EVE'S FINGERS PLUCKED AT HER BURGER AWKWARDLY, shoulders taut from the Wheeler boy's presence beside her on the curb. Brandy and Martha sat hunkered on the Impala's hood a few feet away, lost in their own private conversation.

"You okay?" Eve mumbled quietly, feeling a pang of sympathy as she stole a glimpse at Mike.

The raven-haired boy was hardly touching his lunch, staring at the pavement as though it would crack open and eat him whole. He looked so small, with his gangly arms folded over his bent knees.

Eve turned her attention back to the cars floating past on the road ahead, not expecting a response. When her words were met a question, she felt even more shock.

"Do you..." his neck tightened with a swallow, "Do you think Eli felt this way when Will went missing?"

Eve blinked in surprise, hamburger sliding painfully down her throat. "Um...wow."

"I know," Mike groaned, shaking his head while red burned at the tip of his ears. "Sorry."

"No, it's...it's fine."

Another car rumbled by, leaving a spray of wind strong enough to kick up loose street trash.

"I mean, probably," Eve tried nervously. "He did really like Will back then. Before," she added as an afterthought.

"Yeah." Mike's sadness was unbearable.

"But it's different with you guys."

Mike's head snapped up, and suddenly a pair of huge amber eyes glowed at her. A temporary light to burn away any darkness threatening to stay.

"It feels more real with you," Eve explained, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "If that makes sense."

Mike's lips corked to one side of his face in thought. "Maybe."

"He does really like you, Mike," Eve found herself suddenly itching with determination. "It's stronger than how it was with Will, okay? Even now, he likes you. He's just...struggling. I don't know, it's not like he'll talk to me."

Her voice caved at that last remark, weakening a smallest fraction but enough for Mike to catch. The Wheeler glanced over his shoulder at her, noticing it was her turn to abandon her lunch in favor of sulking.

"We're gonna find him, you know."

Her eyes briefly panned to him, latching back to the road ahead but not before he noticed the wetness in them. "Yeah," she managed to croak out.

Brandy watched the two in intrigue, cigarette smoke dancing between her fingers as she gingerly took drags. She knew of Martha's disdain at the smoking, but the Baker girl had the sense not to comment. Not today.

"Think they'll be okay?" Brandy sighed drily, noting the way her sister's head drooped after Mike murmured something.

Martha took a glance of her own, straw pasted between her lips as she sipped on her drink. "As okay as they can be right now."

"Yeah."

"Mike's freaking out pretty bad though, don't you think?" The Baker girl commented, sliding off the car hood when the scorching metal became insufferable on her legs. "Did you see his nails? Chewed off like a dog toy."

Brandy snorted, covering up her humored reaction with another drag. "Only you would notice that."

"I'm just saying," Martha shrugged in defense. "I feel bad for him. You can tell he really likes your brother."

Brandy squirmed at her words, the familiar but unexplainable feeling resurfacing in her gut. Martha seemed to notice, dark eyes trailing to her friend with curious worry. "What?"

"Hm? Nothing."

"No, something's with you," Martha stepped forward so she was trapped in Brandy's field of view. "What?"

The older Brooks retreated into herself, finding more interest now in her cup's melting ice than her cigarette she flicked to the pavement. "I dunno."

Martha blinked impatiently, an irritated but forcefully encouraging smile stretching her lips. "Well, can you try? For me, please?"

"Okay," Brandy admitted defeat, the tightness in her chest worsening. "I've kinda been thinking a lot since last fall. When I rejected Steve."

"Oh," Martha's head fell to the asphalt. "So it is about Steve."

"But not like that," Brandy quickly jumped in. "I just...keep thinking back as to why I rejected him. What I told him."

"What did you tell him?"

"It was weird. Something about how I thought I should like him because he's Steve Harrington, but I just...didn't." Brandy's arms fell limply to her sides. It felt even more pathetic to voice aloud, even to the person she trusted most.

"I get it."

"That's why I did all that stuff with him before. It felt like...an obligation. As a...woman, or something," Brandy began rapidly shaking her head, burying herself between her hands with a frustrated groan. "Shit, sorry. That sounds super fucking dumb."

"It doesn't," Martha declared, her eyes glazed over with understanding. "You thought you needed to like him because he was popular."

"No," the word sliced out of her before Brandy even knew what she saying. It shot out so quickly even Martha was taken aback, her words becoming stuttered and broken.

"No...?"

Silence cast over the Brooks temporarily like a heavy shadow, until it abruptly pattered away and she was left with a vomit of words. "It's like...my brother came out as gay last year. It put him through hell and back but he knows exactly who he is and who he is is somebody I didn't think could exist so freely. All because I grew up in a home where church bells were the first thing I listened to on Christmas morning and I thought shit like stubbing my toe was God punishing me because I cursed some dickwad out in class. That is, until I grew up and realized Catholicism is...really, just a bunch of bullshit."

Martha's expression gradually changed, her apprehensive gaze remaining on the babbling teen. "Right."

"I mean, really, it is just always contradicting itself. Stupid fucking religion, dude. But like, Eli came out, and I don't know. I found myself asking questions at night or in the day or when I'm literally driving and zoning out. Questions I didn't think about before. I'm remembering shit I did as a kid and I'm thinking now, huh, 'Well Bran, I don't think that was normal'."

"I'm lost, B," Martha interrupted with a sigh of honesty, resting her torso back on the car. "The Catholic stuff, I'll never understand it. But...your brother...does this...does this mean?"

Brandy didn't realize she was crying until a tear dripped off her chin like mildew. "I don't remember the last time I had a real crush on a boy. Was there even a first?"

"Brandy..." Martha's tone became serious, because suddenly she understood everything. "Do you think you're a lesbian?"

The brunette refused to meet her friend's eyes, shame pelting her in every direction. "I don't fucking know," she whimpered lamely. "M-Maybe."

The weight of Martha's arm slipping around Brandy's shoulders felt oddly soothing, and the Brooks girl reached up to swipe away any remaining tears with her thumb.

"You'll figure this out," Martha coaxed, her hands rubbing the girl's forearm before pulling away with an assured smile. "Maybe you should talk to Robin about this."

"So she is...?"

"Yeah, she told me a while back."

Brandy felt surprised by herself when a laugh teetered out. "Huh. Steve's gonna be devastated."

"Well, at this rate, it might not be the first lesbian he's fallen for," Martha retorted, to which Brandy playfully slapped her. And the mood shifted to something brighter once again. Until reality snapped back when Mike and Eve trailed back to the car.

"Ready?" Brandy looked at the younger teens, earning silent but persevering nods. "Good. I call dibs on punching Dad's face in if we find him."

~

Alan Brooks had always been a man with cleaning tendencies so intense that any sign of disorganization could cause a temper. Especially when it involved work. Brandy remembered one time she accidentally ear-folded a page of data and received an unfriendly hand for it. It was one of the only times he had laid a hand on her, and it was before he realized Eli was his preferred target.

This specific memory of a dog-eared page floated into her mind again when she swung open the door to the apartment. Dust swamped her nostrils and the wallpaper was littered with browning stains. Books with splintered spines were sprawled out on the floor. Everything she could see from the small slice of sunlight coming through brown curtains revealed pigsty.

"Holy shit," the older teen swore, too frozen in place as the others brushed behind her to get inside. "And I thought his lab office was fucking bad."

"Yeah, this," Martha paused to stoop down and collect one of the ancient books, running her slender fingers along the creases. "This is really something."

Mike, however, was less astonished by the mess and more disgruntled. "Great," he huffed, his arms slapping noisily at his sides. "We'll be here all day."

"Maybe not," Eve ventured, scooping a pile of papers from one of the filing cabinets. "A lot of this looks like osteology stuff. What he did before," she elaborated.

"Bones. Boring," Brandy scoffed, finally shoving herself through the doorway and to Martha's side. "What's this? Anything good?"

"Well, the book is ruined so I can hardly tell. Look at all this water damage! The pages are glued together in chunks," she groaned, pulling at the blocks of wood in frustration. "What the hell was he doing in here?"

"Maybe something to do with that," Mike jabbed a thumb at what seemed to be a hand-built lab table shoved into the corner. "It would explain the smell too."

"I don't understand. He was running experiments here? What about the lab?" Eve wondered.

"And can we talk about the sadness of the living situation?" Brandy exclaimed, tearing open the fridge to find shelves of frozen lunches and dinners. "There isn't even a bedroom! It's all one room with nothing but a couch and all this junk."

"Yeah, B, this is...nothing like your dad." Martha had abandoned her discovered book in exchange for a chemical flask on the lab table.

"Nothing like we thought he was at least." Brandy muttered sourly. "Fucker's been hiding so many secrets it wouldn't surprise me if he was experimenting on humans and torturing people somewhere."

Mike's distressed grunt followed by the metal screech of an old filing cabinet drawer opening made the three women jump. "It's just chemistry and medical junk. How will this shit help us find Eli?"

"There's gotta be something here," Martha shook her head with fresh determination.

Eve had taken to the couch, covered in sheets of papers and manila folders. "Maybe we should keep an eye out for any secret code words? Like the ones we found last year?"

"Ugh," Brandy moaned in disgust, her screwed up face craning away from a pack of chicken noodle soup she'd opened. "This shit is disgusting! Definitely expired."

"Why would you open it? And smell it?" Mike shot a tumultuous look at her. "We're supposed to be finding clues, remember?"

"Right. Sorry," she muttered awkwardly, still shaken by the Wheeler's tendency to snap under duress.

Time sliced by like molasses, and even after an hour of pouring through osteology reports, random patient files, and medicinal documents, nothing struck any of the teens.

"This is so fucking stupid!" Brandy lugged a random book against the wall, the object hitting the wooden panels with a loud snap. "Obviously we drove out here for nothing. My dad hasn't been here for months and it's leading us nowhere!"

"Well what should we do?" Eve asked calmly, despite the worried nerves swimming in her head.

Mike was less sympathetic to the Brooks girl's impatience. "Hey! This was your idea, remember?"

"An idea you all supported! Smart people know to never listen to me!"

"This is serious, Brandy!" Mike thundered, his neck popping with veins as a rosy tint brushed his cheeks. "Your fucking brother is missing and you take us out here to some dump to smell the fucking leftovers!"

"You're being an asshole, you know that?" Brandy spat, clambering to her feet with a heave. "You think I don't give a shit about my little brother? Like you're somehow better than me fuckhead?"

"Enough!" Martha shouted, her voice booming with anger. She had shuffled over to the side of the room where Brandy's discarded book sat, only now it was clutched in her fingertips. "You two make the worst fucking team. Maybe if you'd stop screaming your heads off at each other you'd see that Brandy actually accomplished something."

The brunette blinked. "I did?"

Martha sighed through her nostrils, her amber gaze averting to her best friend. "You did." She held the book up and waved it like a prize, turning it to point at the title delicately inscribed into the spine. "Multidimensional travel. Definitely not the work of some bone doctor."

"No way," Brandy breathed out in shock as all three of them crowded the Baker girl. "Do you think...?"

"Fuck," Mike hissed, freckled features wrinkled with dismay as Martha flipped to an illustration resembling a dark hole swirling against a wall. A portal of sorts.

"And this," Martha flipped several more times until she found pages brandishing illustrations emphasizing the brain. "Mind control", "susceptible to influence", "genetic code alteration" all danced down the yellowed paper.

"Fuck." Brandy bellowed.

"Still doesn't tell us anything about Eli," Eve was the first to point out, ignoring the enormous shock they'd just been hit with and instead pressing her lips together in disappointment. "Our dad is somehow involved in the lab stuff. We knew that already."

"Yeah but this?" Brandy stabbed her finger against the mind control illustrations. "They weren't doing that shit at Hawkins Lab, were they?"

"They were running experiments on people with supernatural powers. We know that from El," Mike inputted. "But she wasn't being mind controlled."

"Look, this entire chapter talks about how certain chemicals can be made into medications." Martha's eyes remained in the book. "Medications that make people more obedient to command."

"Fuck," Brandy drawled the word out, rubbing at her temples. She had veered away from the others, limping towards the window as though she were harboring a massive migraine.

"We're missing something though," Martha continued. "Like a final piece."

"We've looked through everything," Mike uttered in defeat, his eyes looking to the curious Baker girl for answers.

Martha shook her head at him, also empty of ideas, until her dark eyes slid past his shoulder. "Brandy?"

The wooden floor creaked rhythmically, Brandy shoving the toe of her sneaker continuously against a single floorboard. "No...fucking...way." She glanced back up at the others, each of them dumbfounded. "This is some real Nancy Drew shit."

"What the hell?" Eve murmured to herself as Martha dashed past her and to the noisy floor panel.

The Baker girl fell to her knees again, shoving her fingertips between the cracks and lifting up with a groan. "Little help?"

Together, Brandy and Martha pried the loose floorboard from its place, tossing it aside and staring at the darkness below. "Who's willing to lose a hand?" Brandy beckoned.

"Fuck," Martha gritted her teeth, shoving her arm elbow-length inside and earning a shaky gasp from her friend.

"Martha, what the f—what?" The Brooks teen noticed her friend's facial expression change from daunted to surprised in seconds.

"It's a metal box."

Mike climbed onto the floor beside the two girls, Eve joining him. "That must be it. What he's been hiding." As Martha shimmied her findings through the small gap, his face churned with thought. "El told me this exact thing happened to her last year."

"Thank God it's not locked," Eve sighed as Martha eventually slammed the aluminum box on the ground.

A moment of dreaded silence passed between the teenagers as she gradually lifted the lid, everyone holding their breath. At first glance, the box only contained more folded documents, but somehow they knew what entailed in these papers were much more important. And much more terrifying.

Martha was the first to sweep dust away from one and unfurl the page to see its contents. Mike, who was perched next to her, curiously read over her shoulder. What struck him first like a hammer to the chest was the image of a woman with dark hair and sunken eyes on the page. Thin lips, stretched with exhaustion and a blankness tattered to her face.

The Baker girl had already met eyes with Brandy. "It's a patient file. For your mother."

"What?" Brandy aggressively ripped the paper from Martha's hands, only offering an apologetic look as solace. Eve read with her sister, both of their faces falling into raw horror until their eyes grew wet.

"Our mother was experimented on?" Eve's voice broke, and Mike felt his chest simmer with anguish for her.

"And look at this," Martha was already reading another, her gaze filled with sympathy and heartbreak. "I think he was trying to give her...supernatural abilities."

"Wait, seriously?" Mike cried. "Like what he did to Eli?" 

"Yeah, but...it says he did this almost twenty years ago. His methods back then were...a lot different," Martha's fingers grew shaky as they danced along the crease of the page. Mike didn't dare read further when he saw the words "electroshock therapy".

"But why? How?" Brandy demanded, trembling as she accepted more documents from Martha.

"Brandy, Eve, I'm...I'm so sorry," she offered with a strained voice. "This document says he put her on medication when the experiment failed. So that she wouldn't disobey him or report him."

"You mean...the same fucking medication she's on now? That she's been on for years! What the fuck?"

Eve shook her head vigorously in disbelief. "Those are antidepressants. No way—"

"But it makes sense. Why else has she hardly had a personality outside of what Dad tells her?" Brandy slammed her fists against the floor, making Mike shudder. "He turned her into the perfect housewife. Fucker."

"This is sick," Martha agreed with a bitter tone, while Mike took it upon himself to dig up the last paper inside the box.

The room had quieted with grief and shock as he read, his heart trashing further against his rib cage as he jumped down the page. "Holy shit."

Brandy looked up at him with misty eyes and wet cheeks, and he had to admit that the Brooks teen crying was a sight he'd never get used to.

"Um...it's a contract."

Brandy stared blankly at him, raising a brow impatiently when he didn't continue. "And?"

Mike swallowed, his throat so dry it felt like glass shards were slicing his insides as he did. He blinked, ignoring the sudden nausea in his stomach. They needed to know.

"It's a contract. Between Martin Brenner and...Alan Brenner."