A/N: Guys, I am so, so sorry for the late ass upload. I've been so busy with this show I'm in. I wish I could say I'll be less busy once it's over, but I just got casted into another show and rehearsals start immediately after this one is done. I also wish I could say this won't ever happen again, but uh... I can't. So sorry, babes. Hope you enjoy this chapter!

Warnings: mentions of blood, guns, violence, death and murder

Word Count: 7226

The storm still raged on in the town, thunder rumbling and crashing outside the bathroom window of the Hargrove-Mayfield residence. Within the bathroom, Eleven stood before the mirror in a striped shirt lended to her for the night by Max. As she brushed her teeth, she let her mind wander against the pitter-pattering of the rain against the window.

"I'm sorry, I did not quite catch your name."

Billy's voice echoed in her head.

El flinched when Billy whirled around to face her, his jaw dropped. Blood-curdling screams sounded from the person on the ground before the both of them vanished.

There was something terribly wrong with him. And not only him, but-

"Help me."

Before El could reply, Heather was yanked back under the ice. She quickly went to go after her, but the tub disappeared, El falling to her knees and panting. When she looked down, Heather was being pulled below the water El always walked on.

"Heather!!!" El cried out, reaching her arm below the water to her.

The depths of the ground deepened the further Heather was dragged, the poor girl uselessly reaching for El. The superpowered girl ducked her head into the water in hopes of reaching her, but that was as far as she could go.

"No!!!" She muffled through the water, bubbles rushing out of her mouth and nostrils.

El hadn't realized her gaze had drifted until she brought it back up to herself in the mirror, staring deeply into her sunken eyes, heavy with fear and exhaustion. In Max's bedroom, said girl sat on her bed with Doc sitting across from her at the foot, a pile of comic books between them. The Wheeler girl had been absently thumbing the corner of one of the volumes of some superhero comic she didn't even read the title of while Max tried to get her attention.

"(Y/N), have you been listening to me?"

Doc snapped her head up with wide eyes. "Y-Yeah."

She narrowed her eyes. "You know, you're a terrible liar when you don't actually want to lie."

"I'm sorry..."

Max tilted her head as her friend deflated before her. "Are you still sad about Will?"

Doc shook her head slowly. "I wish I could be apart of this..."

"Apart of what?"

"Of what El is doing. Finding people, figuring mysterious shit out, you know," She sat back against the pillows propped up behind her. "I just wish I could be helping her. I mean, we used to do this kind of stuff together."

"You can't help it, (Y/N), and it's not your fault," Max reached out and set a hand upon Doc's knee. "And... as long as you're here, then you're just as much apart of this as El is. And I'm sure she's grateful that you're here with her."

Doc tried a small smile as she heard the bedroom door creak open. The both of them turned to see El enter the bedroom slowly, her mind clearly anywhere else as she approached the bed. Excitedly, Max picked up a Wonder Woman comic and a Green Lantern comic, holding them up to El with a grin.

"Which one?"

El joined them in bed with a small shrug. "I don't know."

Slowly setting the comics down, Max looked between her perturbed friends with concern. "Hey... Guys, there's nothing to worry about anymore, okay?"

Doc made eye contact with her sister, the two sharing an anxious look before they both looked back at Max. "It doesn't make sense." El whispered.

"What doesn't make sense?"

"Heather... The blood... The ice."

"Heather had a fever, so she took a cold bath, but she's better now."

Doc furrowed her brows. "You don't actually believe that. I mean, that just... can't be it."

"That has to be it, (Y/N). I don't know where that blood came from, but-"

"Which is exactly why we should be questioning this more-"

"But we saw her. We all saw her. She's totally fine."

"But she wasn't. I know Heather, Max, I've known her for years." Doc sat up. "She doesn't bake, she doesn't bring guys over to meet the parents, and, no offense, but she definitely wouldn't bring Billy. A-And what about him, huh?"

"What about him?"

El widened her eyes. "He seemed wrong."

Max chuckled at that. "Wrong is kind of like his default. But it's nice to know he's not a murderer, because that would've totally sucked. He and Heather probably hit it off at the pool. I mean, they do see each other just about everyday. What if he's just trying to get on the family's good side?"

Doc raised a brow. "Billy? On someone's good side?"

The three broke out into chuckles, the air lifting around them. El let her eyes go to the comics before them and pointed to one of them. "Who... is that?"

Max and Doc shared a wide-eyed look before the former reached out for the book. "See, this is why you can't just hang out with Mike all the time."

El smiled in amusement as Max sat back against her headboard. El rested her head against her shoulder as Doc wiggled between the two of them, laying her head on her sister's stomach. "This is Wonder Woman," Max informed as she began flipping from page to page. "AKA, Princess Diana. She's from Paradise Island, which is, like, this hidden island where there are only women Amazon warriors."

Thunder rumbled along with Max as she explained the story of Wonder Woman. Elsewhere, at the Driscoll residence, police cars and an ambulance truck were parked just outside of it. Within the basement, paramedics were strapping Mrs Driscoll onto the gurney, wrestling with her flailing arms.

"Let me go! Let me go!" She cried.

"Doris, we need you to stay calm for us, okay?" A paramedic spoke as calmly as she could in this situation. "Stay calm-"

"I have to go back!" She screeched. "I have to go back! I have to go back! I have to go back!"

Outside on the porch, Nancy, Jonathan and Officer Callahan stared in shock as the poor old woman was wheeled into the back of the ambulance. "Okay, so," Callahan shakily started. "...you two want to explain to me what in the name of Jesus just happened here?"

Within the truck, Doris struggled against her bindings as she groaned into the ventilator mask on her face. Then, as if she could sense it, her muffled groans turned to screeches as she freed her arm, reaching it towards nothing. To anyone else, it looked as if she were reaching out for thin air. But Doris knew. She may not have been able to see it, but she knew where she needed to go as the truck sped past the abandoned warehouse.

The Brimborn Steelworks warehouse.

Deep within, Tom Hollowway snapped his eyes open. Through the darkness, he couldn't make out exactly where he was, but something was for certain, he couldn't move or speak. He leaned forward and strained against the rope binding his wrists and ankles together, groaning and huffing past the gag in his mouth.

"Tom!"

At his muffled name, he turned to see his wife in the same state as him, already awake. The two stared at each other, relieved that the other was still alive, but both began sobbing at the situation they found themselves in.

"Daddy!"

He craned his neck to see his sweet little Brenda on the other side of Janet, bound and gagged and sporting a bruise on her forehead. Her face was stained with tears and she shook like an autumn leaf on a tree branch. His poor little girl was frightened out of her mind.

And frankly, so was he.

He snapped his head to the other side of the dark room at the sound of echoing footsteps. At the sight of his eldest being followed in by Billy, he whimpered and kicked his feet. Heather tilted her head as she came to a stop in front of him.

"Hi, Daddy."

Tears welled up in his eyes as she knelt before him. He could have been fooling himself, but just before she reached out for the gag, he thought he saw a flicker of emotion in her blank stare and a twitch in her brows, but it was gone before he could ponder it any further. As soon as she removed the gag from his mouth, he tried to get through to her.

"Heather... sweetie..." He rasped, risking a glance at Billy. He looked just as dead inside as she did, absolutely no sympathy, doubt or remorse in his face. Terrified even more, he looked back to his daughter. "...whatever this is, whatever he's got you into, you don't have to do this. You can stop this."

Heather blankly blinked. "There is no stopping it, Daddy. You'll see."

He leaned into her hand that gently cupped his cheek. "No." He sadly whispered as she rose to her feet and walked away. He watched as Billy knelt before the sobbing Janet and removed her gag. As soon as she was able to talk, she did.

"Heather, please! Heather!"

But Billy placed his thumb over her lips. "Try not to move."

As he stood again, Heather knelt down in front of her little sister, who stared at her with big, teary eyes. Even as she removed the gag, their eyes hadn't left each other. Brenda couldn't understand it.

Just yesterday morning, the two of them were arguing about who got to use the shower first. And then they were giggling and laughing at breakfast as if none of that mattered. Because it didn't. They were sisters, they were supposed to argue over small and insignificant things only to make up not too long afterwards. But this person before her, the person who chased her throughout their house, the person who harmed their parents and chloroformed her, herself... was not her sister.

"Heather... Please..." She was momentarily silenced when her sister placed her index finger over her lips, but Brenda shook her head away. "Heather! Look at me! Please, don't hurt us, please! I love you so much! I'm sorry that I'm a brat to you sometimes and that I always ask for rides to the mall! But I would never do anything like this to you! You're my favorite person in the whole world, please! Please, please, don't hurt me!"

At the sound of Brenda's gut-wrenching, heart-twisting sobs, the hold loosened. Just a bit. For just a moment, Heather could feel something. She didn't want this. This was Brenda, her baby sister. Her only sister. Her best friend.

She remembered receiving the news that she was going to have a new little sibling in her life. And at first, she was jealous of the lack of attention she would receive from her parents, but as soon as baby Brenda was carefully placed into her arms, Heather was happier than ever to have someone new to love. As much as she didn't show it sometimes, Brenda was her everything.

She was at least glad that she could remember the last time she told her little sister that she loved her. It was the morning before she left for her last shift at the pool. There was a gorgeous gold necklace she owned that Brenda had been eyeing for months. Everytime she asked for it, Heather rudely shut her down, annoyed at her sister's tendencies to want every bit of anything she owned. But to be truthful, Heather hardly ever wore the thing.

When she gave the necklace to her, the light in Brenda's eyes brightened and her grin widened. Heather had smiled when Brenda squealed out an 'I love you', and she echoed it to her before walking out the front door.

Heather reached out a hand and gently cupped her sister's face, thumb running along her cheekbone. "Brenda..." She gasped out, blinking slowly as her brows furrowed. "I..."

"I love you." Brenda tearfully whispered.

"I-I..."

"Heather."

At Billy's voice, Heather's stare went blank, her brows relaxed, and her hand fell away. Brenda inhaled deeply as she watched her sister rise to her feet and step back. "Heather... Heather, wait."

"No." Janet whimpered as the two began up the stairs. "No..."

"Heather!" Tom howled, thrashing against his restraints. "Heather!"

The sound of snarling and chittering from the other side of the room silenced the three. They immediately whipped their heads over to the source of the noise, finding a dimly lit void before them.

That was, until a roaring silhouette stepped closer to them. The six-legged, slimy and fleshy beast stepped out into the light with heavy footsteps.

"Jesus Christ.''

The closer it got, the deeper their hearts and stomachs sank. Janet and Brenda shrieked and whimpered pathetically behind Tom as he kicked out his feet in an attempt to scoot away, but to no avail. The monster stomped closer and closer to them, leaving wet footprints in its wake. He expected the creature to pounce on them, so when it stopped just a few feet from them, Tom now expected the worst.

"No-!"

His protests were cut off when a fleshy tentacle shot out and attached it to his face, his head moving back and forth as some sort of substance was shoved into his mouth. Janet screamed in horror as Brenda wailed in despair.

"Daddy!"

Another tentacle sprung up and shot out to Janet, silencing her screams.

"Mommy!"

Brenda violently thrashed against her restraints with horrified hollers and wild kicking. "No, no! God, no! Heather! Heather, please! Heather, help-"

A third tentacle attached itself to her face, leaving her eyes free to watch as it pumped a sludge-like substance into her mouth and down her throat. She was given no room to cry, to shout, or even to breathe as a sort of evil filled her body. She could feel it. It was cold, it was empty, it was dark.

And all she could do was watch as she and her parents were forced into that evil.

-------------------------------------------------

    "Do you copy? This is a code red."

Forgotten comic books littered Max's bedroom floor surrounding her bed that the three girls had fallen asleep on, Doc squished between the two of them.

    "I repeat, this is a code red."

Max tiredly huffed and turned to the voice over the walkie that lay on the floor.

    "Max. Do you copy? This is a code red."

With a scoff, she scooped up her walkie and held it to her mouth. "Shut. Up." She silenced Lucas's voice before slamming down the antenna, shutting off the device and throwing it down. She was basically back to sleep as she turned back towards her friends, returning to her rightful spot, tucked right into Doc, who was tucked into Eleven.

"Was that Lucas?" Doc whispered.

"Yes. Don't worry about it."

Within the Wheeler basement, the boys all stared at each other with wide eyes. "She turned it off." Lucas informed.

Half a minute later and the landline was ringing in Max's room. She shot upright with a clenched jaw. "You've got to be kidding me." She hissed and threw the blankets off of her, marching over to the phone and picking it up. "I'm sleeping. Go away."

    "This is Mike. Do not hang up." The Wheeler boy's voice halted her from slamming the phone down. "Something happened, something bad. Our very lives can be at stake."

"What are you talking about?"

    "Just come over to my house. We'll explain everything."

"What?"

    "Hurry."

At the sound of the dial tone, she slowly hung up and turned to her friends, who were sleepily peering up at her. "What did he say?" El questioned as Doc rubbed at her eye.

Mike turned away from his landline and to Lucas. "Try Dustin again."

"He's not answering."

"So, try him again."

Inhaling deeply, Lucas held his walkie to his mouth. "Dustin, do you copy? I repeat, this is a code red."

But Dustin remained completely oblivious to his friends' desperate attempts at reaching him. He was stationed on the roof of the mall as he was the night before, binoculars enhancing his view of the delivery men wheeling in boxes into a room an armed guard had given them access to. After collecting this information, he disappeared from the roof and to Scoops Ahoy to relay it to his colleagues.

"That keycard opens the door, but unfortunately, the Russian with the keycard also had a massive gun. Whatever's in this room, whatever's in those boxes, they really don't want anybody finding it."

"But there's gotta be a way in." Robin shook her head.

"Well, you know..." Steve spoke across from the table, tossing his sailor hat down and leaning forward. "...I could just take him out."

Robin rapidly blinked. "Take who out?"

"The Russian guard." At her sarcastic look of shock, he shrugged. "What? I sneak up behind him, I knock him out, and I take his keycard. It's easy."

Dustin raised his brows. "Did you not hear the part about the massive gun?"

"Yes, Dustin, I did. And that's why I would be sneaking."

"Ah. Well, please, tell me this, and be honest, have you ever actually... won a fight?"

"Okay, that was one time-"

"Twice. Jonathan. Year prior?"

"Listen, that doesn't count."

"Why wouldn't it count? Because it looks like he beat the shit out of you."

"Yeah, it was a- It was a bunch of things-"

"You got a fat lip, crooked nose-"

"-kinda in a flurry that all added up-"

"-swollen eye, a lot of blood-"

Their banter was interrupted when Robin hopped from her seat and swiped up her backpack, heading to the front of the store. When she grabbed the dollar bills from the tip jar and rushed from behind the counter, that was when Steve rushed out of the breakroom.

"Robin. Hey, Robin! Hey, what- what are you doing?"

She turned to him, still continuing her way out of the parlor. "I need cash."

"Well, half of that's mine. Where're you going?"

"To find a way into that room, a safe way. And in the meantime, sling ice cream, behave, and don't get beat up. I'll be back in a jiff."

Silently sighing, Steve turned his head to find Dustin licking an ice cream scooper that had been left in one of the tubs. "Oh, dude." He groaned and snatched it from him, twirling it and pocketing it. "Come on, man, not my scooper."

Downtown, at The Hawkins Post, Nancy and Jonathan sat outside their boss's office with looks of dread. The both of them stared forward to the other side of the office where Bruce stood in front of a filing cabinet. As soon as he caught them staring at him, he let a sly smile spread across his face before stretching his tie upwards to act as a noose, mimicking choking noises past a laugh. The two could only glare at him with annoyed headshakes.

Suddenly, the door to the office opened with Officer Callahan exiting. "Dunno if they'll go through with it or not, but I just thought you should know." He spoke before walking past the two teens with pursed lips. A few seconds later, Tom Holloway stepped out.

His entire body was stiff, sweat shining on his cheekbones. It was only then that they noticed the bandage on his forehead. "Nancy." He gave them a look as he stepped back in. "Jonathan."

At first, the two didn't know what to expect. They sat before Tom's desk, the man standing with his sweat-stained back to them and his hands on his hips. They gave each other the occasional worried glance, but that was all they could do until he made the first move.

"I've worked at this paper for twenty-five years." He turned back to them. "Twenty-five... years. Now, we're a small-town paper, but we have something the big papers don't have: trust. The trust of our community."

"Tom, if you just-"

"Do you know how I built that trust?!" He raised his voice and kicked his chair to the side, silencing Nancy and causing her and Jonathan to stare at him in shock. "By placing my faith in something the two of you don't seem to value a whole lot: Facts. Facts. "So, while we're here, let's go over the facts.

"Fact one: You disobeyed a direct order to stop pursuing this story. Two: You falsely identified yourselves as reporters, repeatedly lying to an elderly woman. Three: You broke into her home, committing trespass. Four: She almost died en route to the hospital."

"She would've died if we hadn't shown up!" Nancy angrily blurted out. "Whatever disease that rat had clearly passed to her-"

"Five! Mrs Driscoll is a paranoid schizophrenic!"

The two went into a silent shock.

"You didn't know that, did you? Now..." He weakly chuckled. "...disease-carrying rats? The second coming of the plague? Does this sound credible to you, or perhaps does this sound more like the delusions of a very sick old lady?"

"I didn't know that." Nancy forced out.

"Her family's furious. So furious, in fact, they've threatened litigation."

Jonathan frowned. "Litigation?"

Nancy gaped. "That's crazy."

"For once, we agree." Tom raised his brows. "This is crazy. In fact, in my entire professional career, I've never dealt with anything quite like it. But hopefully..." He calmly took a seat in his chair across from them. "Hopefully, you've learned something valuable here. You've learned... how in the workplace, in the real world, there are consequences to your actions. Which brings me to my sixth and final... fact."

They stared down, bracing for impact.

"You're fired."

Nancy looked up to find his gaze on her, dreading the way it slid over to her boyfriend.

"Both of you."

-------------------------------------------------

"I didn't think it was anything at first."

Now within the Wheeler basement sat the boys and the girls around the coffee table. Will sat on a stool, Mike and Lucas on the couch on his left, El in a rocking chair and Max on the floor on his right, and Doc in the armchair across from him. He was currently explaining what Mike explained as "bad" over the phone.

"I mean, I think I just didn't want to believe it. The first time I felt it was at Day of the Dead.

In the theaters, the crowd erupted into cheers when the projector came to life and brought their movie back to them. Unlike everyone else, though, Will's smile began to fade. That presence, though Doc couldn't feel it, was still there. And he could definitely feel it. His body stiffened as he reached a hand to graze the goosebumps formed on the back of his neck.

"Power went out that night, too." Mike added.

"And I felt it again at the field near the Nelson farm the next day."

At first, it was the goosebumps. He reached behind his neck to feel the prickling there. But that presence that he felt at the mall was back. It had never really left, it just lingered all the other times. Now, though, it was here with them. It was somewhere hiding within the grass or maybe it was right in front of him and he just couldn't see it.

"Then again yesterday outside Castle Byers."

Will flinched at the prickling of goosebumps at the back of his neck. He straightened in his spot and brushed his fingers over the bumps. Immediately, he was on his feet, eyes darting from place to place to find who was there, what was there. The rain forgotten, the heartbreak forgotten, his friends forgotten. Something was here.

"Will!"

Doc swallowed. She felt horrible. Two out of the three times he felt this, she was around him. She either was too blind to see what was tormenting her boyfriend, or she forced herself not to see it in place of comfortability. Either way, she was understanding more and more of Will was trying to tell her about herself.

"What does it feel like?" Max asked, bringing her back into the conversation.

"It's almost like..." He paused for a moment to think. "You know when you drop on a roller coaster?"

Everyone nodded.

"Sure."

"Yeah."

"No." El shook her head.

"It's like... everything inside your body is just sinking all at once, but... this is worse. Your body... it goes cold and- and you can't breathe."

"Goosebumps across your skin?" Doc caught his attention, the two of them looking at each other for the first time that day. Her eyes were wide and swam with horror. "Hairs standing all around your body?"

Will slowly nodded.

She nodded back. "Yeah, I've felt it, too. In the past. Whenever he was close."

The hairs at the back of Doc's neck stood and goosebumps pricked her skin. Her stomach dropped and turned as she felt a looming presence behind her. Slowly turning around, she came face-to-face with Will's shadow monster. It towered over her, the girl needing to crane her neck up and lean back a bit to see it in its entirety. Although, there wasn't much to observe since it was mostly a silhouette. It still managed to look frightening, though.

"Whenever who was close?" Max questioned, earning an answer in unison from the both of them.

"The Mind Flayer."

Everything was darker, colder, wrong. But that wasn't what frightened Doc the most. It was a darkness, a shadow that rushed around past her and to Will. It entered him through his mouth, through his ears, through his nostrils, through his eyes. She didn't know what to do, she couldn't do anything, too frozen in fear. Will could do nothing but stare at her with wide, haunted eyes.

The room fell into silence for a few moments with the Party staring around in fear, of what was possibly to come, of what they wouldn't have wanted to believe.

"I closed the gate." El reminded.

"I know, but..." Will's voice caught in his throat and Doc wanted so badly to reach out for him, to set a comforting hand upon his. "...what if he never left? What if we locked him out here with us?"

Without a word, Doc stood from the chair, smoothing out her yellow mini skirt that clung to her waist with her same-colored belt. She silently walked over to a shelf on the other side of the room and retrieved a box of drawing paper and charcoal. "Show us." She set the box on the table, locking eyes with Will. "Show us exactly what you mean. Please."

In an instant, Will was on his feet and rushing over to her, the rest following him. Doc quickly handed him the charcoal and slammed a piece of paper on the table. Will immediately got to work, scribbling down a spider-like figure that Doc recognized as the Mind Flayer.

"This is him. All of him. But, that day on the field, a part of him attached itself to me."

He swiped his hand across the drawing, smearing it and leaving black smudge on his palm. He lifted it for them to see and understand.

"(Y/N) got it out of me..."

Will and Doc's screams filled the room as the dark entity flooded out of every place in the boy's face it had entered before.

"...and Eleven closed the gate."

Eleven was still pushing the Mind Flayer back, her screams never ceasing until it was back on the other side and the crack in the wall was completely sealed, leaving them in darkness.

Will flipped the paper over to its blank side. "But the part that was still in me, what if it's still in our world?"

It swirled up to the ceiling as a way to collect itself, and when it was done, it bolted out of the cabin, crashing through the door. Nancy followed after it to see where it was heading to, but it only disappeared into the sky and vanished into thin air.

He stamped his hand on the paper to leave a faint black print on the paper. "In Hawkins."

Max shook her head. "I don't understand. The Demodogs died when El closed the gate. If the brain dies, the body dies."

"We can't take any chances," Mike looked up at her. "We need to assume the worst. The Mind Flayer's back."

Doc felt her head to steady her dizzy vision. "That means he'll find someone new to attach himself to."

"A new me." Will nodded.

"A new host." Lucas whispered.

El looked up at the two with the Mind Flayer expertise. "How can you tell if someone is a host?"

Will and Doc both visibly swallowed as they looked to each other.

Elsewhere, Jonathan sped down the road away from his former employer. His gaze trained forward because, if he was being honest, he couldn't even look at Nancy. No matter how hard he tried to dissuade her, she continued to put their jobs in jeopardy. And what was even worse, he let her do it. Though, when he really thought about it, Nancy was going to pursue the Driscoll story with or without his help. He just wanted to be by her side for it. He sees now where that mindset got him.

"It's bullshit." Nancy ranted, failing to notice who Jonathan's rage was directed to. "So, according to Tom, Driscoll's just a schizophrenic? And that rat is just a rat? And it's all, what, some big coincidence?" She rolled her eyes before turning to him with wide eyes. "You know what I think? I think Tom was on drugs."

He whipped his head to her, narrowed eyes glistening with unshed tears. "What?"

"Did you see him? He was sweating like crazy. And his palms were clammy. He looked awful." She paused at Jonathan's smirk, his headshake, his quiet chuckle. "Oh, is this funny to you?"

"No. No, it's just kind of incredible."

"Incredible?"

"Yeah, incredible how you just continue to convince yourself."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I told you over and over to drop this story. That it was a bad idea. But you refused, and now, I'm screwed."

Nancy scoffed and propped her elbow beside the window, resting her head in her hand. "It's a summer job. Your life is hardly over."

"I don't live in a two-story house on Maple Street," He explained, causing her to lift her head. "My dad doesn't earn six figures. Hell, he isn't even around."

"God, here comes the Oliver Twist routine."

But he just continued. "Mortgage, college tuition. You know, they're real things, Nancy. Things that you don't care about, only because you don't have to."

"I didn't realize I lived in a bubble!" She snapped.

"Well, you do!" He snapped right back. "You want everything handed to you on a silver platter. I mean, we were interns, Nancy! Interns! What did you expect, that you would make star reporter in a month? Crack the big case?"

"You sound just like them. You realize that, right? Just like Bruce and those assholes-"

"Yeah, yeah, those assholes gave us jobs."

A fire surged in her as tears lined her eyes. "Is that what that was?! That was humiliating!Humiliating!"

"Yeah, the real world sucks. Deal with it like the rest of us."

She turned to him with a dropped jaw, tears of betrayal glossing her eyes.

"You don't know what it's like."

He clenched his jaw and tightened his grip on the wheel.

"Neither do you."

She huffed out an exhale and stared out her window, a chill settling in the car despite the summer heat.

"Well, then, I guess we just don't understand each other anymore."

He raised his brows as the tension between them thickened.

"Yeah, I guess not."

And that was the end of any conversation for the remainder of the car ride. Nancy scooted as far as possible from Jonathan and stared out the window to avoid getting even a glance at him. As soon as the car stopped in front of her house, she and her box of belongings were out and into her home.

When Karen heard the opening of the front door, she turned off the vacuum and looked up to see Nancy entering with a box in her hands. "Hey, you're home early." She called out.

"Uh, yeah," Her voice shook as she climbed up the stairs. "Light day."

Had she not been attentive, Karen wouldn't have caught the faint sniffle from Nancy as she disappeared up the stairs. She loved her children, she did, but if there was one thing they had in common, it was their stubbornness and determination to hide their feelings from her. And she hated that. She wanted to be a support system for them, she wanted them to come to her when they felt they needed her.

And right now, Nancy needed her mother.

-------------------------------------------------

Robin set out a blueprint of the Starcourt Mall layout onto the breakroom table. "It is fascinating what twenty bucks will get you at the County Recorder's Office. Starcourt Mall. The complete blueprints."

"Not bad." Dustin smiled in approval.

"So, this is us, Scoops," She pointed to a certain point on the map before moving her finger towards the top. "And this is where we want to get."

Steve scanned the layout. "I mean, I don't really see a way in."

"There's not," She removed the paper to reveal an even more detailed layout, including the vents. "If you're talking exclusively about doors."

Dustin gaped up at her. "Air ducts."

"Exactly." Robin grinned and strode to the board of Russian translation to retrieve a marker before returning to them. "Turns out, this secret room needs air just like any old room. And these air ducts lead all the way..." She circled their intended destination before drawing a pathway to their location and circling that as well. "...here."

The three looked up at the vent in the top left corner of the back wall. It wasn't long before Steve had screwed off the vent, screwdriver between his teeth. He switched the metal with Dustin for a flashlight and shone it into the space with furrowed brows. "Yeah, I don't know, man. I don't know if you can fit in here. It's, like, uh... super tight."

"I'll fit." Dustin smirked as Steve stepped down the ladder and handed the light to him. "Trust me. No collarbones, remember?"

"Uh, excuse me?"

Steve hopped off the ladder and turned to address Robin's concern as Dustin began his ascension up the ladder. "Oh, he's uh... Yeah, he's got some disease. Chry, uh... It's chrydo, um... Something. Yeah, I dunno. He's missing bones and stuff. He can bend like Gumbo."

"You mean Gumby."

"I'm pretty sure it's Gumbo."

Dustin, already halfway into the vent, shouted down, "Steve, just shut up and push me!"

"Okay. I'll push ya." He rolled his eyes and stepped onto the ladder, taking Dustin's feet and pushing the bottom of them.

"Not my feet, dumbass. Push my ass."

"What?"

"Touch my butt! I don't care!"

Robin watched with narrowed eyes as Steve shoved Dustin by his rear, not making much of a difference.

"Come on! Harder!"

"I'm pushing!"

"Push harder!"

Then she watched as Steve propped Dustin's shins on one shoulder and stepped higher onto the ladder, continuing to shove his rear.

"You're playing with my legs."

"I'm not playing, I have terrible footing."

"Come on!"

She shook her head as Steve held Dustin's feet with one hand and his knees with another.

"I'm gonna shove you, ready?"

"You're gonna shove me?"

"One, two..." Steve attempted to shove him again.

"Shit!"

"That work?"

"One more time."

At the sound of the service bell, Robin turned and looked out the half-open sliding window to see Scoops Ahoy's favorite regular.

"Ahoy, sailors! All hands on deck!" Erica sarcastically greeted and repeatedly hit her hand against the bell. "Ahoy! Come on. Get over here and serve me some samples."

Robin smirked. That might just work.

Meanwhile, at the public pool, children splashed about, parents sunbathed, teens clung to their cliques. There was no trace of the raging storm that occurred just the day before, releasing the pool's regulars back into its fenced walls.

On the other side of that fence was El, Mike, Max, Lucas, Doc and Will, stationed behind a car, their bikes on the ground behind them. Max held a pair of binoculars up to her eyes to watch a certain lifeguard on duty.

Billy sat perched upon his throne, but not in his usual royal attire. Instead, he sported a white long-sleeve with a towel thrown over his legs. A baseball cap was tugged on his head and a pair of shades blocked his eyes from the sun, aiding the umbrella in its shading. To top it all off, he was currently eating some ice straight from a cup.

"I don't know," She shrugged. "He looks pretty normal to me."

"Normal?" Lucas raised his brows. "How many times have you seen him with a shirt on?"

She jutted out her bottom lip in thought. "I mean, it's a little weird."

"More than a little." Mike chimed in. "He was in a tub with ice. The Mind Flayer likes it cold. Plus everything El saw-"

"But he's lounging at the pool, which is, like, the least Mind Flayer thing ever."

"Not necessarily."

Everyone turned to Will with furrowed brows.

"The Mind Flayer likes to hide. He only used me when he needed me. It's like... like you're dormant. And then, when he needs you..."

Doc slowly reached out to touch Will's shoulder. She opened her mouth to speak, but Will had harshly flinched and smacked her hand away just as her fingertips brushed his shoulder. All three of them froze, Mike and Doc staring at Will with startled looks. Will had only been glaring at Doc, offended.

She and Will shared a look before they both looked to Billy.

"...you're activated."

Max nodded. "Okay, so we just... wait until he gets activated."

But Doc shook her head. "No, he could hurt someone."

"Or kill someone." Will added.

"We can't take that chance." Mike kept his stare on the lifeguard. "We need to find out if he's the host." And with that, he pushed off the car and jogged away.

"Where are you going?" El called out.

"I have an idea. Boys only."

"Seriously?" Max frowned.

"Just trust me on this one!"

The three girls sighed as the boys hurried away from the car and into the men's locker room. Mike led his friends past half-naked bodies towards the gym. "Okay, so we wait until the pool closes, until everyone leaves, and we somehow get him to come from here and..." He opened the door to the gym, leading them towards the sauna. "...get him into here."

Without thinking, Mike threw open the door, revealing five sweaty men with towels covering their lower halves, all glaring at the three of them.

"Hey, shut the door!"

"Hey, come on, kid, shut it!"

Disgusted, Mike slammed the door shut and turned to his friends, who both matched his expression.

"I think I just threw up in my mouth." Lucas grimaced before Mike turned to the thermostat that controlled the temperature of the sauna.

"And look, the controls are right here. It's perfect."

"Will it get hot enough?" Will questioned.

"Two hundred and twenty degrees." Mike read the maximum temperature before peering into the window of the sauna, making sure to avoid the men. "We just have to figure out how to get him in here."

"Then we lock him in..." Will nodded.

"Heat him up..." Lucas nodded back.

"No matter what happens, we'll know." Mike nodded as well. "We'll know for sure."

-------------------------------------------------

After briefly inspecting the vent, Erica stepped off the ladder and turned to the trio before her. "Yeah, I don't know."

"You don't know if you can fit?" Dustin asked.

"Oh, I can fit. I just don't know if I want to."

Steve rolled his eyes as Robin raised her brows at the Sinclair child. "Are you claustrophobic?"

"I don't have phobias." She snickered.

"Okay, well, what's the problem?" Steve questioned.

"The problem is, I still haven't heard what's in this for Erica."

After some careful crafting, Steve was pushing a banana split across the table of one of the booths, adding to Erica's collection of frozen treats before her. She gave the split one look before pushing it back to him.

"More fudge, please." She watched Steve stare at the split for a moment before she waved her hand dismissively. "Go on."

With not a word of protest, Steve picked up the float and sulked away. Robin watched him go for a second before picking up the more detailed blueprint and presenting it to the girl. "Alright. You see this? This is the route you're gonna take." She moved her finger along the pathway she drew. "Then we just wait til the last delivery goes out tonight. Then you knock out the grate, jump down, open the door."

"Then you find out what's in those boxes?" Erica unenthusiastically asked as she dug into her dessert.

"Exactly."

She hummed. "And you say this guard is armed."

Dustin slowly smiled out of reassurance. "Yes, but he won't be there."

"And booby traps?"

Robin gained an amused glint in her eye. "Booby traps?"

"Lasers, spikes in the wall?"

She smiled. "What?"

Unamused with her amusement, Erica turned to Dustin. "You know what this half-baked plan of yours sounds like to me? Child endangerment."

"We'll be in radio contact with you the whole time-"

"Ah, ah, ah!" She silenced Robin. "Child. Endangerment."

Dustin silently sighed. "Erica?" He gained her attention. "Hi. Uh... We think these Russians want to do harm to our country. Great harm. Don't you love your country?"

She picked up her rootbeer float with a smirk. "You can't spell 'America' without 'Erica'."

As she loudly slurped on her float, Dustin looked off into space, coming to the strange realization that you, in fact, could not spell 'America' without 'Erica'. He slowly nodded. "Uh... y-yeah, yeah. Oddly, that's uh, totally true. So- So, don't do this for us. Do it for your country. Do it for your fellow man. Do this for America... Erica."

She finally let up on the slurping with a shiver. "Ooh! I just got the chills." She grinned, earning one from Dustin as well before she dropped the expression. "Oh, yeah, from this float, not your speech." She prided herself in how fast his smile faded. "You know what I love most about this country? Capitalism. Do you know what capitalism is?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

Despite Dustin and Robin's knowledge, she continued. "It means this is a free market system. Which means people get paid for their services, depending on how valuable their contributions are. And it seems to me, my ability to fit into that little vent is very, very valuable to you all."

Dustin and Robin shared a look.

"So, you want my help? This USS Butterscotch better be the first of many. And I'm talking, free ice cream... For. Life."

Erica made sure to emphasize her point by plucking up a cheery, biting it off, and flicking away the stem.