for the Snowball Dance feels like an out of body experience. 

Mia drags her feet all the while. She lets Jonathan, Will and El shower first, only then to take a shower herself while Mom is helping El dry her hair. 

After she’s done, she finds mom nervously wringing her hands by the door, and a pile of clothes laid out for her at the foot of Will’s bed. Like she said she would, Mom had rung up Mrs. Wheeler and done her best to put something together for Mia to wear. 

It’s simple, but very put together: a brown corduroy skirt that fell just under her knees, which Mia forgot she even owned, and a purple button up with an attached scarf at the neck, that mom says had belonged to Nancy when she was younger, and that Mrs. Wheeler had been kind enough to give to Mia as an early Christmas gift. There’s a headband too, a shade of purple darker than the blouse, that mom had worn when she was a teenager, and small silver earrings that came from mom’s Jewelry box. 

There are also brand new lilac tights and brown mary janes, still shiny and squeaky when Mia puts them on after her clothes. 

Mom must have bought them on the way back from the Wheelers’, with the money she’d saved all year to buy Mia’s dress.

El is sitting on Will’s bed, heels tapping the side of Mia’s trundle bed, already dressed in the dark blue with pink polka dots dress that Mom had found in the same box as the headband. There is a belt cinching it at the waist, where it was too big on El. Her curly hair was pinned back with a french comb mom had found, pulling it neatly out of her face, while leaving some curls to frame her cheeks and jaw. Mom had put a bit of pink eyeshadow around her eyes, and El had asked for gloss, which Mom had been happy to apply on her, using Mia’s pink glitter gloss that she never wore.

It had been a present from Jenny. 

It fit El.

In fact, El had never looked more radiant. In her fancy clothes and old shoes and frilly socks, she looks just like any normal girl. She was even wearing a bracelet on her wrist, to cover her tattoo. Mia doesn’t know where she got it, but it’s leather, and it’s looped around her wrist twice, which makes her think it was from Hopper. There’s also a blue braided tie on her wrist, which despite being much lighter than her dress, fits her all the same.

Jenny would have loved El’s outfit, Mia can’t help but think. 

If she were here, she would have had fun putting on lipgloss and eyeshadow on El. She would probably have wheedled Mia into putting eyeshadow too, bright purple. 

Mia would have tried to run away. Jenny would have chased her around the room, shrieking and shouting that just a bit of color would not kill her.

“We can just put some baby powder on the insole.” Mom says, and Mia’s jerked back to the present, realizing she’s just been standing in the middle of her room, without moving or saying anything for who knows how long while Mom wrung her hands and watched. “If that’s what’s bothering you.”

Mia tries to push away all thoughts of Jenny.

“It’s fine, mom.”

“Well, did you like it?” Mom asks, smiling, though her eyes are wide and anxious. “I can’t believe that skirt still fits you, but I think it goes well with Nancy’s old shirt.”  

“Yeah.” Mia agrees, Mom’s words coming in through an ear and out the other.

Mia puts on the earrings and the headband with automatic motions. 

“Here, let me just -”

Mom quickly steps closer to her, and before Mia can process, her hand is rising to Mia’s forehead, gently brushing through her bangs to make them lay flat on her forehead.

That gesture, that Jenny so often did, has Mia’s heart jumping to her throat and her eyes burning. 

She can’t do this.

She can’t go out there and pretend that everything’s fine.

“You look pretty.” El says from the bed, encouraging and awed all at once.

“Thanks, El.” Mia says, though she feels like crying. 

No, she has to go.

She can’t ruin El’s first experience as a normal girl. 

“You look pretty too.” She tells El, honestly.

After mom puts on the “finishing touches”, Mia’s ready to go. She makes a beeline for the living room couch, feeling as though her chest weights a millions pounds.

Will is also ready, wearing his gleaming white shirt and black vest, over a pastel blue and pink striped tie, and Bob is teaching him how to dance, twirling him around the room, while Jonathan videotapes it with his camera. Then he takes El by the hand, teaching her the basic steps as well.

El is all smiles and laughter, wide eyed and in awe of every single gentle nudge and soft direction.

It’s nice to see them this happy. 

Even after almost two months, there are still bags under Will’s eyes, but his cheeks aren’t as gaunt as before, and he’s not bone-pale as if he was dying. He’s smiling and laughing at Bob and El, and his cheeks are full and his hair is shiny and he looks so normal, that for a moment, Mia tries to pretend nothing had ever happened.

It doesn’t work. 

She can only think of the Jenny-shaped hole in her living room.

If she were here, she would have already dragged Mia out of the couch, to dance alongside Bob and El.

Bob lets El go and turns to Will, to show him how to spin his dance partner, and Will laughs when Bob crouches to twirl under his arm. Then Will tries it with El, who tries to do the same move as Will, resulting in knotted arms and snorts and even more giggling.

Mia wishes she could be that happy too. 

Mom eventually herds them all for pictures by the wall. The three of them pose, following Jonathan’s direction of putting an arm on each other’s shoulders, or turning to the side and putting their arms around the person in front, or making silly faces at the camera, then they all file to the car to leave with Jonathan for the dance.

Will waves goodbye at Mom and Bob, who stand together by their front door until their car disappears around the corner.

*

The Gym is decked with silver and blue streamers, white snowflakes, golden fairy lights and balloon arches everywhere. Christmas trees surround the quad, and a huge mirror ball dangles from the ceiling, right in front of the DJ. 

Mia hates it and loves it, at the same time.

Jenny would have loved it. She would be so proud.

Lucas, Mike and Max are already there, seated on a table by the corner. Mia spots Nancy to one side of the Gym, busy setting up the refreshments table. Jonathan walks to her, leaving Mia, Will and El to walk alone to their friends’ table. 

Their friends are surprised to see all of them there.

“Will!”

“Oh my god, El?!”

“Mia, you came!”

Mia blinks and Max jumps up from her chair, launching herself at Mia, her fiery red hair covering most of Mia’s face as the girl throws her arms around her shoulders.

“I’m so happy you’re here!” She says, next to Mia’s face.

She smells nice, like perfume and citrus shampoo. 

Max steps away, smiling. She has a hair clip on the side of her head, pinning back a small little braid amidst her long red hair. The red rose on it matches her dark blue sweater with pink and red stripes, her pink corduroy pants and red converses.  

Max’s eyes widen, and she leans close to Mia’s face, “Did you put on lipstick?”

Mia feels embarrassment churning her stomach. Her cheeks grow hot, and though she knows her mom had only dabbed at her lips with her red lipstick - just enough to stain it a ‘healthy color’ - she still fears she looks like a clown.

She wrinkles her nose, “Too much?”

But Max shakes her head, “It’s perfect. Really, it looks great on you.”

Suddenly, Lucas clears his throat, drawing their attention. 

“Yeah, Mia. You look really nice. But you look great, Max!” He says, voice wavering with nerves. Mike elbows him and Lucas’ eyes fly to Mia, then back to Max. “I mean, you both look…uhm, great.”

Mia feels the corner of her lips tug in a small smile, which immediately makes her feel horrible.

She doesn’t deserve to feel happy. 

Doesn’t deserve to forget, even for a minute, that she is the reason her best friend is not here tonight. 

Jenny had never got the chance to ask Lucas to the Dance.

Max turns pink, and smiles at Lucas.

“Thanks, stalker.”

Then she turns to El, eyes wide.

“Wow. That dress is gorgeous. And I love your eyeshadow.”

El’s eyes are wide, her lips glimmering softly under the lights in the Gym. She picks the edge of her dress and softly pulls it away, revealing the wide and rounded skirt, which she swishes back and forth.

“I love the dress.” El parrots, before she glances nervously between Mia and Max. She looks at the redhead, dark eyes narrowed in concentration, and looks the girl up and down. Then she points to Max’s pants. “I love your pants. Pink.”

Max smiles, “Thanks!”

“I like what you did with your hair!” Mike says, suddenly.

He’s staring at El, eyes shining.

El raises a hand to her hair, a little smile on the corner of her mouth. “Thanks. You look nice too.”

Mike has a tan suit jacket over a gray sweater with blue and red accents, which match his faded red tie and light blue shirt. His hair is neatly combed and curling at the ends. Next to him, Lucas is dressed to the nines in a sleek gray suit jacket over a pinstripe shirt and normal dark jeans, his dark hair shining on top of his head.

There’s a moment of silence. 

Mia doesn’t care much to think of it, her eyes have turned to the decorations on the ceiling, the gleaming silver streamers and white snowflakes. 

Jenny would have loved it so much.

“I like your tie, Will.” Mia hears Mike whisper to Will, a second later. 

“Thanks. Your sweater looks nice too.”

Mia looks back at the table, to find Mike gripping the ends of his sweater in the palms of his hands.

“Nana bought this for me like, years ago, and it never fit. I’m pretty sure I’ve grown almost two inches this year.”

Lucas makes a face. “No way, dude, you’re as tall as I am.”

“I’m actually taller than you now.” Mike retorts.

“No way.”

Dustin gets there before they can continue to argue though - and the entire conversation is immediately forgotten.

“Is that Dustin?” Lucas gasps. 

Mike’s jaw falls. Dustin opens his arms at them as he gets closer to their table, spinning around to show off his outfit. He looks great in a plaid suit and a black bowtie. 

His hair is…definitely something. It’s much different than his usual style, that’s for sure. He looks like those high schoolers that had perms done and kind of looked like poodles. 

“What the hell happened to you?!” Mike exclaims, getting up from the table.

The others get up as well, crowding around Dustin.

The smile on Dustin’s face vanishes. “What do you mean, what happened?”

“Dude!”

“Your hair.” Max laughs, squinting incredulously at Dustin’s head.

Lucas reaches up a hand to touch it, “Is there a bird nesting in there?” 

Mia turns to glare at Lucas. Why would he be so mean to Dustin? Didn’t he see that he clearly liked his look?

“What do you mean - nothing’s wrong with my hair! There’s no bird nesting in it, asshole.” He bats away Lucas’ arms, touching the back of his…mullet? Perm mullet? “I worked hard on it.”

“It’s not bad.” Mia says, tilting her head at Dustin. Will throws a disbelieving look over Dustin’s shoulder, Mike’s eyebrows nearly disappearing into his hair as he does the same. Mia stares hard at them, then at Dustin. “It’s really not bad. You look great.”

Dustin smiles at her, eyes becoming two little commas of happiness. 

Next to Mia, El nods her head at Dustin.

“I like your hair. It’s very pretty.”

“Thank you, El. Clearly you and Mia are the only people with taste in this room.” Dustin says, fixing his jacket. 

The song changes to Cindy Lauper’s Time after Time, dramatically shifting the atmosphere of the dance floor. People start pairing up, swaying to the slow song.

“Max…”

All their heads snap around to stare at Lucas, who falters for a moment, before staring straight at Max, as if no one else was there.

“Hey,” Lucas wiggles his eyebrows, “It’s nice right?”

Oh.

Is Lucas…asking Max to dance?

Mia looks over at Mike, eyes wide. He raises his eyebrows at her and shrugs.

“Wanna…uh, you wanna like, you know, like, just you and me -”

Max smiles, slow and teasing. “Are you trying to ask me to dance, stalker?”

Lucas panics, “No. No. Of course not.” But Max’s eyes are absolutely gleaming under the lights and when he sees that she’s not mad, he amends, “Unless…you want to -”

Max laughs and pulls him by the arm, “So smooth. C’mon.”

Mia watches them go, a weight in her heart. 

She hadn’t realized that Lucas and Max had a thing for each other. 

She wonders how she could’ve missed it. 

On the dance floor, Max puts her arms around Lucas’ neck, ducking her head to smile at the floor. 

Mia kind of wants to cry. 

It should be Jenny there.

Nausea fills her stomach, horror at her own thought making her tear her eyes away from Max and Lucas’ swaying figures. 

How could she think that? 

Max was clearly so happy, and all Mia could think was that she shouldn’t - it should be Jenny there, in Lucas’ arms, in the pink dress she had ordered months ago, swaying to Cindy Lauper.  

Mia didn’t deserve to have friends.

She hadn’t been a good friend to Jenny, and now Jenny was dead. She clearly can’t be a good friend to Max, either.

How could she even think that Max shouldn't be happy?

Guilt, horrible and burning, fills her chest.

How could she be such a terrible person? Couldn’t she just be happy for Max?

“Hey, zombie boy.”

This time, Mia almost snaps her neck from how fast she turns her head. Martha Gilespie is standing in front of them in a pretty striped blouse and bright blue earrings. 

“Do you want to dance?” She asks Mia’s brother.

“Uh, I - uhm.” Will doesn’t know what to do with himself. His eyes fly to Mike, then to Mia, wide and desperate.  “I - I don’t, uhm, I -”

Mike looks down at Will, eyebrows raised, and slaps Will’s chest.

“I, uh.” Will blinks at Martha, then at Mike, almost begging him to give Will an excuse to stay. Mia can see the disappointment in his eyes when Mike just slaps his chest again, urging him to go, though Will is quick to cover it with a smile. “I mean, yeah, sure.”

Martha takes him away to the dance floor. Will sets his hands on her waist, like Bob had shown him, letting her put her arms on his shoulder.

They sway together, almost a foot apart from each other, and a tiny smile appears on Will’s lips. Martha must say something to him because his shoulders relax. Mia can see his lips saying my sister loves this song too before they turn around, swaying to the chorus.

Dustin blows out a breath, fixes his jacket and bow tie. He’s looking somewhere ahead, “Wish me luck, guys. I’m going in.” 

Before he can walk away, El steps forward. “I want to dance too.”

Dustin whirls his head around to her, surprised. He glances at Mike, who’s staring at the people dancing, seeming to have not listened to them. 

“Do you…” Dustin starts, glancing once again at Mike, before turning to El. “Well, you are a girl. Do you want to dance with me, El? It will be fun.”

El tilts her head at Dustin. Then glances at Mike, who is still distracted. Then at Mia.

Mia stares back, but she’s not seeing El. She thinks of lying next to Jenny on her bed, staring up at the ceiling filled with softly twinkling plastic stars as they spoke about liking boys, about Jenny liking Lucas, and Mia telling her that Dustin would be the ideal choice, but between Mike and Lucas and Will, Lucas is the better choice, I suppose. 

“Yes. It will be fun.” El says, jarring Mia to the present.

Dustin perks up, throwing his hair back and bowing low at the waist. He offers her a hand.

“My lady. Would you do the honor of dancing with me in this beautiful winter paradise?”

At this, Mike turns his head to Dustin, confusion furrowing his brows. Then panic as he sees that El is the one Dustin is asking to dance.

El isn’t looking at him, though. She’s smiling at Dustin, dimpled, nose wrinkled. She hasn’t moved to take his hand

“Yes. I told you. Did you not hear?”

Dustin snorts, straightening up and gently taking El’s hand in hers. “C’mon, El.”

He drags El to where the others are dancing. He guides her hands to his soldiers, and places his hands on his waist. El is wide eyed, head swiveling around to stare at the other swaying couples. Dustin tells her something that makes her look down at their feet. And soon, they begin to dance, slowly and out of rhythm.

“I can’t believe it.” Mike whispers.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Mike answers, unconvincingly. 

Mia’s memory sparks to that kiss between him and El, so long ago, in the cafeteria. A shudder runs down her spine.

Maybe it was good that El had gone to dance with Dustin. Mike shouldn’t have kissed El then, and he would probably try again now. 

Mia curls her arms around herself, digging her fingernails into the crook of her elbows. 

“We shouldn’t even be here tonight.” Mike says in a whisper, suddenly. “We’re just…pretending that nothing happened. Jenny should be here right now, alive and wearing something stupid and over the top… I wish she was here.”

Mia feels as though she’s been punched in the chest.

Mike’s face, so full of terror, comes to mind. The paleness of his face as they crept through the halls of the lab. His wide eyes in the darkness of that broom closet. 

Him, screaming Jenny’s name, staring up at the empty window.

“Yeah.” She whispers, voice nearly gone.

Her heart has started hammering in her chest, and she brings her hands up to press the heels of her hands against her eyes.

Stars burst behind her eyelids, blue and purple and red, and then the darkness takes a shape: Jenny’s wide blue eyes. The demogorgon behind her. Bright red blood.

Mia snaps her eyes open wide.

“She would have liked the mirrorball.” Mike whispers, oblivious, looking up at the decorations. His eyes are wet. “She’s the one who suggested to Mrs. Simpson that they should put up fairy lights, did she tell you?” 

Mia blinks, and blinks, trying to snap the image of Jenny’s blue eyes and the demogorgon and bright red blood away from her mind, but she can’t.

The image seems stuck to the back of her eyelids, like glitter on skin.

“And she’s not here to see it.” He continues, voice wobbling. “She would have danced with Dustin.”

The song changes. Mia tries desperately to listen along to the lyrics, trying to find something to distract herself from the sudden lack of air in the Gym.

Since you've gone, I've been lost without a trace… I dream at night, I can only see your face. I look around, but it's you I can't replace…I feel so cold, and I long for your embrace, I keep crying baby -

She finds her brother first, spinning Martha Gilespie under his hand, just like Bob had shown him. Then she finds Max’s fiery hair just in time to see her lean in and kiss Lucas. 

Mia stops, mind blank. 

It’s hard to breathe. It feels like she’s just put on a lead jacket, and it’s slowly sinking her down into the earth.

Her heart slams against her chest. She’s sweating, drops of it sliding down her sides. The world seems to wobble around her as a sense of terror seems to swallow her whole. 

She needs to leave. She needs to leave now. It had been a terrible idea to come. She should have just stayed home with mom and Bob. She can’t do this. She can’t do this. She can’t do this.

“I - I need to- uhm.” Mia opens her mouth wide, trying to breathe. Her voice is shaking and her hands are shaking and she needs to leave. Something bad is about to happen, and Mia is scared that she will just open her mouth and scream and she needs to leave. 

She can’t leave. Where is she gonna go? 

Her eyes search for Jonathan; Her brother’s busy to one side of the Gym, camera flashing as he shouts poses at two girls, who are laughing and hugging each other in front of a pale blue background. 

One of the girls is blonde.

Mia’s vision spins, the colors around her seeming twice as bright. 

She’s gonna throw up. 

“Bathroom.” She tells Mike, and before she can think twice, she turns around and walks fast in the direction of the locker rooms. 

She locks her eyes on the door, as the floor spins under her feet. She has to make it there. She can’t throw up in the middle of the room. She feels hot, and her lips are tingling and she can’t breathe, and she’s sweating, and she feels the vomit climbing up the back of her throat and she needs to get there, she won’t make it she won’t make it -

She runs. 

Both of her hands slap against the locker room door, pushing it open with force.

She has to run. There’s a demogorgon behind them and it’s all her fault -

Mia blinks hard and reaches past the benches and the lockers, to the corner where the bathroom stalls are. She slaps her palm on the first door on her left, throwing it open. She feels the heat against the back of her throat, the roiling of her stomach, and she bends over and throws up right there on the floor, right by the closed toilet seat.

A horrible retching sound fills the bathroom. Vomit splashes against her new shoes and the new purple tights mom had just bought her.

No no no no -

mom had just bought those for her and now they were ruined -

Mia throws up again, ribs locking against her sides. She can’t breathe, she can’t breathe. 

“Mia?!” Someone shouts, the bathroom door slamming open.

There’s a loud crack of splintering wood. Jenny cries out, clutching the back of Mia’s pants. 

“Oh my god, Mia!”

Mia throws up again, but nothing comes out. She can’t breathe.

The door breaks. The creature roars as it runs into the bathroom, claws slipping on the floor.

A cold hand touches her forehead and Mia screeches in terror, throwing her arm back, hitting something warm and hard.

“OW - Mia! it’s Nancy! Calm down!”

Nancy?

No. Nancy wasn’t there, was she? 

Nancy wasn’t at the Lab. Nancy had come to the Snowball Dance. 

Mia had come to the Snowball Dance.

The locker room stall swims into her vision again. The vomit splashed on the floor and on her shoes and purple tights.

Heat fills her eyes and cheeks. 

Mia starts to cry, shame and fear and exhaustion making her legs wobble.

“Hey, hey, oh no.” Cold hands pick her by the armpits, pulling her back before she can fall into the puddle of her own vomit. “Come on, Mia.”

Mia lets herself be dragged, seeing Nancy’s red and black plaid dress and curls in the corner of her eyes. Nancy drags her to a bench, and sits her down, kneeling in front of her.

Mia can’t stop crying. Sobs tearing at her chest and burning throat, tears sliding down her cheeks hot as fire, hot as blood.

She swipes her hands against them, clawing at her skin, where her best friend’s blood had landed as she was pulled down by that creature -

Hands pick her hands, squeezing them tightly with small, thin fingers. “Hey, none of that okay?”

Mia blinks and blinks, trying to breathe through her open mouth.

“Mia, I need you to stop.” Nancy is kneeling in front of her. Her voice wobbles, and Mia sees that her eyes are also wet. “Mia. Stop. You need to stop. Breathe. Like me, come on. You can do it, just breathe.”

She inhales slowly, puffing out her cheeks as she exhales. Nancy’s voice is so familiar that through her tears and spinning mind, Mia tries to follow what she’s saying. She gasps in a breath. Then another. The world spins, and glows and all colors are so bright and horrible.

“That’s it. Breathe, Mia. You can do it.”

Mia has a sudden flash of memory: standing in Nancy’s room while El changed. Seeing the pictures on her mirror of Nancy and Barbara Holland, together and smiling.

“How did you do it?” She whines at Nancy, still crying. “How?”

“How did I do what, Mia?” Nancy asks, voice and hands steadying Mia on the bench.

Mia sobs, one hand clutching Nancy’s as if it were a lifeline. And it is. It feels like Nancy is the only thing keeping her sitting, keeping her here in this locker room and not in the memory of flickering lights and water and grey rotten skin and blue eyes and blood. 

“Your friend.” She sobs. “She’s dead, like Jenny.”

Nancy pales, eyes wide as if Mia had just reached out and slapped her across the face.

“I can’t do it.” Mia continues, trying to wipe the hot tears away from her cheeks, they feel too much like blood and her hands are shaking and she’s going to die. She is going to die. “She’s dead and it’s my fault. I can’t do this. I shouldn’t be here.”

Nancy rises up to hug her, hands pulling Mia’s head against her neck, and pressing Mia hard against herself. Mia gags at the smell of her own vomit and Nancy’s flowery perfume. She’s ruining everything. She’s dirtying Nancy’s clothes and ruining her night and everyone else’s and she should just be dead already.

She wants to die.

“Sh, shhh. Mia. Don’t say that.” Nancy says, and she’s crying too. “It’s not - it’s not your fault, you hear me?”

“It is.” Mia sobs, because Nancy wasn’t there. She doesn’t know. “It’s my fault! It came after us because of me, and Jenny was only there because she is my friend and now she’s dead!”

Nancy’s hands tighten around her hair for a moment, pulling. Mia cries and cries against her neck. 

She doesn’t deserve this. She got her best friend killed.

“Don’t say that.” Nancy says again, wet, against Mia’s ear and hair. “It’s not your fault. Your friend was there that - that night because she loved you. You hear me? Your friend wanted to just - just be there with you. It’s not - it’s not your fault she’s dead. It’s not.”

Nancy pulls Mia away from her neck, only to cradle both her cheeks in her cold hands. Mia stares at Nancy’s face, her pale blue eyes and dark curly hair, the shape of her chin and nose, so like Mike’s. Mia had always looked up to Nancy. Ever since she was little, Mia had always thought she looked so perfect, so beautiful, dressed as an Elf princess or in her pretty flowery pajamas. Mia had wanted to be just like her, growing up.

But now Nancy’s mascara is running and she’s crying. 

She’s just a girl, who like Mia, lost her best friend.

“It was not your fault.” Nancy says, with sudden force. Her eyes have sharpened, her jaw gritted hard as she squeezes Mia’s cheeks slightly, stunning Mia into silence. “It was not your fault, you hear me? It was those monsters. They killed your friend, not you.”

Mia shakes her head, because Nancy doesn’t know. 

Nancy’s gaze softens, and so does her voice. 

“I know it doesn’t feel like it.” She starts, swallowing hard. “I know it feels like it’s your fault. I know that you’re thinking that- that if only you hadn’t brought her there, everything would have been different. She would be alive and okay and -” Nancy cuts herself off, closing her eyes. 

She lets go of Mia’s face, pulling herself up to sit on the bench next to Mia, her thigh warm against Mia’s.

Neither of them speak for a long moment. The music is loud in the other room, but it doesn’t feel as aloud as Mia’s own heart, breaking in her chest.

“Barb wanted to leave, you know? That night at Steve’s.” Nancy begins, whispering. ”I told her I wanted to stay, that I was going to stay, and that she could just go home, but…she didn’t make it home. The monster - that demogorgon thing. It killed her.”

Mia remembers that. The moment when El told her that Barbara was gone. Remembers thinking that she didn’t know what she would do, if she lost Jenny.

And here she is.

“I should have never even brought her there. My mom thought I was at - some stupid vigil for Will or whatever excuse I invented.” Nancy laughs, wet and hateful, at herself. “Barb wouldn’t be at Steve’s house if it wasn’t for me. So tell me, do you think it’s my fault she’s dead?”

She turns to Mia, blue eyes wet, and she’s not angry, or challenging…no. It seems like she’s honestly asking Mia. Pleading her to say that it isn’t her fault.

Mia shakes her head. 

Maybe Nancy had told Mia what she herself had wanted to hear. 

“It’s - It’s not your fault.” Mia tells her, not really believing in the words she’s echoing. “Your friend - Barb was there that night because - because she loved you. Like, like Jenny loved me.”

Nancy’s eyes fill with tears. She laughs, and Mia knows that she doesn’t believe in Mia’s words either.

They sit there for a while. Mia isn’t crying anymore, but the vomit on her clothes is starting to dry. She has the sudden thought that it’s weird that no one has come into the bathroom yet.

Mia looks over her shoulder to check.

“I locked the door on the way in.” Nancy tells her, pulling something from the pocket of her dress. “One of the perks of chaperoning is that I have the key to the bathrooms. In case something happens.”

“Like someone throwing up in the bathroom?”

“Yeah.” Nancy swipes a hand under her nose, and shakes herself. “Yeah. We should do something about that.”

Silently, they both walk over to the sinks. Mia decides to stick both her feet under the running faucet, one at a time, just to wash off the worst of the vomit from her shoes and tights while Nancy helps her balance. Then she pulls them both off, leaving her legs and feet bare against the cold floor.

Mom had just bought those for her. 

And now they’re ruined. 

Mia feels like she’s gonna start crying again. Her eyes burn, but no tears fall.

“Don’t worry about them.” Nancy tells her, as if reading her thoughts. She takes the tights from Mia’s hand, and quickly balls it up inside a paper towel. “I’ll get you new tights, alright? As a - a Christmas gift. And the shoes - I think you can just let them dry and they’ll be good as new, ok?”

Mia nods, exhaustion falling over her body like a heavy blanket. She wants nothing more than to go home and sleep.

“Why don’t you and I go outside, for a moment?” Nancy tells her, “To get some fresh air?”

Mia stares at her for a second, feeling like a shell of girl, drained of everything. Then, eventually, she nods.

They decide to wrap paper towels around her feet so she can put on her shoes again, because it’s cold outside and she can’t exactly walk around barefooted. It’s terrible and it hurts where the wet straps dig into her skin through the paper, and with each step, her shoes squeak, filled with water, making her heat beat faster. 

But Mia keeps her mouth shut. And follows Nancy outside the bathroom.

Mike is waiting outside.

“Thank god!” Mike says, crowding them against the door. “I was about to go in there! Are you okay, Mia? You just ran out -”

“She’s fine, Mike.” Nancy tells him. “I told you I would go check on her. Now give her some space, we’re gonna go outside.”

“Wait, are you okay, Mia? Did something happen?”

Mia tries to clear her throat and speak, but it’s like all words have been stolen from her, and only a pitiful, croaking sound leaves her throat.

“She’s feeling a bit under the weather, Mike.” Nancy says, “Girl problems.” 

“Girl problems? ” Mike frowns, wrinkling his nose. “ What are -”

His eyes widen then, his face turning red. 

“Oh. oh. Ew. Alright.” Mike glances at Mia, looking freaked out, then looks hurriedly behind himself, “Uhm. Should I - call Jonathan? What should I -”

“Just tell him I got her, alright? There’s no need for him to worry.” Nancy says.

It’s dark outside, and only the floodlights outside the gym are on. The school building looms ahead, its many windows dark. The nearest lamppost is a mile down the driveway, on the other side of the road. It’s bitterly cold too, with a cutting wind that makes Mia’s ears ache and her nose go numb. 

Still, she breathes in, revelling in the cold that creeps into her lungs.

A shiver goes down Mia’s spine. She feels watched all of a sudden, and is actually kind of glad that Nancy is here with her. She huddles close to the girl’s side, crossing her arms around herself.

They hear the sound of a lighter being flicked on, right before a flame appears a few feet ahead. It illuminates Hopper’s face, where he’s leaning against the trunk of a black car. 

“What is he doing here?” Nancy mumbles, heading for Hopper.

“El is here.” Mia tells Nancy. 

It makes sense that he’s hanging around. Mia had half expected to find her mom in the parking lot too. 

They get to Hopper, who greets them with a nod of his head. He must see something in their faces, because he straightens up, face turning serious.

“Girls.Everything alright?”

“Yes, it’s fine.” Nancy says with a smile, before Mia can say anything. “You’re waiting for El?”

Hopper takes a drag of his cigarette, blowing the smoke away from them, “Yeah. I’ll be driving her to the cabin afterwards, and just wanted to make sure that you kids could enjoy the dance with... No unwanted visitors.”

Nancy and Mia watch him bring the cigarette to his mouth, the tip of it glowing a bright cherry red, before he once again exhales the smoke, this time through his nose and mouth.

“I had a daughter once, you know?” He tells them, without prompting.

Mia knew this, but apparently, Nancy did not.

“You did?” She asks.

“Yeah. Her name was Sarah.” 

Nancy looks down, frowning. 

Wind blows through the parking lot, making Mia’s teeth chatter.

“I never did tell you that I was sorry for not finding your friend, Nancy.” Hopper says. 

Nancy’s head snaps up to him, surprised.

“I may not have had a daughter for…many years now, but. I know. I wish I could tell you girls that this feeling goes away, but…” He flicks his cigarette, throws it to the ground and crushes it under his heel. “It never really does. Though it’s true what they say. Everyday it does get a little bit easier.”

Mia feels her throat grow tight. 

It doesn’t feel like anything has become easier in the last weeks.

At her side, Nancy seems equally disbelieving.

“Well. Thanks for the apology. If you need anything, Chief, Mr. Clarke is at the front.” Nancy tells Hopper. then she takes Mia’s hand, tilting her head back at the gym, curls bouncing against her forehead. “Should we head back inside, Mia? I’m sure the others are looking for you.”

Mia wants to tell her no. Wants to stay here in the parking lot, even though her fingers and knees have gone numb, and maybe, convince Hopper to take her back home. 

But then again, what would she be coming home to? Would she just lie in her bed and stare at the ceiling, images of Jenny’s death flashing behind her eyes?

She’s suddenly gripped by a fierce longing for her friends. For Will. She misses them, so strongly it’s like a hand reached into her chest and pulled. 

“Okay.” She tells Nancy, and they both head inside with a last goodbye to Hopper.

And when she gets inside, Mike is talking to both El and Will, and Lucas is laughing with Dustin, and Max is holding two cups of punch in her hands.  Her eyes shine when she spots Mia.

Nancy motions her to go with her friends, before walking off to the other side of the Gym, where Jonathan is taking pictures. Mia watches her go for a moment, then braces herself with a deep sigh.

When she gets near her friends’ table, Max offers one of the cups in her hands out to Mia. 

“Where have you been?” Max asks, taking a sip of the cup in her hand.

Mia takes the cup and takes a sip too. The punch is very sweet and cold, vaguely tasting like cherry, but mostly sugar. It doesn’t help her warm up any, just leaves her feeling even more cold than before. 

“Just outside for a bit.”

“Everything okay?” Will asks, looking at her. Mia nods her head at him and he smiles. His cheeks are red, and his eyes shine. 

He looks happy.

Max nudges her shoulder, making Mia look at her. 

Madonna’s newest song, Material Girl starts playing. 

Max wiggles her eyebrows, extending a hand to Mia. “You wanna dance?”

Mia stares down at her hand, a warmth filling her chest. 

Guilt follows, as she expected it would. 

But she’s here, and she doesn’t want to be an even worse friend to Max. 

She has to make it up to her, somehow. 

So Mia nods her head, even though the last thing she wants is to dance. She takes Max’s hand and lets the redhead lead her onto the floor. 

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 2 of LIMINALITY