Lucas runs out the door the moment he hears Mike's recognizable engine coming up the drive. Eleven, Will and Dustin linger on the porch. Mike and Max had radioed them from the car about what happened.
"MAX!" Lucas yells. She opens the door, and he nearly lifts her from her seat. "I was really worried. I hate that son-of...," he holds himself back. "I can't believe he would do that to you."
"I'm fine Lucas, really. I—" He won't let her go. At first, it suffocates her, but a few moments later, she likes it and smiles. Then it hits her that her stepdad had put a lock on her window to keep her from leaving, and she bursts into tears. Mike saw her like this earlier through her window. He heads straight to his girlfriend, who hugs him tight.
When they're all inside, Dustin passes around what he snagged them for breakfast, two boxes of a sugary cereal and a quart of milk from his fridge. Will sniffs it suspiciously before sipping straight from the carton. Dustin didn't bring dishes or utensils so they are popping little balls of dried cereal into their mouths.
"Alright so this is the situation. Typically, now is where I would like us to have backup, preferably in the form of Steve, Robin, Erica, heck even Nancy and Jonathan would be useful, but they're all out-of-state or in college out-of-state so we're going to have to do this alone," he sighs disappointedly.
"Hey, you missed us the last time, but the Griswold Family held their own against the Mind Flayer! We confronted Billy at the sauna while he was under its control too!"
"Hey, I'm not saying anything about your set of skills! I know it wasn't easy. I was trapped in a Russian elevator, and then a Russian lair, and Steve got beaten to an inch of his life and then we had to sneak out of the Russian lair!" he emphasizes intensely, getting wilder with every word. He takes a breath.
Mike looks down at his feet.
Dustin says sternly and silently, "But last time, we had her," he points at El.
She looks at all their expectant faces staring back at her. Mike slaps his hand down from pointing.
"We can do this. It can't be related to the Upside Down; this is a simple government experiment sort of thing," Mike replies confidently.
"Was the experimentation with Eleven what you would call "simple government experiment" stuff too?" Dustin adds the sarcastic bunny-ears. "We need to be prepared for anything! Hawkins' Lab is being monitored heavily. You weren't outside keeping a lookout all morning. They're swarming that place! Something is terribly wrong!" Dustin blurts.
"Calm down Dr. Brown—we get it!" Lucas interrupts annoyed by Dustin's typical end-of-the-world antics. Max pulls him back to earth literally, helping him get comfortably seated on the floor again after he jumped up at the end of Dustin's monologue.
"Not to interrupt, but do you think that telephone still works?" Will says tensely distracted. He's been peeking over at the phone at the wall the whole time. "I need to call my mom before she drives down here looking for me."
"I doubt it will work. What would you even tell her?" Mike asks.
"I guess a mixture of the truth. She's going to hear about the earthquake and assume something, but hopefully, El and I will be out of any danger and on the way back home," Will answers matter-of-factly.
Mike is momentarily stunned.
When he was younger, it really felt like they could live forever, and that bad guys and monsters would lose in the end. If you played the game right, you could even win. What he'd begun to learn is that they were all vulnerable. Hopper and Billy were the last two victims, but it could be one of them next. Only Eleven and Max knew what it was like to lose someone close to them like that. Will lived his horror, he had to live with his own demons, and he'd probably never be passed it. Mike only had to deal with the trauma of day-to-day life when he loses El.
Mike finally has the party back together again, but it will be over soon—if they all make it out alive. He would lose her again no matter how their mission turned out because at the end of the day, she didn't live there anymore. They could hunt monsters and bad guys living out Dungeons and Dragons and all the arcade games they want, but the truth was they were growing up and the real world was not a game.
"Right yeah," Mike mutters to Will before redirecting his attention back at Dustin. "How should we do this?" he asks. Dustin nods slow and eager. His fresh set of pearly whites creep slowly into a smile.
"I think I have an idea."
~A.N. I'm back for another chapter! We're about to dig into Hawkins Lab again. Get ready! Any strategies for how you would sneak in? Leave a comment! TY