"What?" Max gasped. "Why hasn't she said anything?"

The younger Quinn's intense stare kept Eleven's eyes locked on the photo in front of her. How had she not seen it? "Ralphie," Eleven whispered as the realization hit her. "She was with us when we found him. She was the one who turned Ralphie into a demodog."

"And Mark into whatever he was," Will added.

"I thought that was Malcolm," Dustin said, his eyebrow arched in confusion.

"No, look here," Mike pointed out, his finger pressing into the ink on the page. "Matter manipulation. She can turn things into other things."

"Do you think Steve knows?" Lucas asked.

Dustin crossed his arms and shook his head firmly. "No. He would have told us."

"Do you think she...works for Malcolm?" Max asked, the words struggling to fall from her lips. The group had grown to accept Quinn as one of their one so it was hard to think that she could have blindsided them like this; that she could have been lying to them and possibly even betraying them this whole time.

"It's possible..." Eleven answered. Her eyes scanned the page for any more information but nothing jumped out with a definitive answer. "But whether she is or she isn't, I don't think she's on our side."

"We need to let the others know," Will said, an underlying sense of urgency shaking his voice. "Especially Sarah."

"Do you remember her?" Mike asked, gently resting his hand on Eleven's shoulder.

The warm feeling on her shoulder was all it took to finally tear Eleven's gaze away from the book in front of her. She looked up at Mike as she answered, "No, I don't. But I didn't get to see many of the other subjects while I was there."

"Does anybody have any change?" Lucas asked. "There's a payphone out front. We need to get this information to the others right away."

The rest of their group patted their pockets but they all came up empty.

"The librarian's got to have a phone we can use," Dustin answered.

The group rushed towards the front desk, crowding around the unsuspecting librarian who was in the middle of stacking books onto a cart.

"Can I help you...?" she asked, her glasses slipping down to the point of her nose as she glanced between the pack of people before her.

"Can we use your phone?" Dustin asked. "Please, it's an emergency."

"Well, I don't see why not..." the librarian replied slowly, a bit of surprise leaking from her voice. "But may I ask what for?"

"Nope," Dustin responded promptly with an unyielding face. He did not elaborate further.

The librarian opened her mouth to say something but she was too shocked to come up with any words, so instead she turned and pointed them around the desk to the phone.

"Thanks," Dustin said, his straight-lipped mouth turning into a toothy smile.

"We should call Steve first," Max announced as she flipped open the Yellow Pages she had grabbed from the table to the page for Harrington Real Estate.

"But he's at work," Lucas spoke up. "And if he's at work, that probably means..."

"Right," Max retorted with a roll of her eyes. "Then we can confirm where she's at."

"Oh," Lucas replied, his cheeks turning red. "Right. Smart."

Max held the handset to her ear as she dialed the phone number into the keypad, tapping her foot as she waited through each ring. Each chime felt longer than the last, until eventually, a women's voice answered her. "Thank you for calling Harrington Real Estate. Unfortunately we're currently unable to answer the phone, but if you leave a message we'll get back to you as soon as we can. Our hours are..."

"Shit," Max said as she slammed the handset down and ended the call. "There's nobody there."

"What?" Mike asked. "But it's a weekday before five. Maybe Quinn just stepped away from her desk?"

"I know Steve's extension," Dustin announced, pushing forward to dial it in. He paced as he waited for Steve to answer, the cord trailing after him, but once again the phone was directed to voicemail. "Dammit," he muttered with a shake of his head. "He's not answering either."

"Call my house," Will instructed them. "My mom or Hopper might be home on lunch break."

"Or Sarah," Eleven added.

Dustin nodded his head as he typed in the number for the Byers' landline and was relieved when a voice answered him.

"Hello?" Joyce's voice echoed in his ear.

"Mrs. Byers-Hopper," Dustin replied, his voice just a tad too loud from his excitement. "It's Dustin. Is Sarah there?"

"No, sorry, she left about half an hour ago," Joyce answered.

"Where did she go?"

"She said she was going to go talk to Steve, tell him about what happened last night, see if he has any ideas about this 'Rose'..." Joyce answered slowly. "Why? Is everything okay?"

"We're not sure yet. Where did she go to talk to Steve?"

The group couldn't hear Joyce but they could hear Dustin's heart beating in his chest. And they could see the answer on his face.

"Harrington Real Estate."

☆ ★ ☆

"Hey Quinn," Sarah said as she stepped through the door to Harrington Real Estate. The tinkling of the bell above the door punctuated her greeting.

"Oh hey," Quinn said with a smile from behind the desk. She shuffled some papers and stood to meet Sarah. "How's the cabin? Any more monsters?"

"No, seems to be good for now," Sarah answered. "I'm here about something else though."

"Oh?" Quinn's eyebrows arched in curiosity. "What's happened?"

"Mark is dead," Sarah answered with a sniff. She could feel her eyes prickling and her nose becoming congested so she turned her face slightly to hide it from Quinn. "He was murdered."

"Oh my god, that's terrible!" Quinn replied, rushing out from behind the desk to wrap Sarah in a hug. It was Sarah's second unexpected embrace of the day and once again she didn't know how to react other than to stand there limply. After a minute, Quinn pulled back and rested her hands on Sarah's shoulders, her glowing eyes trapping Sarah in their gaze. "How? Why?"

"I-I don't know," Sarah answered. But as she pulled away she noticed that Quinn's sleeve had pulled up slightly, displaying something on her inner left wrist that made Sarah's blood immediately freeze. Quinn's voice echoed in Sarah's head as she instantly recalled a memory of them sitting at the diner together shortly after Sarah had returned.

"Oh cool tattoo! I have one on my wrist too. I got mine in remembrance of my dad. What does yours mean?"

Sarah's eyes followed the black lines on Quinn's wrist as they twisted and weaved into the mystery that had been haunting her, the answer she thought she'd never find: a rose. It wasn't a name, it was a tattoo. Quinn had killed Mark.

Sarah turned back to Quinn's face and the second she locked eyes, Quinn's features instantly changed.

"Finally," Quinn sighed in relief, her eyelids blinking shut for a brief moment as a small smile flickered at the corners of her mouth. "It's time."

Sarah scrambled backwards, out of Quinn's grip, just barely catching herself before she tripped over the coffee table. Quinn remained where she was, calmly watching Sarah's movements.

"I-I don't understand," Sarah stammered, eyes wide. "Why would you do that? Why would you kill Mark?"

"It wasn't personal," Quinn answered. Her voice was steady but the fluorescent office lights reflected a sinister glint in her eye. "It's just the way things had to go."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sarah asked, the corners of her lips curling in disgust.

"You'll know soon enough. First, there are other things that we need to discuss."

"Maybe we should start with who the fuck you really are."

"Of course." Quinn nodded her head. "My real name is Quinn Mason, that wasn't a lie, but I used to go by another name. Well, it wasn't really a name, more of a number..."

Sarah cut Quinn off once the realization hit her. Her face flushed as the words poured out of her mouth. "You're from the Lab. You're another subject."

Quinn nodded her head again, a sad smile clinging lifelessly to her cheeks. "Two. That was what they called me. The number right after One."

"I-I don't remember you..." Sarah began to say before another memory struck her from the back of her subconscious. A memory of when she visited her younger self at the Lab.

"I need your assistance with Subject Two."

"Subject Two?"

"Yes, Subject Two, the mind-reader and matter-manipulator. She's turned Joey into a dog."

"Y-yes, Pa-Dr. Brenner, sir."

"It was you..." Sarah said, her eyes squinting as her eyebrows furrowed. She felt her legs shake underneath her as they struggled to hold up the weight of this newfound information. "You turned Ralphie into a demodog and Mark into a monster. You're working with Malcolm...you're..."

Diane's voice rung in Sarah's ear as yet another memory burst through. "When the others began returning to Helia, Malcolm refused to leave. He didn't want to abandon his wife and child..."

"Malcolm's daughter?" Quinn finished for Sarah. "Yes, I am. But I'm not working with my father. My father is dead."

"But--the Upside Down..."

"That was all that was left of him. All that was left of the life he tried to build for us." A low growl grew in the back of Quinn's throat as she spoke and her previously calm demeanor quickly fell apart. Her words and her limbs began to shake in unison as she took slow steps towards Sarah, her eyes growing darker with each stride. "And you destroyed it."

"But it's been years, why now?" Sarah asked. She felt a voice itching away at the back of her brain, telling her to use her abilities to take Quinn out, but she ignored it. She needed answers first.

Quinn just laughed. Not like a manic villain or a crazed lunatic, but a genuine laugh, like somebody had just told her a really funny joke. A joke that Sarah didn't get.

"What, you think that just because Hawkins Lab shut down that the whole program ended?" Quinn answered. She almost looked a little surprised that Sarah hadn't contemplated this. "No. They just moved us somewhere else, hid us better. Sure, they released a couple of the kids back to their families to save face, but those of us that didn't have families...our homes remained behind bars."

"But your mother, I thought..."

"My mother?" Quinn repeated, her eyebrows creasing with the word. "Remember when I told you that she pretty much gave up on being a parent to me after my dad died? The truth is a little more literal. She gave me up to the state and that's how Brenner found me."

Sarah found herself unable to speak.

"I spent most of my life sedated," Quinn continued when the silence persisted. "After I turned that lab assistant into a dog they were scared of what else I could do. That is, until..."

"Until what?" Sarah asked, finally finding her voice.

A mischievous smile flashed across Quinn's face. "Until somebody helped me to escape."

★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★