SIXTEEN TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION

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       "THEN IT'S A GOOD THING I can pick a lock."

       Esme stared at her sister. At the typical mischievous grin on her lips, the familiar twinkle in her pitch-black eyes. Just yesterday Esme had wished that this side of Anita would reappear, would replace the broken and apathetic version of her — but seeing her so full of energy, just a few hours after her best friend's coffin had been lowered into the earth, was ... unsettling. It felt sort of forced, though. The cheerfulness, she meant. And yet she felt relieved; she couldn't stand seeing Anita so fragile.

       "Anita," Esme breathed, "I—I thought you were with the boys."

       Esme felt as if she got caught doing something she wasn't supposed to be doing.

       "I was," Anita said. Her gaze became distant for a moment, and Esme noticed that her hands were shaking a little. Anita snapped out of it just a second later, looking back and forth between Esme and Steve, her forehead scrunching up in confusion. "What's Steve Harrington doing here?" she asked, pointing at Steve with her thumb.

       "Uhh..." Esme cleared her throat. "He's helping me ... find India."

       Anita crossed her arms. "I thought you hate him."

       "Well..." Esme shared a glance with Steve. "Desperate times call for desperate measures...?"

       Anita gave her a knowing look. "... It's India's doing, isn't it?"

       Esme sighed. "Yep."

       Both Esme and Anita knew how much India loved orchestrating things, how much India loved moving people around like they were pieces on a chess board. As if they were just dolls waiting for India to play with them, to give them a purpose and a story. India liked it when things went according to her plan, to how she imagined scenarios to play out. Manipulating people was a talent that India had perfected over the years, one that Esme despised. That was what had helped her claw her way to the top of the food chain in high school, what had turned her into something desirable to people like Carol and Tommy H., someone worth knowing, despite the fact that she was different, a Deverell Witch.

       "She left a clue with me," Steve added.

       Anita's arms fell back to her sides, shock contorting her facial features. "A clue? India left clues? Before she ... went missing?"

       Esme could hear Anita's voice tremble slightly, that small sliver of hope the sisters had had since India's disappearance growing into something bigger, something more tangible. Into the feeling that India wasn't lost yet, that they could still find her, rescue her from the clutches of the Midnight Man. Before it would be too late. Esme hoped they weren't too late— No. They weren't. If something had happened to India, if she ... got hurt ... she would've felt it in her gut, just like Anita. That unearthly bond between the Deverell sisters ensured that.

       "She did," Esme said, her voice thick. "And we just found the last one — hopefully."

       So, Esme and Steve told Anita how they had gotten here, to the point that they were taking apart the living room floor. They told her about the snow globe that India had given Steve, about the letter hidden in it, about how Esme had thought that the book would be the next clue, but, ultimately, it had been a dead end, and, finally, how Steve had figured out that they had to look for a place, not a thing, and how that had led them into the living room.

       "... We searched the floor, and I found this little star carved into the floorboard." Esme showed Anita the little star. "I took it out and this riddle was taped to it—"

       "— And it leads to Dad's study," Anita finished.

       Esme nodded.

       Then, Anita's face tightened. "Why didn't you tell me?"

       The words felt like a punch in the gut.

       "I— I don't—" She didn't know what to say, the words stuck in her throat.

       Of course, she knew why she hadn't told Anita. Her little sister shouldn't carry the burden of having to find India, of feeling that responsibility, not with everything else that was going on — with their dad dying, with her best friend going missing and dying, with their mom being absent... Esme didn't want to add this weight onto her shoulders. Even if that meant that she was alone with it. Although, as she looked at Steve, who was leaning against the back of the sofa, hands in his pockets, she realized that she wasn't anymore.

       When Steve caught her gaze, he gave her a small smile. Instantly, Esme felt more at ease.

       She wasn't alone in this.

       "Whatever," Anita said, looking away. "Let's go see what India wanted to show us." With that, Anita went upstairs.

       Esme was rooted to the floor, guilt eating away at her organs. Anita was angry — Esme should've expected that. Her little sister's temper had always been quick to flare up, and it had burned Esme more often than she could count. But Esme had had her reasons for not telling her. And they were good reasons, in her books. If Anita would just let her explain... Esme released a shaky breath, tears were gathering in her eyes. She started fidgeting with the sleeves of her green sweater. Should she have told her?

       Steve came up beside her, giving her a concerned look. "You OK?"

       She looked up at him and shook her head, not trusting her voice.

       "You know you did nothing wrong, right?" Steve asked softly. Esme wrapped her arms around herself, desperate for some kind of comfort. "You didn't," Steve stressed as she didn't answer.

       Slowly, Esme nodded.

       He looked at her for a moment longer. "Well, come on," Steve then said, "Let's find India." He started following Anita upstairs, but not without checking that Esme was coming as well.

       They jogged up the stairs, just in time to see Anita walking out of her room and toward Usher Deverell's forbidden study, a hairpin clasped between her fingers. She knelt down in front of the door. Esme and Steve came to a halt behind her, watching as she put the hairpin into the keyhole. And Esme had a weird sense of déja vu — just last week, she had caught India trying to get into the study as well, but she hadn't managed to pick the lock. But ... why did India lead them to the study, then? If she never got in, she couldn't possibly know what was inside...?

       But, maybe, she did get in. Just not that day.

       As she watched Anita fiddle with the hairpin, a thought popped into her head. She furrowed her brows. "Should I be concerned that you know how to pick a lock?"

       Anita froze in her movements. "Uh ... no?"

       "... OK."

       Esme could ask her about this another time. Right now, she was just glad that she could open this door for them—

       "No, no, you should definitely be concerned about that," Steve burst out. Anita and Esme both turned to look at him, perplexed expressions painted on their faces. "What 12-year-old can pick a lock?" His gaze went back and forth between the two sisters, bewildered. Esme shared a taken-aback glance with Anita. She had not expected him to react like this...?

       Then, Anita let out a snort. "Calm down, mom," she said, sarcasm evident in her tone, as she turned back to the keyhole. "I'm not using my skills for evil."

       "See? It's fine," Esme said, smirking at Steve.

       "... Yet," Anita added.

       Esme's eyes darted to her.

       Steve looked at Esme in an I-told-you-so sort of way. "See? It's not fine."

       Esme gave him a deadpan look.

       The door clicked, steering their attention back to what was important. And then, it swung open.

       A gaping black hole opened in front of them, the darkness only broken apart by the light getting in from the hallway, where Esme, Anita, and Steve stood, unmoving, their figures throwing elongated shadows onto the floor of the room. None of them moved. Anita stayed on her knees, hairpin in hand. Esme stood behind her, not daring to move a muscle, expecting her dad to show up any minute, telling them off for trying to get into his study despite knowing that it wasn't allowed.

       But that wouldn't happen. Her dad was gone.

       Steve craned his neck to get a good look into the room. All three of them stared inside, taking in the silhouettes of the furniture.

       Anita coughed. "How about Steve Harrington goes first," she said, getting up from the floor and stepping to the side. She looked warily at Steve and then back into the study. Esme couldn't blame her; she didn't feel entirely comfortable right now either. This was uncharted territory. Neither of them had ever expected to set foot into this room.

       Steve flinched, surprised. "What?"

       "I agree," Esme said quickly, looking at Steve, her eyes wide. "You should go first."

       He narrowed his eyes at her, but then obliged, shaking his head. He stepped into the room, looked around, and then reached for something on the wall. Esme heard a click, and the lamp in the center of the ceiling lit up, illuminating the room in a warm orange light.

       "Let there be light," Steve said.

       Then, Anita entered the room. And, after a moment of hesitation, Esme did as well. She stepped over the threshold, and she felt as if she crossed through a portal into another world. An unknown world, where she shouldn't be. It was eerie, really. Entering a room you had never seen before in the house you grew up in. One would think, after living somewhere for 16 years, you would know every corner and crevice of the house — but no. There was a whole room that Esme and Anita had never stepped foot in. And now they were here to uncover the secrets Usher Deverell had hidden for as long as they could remember, to finally find out what had happened to India.

       She walked through the room, her gaze wandering around, from the mahogany desk to the filled-to-the-brim bookshelves, to the many cardboard boxes stacked against the wall. The blinds in front of the window were closed, and the curtains drawn shut — for good measure, Esme supposed. She let her fingers trail over the cardboard boxes, not yet ready to open them. "This is so surreal," she uttered.

       "Right?" Anita agreed.

       "You've really never been in here?" Steve asked, not hesitating to open the first box.

       "Never," Esme and Anita said in unison.

       They shared a look. And Esme could see the sadness in them. The same sadness that was reflected in Esme's. They missed their dad. It hadn't even been a week since he— since he died, killed himself (allegedly). The thought of never seeing him again, of never talking to him again, of never getting to hug him, was like acid in her mind, carving out a space for itself, so it could stay there forever — so it could torment her until her dying day.

       Steve's voice freed her from that painful prison in her mind. "Those are files." Esme watched as he took a file out of the box, and opened it. "About ... experiments at Hawkins Lab. MKUltra, the program is called." Esme came to his side, and he lowered the file slightly so she could read along with him. Her eyes skimmed the lines written on the page, and with every word she read, the knot in her stomach tightened. "Jesus Christ," Steve muttered.

       "What?" Anita asked, watching them impatiently.

       "The test subjects were children," Esme said, her voice laced with horror.

       She couldn't believe what she was reading. She couldn't believe that her dad was a part of this, of these experiments, that used children as their lab rats. She didn't want to believe that her dad was involved in this, the thought was too horrible. But it would explain why he had never wanted to talk about what he actually did at the lab. Esme grabbed another file from the box, opening it. Anita followed suit. The next half-hour was spent reading through numerous documents, and after a while, the various pieces of information formed a somewhat complete picture in her mind.

       The experiments started in 1953, with the first subject, a young boy. He didn't have a name, he was simply labeled as '001'. Years later, they had more children there, all only known as numbers, no names. In the most recent files Esme had read, only one number was mentioned anymore: '011'. A young girl with mental abilities — telepathy and telekinesis. Esme would say that that was impossible, but her touch caused people to see their worst nightmares come to life. Nothing was impossible.

       "Um, Esme?"

       Esme looked up from the file she was currently reading and toward Steve. And when she saw his expression, the concern and bewilderment contorting his face, a queasy feeling settled in her stomach. He held out a file for her to take, and, uneasy, she reached for it, not sure if she actually wanted to know what he had found.

       "It's about your disappearance. Three years ago," he said, his voice quiet.

       And Esme's heart sank.

       Anita looked up at those words, and the sisters looked at each other, a grave atmosphere enveloping the both of them. Esme went over to Anita and sat down on the floor beside her, so they both could read through whatever the lab had on their strange case.

       She opened the file, and the first thing that caught her eye was her name, written in bold, in-between India Deverell and Anita Deverell. The first page just listed the known facts about their vanishing, the things that the police knew as well. The date, the exact time when their parents had come home and realized that they were gone, the time they had called the police, the names of the investigators involved, the things that the police had found — the candles, the needles, the book, the pieces of paper with their names and their blood on them —, and the time they had reappeared, and where. They had come stumbling out of the woods, near the house of David Cassady, looking like walking corpses, their skin as cold as ice.

       None of this was new to Esme. Or Anita.

       But when she turned the page, Esme couldn't believe what she was reading...

       '... The sisters presumably opened a passageway to a parallel dimension, where they stayed for a month before coming back, fundamentally changed in their being and their anatomy. We know this parallel dimension exists due to the happenings on Sept. 8, 1979. How they opened a gate is unclear, but everything points toward this explanation. [...] The only person who possessed abilities outside of MKUltra was Henry Creel, but maybe there are others out there who have a natural affinity to connect with 'supernatural' forces. The Deverell sisters might have this affinity. Further tests to prove this theory would be required.'

       Esme's body had gone rigid. A shiver ran down her spine, and her stomach dropped into an endless abyss. 'Henry Creel'. Reading that name had caused a feeling to arise within her, a feeling of the likes that she only felt when something had happened to India or Anita. But this name... Dread coursed through her veins. It was as if the name was familiar, as if she should know it, but she couldn't place it...

       She tried to shake the feeling off, but a certain uneasiness remained.

       Then she processed the rest of what she'd just read. '... a parallel dimension, where they stayed for a month...' A parallel dimension. Playing the Midnight Game, they had unwittingly summoned the Midnight Man, a demon from another world, and he had dragged them away, into this other world... That sounded ludicrous, like something straight out of a horror movie. Her mind was racing, and it threatened to cave in on her. This was too much.

       "The Upside Down," Anita mumbled.

       Esme snapped back into reality, turning toward her sister, who was staring straight ahead, her gaze distant.

       "The what?" Esme asked.

       "The other dimension. They're talking about the Upside Down."

       "Yeah, uh... I'm not followin'," Steve said, putting another file back into its respective box.

       "Me neither," Esme said.

       "Well," Anita started, looking back and forth between Esme and Steve, "this is kind of a long story."

       "We've got time," Esme said. Anita hesitated, her eyes flickering toward Steve, unsure. "You can trust him," Esme said as she understood Anita's silence.

       Steve's gaze darted toward her. Anita's eyebrows shot up on her forehead. Esme's stomach twisted as she felt both their eyes on her, and she was happy that her body's strange anatomy made it impossible for her cheeks to turn red in embarrassment. For most people, this wouldn't be a big deal. But when the witch said that she trusted the King, then it most certainly was a big deal. She crossed her arms in front of her chest, and out of the corner of her eye, she could see Steve's gaze softening, a small smile on his lips.

       "Whatever," Anita muttered, and then started telling them what she had experienced in the last few days. "The day after Dad died, Lucas and Dustin came over, right? To check on me. But that wasn't the only reason they came, they also wanted to tell me something. When they were out looking for Will the day before, they..." Anita trailed off, scratching her nose. Then she took a deep breath, and: "Well, they found a girl in the woods."

       "A girl?" Esme exclaimed, shocked.

       Anita nodded. "They took her to Mike's and hid her in the basement. She didn't speak much, and she had a shaved head. And a tattoo on her wrist. A number. Eleven." Esme's eyes went wide. That had to be the girl from the lab, from the experiments. "She — El... She knew me. And she knew Dad and that he died. She said that he helped her.

       "And it makes sense now. She's the girl that these files talk about. She has these superpowers, she can move things with her mind, I saw it! We just thought she was weird like me, you, and India are, but she's from the lab, and Dad helped her escape. That's why he died, Esme." Anita took Esme's hands in hers. "He didn't kill himself. He helped El escape and the bad men killed him for it."

       "What... What bad men? Wh—"

       "El said bad men are after her. Because she ran away, and Dad helped her run away," Anita continued. She squeezed Esme's hands. "You know he would never leave us. He loved us."

       Tears started running down her cheeks. This confirmed what Esme had so desperately wanted to believe. Their dad didn't just decide to abandon them, in the worst way possible. It wasn't a choice he had made. It was a choice that had been made for him. By these bad men, the people from the lab. All because he helped a young girl escape a terrible place. All because he did what was right.

       "He loved us," Esme whispered. "He didn't kill himself."

       It was like a huge weight fell off of her shoulders.

       But that meant that someone, the lab, had killed him...

       ... The anger in her stomach stirred.

       "Bad men," Steve muttered, his forehead scrunching up as he was thinking. Then his face lit up and he turned toward Esme, who was drying her tears with her sleeves. "Can I see India's letter for a sec?"

       Esme frowned but didn't question him as she took the letter out of her jeans pocket and handed it to him. His eyes flitted over the lines, until they stopped and he exclaimed, "There! I knew this bad men business rang a bell. 'I'm not telling you what I plan on doing and what probably happened to me if you're reading this in case the wrong people find this.' The 'wrong people'... She could've meant those bad men from the lab, right?"

       "So..." Esme said, trying to process everything that she had learned, to sort the new information into their proper mental categories so she could think clearly. "India knew about the lab. About what Dad did there."

       Anita nodded, then continued, "El told us about this other dimension. A parallel world of Hawkins, like the Vale of Shadows, y'know?" Esme and Steve shook their heads, no. Anita sighed. "It's like our world but wrong. Upside down. The parallel dimension that we went to three years ago." Anita wiggled the file about their disappearance in front of Esme's face. "That's where they are. That's where the Midnight Man brought them. India and Will are in the Upside Down."

       "... Will?" Steve asked, confused.

       Esme felt her heart clench. "Anita... Will is gone—"

       "No, he's not. That's the thing. We heard him through the supercom just yesterday. He's alive. He's stuck in the Upside Down, but he's alive."

       Esme's thoughts were spinning out of control. "But—But they found the body."

       "It wasn't him," Anita said.

       "Anita—"

       "Ask Tatum, if you want," Anita interrupted her.

       Esme paused, her breath catching in her throat. "Tatum knows?"

       "... Yeah. She was there too when we heard Will."

       Esme cast her gaze to the floor, a myriad of emotions flooding through her, too many to correctly identify every single one of them. Feeling ... she didn't know how, just feeling ... she stood up from the ground and turned her back to Anita and Steve. She heard shuffling behind her, and then Anita's heavy boots on the wooden floor, standing up as well.

       Anita then continued, her words rushed, "She wanted to tell you—"

       "— Why didn't you tell me?"

       Esme whirled around. She had read somewhere that crossing one's arms was a gesture of defensiveness, so she crossed them in front of her chest, hoping that it would put some distance between her and Anita, an emotional armor to, on the one hand, protect Esme from being too hurt that her little sister hadn't told her what was really going on, and, on the other hand, to stop Esme from possibly unleashing the anger that had made itself at home in her stomach on Anita.

       Anita didn't answer her, but she fixed Esme with a stony look in her eyes.

       "That wasn't a rhetorical question," Esme said, then repeated the question, putting emphasis on every single word, "Why didn't you tell me?"

       "Because you had enough on your plate already!" Anita snapped, throwing her arms up. "You were taking care of Mom, you were taking care of the house — I don't think it's ever been cleaner — and you were taking care of me. You made sure that I ate, you cooked for Mom and put a plate in front of her room every evening she didn't come out of her room. And do you really think I can't see how exhausted you are? Or that I can't hear you crying all night through the wall?"

       (Steve awkwardly turned away from the sisters.)

       Tears welled up in Esme's eyes and she uncrossed her arms. "I'm the older one. I'm supposed to protect you."

       Anita softly shook her head. "We're sisters. We protect each other."

       For a moment, Esme just looked at Anita. Her little sister who sounded far too mature for her age, who had been forced to grow up faster than other people because of what they had gone through three years ago, the childlike innocence ripped away from her too soon. Esme wanted nothing more than to protect her, to give her back her childhood. But she couldn't do that. That ship had sailed a long time ago already.

       The only thing she could do was this: She stepped forward and pulled her sister into a hug. Immediately, Anita wrapped her arms around her waist as tightly as she could. Their hearts beat as one. They remained like this for a few moments, their eyes closed, simply finding comfort in the other's presence, before Anita stepped back, giving Esme a small smile.

       "I'm sorry for not telling you," Anita said.

       "Me too. About India leaving clues."

       Anita nodded, and Esme gave her a smile.

       "You two really need to work on your communication." Anita and Esme turned toward Steve, who was regarding them with a raised eyebrow and his hands on his hips. "I mean, really, all of this could've been prevented if you'd just talked to each other."

       Esme gave him a deadpan look. "Shut up, Harrington."

       He grinned.

       Then, Esme's thoughts went back to everything she had just learned. About Hawkins Lab and her dad. About the Upside Down and India and Will and — she supposed — also Barb. India knew that the Midnight Man was back. Esme had told her, and India had felt it. And India had to have gotten into the study, so she found out about the lab and the Upside Down and that that was the place they had disappeared to, where they had been trapped for a month. India had always been the most curious about what had happened that night and the month following it. Not like Esme, who had tried to suppress every memory of it. Or Anita, who had used that night as motivation to never feel so scared again.

       India loved a good mystery. And she loved solving them.

       And then it hit her.

       "India went looking for the Midnight Man," she spoke out loud.

       Anita and Steve looked up at her at once, perplexed expressions on both their faces.

       "It's the only thing that makes sense. How else could she have left clues? She knew what she was gonna do, and that it's dangerous, that's why she left the clues. She got into the study somehow, found out about the lab and the other dimension, and decided to find out if that's actually the truth. She must've found something, and the Midnight Man took her, or she went into the Upside Down by herself. However it happened, she's trapped there now."

       Anita stared at her, terror glistening in her pitch-black eyes. Steve started pacing, rubbing a hand over his mouth repeatedly; Esme could practically feel the worry radiating off of him.

       Anita started fidgeting with her hands. "I hate that this makes sense."

       Steve stopped pacing. "But how can we help her when she's literally stuck in a different dimension?"

       "There's a gate somewhere," Anita said. Esme's eyes widened. "It's how the Demogorgon got into our dimension in the first place."

       "The what now?" Esme asked.

       "The Demogorgon. It's what the boys call the Midnight Man," Anita explained. Esme nodded, deciding not to question it further. "Whatever, uhh... Dustin figured out there's a gate because the compasses weren't pointing north anymore."

       "What?" Steve said, dumbfounded.

       "I don't understand it either, but there is a gate somewhere. We tried to find it but..." Anita swallowed. "El stopped us. She said it's not safe to find it. She looked really scared. And then Lucas got mad and then Mike got mad and they started to fight and—" Anita stopped herself and her gaze became distant. She stopped fidgeting. "I have to go." She turned to leave the room.

       "What?" Esme exclaimed.

       Anita stopped. "I have to talk to Lucas. I have to apologize to him."

       "But—"

       "I'll be fine," Anita interrupted her. "I won't be gone long, I promise."

       With that, Esme watched her leave, her mind still reeling. She could feel a headache forming.

       She turned to Steve. "Do you want some coffee?"

💀

       WITH HER ELBOW, ESME OPENED the door to her room, two mugs of coffee clasped in her hands. Steve, who had studied her bookshelf, turned toward her and took the black mug with a stylized cat on it that Esme held out for him. He was careful not to touch her bare fingers with his, which surprised Esme — she had never met anyone who was this respectful of her touch aversion. Not even Tatum or Vinnie, who still tried to reach for her at times. She wasn't mad at them for it, it was easy to slip one's mind.

       Esme averted her gaze, gripping her own mug — her favorite mug, the one with the stars — tightly between her fingers, and went over to the window. She sat down on the floor, her legs outstretched in front of her, and her back leaning against the heater. The warmth radiating from it crawled into the marrow of her bones, a contrast to the frost that usually resided there. She sighed, a bit more comfortable.

       "Are you cold?" Steve asked as he watched her, and Esme could swear she could hear something like concern in his voice. It was still surreal to her that she, Esme Deverell, had something like a friendship with Steve Harrington. But, she had to admit, she liked it.

       Esme gave him a weak smile. "Always," she said, and Steve furrowed his brows in confusion. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Another thing that's strange about us ever since we were in the Upside Down. I can never quite get warm." She'd received a lot of weird looks in the past three years when she wore long-sleeved shirts during the heatwaves that plagued Hawkins in the summer months.

       A tiny smirk tugged at Steve's lips. "That's shit."

       Esme huffed a laugh. "Yeah. You could say that."

       Steve came over and sat down next to her, leaving a gap between them, with his back pressed against the heater as well. He stretched out his legs and crossed his feet at the ankles. Esme took a sip of her coffee, not quite sure what to say, while her mind was still preoccupied with going through all the information she had gotten that day. The hot and bitter liquid trickled down her throat, warming her from the inside. She hoped the caffeine would help against her headache.

       "I like your room," Steve broke the silence. "It's so clean. But still, y'know, cozy."

       "Thanks. I hate chaos, but I still don't want it to look like a picture in a magazine. Those are always so ... cold."

       "Hate is a strong word to use for chaos."

       Esme shrugged. "Chaos stresses me out."

       After that, it was quiet for a while, both of them stuck in their own heads, listening to their own thoughts. There was something ... an idea ... tugging at the strings of her brain, but she couldn't quite grasp it. It was like it was on the tip of her tongue. She kept thinking about that gate. The gate the Midnight Man had had to use to access their world without someone playing the Midnight Game, and the fact that Eleven, the girl from the lab, didn't want Anita and the boys to find it because it wasn't safe—

       "You think they got aliens in there?" Steve asked, interrupting her train of thought.

       Esme blinked. She opened her mouth to say that that was ridiculous, but she stopped herself. "Y'know, I'd say that's impossible but at this point, I don't know what's possible anymore."

       Steve grinned. "So you think there could be aliens? That's so cool," he said, astonished.

       Esme frowned. "In the hands of that lab? Probably not so cool."

       Steve's face dropped. "Right..."

       That was when it clicked, the idea finally crystallizing in her mind, becoming accessible to her.

       Esme sat up straight.

       Steve flinched next to her. "What? What's up?"

       Esme looked up at him, her yes wide. "I think I know where the gate is." Steve's eyebrows shot up in surprise and intrigue, almost disappearing behind his voluminous hair. Esme took a sip of her coffee and then set the mug down on the windowsill above her, turning in her seat so she was facing Steve, her legs crossed. "Eleven knows where the gate is, right? Otherwise, she couldn't have stopped Anita and the boys from finding it."

       "I guess—"

       "Yes. But — Eleven only knows two places: Mike's basement, and the lab. And because I'm pretty sure that the gate is not in Mike's basement, it has to be in the lab."

       Esme's lips stretched into an almost manic grin. They were finally getting somewhere. They could finally do something to help India, to bring her home.

       Steve, however, didn't look half as excited as she did. "But... If the gate is in the lab, then we can't do anything. It's not like we can just waltz in there and ask to use their portal into another dimension."

       The grin on Esme's lips grew. The frown on Steve's face deepened. "Who said anything about asking?"

       Steve's eyes widened, and it looked like they were bulging out of their sockets. "You want to break into the lab? Are you insane?"

       "It's the only way—!"

       "That lab killed your father!"

       Esme stilled. Her face darkened, and the anger in her stomach flared up. "You think I don't know that?" Her voice was sharp, laced with venom. "But this is the only way to save India, and I will not just wait around until she dies in the Upside Down. I have to do something." Esme stood up, the anger — the rage — gaining control of her once again. She fixed Steve with a withering glance. "I thought you care about India. You said you would do anything for her, and now—"

       "I don't want you to get killed!"

       Esme stopped dead in her tracks. Steve stood up from the floor as well and stepped closer to her, an intense look in his eyes, inscrutable to Esme.

       "That lab is dangerous. You won't get in. You'll just get yourself killed. And I'm not helping you do that," Steve said, his voice firm. Then, his gaze softened. "I want to help India, I really do. But this is not the way to do it. India wouldn't want you to die trying to save her. Would she?"

       Would she?

       The words echoed through her skull, and the red-hot anger that had made her blood boil simmered down, settling in the pit of her stomach. No, she wouldn't, Esme answered silently, in her thoughts. All India ever wanted to do, after that night, was protect her sisters. She was always there for them when one of them had a nightmare again, or when the memories of the Midnight Man were too heavy to bear alone.

       Tears gathered in her eyes, and Esme pressed the palm of her hand against her temple. She just wanted to help India, like she had helped them all the time.

       "I feel so helpless," she whispered.

       Steve nodded. "I know. I do, too."

       A single tear rolled down her cheek as she looked up at him, into his warm brown eyes. "I don't know what to do."

       He hesitated before he said something. "We'll figure something out. Maybe this Eleven girl can help."

       Slowly, Esme nodded.

       Steve gave her a tiny reassuring smile. "India isn't lost yet."

💀

       STEVE HAD LEFT A WHILE LATER. He'd said he wanted to visit Nancy and tell her about everything, since her best friend, Barb, was missing too, and she deserved to know the truth about what was going on. Esme agreed with that. Not knowing was the most painful torture, your mind always trying to piece together what had happened, coming up with the scariest scenarios. Esme knew what that was like; her imagination had a tendency to run wild and paint the most horrendous pictures.

       Now, though, Esme's head was still spinning, her thoughts going round and round in endless circles with Hawkins Lab right in the center. She knew that they were to blame for everything. And they would probably get away with it all — with her dad's death, with opening a portal to another dimension, with letting the Midnight Man back into their world which caused three people to go missing already...

       The anger made her scrub the surface of the kitchen counter even more intensely. Cleaning usually helped her distract herself from her thoughts going down a rabbit hole that she couldn't get out of again, but not today. Today, it was just too much. And Anita wasn't back yet either, so anxiety gnawed at her organs, making her worry more and more with every passing second in which her little sister didn't come home.

       Esme just wanted to forget everything for a moment, all the sadness and anger and desperation. But that wasn't how it worked — the bad things always stayed with you the longest.

       A noise finally managed to tear her out of her spiraling thoughts.

       The bedroom door.

       That was a noise that Esme would recognize anywhere. Something about the clicking of the doorknob and the creaking of the hinges was so familiar that it was ingrained in her brain, and she would probably never forget it. Just like the light footsteps of her mom on the wooden floor.

       Opal Deverell came down the stairs, still dressed in her black dress from the funeral. Just that it didn't look like it did a few hours ago anymore, now it was wrinkled everywhere. And the make-up her mother had been wearing was smeared so that the circles under her eyes looked even darker than they usually did, and the lipstick she'd had on was smudged around her lips. Esme's heart ached to see her like this, so disheveled, not at all like the woman who had always cared to look presentable.

       It seemed like it took a while for Opal to take in her surroundings and to spot Esme in the kitchen. "Esme, sweetheart, what are you doing?" she asked as she sat down at the counter, her eyes wandering around the squeaky clean room.

       "Um..." Esme swallowed, trying to get rid of the lump in her throat. "I'm just cleaning a little."

       Then the scent of alcohol filled her nostrils. The wine her mom had drunk earlier was still with her, surrounding her like a cloud. It made Esme internally wretch.

       "Mom, are you..." She trailed off as she noticed that her mom's eyes were falling shut every few seconds. The alcohol didn't just surround her, it was also still coursing through her system. Esme's stomach twisted into knots. "Maybe you should go to bed, get some sleep. It was a hard day." Opal didn't react. Esme huffed. "Mom."

       Opal flinched, her back immediately straightening. "What? Oh, I'm sorry, sweetheart." Her lips stretched into a sloppy smile. "I think it's great how you take care of everything. I'm proud of you."

       Esme's breath hitched in her throat, and tears gathered in her eyes. So her mom did notice that Esme was doing everything, that she had left all the responsibilities on her daughter's shoulders. And she thought Esme did great. She was proud of her. Couldn't she see that Esme was tired? That it was too much? That she shouldn't leave everything for her daughter to handle? Esme got a bitter taste in her mouth.

       But she didn't say anything. She didn't say that it was all becoming too much.

       Instead, she forced a smile onto her lips, although she wasn't sure that it looked real enough. Her mom didn't seem to notice, though, because she blew her a kiss in response.

       "I'm going to bed now," her mom said. "Good night, Esme."

       "G'night," Esme pressed out quickly, her voice higher than usual.

       Her mom stood up and walked back up the stairs.

       And as soon as she heard the bedroom door close again, Esme let out a shaky breath, and tears rolled down her cheeks. She didn't know how long she could keep going like this. She needed a break. She needed her mom to go back to normal, she needed— She needed her dad. With him, everything would be alright. He would know what to do. He would know how to fix all this.

       But he wasn't here. And he never would be again.

       Because Hawkins Lab had taken him from her.

       The anger in her stomach stirred again.

this was TORTURE to write JESUS CHRIST and i actually don't like how it turned out very much - but steve's inner babysitter is slowly coming out and that was fun to write, also esme and steve co-parenting anita is my new favorite thing

i hope you enjoyed and let me know what you thought!