Author's note: Just a quick detour to remind you where our other characters are. Their stories haven't really started to diverge yet, but they WILL. Since this one's fairly short, I'm posting two chapters today.
Hopper skidded to a stop on the muddy path that passed for a road way out in the woods. He threw his truck into park and tore the keys out of the ignition, almost forgetting his hat as he jumped out and headed off on foot to his cabin. He'd walked the dirt path countless times, but he'd never before been in such a hurry. Now it seemed that every rock, every root, every fallen tree branch was an obstacle purposely put in his way to slow him down.
He breathed a small, very small, sigh of relief when found the tripwire still in place, and the cabin door shut. That meant that the agents from Hawkins Lab hadn't come storming in looking for El. That was something.
He almost stumbled over the wire as he rushed over to the front door, which turned out to be unlocked. He hadn't really expected that the Lab had found El in the cabin. If they had, Owen's wouldn't have been thinly veiling his threats when he and Hopper had spoken on the phone. So the worst hadn't happened. Not yet, at least. But, as Hopper pushed through the door and into the dark and empty cabin, he didn't feel much relief. Wherever El was, she wasn't here, and she wasn't safe. Every minute she spent out there was more chance of her being spotted and recognized, or of her using her abilities in front of people. He didn't remember being this scared in a long time. Not when he'd stolen a guard's key card and gone poking around inside Hawkins lab. Not when he'd woken up in his trailer, drugged by agents from the same Lab. He'd only needed to worry about himself back then. Now it was different.
His mind raced to all the places El might be. He'd need to check them all, but where to start? Hawkins wasn't a big place, and he could search it faster if he brought in help. There were three officers on duty today, including Callahan and Powell. If he told them what to look for, they could cover more ground. But that was a bad idea. The more people who knew about El, the more danger she was in.
Slamming the cabin door shut behind him, Hopper raced back out to his truck, almost stumbling over the trip wire again.
"Are you sure about this?" Jonathan asked, pacing Nancy's room nervously.
"No," Nancy admitted. Still, though she knew how much trouble she might be landing herself and Jonathan in, she decided to go through with the plan. Grabbing her phone off her nightstand, Nancy dialed the number.
"Hello, Marsha speaking," came the answer. "Hello? Hello?"
Nancy hesitated. She might also be dragging Barb's mom into a world of trouble that she hadn't asked for. At least Nancy and Jonathan knew how dangerous Hawkins Lab could be. Mrs. Holland had no idea. Was it right for Nancy to include her in the plot?
"Mrs. Holland... It's Nancy," she said at last.
"Nancy?" Barb's mom asked.
"I uh..." Nancy looked to Jonathan for encouragement. "I need to tell you something... Something about Barb."
Hopper stood outside the cabin's door, furiously smoking his tenth cigarette. He'd been running on adrenaline for hours, and his nerves were about shot. He stared into the trees, quickly turning into shadows as the sun went down. He'd looked everywhere for El but had found not a sign of her. He'd gone back to search the school. He'd knocked on the Wheeler's front door. He'd sneaked around back and pressed his face up to the glass of the Wheeler's basement windows. He'd even driven past the Lab several times, just to see if they seemed to be mobilizing any of their men and vans, but they weren't. That had been risky. People at the Lab could easily have noticed him acting strangely and started looking around themselves. If they found El before he did...
After nearly a year of going off to work his boring, quiet job as the police chief of a town where nothing ever happened, while El sat quietly in the cabin with the doors locked and the curtains drawn, he'd gotten too complacent. He knew it now. He should have known it long before now. No thirteen year old kid could stay cooped up inside for that long and resist the temptation to go outside. Kids didn't understand how dangerous the world was. He should have known better. He had only himself to blame. As usual.
How many times had it been his fault? How many things in his life had gone horribly wrong, just because it was HIS life? The black hole.
He heard a twig snap.
His eyes darted over the trees, quickly sinking into the approaching blackness of night.
There she was. One small shadow emerging from the other shadows. The vice that had been squeezing his stomach suddenly let go and he could breathe again.
Even from this distance, Hopper could make out the expression on her face. She wasn't scared. She wasn't sorry. She was defiant.
His jaw clenched so tight that he couldn't speak as relief that she was alive and safe gave way to anger.