Tick...

Tick...

Tick...

"Sure, I'll come with," Birdie answered, eliciting a small smile of appreciation from Jonathan. She then remembered that she didn't have her car. "Do you mind if I catch a ride with you?"

"Sure," Jonathan answered. "I was thinking we could head downtown and hang some flyers around the shops and the library."

"Sounds like a plan."

After moving the stack of flyers to the back, Birdie climbed into the passenger seat and they were on their way. The ride was quick and mostly silent, with both wanting to say something to the other but unsure whether they should. Birdie was hopeful that hanging flyers wouldn't take too long and that she'd be able to catch up with Mike, Eleven, Lucas, and Dustin afterwards. The urge to tell Jonathan about Operation Mirkwood was strong but she suppressed it. She didn't want to get Jonathan's hopes up in case the search amounted to nothing; something she was also trying to prepare herself for.

After circling for a parking spot, they finally found one in front of the hardware store. Once they got out of the car, Jonathan handed Birdie a stack of flyers and a roll of tape. They started in the same direction with the plan to split at the intersection, with Jonathan heading towards the library and Birdie heading towards the movie theatre.

"I heard about Morgan," Jonathan said at last, his eyes flickering towards Birdie and then to the ground. "I'm sorry. If you want, I can help you make some flyers and we can pass them out with Will's."

Birdie was a bit surprised but then again, news traveled fast in a small town. She wasn't going to be the only one to notice Morgan's absence. "Um, thanks," Birdie replied after clearing her throat. "But I don't think I'm quite prepared for that yet. And I should probably talk to Morgan's parents about it first."

It was at this point that they reached the intersection. They paused for a brief moment, waiting for the other to say something more and when neither did, they split off in opposite directions. Birdie handed out flyers to those she passed on the sidewalk, asking each and every person whether they had seen Will but the only answers she received were pitiful looks and shaking heads. She taped the posters to sign posts and public bulletin boards, stopping in businesses to ask clerks whether they could hang some in their store. She made sure that Will's face was everywhere.

By the time Birdie made it to the movie theatre, her stack was nearly gone. She gave the remaining flyers to the girl in the ticket booth, who she vaguely recognized as a freshman band member named Robin Buckley, before turning back towards Jonathan's car to get more. Since she didn't have a watch she was in a bit of a rush, not wanting to miss out on meeting up with the kids, and in her haste she accidentally ran into somebody coming out of the board game shop.

"Shit, sorry," Birdie apologized after re-righting herself. When she was back on stable footing, she noticed that the person she had nearly toppled over was a senior named Eddie Munson. They didn't run in the same circles but his presence at school was hard to miss.

"No worries," Eddie replied, picking up the book that Birdie had accidentally knocked out of his hands. Birdie offered Eddie a tight-lipped smile in appreciation and was about to continue on her way when she noticed the title of the book: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Players Handbook.

"Wait, you're part of that Dungeons & Dragons club at school, right?"

"Hellfire," Eddie confirmed with a nod of his head. He slapped his chest with pride. "Founder and President."

"So you know a lot about Dungeons & Dragons, then?"

Eddie laughed in response. "I might not be on track to graduate this spring but if this brain is full of any knowledge, it's Dungeons & Dragons."

"What can you tell me about the Demogorgon?"

Eddie paused to consider Birdie. "You surprise me, superstar," he replied at last. "I didn't take you for the D&D type."

"Call it a budding interest."

"Standing at eighteen feet tall with reptilian tentacles and two baboon heads named Aameul and Hethradiah, the Demogorgon is a timorous beastie," Eddie described with the theatrics of an announcer in a boxing ring, his eyes glowing with excitement. "According to the original edition of the game, he was one of the first two demon lords, often referred to as the 'Prince of Demons'."

Birdie's face paled at the description. While it was a bit difficult to believe that some sort of two-headed monkey-lizard was running around Hawkins, she had no other explanation for the noise or the flickering lights. And if hunting down such a fantastical creature was what it took to get Morgan back, then so be it.

"Is there any way to defeat it?" Birdie asked.

Eddie stroked his upper lip in contemplation. "He's supposedly immune to poison, death rays, and petrification. Although, I had a buddy who played against him in a campaign a few years back that had some success with fire..."

"Fire," Birdie noted. "Got it. And say, I don't know, the Demogorgon was here in Hawkins...where would it set up camp?"

Eddie's brows furrowed at the strangeness of the question but he played along without protest. "In the game he lives in the depths of the Abyss and while Hawkins is a shithole, I don't think there's anywhere that quite equates. But he does have an assortment of magical and psionic abilities so it's possible that he could transport between realms..."

"So he could like...blip here and take somebody...and then blip into another world with them?" Birdie asked for clarification. The black underbelly of the board that Eleven had placed the cleric and the thief on was beginning to make more sense.

"Technically speaking, yes..." Eddie replied, his confusion growing. "Is this for a campaign?"

"Um, yeah," Birdie answered, her tone less than convincing despite the smile pressed onto her face. Eddie looked like he wanted to ask more questions but Birdie was running out of time. Racing away down the sidewalk, she called behind her, "Thanks for your help!"

Birdie and Jonathan had evidently moved at a similar pace, because when Birdie returned to his car, he was there grabbing more flyers as well.

"Need more?" he asked, holding up a stack for her.

Birdie nodded her head and reached for the stack of flyers when something caught her eye and her hand paused mid-air. It was so mundane. To anybody else, it wasn't anything to bat an eye over. It shouldn't have stood out to her but it did.

A cherry red bicycle with a wire basket strapped to the handlebars.

Morgan's bicycle.

It was sitting in the back of a dark blue pick-up truck parked on the other side of Jonathan's car. The truck hadn't been there when they had first arrived and Birdie didn't recognize it as either of Morgan's parents', but she knew it was Morgan's bicycle. It even had the same scratch underneath the seat from when Morgan had crashed into a tree in the eighth grade.

"Everything okay?" Jonathan asked, turning his head to follow Birdie's line of sight.

"That's Morgan's bicycle," Birdie answer, careful to keep her voice low in case whoever owned the truck was nearby. "She rode it to my house the night she went missing."

Jonathan's face paled as he did a double-take. "Are you sure?"

"Positive."

"What should we do?"

Birdie's response was to climb into the passenger seat of Jonathan's car, shutting the door behind her. Jonathan lingered a moment, clearly confused, before he finally followed suit. He tried once more to ask Birdie what they should do after he sat in the driver's seat but she shushed him, her eyes tracking each and every person who walked by without even blinking. She was waiting to see who owned the truck.

Fortunately, they didn't have to wait long. A few minutes later, a middle-aged white man with a graying beard and oil-stained coveralls exited the hardware store and headed for the truck. Birdie had never seen the man before and he didn't seem like the type to hang around the Foster's. There could have been any number of reasons for why he had Morgan's bicycle, some more favorable than others, but no matter how it stacked up, something didn't feel right to Birdie.

"Jonathan, I'm going to need a huge favor from you," Birdie said at last, her eyes still glued to the truck.

"What?"

"Follow him."

Jonathan started his car without protest, throwing the flyers into the backseat. During the commotion, Birdie was too distracted to notice that the time on the clock read 3:17. She was late to meet the kids.

The truck pulled out of its parking spot and Jonathan attempted to follow after, but he was halted by oncoming traffic. Fortunately, the truck was stopped by a red light at the intersection, allowing Jonathan and Birdie to catch up before it got too far ahead.

"Keep a car or two between us," Birdie instructed as they continued to follow the truck out of downtown. Jonathan slowed down and allowed a car to merge in front of him but that car soon took an exit and they were right behind the truck again.

"Stay back a little farther," Birdie said. Jonathan tried but the truck was already going five miles under the speed limit. "Farther," Birdie repeated.

"I'm trying!" Jonathan replied, his patience wearing thin. They had just passed a sign that read, "You are now leaving Hawkins".

Jonathan slowed down to eight miles under the speed limit, angering the traffic behind them into passing. For the next several miles he was able to keep a vehicle or two between them but the route the truck was taking eventually led them onto winding gravel roads where it was just the three of them.

"Speed up a little," Birdie instructed.

Jonathan sped up.

"Slow down a little."

Jonathan slowed down.

"Not that slow!"

"Make up your mind!" Jonathan shouted, finally losing his patience. "Speed up or slow down?"

"I don't know, a happy medium!" Birdie retorted, waving her arms in exasperation. "We can't get too far behind or we'll lose him but we can't let him see us."

"He's probably already noticed us by now," Jonathan pointed out. Both stopped squabbling to watch the truck but if the man had spotted them, his driving didn't indicate any suspicions of being followed.

The farther they went, the less Birdie saw of civilization. When the truck finally turned in to a driveway it had been nearly three miles since Birdie had last seen a house. They were well and truly in the middle of nowhere. This should have scared Birdie but her perspective of fear had shifted after learning that monsters might possibly exist.

"Now what?" Jonathan asked as they slowly crept past the man's driveway. Birdie was only able to catch a glimpse of what she assumed to be the man's house as they passed by. There were too many trees to get a clear view.

"Pull over here," Birdie ordered Jonathan, pointing to the side of the road after they had gone about half a mile past the driveway. The area they were in was thick with trees, so Jonathan's car was well hidden. Birdie opened the passenger side door and began to climb out.

"What are you doing?" Jonathan hissed.

"Just stay here and keep the car running," Birdie instructed. "I'll be right back."

"I don't think this is a good idea!" Jonathan exclaimed, but his words were cut off by the door slamming shut. Jonathan slapped his hands against the steering wheel in frustration, watching through the windshield as Birdie crept closer to the driveway.

Birdie began to cut through the trees when she got nearer, coming to a stop when the house was in view. If what she saw before her could even be called a house. The roof was missing several shingles and there were large patches of peeling paint on the sides. An assortment of trash and rusted machinery littered the yard, entangled with the overgrown grass. There were other vehicles in the driveway but they were in various states of disrepair, leading Birdie to presume that the man lived alone.

Birdie scanned the area for the man when movement from the front window caught her eye. The man was standing in front of the window, staring out into the yard before him. Birdie pressed herself flat behind a tree when his gaze swung in her direction, her heart thumping so loudly in her chest that she could hear it almost as clearly as she could hear her heavy breaths. When she finally worked up the bravery to peek around, she found that the man had shut the curtains, blocking her view of him.

Birdie found this odd. It wasn't a particularly sunny day and there were no neighbors within earshot. Why would he feel the need to shut the curtains, not only for the front window, but for every other window as well? While this unnerved her, it also provided her an opportunity. She couldn't see him but he also couldn't see her, which meant that she could snoop without him knowing.

Birdie was careful to remain low and to keep close to anything she could use as cover in case the man decided to open the curtains again. She picked her way through the maze that was the front yard, nearly tripping over several unrecognizable items embedded in the dirt, when she came to what looked to be the remnants of a burn pit.

The contents were hard to decipher since everything had been reduced to a chalky ash but there was a pop of color that caught Birdie's eye. Using a stick she found on the ground nearby, she prodded the coals until the object was loose enough for her to grab. Upon closer examination, it looked and felt to be a piece of fabric. What it belonged to was hard to say because the edges were singed and most of it looked to have burned up in the fire but the faded yellow color sparked a sense of familiarity in Birdie. When Birdie flipped it over, she understood why.

A single word was printed on the back: "sturgery".

This man not only had Morgan's bicycle, but a scrap of the very same shirt that Morgan had been wearing the day she went missing.

Panicked, Birdie stumbled backwards and accidentally knocked over an old metal trashcan. The sound as it clattered against a rusted engine block sitting beside it echoed like a gunshot. Birdie's eyes immediately darted to the curtains hanging in the front window but she didn't stick around long enough to see if they opened. The piece of fabric gripped tightly in her fist, Birdie took off running through the trees.

Birdie didn't pause to see if anybody was following her, she continued in a straight line towards Jonathan's car, her feet pumping so hard that she accidentally overshot the passenger's side.

"Go, go, go go, go!" Birdie shouted after she threw herself into the car and slammed the door shut. She watched the trees for any movement, her heart hammering in her chest every time the breeze blew the leaves.

Jonathan stared at her in bewilderment. "What the hell happened?"

"JUST DRIVE, DAMMIT!"

Jonathan didn't need to be told a third time. Pressing down on the gas pedal, he whipped a U-turn, leaving only a puff of smoke and two skid marks to indicate that they had ever been there.

"Okay, you've got to tell me what's going on or I swear to God I'm going to pull over right here and throw my keys into the woods," Jonathan demanded after they had made it about a mile away from the man's house.

Birdie stared down at the piece of fabric in her hand. Just like with Morgan's bicycle, something didn't feel right about its presence at the man's house. "I-I don't know," Birdie answered, attempting to catch her breath. "I found this in that man's burn pit. It's part of the shirt that Morgan was wearing the day she went missing." Birdie unfurled her grip to show Jonathan the remains of Morgan's shirt and his eyes widened.

Jonathan's foot instinctively pressed down harder on the gas pedal. "We need to tell the police."

Birdie nodded her head in agreement but her head was swimming with doubts. They were still twenty minutes away from the Hawkins Police Department and even farther from a phone. Luck was on their side, however, because they didn't need to go that far. They came across a state trooper parked on the side of the gravel road about five minutes away from the man's house and immediately pulled over.

"Hey, hey!" Birdie shouted as she banged on the trooper's window. The officer just stared at her between bites of a sandwich as she mimed cranking the window down. When he finally finished swallowing, he obliged.

"What?" he asked, his tone sharp. He clearly wasn't happy about being interrupted during his lunch break but Birdie didn't care. She was about to rip the sandwich out of his hands and smash it underneath her foot.

"You need to call this in," Birdie began, her words punctuated by attempts to catch her breath. "Morgan Foster. She's missing. I found this at this man's house down the road." Birdie thrust the crumpled piece of fabric through the window. "It's part of the shirt she was wearing the day she went missing. He had that in his burn pit and he has her bicycle in the back of his truck."

"Where?" the officer asked, a bit more lively after hearing this piece of news.

"On the right about three miles down this road. The house is white but the paint is peeling and there's a shit-load of junk in the yard." Birdie paused to recall if she had seen a house number and one vaguely came to mind. "I think the house number was 2155 or something like that."

The officer nodded his head. "I know the one. We've been there a couple times in past years."

"So you'll go check it out right now?"

The officer sighed and reached for his radio. "This is Officer Williams, I'm going to 2155 Birch Lake Road to look into a possible 10-57," he informed dispatch. "Remain on stand-by for back-up."

After collecting Birdie's contact information, Officer Williams flashed his lights and took off down the road. Birdie rejoined Jonathan in his car but when he moved to shift the gear into drive, Birdie stopped him.

"Not yet," Birdie informed him. In a much softer voice, she added, "Please."

Officer Williams had instructed her to go home but she couldn't bring herself to leave, just as she couldn't bring herself to move any closer. She was stuck.

Birdie sat and watched through the windshield, oblivious to everything except the stretch of road before her. Jonathan? Who? Time? No clue. How absolutely peeved her dad was going to be when she arrived home late? Inconsequential. For the following thirty-three minutes she existed in a bubble. And then the blaring of sirens and the flashing of lights popped it.

Four squad cars went screaming past them, heading in the direction of the man's house. Birdie clenched the door handle, her right knee bouncing up and down. The additional police presence meant that Birdie was right but it also meant that something was very, very wrong.

"Shit," Jonathan muttered, his body tensing. Everything was suddenly becoming very real. He turned to look at Birdie, his face pale. "When you were there, did you see anything that could have been Will's?"

Birdie shook her head no. "I mean, I didn't get a good look around...I--I'm sure he's okay. They both are," she said with much more confidence than Jonathan believed.

Forty-seven minutes passed by and Birdie and Jonathan were still sitting in the same spot when another vehicle drove past them. This one wasn't in as much of a rush as the squad cars had been, and at first, Birdie thought it was just somebody who lived in the area but the black paint and the elongated trunk proved otherwise.

It was the coroner.

Birdie should have been hyperventilating but she was unusually calm, almost like she was detached from the reality in front of her. And she was still calm when twenty-nine minutes later, the coroner returned with the squad cars in tow. She even remained calm when she caught the eyes of the man with the truck sitting in the back of the first squad car, his hands cuffed.

Something didn't feel right. This wasn't the way things were supposed to go.

"Hey, hey," Officer Williams called out, drawing her attention by tapping on Birdie's window. He had parked his squad car off to the side, letting the others leave without him.

Birdie was in such a daze that it took a moment for her to roll down her window. "What?" she asked.

"I thought I told you to head home."

"I--" Birdie began, but she was unable to finish her sentence. All she could say was, "Morgan."

Officer Williams stretched his palms flat on the roof of Jonathan's car and leaned forward. Shaking his head, he looked to the ground and said, "I'm sorry, kid. It doesn't look good."

"You found her?"

Officer Williams opened his mouth once and then closed it, as if he wanted to say something he knew he shouldn't. But one more look into Birdie's big eyes forced the words from him anyhow. "We still need to process the DNA but...yeah. It looks like we found her."

Birdie turned her head forward and resumed staring out the windshield like she had been for the past two hours. Something still didn't feel right so she decided that it wasn't right. Nothing was right. Everything was wrong.

"You should head home. Be with your family. Both of you. We'll call if we have any more questions," Officer Williams said. When Birdie still didn't respond, he patted the roof of the car and walked back to his squad.

Jonathan looked to Birdie for their next course of action but she was still unresponsive so he made the decision for her. He gave the caravan a little time to get ahead of them before starting the car and pulling back out onto the street.

Another bout of silence settled upon the car until they were nearly back to their neighborhood. "I'm sorry," Jonathan said to Birdie as he wiped away a tear gathering in the corner of his eye.

"Don't be," Birdie replied without hesitation, letting her gut instinct take over. "Morgan isn't dead. Morgan can't be dead."

"Listen, I know it's tough, but--" Jonathan began when Birdie cut her off.

"No, you don't understand," she snapped, making Jonathan flinch. "I don't know how to tell you this but something isn't right about this whole situation...I can feel it. I-I've seen things and I've heard things and none of this is adding up."

"Seen things? Heard things?" Jonathan asked in confusion. "What are you talking about?"

Birdie groaned and shook her head, fighting against her racing thoughts. She had been ready and willing to track down a monster to find her best friend and while she should have been relieved that her investigation had led her to a much more rational explanation, it didn't feel like the right explanation. Everything about it seemed too...convenient.

If that man had murdered Morgan, why would he be driving around with her bicycle in plain view in the back of his truck? In a crowded area no less, where it'd be easy to spot? And what was Officer Williams doing out there in the first place? It seemed like a strange, desolate place to take lunch. And then there was the scrap of fabric in the burn pit...what were the odds that the one recognizable part of Morgan's shirt hadn't burned in the fire when everything else had? Even the response time from back-up and the coroner seemed quick. It's almost like it was all perfectly planned.

And that meant if it wasn't the man, then it was the monster.

Birdie didn't know how to explain this all to Jonathan without sounding crazy and she didn't get a chance to, because just then Jonathan's headlights illuminated the darkened shape of a person standing directly in their path.

The figure put their arms out to stop the car and Jonathan slammed on the brakes. "Mom?" he asked, scrambling to get out of the car once he realized who the figure was.

Birdie remained seated, watching quietly as the mother and son embraced. She was almost as caught up in the moment as they were until the flashing of red and blue lights appeared in the rearview mirror.

Birdie awoke the next morning to the sound of her own screams. Even in a waking state, she could still hear the roar of the Demogorgon reaching out from her nightmare and echoing in her ears. John came crashing through the door, nearly tripping over Birdie's laundry hamper to check on her.

"What's wrong?" he asked, his chest heaving.

Birdie stared at him with wide eyes. She was still in a fog so she didn't recognize his presence at first. "N-nothing," she stammered when she finally reached full-consciousness. "Bad dream. That's all."

Birdie looked at her alarm clock and nearly catapulted herself out of bed when she realized how late for school she was. The bewildered look on her face prompted John to explain. "I called you out of school today. I figured you could use the sleep after everything that's happened."

Birdie hasn't been the only Philippe to make an appearance at the Byers' house the previous night. John had gone with Hopper, Powell, and Callahan to the Hawkins National Laboratory to investigate a possible lead and had gotten swept up in the chaos when they received the call that a boy's body had been found at the quarry.

After a confusing reunion in which Birdie promised to explain everything later, the Philippe's were about to head home to give the Byers' their space and privacy when Birdie overheard Joyce explaining to the police that her lights had gone crazy and that a monster had come out of her wall. Birdie convinced her dad to stay for a few more minutes, adamant that she might have more insight into the investigation. Since Hopper, Powell, and Callahan had been busy with Will, she wasn't sure whether they had heard about Morgan. Especially since it had been the state troopers who had responded.

After taking a look around the Byers' house, which had been strung floor-to-ceiling with Christmas lights, Hopper invited them all inside to talk and that's when he broke the news to Joyce and Jonathan.

"A trooper found something in the water at the quarry," he began, ringing his hat in his hands. "Our working theory right now is that Will crashed his bike, made his way over to the quarry, and...accidentally fell in. The earth must have given way."

Upon hearing this, Birdie was once more struck with the same feeling that something wasn't right. And she wasn't the only one.

"No," Joyce said in response after Hopper shook her out of the trance she had entered. "Whoever you found...is not my boy. It's not Will."

Hopper and Jonathan both tried to reason with Joyce but she wouldn't hear it. She stood firm and Birdie believed her. Whoever they found at the quarry wasn't Will and whoever they found at the man's house wasn't Morgan. When Eleven had been asked whether she knew where Will and Morgan were, she had said they were hiding. Dead people didn't hide. And while the police were likely a much more reputable source than a 12-year old with superpowers found alone in the woods, Birdie was more inclined to believe the latter.

Birdie studied the alphabet painted on the wall and the large hole torn through the drywall while Hopper took Joyce aside to talk more privately. John stood beside her, doing the same, although he seemed to be a bit more shocked by the spectacle than she was.

When Birdie sensed that Hopper and Joyce were nearing the end of their conversation, she approached them.

"No, I know what you're saying, Hop," Birdie overheard Joyce say. "I swear to you, I know what I saw. And I'm not crazy--"

"I'm not saying that you're crazy," Hopper replied, his tone firm but gentle.

"No...You are," Joyce laughed in disbelief. "And I understand, but...God, I need you to believe me."

"I believe you," Birdie announced, directing their attention towards her. Joyce looked relieved but Hopper looked irritated.

"Can we talk?" Hopper asked, standing from the squat he had been sitting in. He ushered Birdie towards a corner of the room away from Joyce. Birdie was reluctant to follow but she obliged after Joyce gave her a small nod to signify that she'd be okay.

Hopper sighed, placing his hat back on his head and rubbing his face. "Look, I get that you're trying to help but she doesn't need to hear that right now."

"You've got to admit that something weird is going on," Birdie argued, standing her ground. "First a suicide, then a murder, and now an accident? All within the span of a couple days in a town where nothing ever happens?"

"Murder?" Hopper asked, his brows furrowed. "What murder?"

"The Staties didn't tell you? Just like they magically found Will, they also claim to have found Morgan. According to them, she's been murdered."

"How do you know about this?" Hopper asked. Birdie opened her mouth to explain when Hopper cut her off with a wave of his hand. "Actually, never mind. I don't want to know, because I'm sure it involves doing something you weren't supposed to."

Birdie rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest.

"Listen, I agree with you," Hopper continued, keeping his voice low so that Joyce couldn't hear. "Something weird is going on but until I can look into it further, we can't be riling Joyce up on assumptions. In order for her to heal, she needs to grieve. So promise me you won't say anything more to her about it, capiche?"

Birdie struggled to meet Hopper's eyes.

"Capiche?" he repeated himself.

"Capiche," Birdie confirmed with a sigh. Hopper was right. She wanted to give Joyce some comfort in knowing that she wasn't alone but her only evidence was her own word about the lights she saw and the noise she heard and she couldn't very well tell them about Eleven. Without actual concrete proof, she'd only be adding fuel to the fire. She could see the bags under Joyce's eyes from halfway across the room. The poor woman needed sleep.

"I need you to promise me something else," Hopper added. "This time for yourself."

"Yes?"

"You need to grieve too. This kind of thought process isn't any good for you either. You're just going to send yourself spinning and I know your dad can't stand to see that. So promise me that you'll go home, get some sleep, and let me take it from here. I promise I'll get justice for both Will and Morgan."

Birdie nodded her head but her fingers were crossed in her pocket. She'd go home and she'd try to get some sleep, but she wasn't done. Not yet. She wasn't going to finish until she found Will and Morgan alive.

Her dad was right, she had had a pretty eventful night. And she was tired. But she couldn't sleep, she had shit to do. She continued to push herself out of bed, much to John's surprise.

"Where are you going?" he asked, watching as she pulled her dark hair into a ponytail and grabbed a fresh sweater from her closet. She had been so drained from the previous night that she hadn't even changed out of her clothes before going to bed and was still wearing the same jeans that she had worn yesterday.

"I need to get some fresh air," Birdie answered as she continued getting ready. She began packing a bag with things she might need, including a flashlight, extra batteries, her water bottle, and some granola bars.

"Birdie, hold up, we need to talk here..."

John tried to intercept her at the doorway but she beat him to it. After last night, she seemed to be off the hook for disobeying her dad's rules since he had also broken his promise to pick her up, and she decided to test that theory by grabbing her car keys out of the basket in the entryway.

"Birdie, stop!" John shouted from the top of the stairs as Birdie's hand latched onto the door knob. She paused, allowing her dad a moment to finish. "Just listen to me...and then you can take your car, okay?"

Birdie turned to look at him and John raced down the remaining steps. He was unsure how to proceed so he just plunged in. "Hopper called. The Foster's went to the morgue this morning and confirmed that it was Morgan. I just...I just want you to know that I'm here for you. I took the rest of the week off work so whatever you need..."

"Dad," Birdie replied, her eyes unblinking and her mouth set in a straight line. "I need you to trust me."

"Of course."

"That's not Morgan."

What should happen next?

Retrace steps from last night

Find the kids

AUTHOR'S NOTE !
Okay, second time's the charm. I published and unpublished this chapter because I was in a rush to get it out since I was behind but I wasn't very happy with the result. In the original chapter, Birdie went to the man's house on her own but the chapter was kind of short and I wanted to include the canon characters more so I rewrote the chapter with Jonathan joining her. And because doing so enabled me to to have Birdie present at the Byers' when Hopper reveals that they found Will's body. I also slightly tweaked the previous chapter to better fit; nothing major, the only change is that Birdie's punishment includes having her car taken away so that she catches a ride with Jonathan instead of driving herself.

Apologies again for the wait, I'm in the process of switching over to a new job so the next couple updates might be a little behind as well but I should hopefully be back on track soon. Voting for this chapter will close Saturday, June 3rd! If you voted when the chapter was first published, you can vote again (the options are the same) because some things have changed in the chapter and I'm not sure if all the votes were kept after I unpublished. If your vote was kept and you'd like to change it, please just make sure to delete your original vote.

Also hope you guys enjoyed the little cameos from Robin and Eddie! I couldn't help but include them even though they won't really join the action until later.

As always, thanks for reading and voting! ♥