— CHAPTER 22 —
THE GATE

( trigger warning: violence, mentions of abusive behaviour )

MONDAY 5th NOVEMBER,
1984

"ELEVEN?"

A voice utters the name behind Cath, right after the sound of a candlestick clattering to the carpet. Through what feels like suspended space and time, she feels Mike's shoulder brush hers as he walks forward, arms hanging limply at his sides. Almost instantly, Eleven's expression floods with emotion — her eyes well with tears, completely ignorant of the blood trickling from her nose.

"Mike..." she chokes out.

Her voice is deeper, Cath can only find herself thinking. Her voice is deeper.

     She doesn't understand. Eleven is dead. They watched her sacrifice herself for them.

She feels like she's watching a scene from a movie. Mike walks forward and they practically collapse into each other's arms, holding on so tight in the fear they might let go again. Eleven's face is buried in his shoulder for a moment, sniffling through half-smiles until they break away again, still gripping each other's arms.

     "Is that...?" Max whispers, about the much-prophesied Eleven, and the other two boys nod.

     It really is her.

Cath has so many questions. How? When? Why? It still has yet to hit her, her jaw dropped as her vision goes misty.

"I never gave up on you," Mike blurts out all at once. "I called you every day... every day, for—"

"353 days," Eleven whispers back. "... I heard."

     Cath thinks of the other day, when she accidentally tuned into Mike's walkie — had Eleven really been listening all those days? But why, and for how long? Was she alright all this time? The question seems to stump him, too. She watches Mike stagger back a little, shoulders tensing from the back as he stares at her. "But... why– why didn't you tell me you were there? That you were okay?"

     "Because I wouldn't let her."

     Hopper's voice hits the room like a bomb. Everyone seems taken aback at first, wondering what he means by that. How does he know? Lowering his gun, his heavy boots pace over to the girl as he gruffly asks her, "The hell is this? Where've you been?"

     "Where've you been?" Eleven fires back. But her anger subsides as soon as Hopper pulls her into an embrace with one arms, shutting her eyes peacefully. Suddenly it all falls into place — where she has been for the last year, why she is safe and here today, and why all they were greeted with was silence. From the sidelines, Mike watches the scene, and Cath swears she watches something snap in him.

     "You've been hiding her... you've been hiding her this whole time!" Mike declares, thudding his body hard against the brick wall of a Police Chief. It barely makes a dent, but his standing is clear — he has been a ticking time bomb for 353 days, and at last he is about to blow.

     "Hey! Let's talk... alone," Hopper snaps, holding the boy by his shirt for a second.

     Mike snarls at him, jaw trembling as his face contorts with fury. The hot-headed pair disappear down the hallway, everyone listening as their footsteps echo into Will's bedroom. Before the door closes, they hear Mike's furious "Protecting her? PROTECTING HER?!" before the conversation becomes muffled behind the wood. For a few moments, everyone stands in awe of what the hell just happened in the last sixty seconds —

     Although she has a million questions, Cath forgets them all when she looks at Eleven again. Finally it hits her for real, and the frying pan clangs loudly onto the carpet. Her vision foggy with tears, she rushes forward in the blur and throws her arms around Eleven. She wants to memorise every part of the new her. She's a little taller than last year; they both are. When her hand goes to touch the back of her head, she finds the greased-back hair instead of the buzzcut.

     "I don't! I don't understand!"

     "That's fine. That's fine! Just do not blame HER, alright? She's upset enough as it is."

     "I don't blame her, I blame YOU! I blame YOU!"

     Mike's voice screams from the room down the hallway. It's faint, but clearly audible as Hopper starts raising his voice too. It has truly reached boiling point, the year's worth pent-up frustration exploding through the seams. Cath flinches at the severity of the argument, and feels Eleven tense in her embrace too. It's hard not to listen to it, but she tries her best to distract the girl. But when she pulls away and smiles through her tears at El, it only takes a split second to remember how relieved and overwhelmed she is all over again.

    "I can't believe... it– it's you," Cath whispers, shaking her head.

     "It's me," El shrugs through her tears.

     She reaches out and massages the hair growing at the nape of her neck. "And your hair... it's grown."

     "I know. Maybe you can braid it."

     "When it's a little longer, yes. We have so much to do... so much..." Cath replies happily. El squeezes her hand, and suddenly there seems to be a whole new world of opportunity ahead —

     "No, nothing about this is okay! Nothing about this is OKAY!"

     Both of them wince a little and bow their heads as they hear a thump from inside the room, which soon merges with a chorus of Hopper barking at Mike to "Stop, just stop!" with whatever he's doing, while the boy just screams over and over:

     "YOU STUPID, DISGUSTING LIAR! YOU PIECE OF SHIT!! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR..."

     The voice suddenly goes quiet after letting out a strangled squeak, and Cath wonders what happened for a moment. Then, while the others in the group don't seem to hear it, the tiniest sound of muffled sobs travels to her ears. Mike. The dust settling after the explosion. It makes her heart grow heavy with the reminder simply of the toll this has had on everyone — they are all a little bit broken and barely glued together, after what happened in '83. God knows what they'll be like after this. But maybe, just maybe, so long as they're together everything will be alright.

     Still, there is something Cath has to confess.

     "I'm so sorry I didn't do anything to save you that night," she blurts out. "I could've stopped you, or we could have distracted the demogorgon more. And I-I'm so sorry you had to be on your own all this time—"

     "It was my choice," Eleven quickly interrupts her, in fuller sentences than she could speak a year ago. "I did it for my... my friends."

     Cath lets out a shaky exhale, reeling with the forgiveness she was secretly always hoping for. She just never expected she would get it face-to-face from Eleven herself. Before they can have a longer moment, a pubescent voice from behind cracks excitedly as he says: "You crazy son of a bitch, you're alive!!" Moments later, Dustin and Lucas crash into the hug, bringing Cath into the group as well. The four of them laugh together as their warmth radiates through each other.

     When they finally break away, Lucas tells her, "We missed you."

     "I missed you too," Eleven replies. It clearly means a lot to her, considering her rocky start with Lucas.

     "We talked about you pretty much every day," says Dustin nostalgically.

     As he's saying this, El's eyes widen with serious fascination. Without warning, she reaches her hand out and claps her fingers around Dustin's (new) front teeth. When he jerks away, she simply retracts her hand but keeps staring.

     "Teeth."

     "What?"

     "You have teeth."

     "Oh. You like these pearls?" Dustin grins, and then purrs loudly like a cat. Eleven immediately steps back, almost frightened by the noise — Cath can't say she doesn't feel the same way herself.

     Behind them, Max steps forward with admiration in her eyes and offers her hand to shake. "Hey. Um, I'm Max," she introduces herself eagerly, "I've heard a lot about you..."

     What happens next is the worst case of secondhand agony Cath has felt. El stares at Max's hand, sighs and brushes straight past it without eye contact to reunite emotionally with Joyce instead. It leaves Max in a handshake with empty space, looking dejected and honestly a little broken-hearted. Cath knows that feeling all too well. She tries to shoot her a sympathetic look, as if to say: She'll warm up to you eventually. Even if Max isn't so sure, she seems to appreciate it.

     To Daphne, Thomas whispers: "Is that... the girl?"

     She nods, just as she gives Eleven a quick hug herself. The man silently absorbs this fact, now having known everything she has done for his children and the town. He simply manages an awkwardly curt nod, to which El just stares blankly in response.

"Can I see him?" Eleven turns and asks Joyce.

A few moments later, the girl is stood solemnly over an unconscious Will Byers; sedated in the shed before the Shadow Monster could make him do even worse. He and El have a history together, even if this is their first time standing in the same room. She found him in the void when all hope seemed lost. Eleven looks over him with the same detached care, as if to say: You don't know me, but I'm here. I'm here.

     "He's not doing well," Joyce frowns at his pale complexion.

     "I know," replies Eleven. "I saw."

     "What else did you see? You opened this gate before, right?"

     "Yes."

     "Do you think if we got you back there, that you could close it?"

     Eleven swallows thickly, staring at Joyce with a heavy stare. She doesn't seem like she's sure, but she will be damned if she doesn't try.

     Soon the whole group is gathered in the kitchen again, including Hopper and Mike — whatever happened in that room before, neither of them address it, and no one tries to ask. Mike's definitely been crying, but has tried his best to look 'normal' again. Cath stands herself in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen, right in front of where Will's head is resting. Every so often, while they are formulating a plan, she steals a glance at him. You had better make it through this, she tries to tell him telepathically. You had better come back to me.

     "... It's not like it was before. It's grown. A lot. And, I mean, that's considering we can get in there. The place is crawling with those dogs—"

     "Demodogs."

     Hopper glares daggers at Dustin. "I'm sorry, what?"

     "I said, uh, demodogs. Like demogorgon and dogs. You put them together, it sounds pretty badass..."

     "How is this important right now?!"

     "It's not. I'm sorry."

     A muscle flaring in her jaw, Eleven steps forward and says, "I can do it."

     "You're not hearing me," Hopper fires back.

     "I'm hearing you," she insists firmly. "I can do it."

"Even if El can, there's still another problem," Mike chimes in, the moonlight from the kitchen window casting his face in half-shadow. "If the brain dies, the body dies."

"Wait, isn't that a good thing?" asks Thomas.

"It is, but if we're really right about this... I mean, if El closes the gate and kills the Mind Flayer's army—"

"Will's a part of that army," says Lucas gravely.

"Closing the gate will kill him."

Kill him? The words hang in the air, their whole mission suddenly fragile. Joyce sinks further into her chair with horror, while Cath feels her heart plummet into the pit of her stomach. She turns around and stares at the unconscious Will, Jonathan sat with him whispering comforting things. No... he can't die. They just got him back a year ago. At first, the thought makes her scared. Then it turns into silent anger. They didn't bring him back just for the Shadow Monster to take him away again.

For a couple of minutes, the group scrambles for hope until Joyce pipes up: "He likes it cold."

"What?" says Hopper.

"It's what Will kept saying to me. He likes it cold."

"He, as in the Shadow Monster..." Daphne whispers.

Cath has a sudden epiphany, perking up. "She's right. The other day, I went to shut Will's window for the draft coming in, but he refused every time I tried."

"Right, exactly," Joyce says shakily. "We keep giving it what it wants. If this is a virus, and Will's the host, then..."

"Then we need to make the host inhabitable," replies Thomas.

"So if he likes it cold..." Nancy trails off.

"We need to burn it out of him," Joyce replies, quietly fuming.

The group agree that this time, they need to take somewhere far away, somewhere the Shadow Monster doesn't know about. Hopper suggests his cabin in the woods — which Cath didn't even know existed — which is where he and El have been living for the last year. Joyce and Jonathan will go there, as well as the last-minute addition of Nancy, while Hopper and Eleven will return to the Hawkins Lab to close the gate. Everything will need to be perfectly synchronised so that they can bring Will back. And as for the others... they just wait.

Cath doesn't know how much more waiting she can do.

It takes her until the last goodbyes on the Byers' front porch to finally say it. Seeing Jonathan carry a limp Will out to the car solidifies her decision. Stepping forward, the thirteen year-old raises her chin and says: "I'm going with you."

Whirling around, Nancy and Jonathan stare at her in surprise, while Thomas and Daphne adjust to this sudden announcement. "Are you sure? You don't want to stay here with your family?" asks Nancy.

"I've been watching this thing take over Will all week..." Cath says carefully. "So I want to see it myself when we get it out of him."

"Then I'm coming with you," Thomas promptly adds. It would probably give him some peace of mind.

Jonathan's eyes shimmer gratefully, before he gets back to carrying Will to Joyce's car. Meanwhile, the Delaneys turn to each other — Daphne folds her arms across her chest and shrugs. "So," she sucks a breath through her teeth, "we're all splitting up again, huh?"

"I'm so sorry," Cath apologises immediately, "it's just that—"

"Hey, it's fine. Just be careful, okay?" Daphne asks, and her sister nods. They pull each other into an embrace, their nervous heartbeats tangling up together. Cath clings on a moment longer, and a little tighter, just in case. At least she knows her sister and her friends will be safe here in the house... hopefully. All of this will be over soon, one way or another.

After they say goodbye, it's their father's turn. "Now you need to stay right here, okay?" Thomas instructs her sternly. "No running off, trying to be a hero or anything. We have this under control."

"Relax," she sighs, "I'll be right here with Steve and the kids."

"Including Steve in that sentence doesn't make me feel any better. You know that, right?"

Daphne rolls her eyes, but Thomas lets out a half-chuckle.

"I'm just kidding... kind of."

They wrap each other in a quick hug, Thomas's stare lingering on his firstborn for a moment, before it shifts to Steve standing at the end of the porch. They exchange a small nod before he says, "Stay safe."

"You too," Steve replies curtly, shifting uneasily on the spot.

Parting from the porch, Cath walks along the Byers' front yard, just as Eleven parts from an intimate goodbye with Mike. The two girls give each other a small wave — she hates this. They just reunited, and now they're being made to say goodbye in the end. Cath just decides that it will have to be worth it... because they have to save Will, and Hawkins. So when she gets in the back seat of the Ford Pinto, she can't bear to look behind at her friends left on the porch. Instead, she strokes Will's hair the whole way there.

━━━━━━

DAPHNE finds herself stuck in the most frustrating crossroads ever. She's spent the last week being scared shitless to get involved with the Upside Down and the Hawkins Lab again... only to get dragged back into it again. Seven days ago, she would have run away the first chance she got. But now? Daphne feels like she was just starting to gain momentum again. From teaming up with Steve to hearing about Nancy and Jonathan's success with the elusive Murray Bauman, she's ready for some closure. For all of this to finally be over. She was feeling brave.

But instead, she's stuck here babysitting, while her thirteen year-old sister potentially runs headfirst into the danger.

To say she is restless is an understatement — however, no one is as impatient right now as Mike Wheeler. Whilst Steve helps Dustin get the demodog's body into the fridge ("It's for science," justifies the boy), Daphne is busy sweeping up shattered glass from the window with Max and Lucas. She carefully guides the kids around the small shards so they don't step on them, and they help point out whenever they glint in the light. As for Mike, he's been pacing furiously back and forth for the last ten minutes, which is starting to drive Daphne insane — she can absorb his frustration involuntarily, resulting in her own dormant volcano of nerves that she'd been procrastinating noticing all day.

Finally fed up, Lucas glares at his friend and tosses his broom to the side. "Mike, would you just stop it already?"

"You weren't in there, okay Lucas?" Mike whirls around. "That lab is swarming with hundreds of those dogs."

"Demodogs!" Dustin hollers from the kitchen.

Mike glares sharply in the direction of the kitchen. If looks could kill, Dustin would be toast.

"The Chief will take care of her!" Lucas affirms.

"Because she needs protection..." Max murmurs under her breath, still in awe of the super-powered girl.

Placing one hand on the top of the broom and the other on her hip, Daphne shrugs. "Mike has a point, though. And what about Cath and my dad? And Nancy, and the Byers? If they even get the Shadow Monster out of Will, who knows what it could do..."

"Exactly!" says the boy, "Which is why we should try and do something to help, instead of just sitting here."

"Listen, dude," Steve walks in wiping his hands on a dishcloth, "a coach calls a play in a game, bottom line is you execute it. Alright?"

Daphne squints at him, bewildered. "Is that... a basketball metaphor? What is it with you and basketball metaphors?"

"Okay, first of all, this isn't some stupid sports game," Mike adds, sounding equally bothered. "And second, we're not even in the game, we're on the bench."

"So my point is..." After a moment, Steve realises he wasn't going anywhere with his point, and he tosses the dishcloth over his shoulder with a disgruntled sigh. "Right, yeah, we're on the bench, so– uh... there's nothing we can do."

"That's not entirely true..." Dustin interjects thoughtfully. "I mean, these demodogs, they have a hive mind. When they ran away from the bus, they were called away."

Lucas hums thoughtfully. "If we get their attention..."

"Maybe we can draw them away from the lab—" Max adds in realisation.

"And clear a path to the gate," Mike barely whispers.

"Yeah, and then we all die!" Steve exclaims with staunch stubbornness.

"That's one point of view," challenges Dustin.

"No, that's not a point of view, man. That's a fact."

"With that attitude, yes it is," Daphne shrugs.

"Seriously? You're agreeing with him?"

"I've got it!" Mike suddenly declares. He whisks away into the shadows of the Byers house, and the group flock after him like lost sheep on a trail. He crouches in front of one of the drawings on the wall, a deep purple and blue mess of crayon scribbles, a large bruise on the paper. The boy taps it frantically, saying: "This is where the chief dug his hole. This is our way into the tunnel. So..." Mike runs off into the other room and bends down atop a circle of blue drawings where other streams bleed into it. "Here, right here. This is like a hub. So you got all the tunnels feeding in here. So maybe if we set this on fire—"

"Oh, yeah, that's a no," Steve shuts him down immediately, but the kids and Daphne keep bouncing ideas between them amidst his protests.

"The mind flayer would call away his army."

"It's a distraction... of course!"

"We circle back to the exit."

"Guys—"

"By the time they realise we're gone..."

"El would be at the gate—"

"Hey, hey, hey!" Steve finally claps loudly to get their attention. Gesturing vaguely to the vines drawn on the floor, he stubbornly announces, "This is not happening."

"Steve, come on," Daphne pleads, standing up to her full height and folding her arms. "This is a perfectly good plan, and it would make things so much easier for everyone!"

"Are you seriously siding with these kids? That we should just, what... run into danger? Again?"

"If a little shrimp like me can survive more than one demogorgon—"

"Or demodog," Dustin reminds her.

"— Thank you, Dustin, or demodog attack..." she sighs with a roll of her eyes to the ceiling, "then what've we got to lose? I hate this whole situation as much as you do, but if we don't at least try to do something to help, and– and if something happens to the others... then we could never forgive ourselves."

"Nope, no way," Steve still replies at the end of it all.

"But—"

"No, no, no! No buts! I promised I'd keep you little shitheads safe, and that's exactly what I plan on doing. We're staying here, on the bench, and we're waiting for the starting team to do their job. Does everybody understand?"

"This isn't some stupid sports game!" Mike fires back.

"I said, does everybody understand that?" Steve waves a dishcloth angrily at them. "I need a yes..."

Before anyone can give him a straight answer (which for Daphne, would probably be a defiant No) the aggressive sound of an engine revving outside startles them. Amidst it is the loud sound of rock music, thumping through the earth and into the floorboards and windowpanes. Max and Lucas run to the window, peeking outside of the curtains — when the redhead pulls the curtain closed again, her face washes in a panicked paleness.

"It's my brother," she whispers in a panic. "He can't know I'm here. He'll kill me. He'll kill us."

As the tires screech outside, the Chevy Camaro halting right there in the driveway, Daphne shoots Steve a worried glance. She always had a weird feeling about Billy, but hearing Max talk about him so fearfully puts her on edge. It speaks of something a lot more than just the school troublemaker, or the new stud in town at Hawkins High.

"Steve—"

"I'll go talk to him," he replies firmly. "Trust me, I've known my fair share of pricks like him in my lifetime."

"You sure you have?" Daphne asks uncertainly.

"This won't take a minute. Just keep an eye on the kids."

As Steve goes outside, Daphne puts her back to the wall next to the doorway, hiding herself until the door is shut behind him. Then she bends her knees and shifts her back flat against the door, the tip of her head beneath the small square of frosted glass at the top. From outside, she hears an unmistakable Billy mockingly ask: "Am I dreaming or is that you, Harrington?"

"Yeah, it's me, don't cream your pants," Steve deadpans.

"Stay low," Daphne whispers to the kids. They all crouch around her, Max standing the closest with her fists clenched at her sides. None of them are quite sure how big the threat might be, but the girl's fear rubs off on them all. Indeed, the bad vibe Daphne sensed from Billy at the lockers wasn't unwarranted at all. Some home life she must have...

"Can you see anything?" Max asks. "Is he– is he leaving?"

"I don't know. They're talking... it's kinda hard to tell from here." It's impossible to see through the frosted glass window. Plus, Daphne fears she would give herself away if Billy spotted her shadow. All she dares to spot is two figures talking, squaring up as if for a duel in an old Western. She watches their shapes move in distorted blobs, the clearest outline of a moth fluttering just outside the door. That's when Billy's gaze suddenly stares at her, as if breaking the Fourth Wall. Her heart lurches. Where is he looking?

She follows Billy's gaze to the couch, where the four kids are sitting and peering out way too obviously.

Shit!

"What the hell are you doing? Get down, get down!" Daphne whisper-yells.

The kids obey quickly, but it's too late; Billy has obviously seen them. With nothing else left to hide, Daphne runs to the large window over the couch to get a proper look herself. She catches the view just as Billy shoves Steve to the ground, then kicks him in the gut. He leaves the Harrington boy in the dust doubled over, chucking his cigarette to the earth as he briskly walks up to the house. They're in deep shit.

"Oh shit, oh shit—" Dustin chants.

Daphne sprints to lock the door. She's barely reached it precisely when Billy kicks the door — she only just manages to shove her body weight against it with a shocked yelp, the impact bound to bruise her later. Against his next onslaught she slides across the door chain, but stares at the empty keyhole in despair. Whirling her head around, Daphne sees the kids standing a couple metres away looking like ghosts.

     "Key! Where's the key?!" Daphne asks desperately to anyone, literally anyone.

     "Uhhh– in the kitchen! Mrs. Byers keeps a spare in the kitchen!" Mike replies.

     "The kitchen?!"

     Third time's the charm for Billy Hargrove. When she sees him start a run-up outside the door, Daphne knows she and the flimsy door chain stand no chance. "Everybody get back, get back!" she cries, staggering backwards to where the kids stand. Right as Billy kicks down the door, she holds her arms out defensively in front of the kids. There's a wild look in his eyes, his mullet frazzled and his shirt half-unbuttoned. He scoffs, almost amused, his tongue in his cheek as he stares at Daphne.

"Locker girl, huh? You're in this with Harrington too?"

"Please, just leave the kids alone. Max is safe, you– you don't have to worry about her."

"Worry about her? That's not really my thing..." Billy cocks his head to the side, his stare hardening on Lucas at the fringe of the group. "But I do worry about her being around Lucas Sinclair right here."

A sudden flame of anger burns Daphne's skin, hot under her sweater, which she tries to swallow down in Billy's dynamite presence. She immediately understands what this is about. He steps even closer to the group and she raises her arms even higher now — she even dares looking him in the eye this time. Stay the hell away from them, she tries to communicate. But ignoring her, Billy glares down at a cowering Max and says to her, "I thought I told you to stay away from him."

"Billy, go away—"

"You disobeyed me. And you know what happens when you disobey me..."

"Billy—"

"I break things."

Daphne barely blinks, and in a whiplash of a move Billy has Lucas — a child — pinned up against a shelf. Crockery shakes and tumbles violently from the shelf. His fists have the kid's shirt balled up in them, huffing and puffing all in his face. The group instantly break out into cries and screams pleading Billy to stop, watching in horror. Daphne can't stand by and watch this.

"Billy, get away from him!" Daphne yells, her voice shaking, but he keeps his back to her. Fuming then, she runs forward, desperately grabbing the back of his shirt and tugging him. "Get off him!! What the FUCK is wrong with—"

Suddenly Billy whirls around, and her hands slip from his shirt. With a hard shove to the chest, Daphne goes stumbling backwards, gravity tugging all her limbs fast. A side table is knocked over with its contents as she goes down. She doesn't think — her hands instinctively fly behind to break her fall, snapping back as quickly as she can. And then — pop! — goes a sudden electric jolt up her hand, the current shooting all the way up through her arm. Daphne cries out in agony, eyes prickling with brief tears of shock. That didn't feel good. That didn't feel good at all. But Lucas—

     "Since Maxine won't listen to me, maybe you will..." Billy seethes, hot breath all over Lucas. "You stay away from her. Stay away from her! You hear me?"

     "I said get off me!" Lucas barks and kicks Billy hard in the groin. It frees him from his grip, but he's still trapped by the monster of a guy.

     Cradling her wrist pulsating with pain, Daphne tries pulling herself up with her pathetic core, without success. That's when a pair of arms appear from nowhere; one on her back, and the other under her left shoulder, pulling her up swiftly but carefully. It's Steve. Neither of them waste time with thank yous, Steve instantly noticing Lucas being cornered by Billy — she swears he sees red.

     "You are so dead, Sinclair!" Billy exclaims. "You're dead..."

     Or so he thinks. Because Steve Harrington grabs him by the shirt, spins him around and replies: "No, you are!"

     His fist swings into Billy's skull hard. While he buckles under the attack, Lucas rushes back to the worried embrace of his friends, while Daphne leans against the doorway with her agonised wrist. She's definitely done something to it. Or more to the point, Billy has. A couple of the kids ask if she's okay — Max staring guiltily at it, while Mike asks if it hurts ("What do you think?" Daphne tells him through gritted teeth). Steve shakes the hand he punched with to re-gain feeling, and Billy... he just laughs. Throwing his mullet head back, he cackles with blood trickling from his nostrils at the whole spectacle.

     Now Daphne completely understands Max's fear.

     "Looks like you got some fire in you after all, huh?" Billy asks, all up in Steve's face. "I've been waiting to meet this King Steve everybody's been telling me... so much about."

     "Get out," Steve warns him, prodding his chest.

     Billy's face is a blank slate for a moment. He takes it as a challenge. A threat. Without warning, Billy swings a punch at Steve, who ducks just in time. It gives Steve the time to return a punch, followed by another, to which the face on the receiving end just laughs at again. Steve re-gains his breath as Billy backs up at the kitchen sink. The kids, excluding Max, have started yelling words of encouragement:

     "Yes! Kick his ass, Steve!"

     "Get him!"

     "Murder the son of a bitch!"

     But Daphne feels sick to the stomach just watching. She hates fights anyway, but this one in particular feels like it will get ugly before it ends. Really ugly. She also figures it's sooner or later before Billy plants a punch or two himself, and for that she can only cradle her wrist from the side and cry out: "Oh God, Steve, be careful!"

     She speaks too soon. Billy grabs a plate from next to the sink and smashes it over Steve's head. Daphne gasps, as do some of the kids, shards of plate sprinkling the carpet. It clearly makes an impact — Steve staggers backwards, fingertips gingerly touching where the plate hit his head. His body looks like it's swaying slightly. Billy plants another punch that sends him careening back into a bookshelf.

     Panicking that this will take a turn for the worst, Daphne takes a step forward and starts to plead, "Steve, let's just get out of here—"

     But before she can reach him, Billy grabs him by the shirt and hisses at his face: "No one tells me what to do... no one!" Then he head-butte him, sending Steve's body sliding across the floor like a rag doll — Daphne cringes when his already-injured head almost hits a table leg. Billy stalks over before he can get up, crouching over him. That's when he starts delivering blow after blow to his head. Back and forth Steve's head lulls, with nearly more punches than Daphne can count on two hands. Through the gaps under Billy's arms, she can see a barely conscious Steve growing bloodier and bloodier every second...

And she's frozen. Her heartbeat lodged in her throat, strangling every pleading scream to stop, she seriously believes for a minute that he might kill Steve Harrington.

Then, out of the shadows comes a hero with a mane of red. Unassuming, at first — perhaps an underdog. But swallowing her fear, Max brushes past Daphne and the others, wielding the syringe used earlier to sedate Will. A few bold strides later, she plunges the needle through the air and straight into Billy's neck.

He stops instantly. Pauses... plucks the needle from his vein with a drowsy stare. Through it, he must see a fuzzier version of all of them, and then Max at the forefront. She stares him down. If she's scared, she doesn't show it.

"The hell is this?" Billy slurs under his breath.

Swooning on the spot, Billy staggers a couple of wonky steps forward, until he slumps onto his back right next to his bloodied victim. After a beat that passes, Daphne decides it's safe enough to go. She lets out a choked gasp and circles over to Steve on the floor. Getting on her knees next to him and seeing him up close is much worse than she thought. "Steve! Steve, can you hear me? Wake up, Steve... Steve, please..." says Daphne, shaking him with her healthy hand, but there's no response. He's completely knocked out cold. And his face... Jesus Christ. It's a mess. Bloodied, bruised and already a little swollen; and that's just on the outside. Daphne re-plays the image of the smashed plate with dread.

"From here on out, you leave me and my friends alone. Do you understand?" Max tells Billy firmly. Daphne looks up at her, eyes widening when she sees the little girl wielding the nail bat, held as a threat above her head. Her eyes burn with words she's been wanting to say for too long.

"Screw you..." Billy murmurs.

Suddenly Max swings the nail bat into the floor, like a lumberjack cutting wood — the nails bury themselves just inches from Billy's crotch, which the stepbrother examines with drowsy bewilderment. Everyone else's mouths reshape to a shocked 'O' at the sight. With a small crrrack, she rips the nail bat back out of the floorboard again, tiny splinters flying onto Billy's jeans.

"Say you understand!" Max now yells at the top of her lungs, shaking the bat above her head. "Say it... SAY IT!!"

"I understand—"

"What?"

"I understand..." Billy murmurs, before his eyes roll back into his head and he's out cold too.

The room settles into stunned silence. It would almost be dead silent, if it weren't for the quiet wincing noise in the back of Daphne's throat — her hand and wrist are alive with muscle spasms that are screaming out after her awkward fall. With a hardened expression, Max ignores the looks of awe she's receiving and tosses the bat to the side.

"Is... is everyone okay?" Daphne finally asks, voice tight and trembling.

Slowly but surely, the three boys nod, while Max offers a shrug still riding the adrenaline high. The redhead crouches down by Billy and plucks his car keys from his pocket. "Let's get out of here," she says casually. No one thinks it's a bad idea at all. There is no knowing how long the sedative lasts, and Daphne does not want to be here when he wakes up. Besides, they have a plan to pursue...

"Alright, but there's one problem. I can't drive. I've done something to my wrist, I– I don't know..."

"I'll drive," Max deadpans.

Daphne blinks at her. "You– you're serious?"

"I practised all the time with my dad in the parking lot, back home."

"Yeah, but that was practise," Mike emphasises.

Max whirls around to him and asks, "Well, can you drive a Camaro, Wheeler?"

To this, he sighs begrudgingly. Touché. It is absolutely insane, but Daphne figures they have no other choice. It isn't exactly the most important issue on their hands about who drives. Besides, as long as Max doesn't kill them, then she's already doing great... right? Daphne doesn't know — right now, all she can think of is pain, worry over Steve, and then some more pain.

"Is he awake?" Dustin gulps, nodding worriedly to Steve on the floor.

Daphne shakes her head. "We can't just leave him here. Somehow, we... we've got to get him into the car. But again, my wrist."

"How heavy can he be?" the boy shrugs. Shuffling over to Steve on the floor, he tries picking up one limp arm, only to drop it to the floor again. Daphne glares at him and scolds him for dropping it so promptly. But the boy's deduction is, indeed, that lifting people is much harder when they aren't conscious.

First they gather supplies as quickly as they can — including a heck-ton of flammable liquids, rubber gloves, goggles and bandanas — and stock-pile them into the back of Billy's Camaro. While clearing out the trunk, Daphne pulls out boxes of miscellaneous personal items of his. Most of them she wrinkles her nose at, particularly at some obnoxious colognes and explicit magazines. Some of the cologne spills onto her fingertips and she coughs. How can guys wear this stuff? She dares not to think of how many chemicals are in it...

Then she does a double take.

She turns over the bottle in her left hand. Chemicals... flammable? Surely they are. One of the colognes or deodorants she finds in a canister, and it feels full. Daphne gives it a test-puff in the air and, after coughing, decides it might become useful. She puts it back in the box for future use...

The spasms and agony in her wrist and hand are unavoidable now. Whilst cradling it gingerly between taking supplies, a voice through the dark outside says: "You should put some ice on that."

Daphne turns to see Max standing there, examining her carefully. "Yeah," she replies, "if Dustin hasn't emptied all ice out of the freezer for his scientific discovery. I'm trying to think whether I need some sort of sling too..."

"Yeah. I can do that. Just give me a minute."

After waiting on the porch for a minute or two, Max returns with a bag of frozen peas and a long scarf. She passes it to Daphne to apply to the wrist. Then Max gets to work making a temporary sling with the scarf, looping it around the girl's neck so it can gently cradle her arm across her chest. "Is that better?" she asks at the end.

"Much better, thanks."

"Did you hear a crack when you fell?"

"No, more like a... pop."

"Oh. I'm not a doctor, but that's probably a sprain or something. If it cracked, that's a fracture for sure. Still hurts like a bitch either way."

"Yeah... how– how do you know all this stuff?"

"Skateboarding," Max shrugs casually. "I've fallen off tons of times, so I'm kinda used to sprains and broken bones."

Daphne hums, taking this in. The woolly scarf not only cradles her arm and throbbing wrist, but its warmth also insulates her torso fast. While pressing a pack of iced peas to her wrist, she tries to instruct the kids on getting Steve into the car. Each of them take a limb in their arms, carrying his floppy body rather ungracefully into the backseat. The four kids crammed into the back of the car, they lie him across their laps while bickering about not having enough space.

"Is that... a band-aid?" she asks, nodding to the tiny colourful band-aid slapped like a postage stamp on Steve's eyebrow.

"Thought it would help!" Dustin chirps, as if he's really done something here.

Daphne sighs, instinctively getting into the driver's seat before she remembers her injury — not that it's hard to forget it. She circles round to the passenger seat and feels her heart lurch as Max gets behind the wheel. She has to slump in the chair a little bit to push the pedals. Oh shit. This has to be the most insane thing she's ever done, letting a thirteen year-old drive a car packed to the brim, while deciding to blaze out the tunnels without anyone else's permission. But here goes nothing.

"Sorry, Dad..." Daphne mumbles under her breath, the car reversing haphazardly out of the drive.

━━━━━━

A/N;

surprise! i managed to get this chapter out quicker than expected. i was kind of unsatisfied after the last cliffhanger, and i happened to have some free time/inspiration, so i figured why not just go for it? there was a lot of stuff in this chapter — the reunion with eleven AHHH 😭 and also the fight with billy being very intense, resulting in poor daphne having a sprained wrist (forever thankful i've never sprained or broken anything!) and steve... well, beaten to a pulp as usual. the next chapter picks up right where this one leaves off, with the gang's antics in the tunnels!

a quick disclaimer: billy hasn't actually appeared that much in this book, but i'd like to make it known that i'm not taking a sympathetic view writing him. while his backstory explains why he is the way he is, it does not excuse his actions...

also fun fact: there are only six chapters left now... HUH? where did that time go? this book has been a blast to write, thank you guys for all the support along the way. i hope you have a lovely day/evening!

— Imogen

[ Published: December 17th, 2022 ]