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𝗠𝗢𝗢𝗡𝗟𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧

𝓬𝓱𝓪𝓹𝓽𝓮𝓻 𝓷𝓲𝓷𝓮:
"𝚘𝚏 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚛𝚜𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚔𝚗𝚘𝚠 𝚠𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎
𝚒𝚝 𝚒𝚜."

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MACKENZIE HAD GONE back to her house after leaving the Creel house. Her mother had tried to stop her from going up the stairs, demanding where she had been, but Mackenzie ignored her and went to her room anyways. Maybe it was petty, but what her mom had told her the other night was still fresh in her mind. She didn't like the attachment she had to Will? That was complete bullshit. Besides, Mackenzie had bigger things to focus on.

She woke up quite early the next morning, throwing on a red long-sleeved shirt, a pair of jeans, and her red Converse. Mackenzie left her hair down but pinned the two front pieces back. Once she had completely finished getting ready, she went down the stairs and slipped out the door, where she hopped on her pink bike and rode to the Wheelers. Nancy was waiting in the car in her driveway with Robin, Steve, Max, Lucas, and Dustin. They had come up with a lie that they were going to the movies, and thankfully, all of their parents let them go (not that Mackenzie asked.)

The group went to the grocery store to stock up on snacks for Eddie, remembering Mackenzie's promise to him yesterday of getting him food. It took a bit longer than expected because Dustin kept inputting his opinions on certain foods and changing the snacks, but nevertheless, they managed to get some food. Now, they were heading back to Reefer Rick's house. Mackenzie sat comfortably between Max and Lucas in the backseat, listening to the music that was playing from the radio.

"Not to be a wimp, but can I maybe sit in the car for this visit?" Robin asked from the passenger seat. "'Cause this is gonna totally and royally suck."

"It'll be fine," Nancy reassured her.

"I just can't stand to see those dull eyes of Eddie's break again. I really, really, can't."

"At least he can drink himself into feeling better," Steve replied from the very back of he car, holding up a six-pack of beer while eating a can of Pringles with Dustin.

"That's what my mom does," Max stated, making Mackenzie frown.

"Why don't we just give it a trial run?" Robin suggested. "Hey, Eddie. Uh, good news first this time. We got you some Dustin-approved junk food and that six-pack you requested. Oh yeah, and we found Vecna. Only the bad news is that he's in that other, darker, much scarier dimension that we told you about, and the Gate's closed, so we have no way of getting to him. Like, he's entirely shut off to us, so basically you're screwed. And no no, I know that you were already screwed, but now you're doubly, triply screwed."

Mackenzie sat forwards in her seat. "Little harsh, Rob."

Lucas nodded in agreement. "Maybe we don't put it like that."

"We're one step closer to finding Vecna," Nancy voiced. "That's what we say. That's what's important."

"See, Robin?" Steve began, eating another Pringle. "Positive spin can make all the difference."

"Uh-huh," Robin responded.

"Oh shit," Nancy commented.

Mackenzie looked ahead, and she swore her heart dropped to her stomach. Surrounding Reefer Rick's house was a whole bunch of police cars, police barricades, and people that had shown up. A new crime scene.

Nancy parked the car, and the group of seven all got out of the car. They stood there for a moment and looked at the center of attention, which was Officer Callahan and Chief Powell standing in front of the camera for the news.

"Come on, this way," Nancy encouraged.

She led them behind the news van and over to the yellow crime scene tape. They all stood around. Mackenzie peered at the Chief, listening into what he was saying.

"As many of you know may know by now, the Roane County line received a call a little after midnight, reporting a homicide out here on the lake," Chief Powell reported, and Mackenzie shoved her hands into the pockets of her jeans to hide how badly they were shaking. "Officer Callahan here and myself arrived first on the scene. We made our way to the shore of Lover's Lake, about ten yards from that house you see behind me. It was there that we found the victim, an eighteen-year-old senior from Hawkins High, Patrick McKinney."

Mackenzie's eyes widened and the world seemed to stop turning. Patrick. He was one of the nicer basketball boys, and a really good guy from what Lucas had told her. She sneaked a glance over at Lucas. He seemed completely dumbfounded and a little bit crushed. Mackenzie took one hand out of her pocket and took his in hers. Lucas gripped it back tight, like it was the only thing grounding himself.

"His limbs, his body, it was disfigured," Chief Powell continued. "There was an eyewitness on the scene. We've also identified a person of interest." He held up a picture of Eddie. "Eddie Munson."

Mackenzie let out a deep breath. This was even worse for Eddie, considering this was the last place he was. He always just seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. She had started to wonder if Vecna had a personal vendetta against Eddie.

"We encourage anyone with information to please come forward."

"Oh man," Steve let out quietly. "This is not good. This is really not good."

"You've got a lot of questions, and I'm going to answer as many as I can," Chief Powell announced. "Two o'clock at town hall, where anyone from the Hawkins community is welcome. But right now, I've got some work to do, and I appreciate your understanding."

He turned around and walked off, ignoring the questions from everyone behind him. Mackenzie could feel herself getting a headache. This was all just too much.

"Dustin, can you hear me?" Eddie's voice rang out from Dustin's Walkie. "Tate?"

Dustin pulled out his Walkie from his backpack. "Eddie, holy shit. Are you okay?"

"Nah, man. Pretty ⁠— pretty God damn far from okay."

"Where is he?" Robin questioned to Dustin.

"Where are you?" Dustin inquired through the Walkie.

"Skull Rock," Eddie answered. "Do you know it?"

"Uh, yeah. That's near, uh, Cornwallis and—"

"Garrett, yeah," Steve interrupted, walking ahead of all of them. "Yeah, I know where that is."

"Hold tight, we're coming," Dustin told Eddie. "We're coming."

The whole group followed after Steve. They climbed back to Nancy's car, and she drove for a little while on Dustin's instructions before parking on the side of the road. Mackenzie got out of the car and let out a deep breath as they headed into the woods. Dustin then took out his compass and map from his backpack, starting to lead them towards Skull Rock. However, Steve kept insisting that they weren't going the right way. Mackenzie had let go of Lucas' hand for now, allowing him to walk with Max. She stayed by Steve, squinting up at the sunlight shining through the trees as they mindlessly walked.

"Dude, I'm telling you, you're taking us the wrong way," Steve insisted.

"It's north," Dustin protested. "I'm positive. I checked the map."

"You do realize that Skull Rock, it's, like, a super popular make out spot?"

Mackenzie rolled her eyes at him. "Of course you know where it is."

"Yeah, so?" Dustin asked.

"Yeah, well, it's wasn't popular until I made it popular," Steve said. "All right? I practically invented it. We're heading in the wrong direction."

He started to walk off away from them. Mackenzie sighed and crossed her arms across her chest.

"Steve, where are you going?" Mackenzie complained.

"Stop whining," he replied, making her roll her eyes again. "Let's go. Trust me."

"If you get us lost, I swear to God—"

"I'm not going to get us lost, Kenzie."

They fell into silence. Mackenzie averted her gaze down to her red shoes, watching as they crunched on the leaves. Why was everything so complicated? Why couldn't everything just be normal? She fucking hated the Upside Down. After what it did to Will, after what it did to Chrissy . . . couldn't it just leave them alone?

"Oh, boom!" Steve exclaimed, pushing down some branches on a bush, and Mackenzie looked up to see a rock that indeed look like a skull. "Bada bing, bada boom. There she is, Henderson. Skull Rock. In your face, man. In your stupid, cocky little face."

Dustin glanced down to his compass. "Doesn't make sense."

"Yeah, yeah. Even with it staring you right in the face, you can't admit it. You just can't admit that you're wrong, you little butthead."

Suddenly, the sound of feet dropping on the ground was heard. Mackenzie turned around on high alert, but immediately relaxed upon noticing it was only Eddie.

"I concur," Eddie voiced in an accent. "You, Dustin Henderson, are a . . . total butthead."

Dustin walked up to Eddie, pulling him in for a hug. "Jesus, we thought you were a goner."

Eddie hugged him back. "Yeah, me too, man." He let him go. "Me too."

The others then joined them, all giving Eddie small smiles. Nancy handed him the bag of food, and Eddie immediately started to eat and drink what they had got him. They explained what they had found at Victor Creel's house while he did so. Mackenzie gave him an expectant look once they were done, and Eddie started to tell them about what he had witnessed last night. Jason and a couple of the basketball boys had come looking for him, and Eddie had escaped by the boat. However, Patrick had been killed by Vecna at the lake while him and Jason were swimming.

"When I got to the shore, I tried calling you guys, but, uh . . . my Walkie was busted, man," Eddie explained. "Drenched. So, uh, I did the thing that I do now, apparently. I ran."

"Do you know what time this was?" Nancy cut in. "The attack."

"Yeah, no, I — ⁠I know exactly what time it was." He rolled up his sleeve. "My Walkie wasn't the only thing that got soaked."

He took off his watch and threw it at Nancy. She looked down at it.

"Nine twenty-seven," Nancy read.

"Same time our flashlights went kablooey," Robin stated.

"Which means what, exactly?" Steve questioned.

"That that surge of energy was Vecna attacking Patrick," Nancy answered.

"Well, we're one step closer," Robin said. "We know how Vecna attacks."

"And where he attacks from," Lucas added.

"So now we just need to sneak into his lair in the Upside Down and drive a stake through his heart," Max announced.

"If he even has a heart," Robin argued.

"A stake?" Steve repeated. "Is he like a Vamp?" His eyes widened. "Is he a Vampire?"

Max shook her head. "It was a metaphor."

"A bullet should work on him, right?" Eddie interjected.

"I say we chop his head off," Lucas suggested.

"Or we could go back to my original plan and let me punch him in the face," Mackenzie offered. "No, seriously, let me at him."

"Yeah, I'd say all of the above, but we can't do any of that till we find a way into the Upside Down," Nancy reminded them.

"We need El to get her powers back," Max voiced.

"Yeah, everything was, like, way easier," Steve told Eddie. "We had this girl. She had superpowers."

"Superpowers," Eddie echoed. "Yeah, you mentioned her. Hey, uh, Henderson's not, uh, cursed, is he?"

Mackenzie's eyebrows knit in thought and she turned around to see Dustin still pacing, staring down at his compass. She sighed. What was he doing?

"Cursed?" Steve repeated. "No, no, no. He's fine. Mental? Absolutely."

"Boom!" Dustin shouted, his voice echoing throughout the forest. Mackenzie looked at him weirdly as he pointed at Steve. "Bada . . . bada . . . boom. I was right. Skull Rock was north."

"Seriously?" Steve inquired in annoyance. "You're serious?"

"Mm-hmm."

Steve gestured to the rock. "This is Skull Rock, okay? You're totally, absolutely, one-hundred-percent wrong. Right now."

"Yes," Dustin agreed. "And no."

"Oh my God."

Mackenzie shook her head. "Okay, Dustin, what the fuck are you talking about?"

Dustin held up his compass. "This compass worked correctly when we left the Wheelers'. It was correct when we got in the car on Curly, but it started to slip the further east we went. Now, it's way off. When I was leading us here, I wasn't wrong. The compass was."

"So you're using faulty equipment, dude," Steve argued. "You're still wrong."

"Except it isn't faulty. Lucas, Kenzie, do you remember what can affect a compass?"

Mackenzie's eyes widened in realization. She suddenly got transported back three years ago, wandering around in the forest on the old train tracks, staring down at a compass as the needle pointed in the direction where the Gate was. Sure, at the time maybe Eleven had used her powers to make them go in the exact opposite direction of Hawkins Lab, but that didn't matter.

"An electromagnetic field," Mackenzie and Lucas chorused.

"Yep," Dustin confirmed.

"I'm sorry, I must've skipped that class," Robin admitted.

"In the presence of a stronger electromagnetic field, the needle will deflect towards that power. So either there's some super big magnet around here, or . . ."

"It's a Gate," Mackenzie finished.

"But we're nowhere near the lab," Nancy protested.

"But what if, somehow, there's another Gate?" Dustin questioned. "A Gate that we don't know about. It'd have to be smaller. Way less powerful."

"Snack-size Gate," Robin commented.

"How?" Steve inquired. "Why?"

"No idea," Dustin responded. "All I know is that something is causing this disturbance, and the last time we've seen anything like it, it was a Gate. And I hope it is because then we'd have a way to Vecna and a shot at freeing Max from this curse."

Dustin then walked off, clearly determined.

"Where are you going?" Steve demanded. "Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Eddie's still a wanted man, we can't just go for a hike in the woods."

He held up his compass again. "This little steel capsule might be the key to saving both Max and Eddie. What say you, Eddie the Banished?"

"I say you're asking me to follow you into Mordor, which, if I'm totally straight with you, I think it's a really bad idea," Eddie revealed. "But, uh, the Shire . . . the Shire is burning."

Mackenzie had no idea what that meant. But Dustin apparently did, because he got a big grin on his face and started to jump up and down excitedly.

Eddie stood up. "So Mordor it is."

Steve tapped Mackenzie on the shoulder as she passed him to join the group. "What is Mordor?"

"Hell if I know," Mackenzie replied.

Eddie then ran back to get his drink and Walkie.

"Get your stuff, dude, let's go," Steve urged.

The sky started to get dark as Dustin just basically wandered them around the forest. He kept following his compass to wherever it pointed at. It was officially nighttime when Mackenzie assumed the compass was spinning around in a circle, just like it had done three years ago. How did she know that? Well, Dustin had broken through some trees and stopped, staring down at his compass in excitement.

"Something's happening," Dustin breathed out.

"Dustin?" Eddie called as he ran forwards. "Can you slow down? Dustin?"

He looked back at them. "I think we're getting close?"

Eddie pulled him back before Dustin could step into the lake. "Watch your step, big guy."

Mackenzie stared ahead of here. The compass had led them straight to Lover's Lake. Which meant the Gate was in the forest, or . . .

"Oh, man," Steve said. "You gotta be shitting me."

"Yeah," Eddie responded. "I thought these woods were familiar."

"Lover's Lake," Robin announced.

"This is confounding," Dustin admitted.

"There's a Gate in Lover's Lake?" Max asked.

"Whenever the Demogorgon attacked, it always left an opening," Nancy explained. "Maybe Vecna's the same way."

"Yeah, only one way to find out," Steve stated.

Eddie brought them a little further down the shoreline, where a boat was. He took off the tarp on top of it and Mackenzie stared down at it. Eddie put his hands on it, ready to push it in.

"Easy," Steve said. Eddie pushed it in the water rather harshly. "I — ⁠I said easy, man."

"Sorry, dude," Eddie replied.

Him and Steve leaned down on either side of the boat, holding it in place so people could get on.

Steve offered a hand to Robin. "Here you go."

Robin, instead, put her hands on Steve and Eddie's heads and stepped in. "Yeah, I'm just gonna do that. Thank you."

"Yeah, that works too."

Eddie then climbed in, and offered a hand to Nancy. "Wheeler."

"Thanks," Nancy responded.

Dustin turned to Mackenzie, Lucas, and Max. He saluted them. Mackenzie raised an eyebrow. There was no way that Steve, or Eddie, was letting him go on that boat.

Eddie pushed Dustin back, confirming her suspicions. "Hey, hey, hey, you trying to sink us? This thing holds three people tops, okay?"

"It's better this way, okay?" Nancy told him. "You guys stay here with Max. Keep an eye out for trouble."

"You keep an eye out," Dustin countered. "It's my God damn theory."

"You heard Nance," Robin voiced.

"Who put her in charge?"

"I did."

Nancy held her hand out. "Compass."

Dustin begrudgingly took his compass out of his pocket and handed it to Nancy. Mackenzie let out a small laugh.

Steve then picked up Dustin's backpack and threw it at him. "Hey, there you go."

He pushed the boat off of the shore into the water. However, Steve then got in the boat. It rocked for a moment before it got used to the weight.

"You said three!" Dustin protested.

"Sorry," Steve whispered.

"Bedtime at nine, kiddos!" Robin called as she paddled the boat away. She then stood up and waved at them, Dustin giving her the middle finger. "Miss you already!"

"Bye, Mama Steve!" Mackenzie yelled, waving at him.

"Shut up, Mackenzie!" Steve yelled, making her laugh slightly.

"Unbelievable," Dustin complained. "Unbelievable."

Mackenzie had started to aimlessly walk back and forth, occasionally kicking rocks into the water with her shoe. Lucas had gotten Dustin's binoculars so he could watch the group on the boat, which was getting further and further out on the lake.

"Wait, wait, wait," Lucas suddenly said after a while, hitting Dustin's chest. "They're stopping. What are they stopping for?"

Dustin pulled out his Walkie. "Guys, what's going on? Come on, guys, talk to me. What's going on?"

"Uh, Dustin, your ⁠ — your compass has gone from wonky to wonky with a capital ahh!" Robin answered.

Mackenzie looked out in the lake. In the distance, she could faintly see a figure stand up on the boat.

"Ugh, when'd Steve get so hairy?" Lucas said in disgust.

"Right?" Dustin agreed. "I keep telling him he needs to tame that jungle, but he claims the ladies dig it."

"Let me see," Max voiced.

She walked up and took the binoculars away from Lucas. Max ignored his what? and raised the binoculars to her eyes. She didn't say anything for a moment, just staring out at Steve through the binoculars.

Mackenzie giggled and took them from her. "Hey, save some for me."

She then lifted the binoculars to her eyes. Mackenzie nodded in satisfaction when her eyes set on a shirtless Steve. Okay, let her explain ⁠ — her and Steve would literally never happen, one, because of the age gap, and two, because she was dating Will, but that didn't mean he wasn't nice to look at. He then dove into the water, making Mackenzie lower the binoculars.

"You guys realize, if there's a Gate down there, it's technically a water Gate," Dustin commented. "Watergate!"

Mackenzie shook her head and looked back through the binoculars again while Dustin chuckled. Doofus.

"Come on, Steve," Dustin whispered. "Come on."

Suddenly, there was the sound of a radio crackling and the sight of lights behind them. Mackenzie's eyebrows knit in confusion as she turned around. Her eyes instantly widened when she saw that the lights were flashlights.

"Shit, down, down!" Lucas ordered quietly.

All of them ducked down to crouch behind a log. Mackenzie's heart raced against her chest as she watched the flashlights get closer and closer. There was no way they weren't getting caught.

"Dustin, you are a God damn Einstein," Robin's voice rang from his Walkie. "Steve found the Gate—"

He turned off his Walkie. However, the sound of sirens wailing got closer to them.

"Cops," Max stated.

"Shit, shit, shit," Dustin whispered.

"We can't let 'em find Eddie," Lucas insisted.

Mackenzie nodded. "You guys are going to fucking hate me and think I'm absolutely out of my mind, but if we want to keep their attention off of Eddie we have to be the bait. Just follow my lead, okay?" She stood up and raised her voice. "Hey, officers!"

"Mackenzie!" Dustin seethed. "What are you doing?"

Max seemed to understand, and she stood up as well. "Over here! We found the killer! This way!"

Mackenzie and Max then ran in the opposite direction, forcing Lucas and Dustin to get up as well and run too. She ran as fast as she could through the woods, ignoring the shouts to stop from the officers behind them. Dustin suddenly fell, making an officer grab onto him so he wouldn't go anywhere. Mackenzie breathed heavily as she skidded to a stop.

"Dustin!" Lucas shouted. "Shit."

"Hey there," Chief Powell greeted Dustin.

Mackenzie shut her eyes for a moment. They were so fucked.

☾ ★ ☽

LUMAX IS THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS NOW I LIVE AND BREATHE FOR THEM