Chapter Text
Will can barely sleep that night, and he knows none of the others can either.
Lucas’ breath is warm on the back of his neck, and Mike’s arm is around his shin, where he lies just like Mia, with his head on a pillow by Will’s and Lucas’ feet. El, Max and Mia are sharing Mia’s trundle bed, El and Max with their heads to one side, and Mia with her head by their feet. El lies the closest to Will’s bed, and she tosses and turns the whole night, whimpering in her sleep. Max has to wake up multiple times to get her to settle down, carding her fingers through El’s long hair.
Will doesn’t know why they had all huddled together on Will and Mia’s single beds, when there were two other perfectly good rooms for them to use, the living room, as well as at least one sleeping bag, but he’s glad for it anyway.
The house had felt…ominous, after yesterday’s revelations. Too big and too dark. And cold.
He hadn’t wanted to be alone.
Some animal part of Will’s brain had screamed at him to find safety in numbers, that same primal terror that had once made him run across the woods and through his house with his sister, looking for his mom and Jonathan on the night he went missing.
Will’s glad that they had all silently decided to sleep together in his and Mia’s room without him having to humiliate himself by asking for it.
Will watches the girls breathing, tired and exhausted down to his bones.
But he can’t sleep.
Not after knowing that the Mind Flayer is out there again, possessing someone like it had possessed him.
And not after what he’d seen in Mia’s mind.
Will stares at his sister’s back, stomach turning into knots.
He doesn’t want to think of it. He can’t.
Will falls asleep, at some point, dreaming of walking around the streets of Hawkins, the whole world bathed in red light.
He wakes up a while later, and it’s still dark out. Mike’s fingers plucking at some loose threads on his socks had been what woke him.
Will can’t help it, he twitches.
“Will.” Mike whispers, fingers stopping. “Are you awake?”
Will doesn’t answer, pretending to still be asleep, pretending he hasn’t noticed Lucas’ breaths stopping behind him, then starting again against the back of his neck, slower than before.
“I’m really sorry, Will”
Will doesn’t answer him, and continues to pretend to be asleep.
Mike doesn’t speak again.
When the sun rises in the morning, they all stumble out of bed, bone tired. El and Max go to the bathroom with some of Mia’s nicer clothes under their arms. Will hands over some shirts to Lucas and Mike and heads to the kitchen, where he imagines his sister has gone.
She wasn’t in bed when they got up.
She is there, taking out pots and pans from the cabinets, a pile of eggs by the kitchen sink and a metallic bowl by the stove.
Will hangs by the entryway, stomach lurching to his throat. How is he supposed to speak normally to his sister after seeing what he’d seen?
He’ll try anyway. Now isn’t the moment for them to talk about that, with Mike and the others in the next room. And he doubts Mia would want to look him in the face, anyway.
“Morning.” Will greets her, opening the fridge. She seems to be making omelets, so he takes out the block of cheese, an onion and the cherry tomatoes from the bottom drawer, the ones that should be going bad soon.
In the time it took for Mia to crack all the eggs on the bowl, beat them with a fork and season them, Will has only managed to cut the cheese and half of the tomatoes.
Mia snatches the onion and the cutting board from him, as well as the knife, straight from his hand,moving close to the stove so she can dice it herself.
“Mia.” Will tries, because they can’t be like this, not now.
His sister pretends not to hear him, the knife thudding steadily against the cutting board .
“Mia.” Will insists. “This is it? You’re just…not gonna talk to me anymore?”
Mia continues to ignore him, sweeping the onions, the cheese and the cherry tomatoes all onto the bowl unceremoniously with the knife.
“I’m sorry that I broke my promise. I really am. I shouldn’t have done it. I’m sorry.”
Mia pours the mix of eggs onto a pan, and stares at it, silently, while the eggs start to sizzle.
The others trickle into the kitchen then, and Will drops the subject, heart heavy in his chest.
Will shouldn’t be thinking about what he’d seen. He couldn’t.
Besides, there are other things to worry about.
While they eat, El tells them what she’d seen last night when looking for Heather - the red door, the bathtub filled with ice, the screaming. Heather had seen El too, before she had been pulled down by something El couldn’t see.
Unless both Heather and Billy had powers and the urge to swim in ice-cold baths, they had both been taken by the Mind Flayer.
Will thinks of Mike’s explanation yesterday, about the parasite. If Billy wasn’t the only host, it probably meant that he was not the final one. Which means that he must be that middleman that Lucas talked about, which infected others.
But if Billy and Heather were the middlemen, who was the intended host?
Who was the Mind Flayer after?
Will’s eyes flick to El, her tired brown eyes and upturned nose, the wild locks of hair at the top of her head.
Maybe the Mind Flayer wanted someone with powers.
Will freezes, then, realizing he too, was someone with powers now.
Is that why the Mind Flayer had gone after him last year? Mia had said that psychic abilities were inherent or something. Latent. Something you were born with, that could be awakened by some outside influence, in his case, the Upside Down.
Had the demogorgon sensed it? Had the Mind Flayer gone after Will because of that from the very beginning?
It had not gone after Mia, that night, just Will.
But why Billy and Heather? It would have been much easier had it gone after someone their own age. Lucas or Max, if it was after El, or even someone from their school like Lara who Will sometimes saw at the public library or Thomas from Chemistry, whose mom worked at the mall.
Why Billy and Heather? How had it even found them?
After they clear the table and wash the dishes, they ride to the public pool on their bikes to check if Billy and Heather are there. El stands on the back of Will’s bike, while Max rides on the back of Lucas’. Mike rides ahead, while Mia rides behind them all, just after Will.
He fights the urge to look over his shoulder every five minutes. He can’t crash his bike, not when El is with him.
Billy is at the Public Pool today, sitting on the lifeguard chair. He’s wearing a long sleeved lifeguarding sweatshirt, with a blanket thrown over his legs, a baseball cap on his head and sunglasses over his eyes.
They set up watch outside the fences that surround the pool, Max volunteering to keep track of Billy using Lucas’ binoculars.
“I don’t know.” Max says, sweat gathering at her temple. She and El had pulled their hair up before they left the house, using some of Mia’s scrunchies, but it’s hot out, even in the shade. “He seems pretty normal to me.”
Mia herself didn’t put her hair up in a ponytail, and it hangs, long and wavy to the middle of her back, her bangs laid down neatly across her forehead. She’s further in the shade, but there’s sweat glistening on her brow.
She’s been starting to look a lot like mom, lately, especially after this last haircut.
“He’s wearing a sweatshirt, Max.” Mike argues. “And a blanket. In July.”
Mike’s hair is all poofy because he’s tried brushing it this morning. He looks ridiculously endearing, even more so because he’s wearing one of Will’s only polo shirts, the one that Will is pretty sure had been gifted to him by Mike’s mom for his and Mia’s birthday this year.
“Yeah.” Lucas agrees, “How many times have we even seen him with even a shirt on? I’ll tell you - zero.”
“I mean -” Max squints, then slumps, bringing the binoculars down. “Alright. It is weird. Those aren’t even his sunglasses.”
“It’s more than a little weird.” Mike insists. “Everything fits. The Mind Flayer likes the cold. He’s hiding from the sun and there was a tub with ice bags in his house. El saw him leaning over someone who was screaming. Then Heather disappears with him and suddenly she’s taking ice baths and can see El too? They’re both possessed.”
Will stares at Billy. Maybe he could try and read Billy’s mind, to see if the Mind Flayer was really in there.
Or maybe you would just be giving away your position and the Mind Flayer would come and kill you.
Will clenches his jaw, a shiver of fear climbing down his spine. Or at least, what he hopes is fear, and not the Mind Flayer’s presence.
“But he’s lounging by the pool, which is like, the least Mind Flayer thing ever.” Max argues.
Will disagrees. “Not necessarily.”
Will feels more than sees their heads turning towards him. He stares down hard at the trunk of the car they’re hiding behind, not wanting to meet their eyes.
He’s never talked to anyone about it - what he’d felt when he was possessed by the Mind Flayer. Mia and the others thought he’d gone away, as if he’d been scooped out and replaced by the Mind Flayer. And to some point he was, but only at the lab, when the Mind Flayer had no need for Will Byers anymore.
Until then, Will knew what was going on. He could see, hear, act and think for himself, though everything happened as if it was a distant dream, his mind half in the now-memories, half in the present around himself. Then they had reached the lab, and suddenly it got so very difficult to even see. His body felt so distant from himself, his mind being pulled a thousand ways all at once. He was in the tunnels and he was in the demodogs and he was somewhere dark and cold and he was burning under the flamethrowers of the soldier.
He heard his sister’s voice at the lab, once, pulling him to his own body in a short lapse of consciousness.
Don’t you dare forget about me. And our family. You fight back against this thing, you hear me? Tell me you won’t go away
Will had been so goddamn weak.
But Will had been stretched thin, and as much as he’d tried to claw his way to the now, the Mind Flayer had taken his body as his own.
Will still remembers what it felt like, to wake up in the shed and listen to his sister say that it was his fault that Jenny was dead.
He’d seen it. He’d been there. He had been the demogorgon that jumped on Jenny’s back and dragged her down to the floor. He had been the demogorgon who -
Will blinks hard, and imagines himself locking that memory up in a little box and throwing it deep into the back of his mind.
Will hates thinking about it. About Jenny and the soldiers and the scientists at the lab.
He’d caused everything.
“The Mind Flayer only used me when he needed to.” Will tells them. “But sometimes I was still myself...It felt like I was sleepwalking, then. It’s like you’re dormant. Then, when he needs you - You’re activated.”
“So we wait until he gets activated.” Max states, but Mike is already shaking his head at her side.
“No. What if he hurts someone else?”
“Or kills someone?” Will adds, thinking of the soldiers.
Of Jenny.
He looks back at Billy, and tries to feel the edges of his own mind. He imagines thin, formless limbs, like the pseudopods he’d seen in amoebas during Biology class, reaching out from his brain. He can almost see them around himself, reaching instinctively towards Mia, hovering halfway between Will and her.
Will hastily pulls them back into his head, and tries to force them to go towards Billy.
It’s strange - like forcing a numb limb to move. They stretch out over the car, manage to reach the fence, but not any further. Will huffs, wincing when he accidentally lets go of the limbs and they snap back into his head, like a rubber band.
It had been so easy, with Mia.
Will shudders. He glances at his sister again.
Why. Why had she never told him?
“We can’t take that chance.” Mike says, snapping Will out of his head. “We need to find out if he’s really the middleman, or find out who the final host will be, now.”
Mike pushes away from the car, sprinting away.
“Wait, where are you going?” Max calls out after him, moving to follow.
But Mike raises his hands at her. “I have an idea. Boys only!”
“Seriously?!”
“C’mon, guys!”
Will’s head hurts, and he doesn’t have the energy to argue with Mike. He throws an apologetic look at his sister, and follows after Mike with Lucas.
Mike tells them his plan, of drawing Billy to the sauna room to burn the Mind Flayer out of him, just like they’d done with Will the year before. All the while, Will stares at him, incredulous. There had been absolutely no need to go to the boys’ bathroom for this explanation.
Mia literally works at the pool. This plan would most certainly be a thousand times better if Mia could contribute to it. There had been absolutely no need for it to be “boys only”.
Mike, Lucas and Will double back to the girls to tell them their plan. Mia directs Will and Lucas to the shed behind the pool building, to look for locks and chains to use on the sauna door, while she sneaks El, and Mike into the chemical storage, where they keep the CPR mannequins. Max stays behind to watch Billy, walkie talkie in hand to warn them if her brother starts acting weird.
After everything is set aside and hidden inside the bathroom by Mia, all that’s left for them to do is walk back to the fence and wait until the Pool closes to enact their plan.
Because they’re on the small stretch of grass before the treeline, Mike sits on the ground. Lucas lies down next to him, and takes a nap with his head on Mike’s thigh. Mia sits on the trunk of the car they’re hiding behind, Max sitting next to her. Will sits down next to Mike, and surprisingly, El curls up next to him, and puts her head on his thigh.
Will freezes, hand hovering over her head.
Mike stares at him, wide eyed.
Will shrugs, not understanding why El had decided to trust him like this now.
A moment later, he lets his hand fall over her head, and starts running his fingers through her brown locks, untangling the little knots he finds. Before he notices it, his fingers have started to braid her hair, exactly how Mia had taught him to a few years ago.
She had laid with her head on his lap then, just like El is now, and Will had braided Mia’s hair over and over again, until he got it right.
Finally, the sun sets. Mia sneaks into the pool, so she can be there when everyone locks up.
The rest of them get ready.
When the last car leaves the parking lot, Mia opens the front door to them and leads them to the back of the building.
“Billy’s taking a shower.” Mia whispers while they crouch outside the Men’s bathroom. “You have to be quick.”
As soon as they’re inside, El tilts her head and a tiny click comes from the door.
They’re officially locked in the men’s bathroom with Billy.
The bathroom echoes like crazy. They set things up, entirely too aware of the sound of running water coming from the showers, and taking the most care to be as silent as they possibly can. Mia had volunteered to be the one to slam the doors to both the sauna and the room that leads to it, to draw Billy’s attention. Then, she’d turn the lights off and run out to hide with the rest of them by the row of lockers that leads into the shower room.
Behind one such row of lockers, Will crouches over Mike, Max above him, with her hair tickling his cheek. Across from them, El is crouching above Lucas, both her hands on his shoulders.
The shower cuts off.
Mia, who was standing by the door that leads to the sauna room, moves into the room beyond, the door silently swinging shut behind her.
A moment later, they all hear the door of the sauna slamming shut, sounding like a gunshot in the silent bathroom.
“The pool is closed!” They hear Billy shout, from the other side of the bathroom.
The lights of the room that leads to the sauna turn off. Mia opens the door again just enough for her to squeeze through it.
Will stains his hearing, but it doesn’t sound like Billy is coming their way.
Mia glances their way, and Will shakes his head at her.
Mia opens the door all the way. Then, with her eyes squeezed shut, she slams it closed as hard as she can. Boom.
It’s like a thunderclap. Will jumps in place, heart slamming against his chest.
“I said, the pool is closed!” Billy shouts, quick footsteps heading their way.
Now the plan can begin.
Mike turns on the com in his hand and whispers, as mockingly as he can. “Billyyyy.”
As the com left inside the sauna had its volume turned all the way up, Mike’s voice echoes loudly through the bathroom, filling the entire place. It distorts strangely, barely even sounds like Mike’s voice
Billy says something, too low for Will to hear properly.
Below Will, Mike taunts him again. “Bi- lly.”
“Who’s the-ere?” Billy shouts, in the same sing-song-y tone as Mike.
They hear the sound of shower curtains snapping to the side. Mike tenses beneath Will.
“Billyyy.” He laughs, though his shoulders are hard like rocks beneath Will’s hands. “Billy. Come and find me!”
There’s the sound of feet running, stepping heavily through the empty bathroom.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
“I find you and it’s your funeral!” Billy shouts, close enough his voice doesn’t echo.
Mia bolts away from the door, and hides behind El.
The door is barely swinging on its hinges when Billy appears from the showers, but the older boy’s eyes immediately lock in on it.
He huffs like a bull, then strides through the door, letting it fall shut behind him.
Mike calls him again. “Billy!”
Lucas, El and Mia get up, and tip-toe to the door, looking out through the small window on it. Will, Mike and Max follow, hanging around the sides of it.
Billy’s laughter echoes, sinister, from the other room, raising all the hairs on Will’s arms.
Lucas looks down at Mike shaking his head. Billy still hasn’t entered the sauna.
Mike sneers and picks up his com again, “Come and get me you piece of shit!”
Billy throws the sauna doors open. Lucas pulls the door open just enough so him and El can step into the darkened room beyond, silent as cats. Max doesn’t let it fall all the way shut, keeping it open with her fingers.
Mike, Will, Max and Mia stay behind hovering by the door, waiting for the signal.
Mike inches his head up to look through the window on the door, then brings up his com.
“Hey, Billy.” Mike whispers. “Right behind you.”
The lights turn on in the otter room. A mighty crash comes then, followed by a door slamming shut.
The signal.
Mike and the rest of them run through the door, picking up the supplies they’d left by it. Mia holds the thick lock she’d brought from outside, Will takes metal cane, and Mike the chains.
Will is quick to run to the sauna door, locking the lower doorlock and sliding the cane in his hand through the handle and the pipe attached to the wall. Mike quickly loops the chain around them, while Mia raises herself on her tip-toes to close the hasplock at the top of the door.
They jump back as soon as they’re done, and not a second later, Billy slams his hands against the door.
It shakes in its hinges, but the locks hold, and the door remains shut.
Will lets out a breath, shoulders relaxing an inch.
Billy looks out through the window on the door, shoulder heaving up and down like a bull. His breaths fog up the glass.
Then he stops, mouth open, blue eyes fixed on a point to Will’s left.
“Max.” Billy whispers, voice soft as velvet.
Will follows his line of sight. Max is also staring at Billy, biting her lips, uncertainty stamped across her face.
It doesn’t surprise, Will. Billy is her step-brother, her family. Is she getting second thoughts about this?
But Max clenches her jaw, and nods at Will. “Do it.”
Will turns on the sauna, as hot as it can go.
They all stand as far away from the door as they can, though El remains at the front of the group, arms stretched out at her sides, ready for what’s to come.
Steam starts to fill the room behind Billy and he steps away from the window, vanishing from sight.
Will had screamed the minute he’d started feeling the heat of the heaters, when he’d been possessed. He remembers thrashing in that bed and straining against the ropes Mom, Jonathan and Nancy had tied around his wrists and legs as they burned the Mind Flayer out of him.
It had not been easy, burning it out of him.
Billy launches himself against the door, making Will jump in place.
“Max!” Billy roars, “Let me out of here!” He shakes his head, eyes going from one of Will’s friends to the other. He paces, a tiger locked in a cage. “You kids - you think this is funny? You think this is some kind of sick prank, huh?” Billy spits against the window. “You little shits think this is funny?!”
Will trades a look with Max. Her eyes are wide and her lips are pulled into a thin line, her cheeks pale.
“What is it? Huh.” Billy snarls, then softens his voice, “Open the door, Max.” He slams his hand against the door, and it seems like the entire wall shakes. “Open the door! Open the door! Open the goddamn door!”
Let me go! Let me go!
Billy steps back from the door, and drops to the ground, screaming.
Will runs to check the temperature. 220, the thermometer reads. As high as it can go.
How high had the cabin been, when they burned the Mind Flayer out of him? Will this be enough?
“It’s not my fault,” Will hears Billy whisper from inside the sauna. The older boy is crying, loud sobs tearing out of his throat and echoing through the entire room. “It’s not my fault, it’s not my fault. It’s not my fault.”
Will’s heart twists in his chest. In his mind, Billy’s voice has started to blend into his own voice.
I’m sorry. He made me do it.
“Max, I promise you, it’s not my fault!”
Will walks away from the wall, stomach roiling.
Max, however, walks to the door, until her face is almost touching the window’s glass.
“What’s not your fault, Billy?” She asks him, almost whispering.
“I’ve done things, Max. Really bad things.” Billy cries, “I didn’t mean to.”
Will’s heart slams inside his chest. He ignores the way Lucas and Mike glance at him, and pretends he doesn’t feel like curling into a ball on the floor.
“Who made you do it?”
Billy sobs. “I don’t know… It’s like - like a shadow.”
Will’s heart skips a beat. El looks at him, despair flooding into her face.
They knew it was the Mind Flayer, but still - this is confirmation. It is here.
It had never left.
The confirmation of all his fears hits him straight on, filling him with bone-deep terror.
“It was a giant shadow. I was so scared.” Billy continues, “Please, Max.”
“What did he make you do?”
“It’s not my fault, okay!” Billy shouts, making Will and Mike jump. “Max! Please! I tried to stop him, okay, I did! Please believe me, Max.”
Max puts a hand on the glass, tears rising in her eyes. “Billy, it’s gonna be okay.”
Will wonders what he’d be feeling, if it was Jonathan in Billy’s place, and immediately, his eyes start to water.
Max is stronger than him.
Will would have thrown the sauna’s door open the moment Jonathan first said his name.
”Billy, it’s okay.” Max cries, fingers touching the glass as if she could touch her brother. “We just want to help you. You just need to talk to us. You have to talk to us. I believe you, Billy.”
He wonders if this is what Mia had felt last year, as she begged him to stay, to not leave her.
Will feels a shiver climbing up his spine - that feeling of weightlessness, as if he was plummeting into an abyss.
Will touches the back of his head, and Mike’s eyes immediately snap to him.
Will looks up at his dark eyes, feeling cold to the tip of his fingers. Terror curls around his throat and squeezes.
“He’s activated.” Will’s whispers, barely able to talk.
Mike’s eyes widen.
“Max, get away from the door.” He says, not looking away from Will. Then he snaps his head to Max, “Get away from the door!”
Mike barely has time to jump forward and grab her before the window explodes.
Max screams. Billy’s whole arm and head are out through the small window on the door, his fingers clutched around a shard of broken tile. Black veins crawl up the sides of his forearm, writhing like worms beneath his skin.
“Let me out, you bitch!” Billy roars, sounding inhuman, waving the tile shard and slamming his other fist against the door. “Let me out!”
Mike pulls Max back behind him and Lucas, into Mia’s waiting arms. She is crying loudly now, horrified.
“I’ll gut you!” Billy screams, “Let me out!”
Billy reaches for the pipe on the handle, pulling it out. Something small flies over Will’s shoulder, hitting Billy straight in the face and throwing him back on the ground.
Lucas has his wrist-rocket out, his arms still raised as he stands in front of Max.
The lights flash above their heads. Billy retches inside the sauna, a low, hacking sound that makes Will want to gag.
Will steps closer to the others, shaking. On the other side of the door, Billy’s silhouette gets up, barely visible amidst the fog inside the sauna. It must be reaching the maximum temperature, the heat of it spreading through the room, oppressive and heavy. Will has a full body shiver, just as Billy throws his back head and roars, multi-toned, as if a thousand other voices were roaring along with him.
Billy throws himself against the door, then starts to kick it.
“He can’t get out, can he?” Max asks, voice trembling.
Lucas shakes his head, but gets closer to Max anyway. “No way.”
The sauna pipe bends, a piece of the wall comes out around the hinges of the door.
Billy screams, and throws his entire weight against the door.
The sauna pipe breaks, steam bursting out of it.
There’s only the hasplock holding the door to the wall, now.
It doesn’t hold.
Billy throws himself against the door once more, and it flies open.
Billy falls on his hands and knees in front of them, right at El’s feet.
Will screams, hand darting out to grab his sister and El. Mia’s hand is cold and sweaty in his, and she’s easily pushed behind him, but El doesn’t budge. She’s rooted to the floor, leaning forward like a wild animal ready to pounce, her eyes locked on Billy.
Billy gets up, eyes vacant and dark. His entire body is covered in black veins.
Max screams, hands flying to her mouth in horror, and even Mike lets out a strangled breath.
El makes a low sound in the back of her throat and raises her hand.
A barbell to their right hovers above one of the lifting equipment. With a scream, she throws it with all her strength at Billy.
The older boy crashes against the left wall, cracks appearing like spider webs on the bricks around his head as El continues to force him against them. Billy’s hands are curled tight around the bar, struggling to get it off his throat, but still fighting, and El raises her other hand with an animalistic growl, making the bar sink even deeper into the wall.
Black veins crawl up Billy’s neck, around his eyes and his open mouth. His feet lift off the ground and a wheezing noise comes off his throat as the metal dents the line of his neck.
El pushes the barbell further in. Billy gurgles.
It’s either going to break his neck or choke him.
But then Billy tilts his head down and a violent shudder goes down Will’s spine. Above them, the lights flicker.
Billy’s hands curl around the barbell and he pushes.
The barbell goes flying towards El, who barely ducks in time to avoid it.
Before anyone can react, Billy takes two steps forward and grabs her by the hair. El screams, terrified, her nose bleeding freely over her mouth.
Will jerks towards her, but Mia’s nails dig hard into his wrist to pull him back.
Billy looks at them, face ghostly and waxy under the flickering lights. Slowly, almost mockingly, he curls his free hand around El’s throat and squeezes.
El’s eyes bulge, her face turning red. Billy lifts her off the ground, and his eyes turn languidly to Will and his friends, as if mocking them.
Mocking their utter lack of action.
Will has never felt so useless in his life. He feels frozen to the spot, barely able to see El’s kicking legs, the muscles of Billy’s arm, through the tears in his eyes. His stupid powers are useless. He can’t do anything. He wants to scream at Billy to go away, wants to grab Mike and yell at him to do something, wants to rip his arm out of his sister’s hand and scream at her why aren’t any of you doing anything?!
El chokes, eyes fluttering shut.
She’s going to die. Billy is going to kill her.
Mike jolts next to Will, snapped out of his frozen terror. He grabs the metal pipe from where it had fallen on the floor and raises it up with both hands. Without hesitation, he brings it down over Billy’s back, screaming.
“Go to hell, you piece of shit!”
The metal bends. Billy grunts, letting go of El. Mike brings down the pipe again, but Billy turns to grab it, pulling it out of Mike’s hand like taking a stick off the hands of a kid.
Mike stumbles back, white with fear. Billy follows his movements, cornering Mike against the wall.
He raises his fist -
And is lifted straight off the ground.
El is sitting on the floor, both hands raised and blood streaming down her neck. Her teeth are bared, stained red. She gets up - still holding Billy in the air - and walks around him, putting herself in between Mike and Billy.
Billy screams, fighting her hold. El screams louder, a primal thing, her entire face red.
She brings her arms to the side in a sweeping motion, and Billy shoots to the side like a rocket, straight through the brick wall.
El drops to the floor, drained, and Mike quickly runs to catch her. Will and the others run to the hole in the wall, peering into the darkness outside the broken bricks.
On the edge of the treeline, Billy gets off the ground and stumbles to the side, shaking his head like a dog. He looks at them, eyes glinting in the darkness like a feral animal’s.
Then he runs away, limping, into the woods.
Their plan had failed, and now, the Mind Flayer knew they were after it.