Her body rocked to the deep throbbing of the bass, her head thrown back and her eyes closed. Her shirt was still in the bathroom, no longer caring to hide the scars on her chest as she danced. She'd had to step into the role of an adult since her dad left, she had to be perfect because nothing else was, she had to do the right thing and be the right thing for everyone so everyone else could be happy. And she didn't have to anymore.

She tossed her head in time with the beat, her flame colored hair dripping down her back like a waterfall. And she smiled, finally free. But the world fell away and the music faded as she came to a crashing halt, her eyes cutting over her shoulder to the door. There was a flutter of movement unseen through the glare on the windowed doors of the music store. Her black eyes stared unblinking as she slowly moved to the door seeing the waist high creature standing on all fours looking up at her.

A soft chirr sounded in the back of its throat as she stepped outside and the thing in her chest rippled giving its own warm response. The look on her face was so horribly soft like her love wasn't made for anything else, like the way she looked at Max. The mouth in her chest opened as her frail body split in two giving her room to grow into what'd been lurking beneath her skin. She stood on four thin sharp legs, her beady eyes blinking down at what she suddenly understood was one of her children.

He wove through her spindly legs brushing against her warm tail that lay gently on the ground like a fifth limb, smelling something sweet inside of it. She snapped at him in warning and he quickly scurried ahead of her a safe distance and waited for her to follow. He led her into a tunnel underground, dark and musty like an old basement no one knew was there. She could hear the vines slithering like snakes along the walls and the ground of this place, festering. And yet the deeper she went the closer it felt like going home, like all had finally righted in her new world.

There were voices ahead, muffled and some staticky. She slowed listening as they talked to one another, looking for something less than a hundred feet in front of them. An echo shuddered inside her and she lowered her soft vulnerable underbelly to the ground under the weight of it, like a wordless voice. The distant light inside the tunnel in front of her grew brighter. Beckoning.

It was her, that's who they were looking for, she'd shown up on their radar. Her child, unknown to her had been lovingly named Dart, wove through her legs herding her back. The sharp points of her legs struck the earth with a dull thud as they hurried back through the tunnel she was almost too big to fit in, her thick tail slithering behind her helping to keep her oblong body upright.

The sun had risen and was on its way to setting when she crawled back into the light. The fresh air felt foreign, like it didn't belong to her anymore. She turned to Dart seeing him sniffing the air and she raised her head finding a whole world she hadn't known existed. Within it she caught the scent of souring meat. The pair crept into the woods tracking that delicious smell. Dart eagerly lapped up the chunks of meat and continued down the railroad tracks gobbling up each piece specifically laid to lure him.

Veronica sniffed the air as she slunk after him. There was a faint scent some part of her recognized. But she wasn't Veronica anymore, not in the way that matter. Not in the way that understood there was a boy attached to this smell, one she wouldn't have wanted to eat had she still been a girl.

…

The sun sank lower in the sky until it disappeared beyond the horizon, cloaking them in shadows. Two of them were hunched by the windows of the old bus looking across the junkyard for any sign of movement in the fog, the other two sat on the roof with binoculars catching a dog-sized shadow stalking them.

"I've got eyes," Lucas called pointing in front of them, "ten o'clock."

Not knowing any better, still thinking it was just the one Dustin had stupidly kept and fed, Steve grabbed his bat and got off the bus. It was a good plan, they'd rigged everything exactly right. He just had to get this damn thing in position. He slowly stepped forward whistling at first then yelling, egging it into coming after him. He could still run back to the bus if needed, but it was just the one – he could take it.

But on the roof of the bus Lucas scanned the perimeter they made, hearing the faintest groan of metal as something too heavy put weight on an old car door. He turned to his right and his heart fell into his stomach at what he found. The scope of his binoculars wasn't big enough to fully see this thing, his shaking hands lowered and he stared at a monster more horrifying than anything he could've dreamed up.

It crouched low to the ground, its arms bent at forty-five degree angles, its belly dragging along the dirt as three more of the demodogs flanked it. "Steve, watch out!" Lucas screamed, his voice cracking as it climbed a few octaves.

"A little busy here," Steve yelled back, his eyes focused on the demodog advancing on him.

"Three o'clock! Three o'clock!"

It wasn't just one, he realized he was being cornered by these things. He turned swinging the nail-embedded bat with him and he almost lost his grip on it when he saw what had been smart enough to creep around the side of the junk yard.

Inside Dustin watched it climb to its full height, his blood running cold at finding it the size of the bus. Dustin lunged for the door yanking it open. "Steve! Abort! Abort!"

A rasping growl had him turning to see the demodog's mouth had opened, much like the demogorgon's had. He ran as it leapt at him, hearing the crunch of metal as that massive bastard closed in on him. He swung the bat catching one of its arms before it stabbed into him, and he stumbled at the shrill furious shriek that rose from it as he ran. The door to the bus suddenly didn't seem like enough as Dustin closed it behind him and Dart threw himself at it. Steve grabbed a slab of metal he'd at least thought to pack in here earlier in case they needed to barricade themselves in.

"What the hell is that thing?" Dustin cried having never seen anything like it.

Dart kept throwing himself at the door, somewhere behind them Max asked if he was rabid. The whole bus rocked nearly tipping over as that giant thing rammed into the side of it. Dustin grabbed the walkie calling for help, any help it didn't matter.

The bus rocked again and the side bent inwards. They all yelled, of course they yelled they hadn't planned on whatever the hell that thing was. But Max's scream was higher than the boys, more obviously feminine. Familiar.

There was ragged breathing in the window beside Max, and her body shook seeing its eye peering through a space between steel plates they'd lined against the walls thinking it would keep them safe. The end of one of its legs pierced the side of the bus followed by another, and Max watched it's strangely long body slide up the side as it climbed on top. She could see the underside of it through the window, its flesh pale and pink. Human like. Underneath it she caught the stretched black outline of what she slowly understood to be a skull.

"Out of the way!" Steve yelled shoving her back as he stood under the hatch as that damn thing hovered over him. "You want some? Come get this!" he cried tightening his grip on the bat. It couldn't get in it was too big, those legs were long and spider-like and maybe it would stab him through the chest, but it couldn't get in. He gaped up through the hatch as it hovered above him, its mouth open full of teeth.

Max shoved her way in front of Steve as it reared back aiming for the small opening beneath her. "Ronnie," Max yelled with as much might as she could muster. It hesitated, she hesitated blinking down at the small girl with fiery hair just barely visible in the moonlight. "Ronnie it's me, it's Max." She was pleading with her sister to recognize her, to remember her.

Steve had an arm across Max's chest ready to throw her back the it moved. To hell with Mayfield, that thing wasn't a girl anymore. But its mouth closed and it lowered itself onto the top of the bus, which groaned under its weight, and it blinked through the hatch down at them.

Max sucked in a shaky breath wishing she'd paid attention sooner to what was happening to her sister. "I get it now, why you had to leave. It's okay. Just please, please come back." She blinked at the tears stinging her eyes. "You promised we'd make it okay here."

A deep mournful whine rippled through her in conscious, sentient, response. Her eyes might've been darker than any night but Max recognized the warmth in them – Veronica heard her.

But as sudden as clarity had come it glazed over again as she rose up and turned, as though she'd been called. The bus lurched as she clambered off of it and slipped into the night, taking her demodogs with her as they raced for the tunnels. Leaving behind the bus of boys who couldn't believe that thing was Max's sister.

The soldiers in their useless suits moved through a place they had no right to be. Their guns wouldn't save them from her children as they spilled from the dark tearing flesh from bone. Miles above them Will was apologizing to his mother, Mike was running down the hall screaming it was a trap to men that wouldn't listen, scientists were staring at the horror on their little screens. Staring wide eyed and afraid at the monitor showing the feed from one of the soldier's cameras, Jim Hopper caught a glimpse of the girl who'd disappeared from the morgue yesterday before the camera cut out. Only she wasn't Veronica anymore. No more the pretty perfect damsel needing a knight in a shining armor to save her from her dragons. Now she was the monster they needed saving from.

The sound that erupted from her reverberated up the walls and shook the windows the scientists hid behind. The demodogs raced up them and began throwing themselves at the glass. Eventually it would break and her children would die, they weren't made to last. But when he came she'd make more.

The screams above her fell silent as the demodogs moved through the building, she held her ground as his spy found where the humans were. She kept her place waiting for the girl, she would've felt the same call and would have back. Veronica was the last line of defense. But half a mile behind her a boy wearing her favorite cologne crept through the tunnels, and she turned full body towards it when she caught a whiff.

Billy wailed on Steve not even really seeing Steve anymore. All his anger at his old man, at Max for making everything worse, at Ronnie for leaving him like his mom, the baby - all of it now wore Steve's bloody face. The yells of the kids behind him were muffled beneath his pounding heart, Max's cries for him to stop drowned out beneath his rage.

There was a choice. Max eyed the sedative knowing it was her best bet at getting Billy to stop, because the way he was going she didn't think he would until Steve's skull had been ground into the wood floor. But the plan was to kill the Mind Flayer, if she wanted her sister back they had to find her. So there was a choice – to be like Billy or to be better. Only once, not long ago, had she been faced with this exact scene. Then it'd been Neil kneeling over his broken son, and it'd been Ronnie making this choice.

A thin pair of arms wrapped around his middle squeezing him tight, holding on as though for dear life. "This is your fault, Max," he yelled, pausing just enough to take a breath.

That's all she needed, a breath, a moment of clarity. He jerked against her as he grabbed the front of Steve's jacket hauling him up just so he could slam the back of his head into the floor. Back then Max had asked Ronnie why she hadn't gone for Neil's throat; it'd been after Neil brought her back from the clinic, Ronnie didn't talk for almost two months after that. Max thought she might understand now.

"Let go," Billy said through gritted bloody teeth, grabbing her arm before he hit Steve again. He was slowing down, he was breathing.

"Ronnie needs you."

Blood flowed freely from Steve's nose and it was smeared on Billy's knuckles. He wound his arm back and brought it down, but his palm landed flat on the wood beside Steve's already bruising face. Billy sat for a moment hunched over the unconscious boy with Max clinging to his back, his breaths coming in loud gasping pants. "What does that mean?" he demanded, his voice thick and gritted.

This time Max didn't answer, she didn't know how to explain it in a way he'd understand. She wasn't sure she understood it herself. But he tore her arms off him as he stood, and she swallowed heavily as he loomed over her.

"What does that mean, Max?" he asked again. His face and his eyes were cold with fury, but his voice had quieted. He wanted to understand.

"Something happened the night Ronnie didn't come home," she told him, seeing his expression begin to crack. "I don't know what but it turned her into a monster. Don't," she cut him off before he could tell her that was crazy, that it was stupid, "tell me you didn't notice how she was acting. She was talking to you before she ran out, she almost hurt you didn't she?"

Now it was Max demanding and Billy not having an answer, at least not one he was ready to give. "We can show you," Dustin said, more to get him away from Steve.

Max nodded when Billy looked at her waiting, and he let go of a heavy breath as he followed the curly-headed kid to the fridge. When the blanketed lump fell out of the open doorway instinct had Billy catching it, and when he realized what he was seeing he dropped it with a curse. "Shit," he said stepping back. "She's one of those things?"

"No, bigger," Dustin told him. He didn't bother trying to describe her, still not convinced there had ever been a person in there.

"The size of a school bus."

Billy glanced at Lucas before turning back to Max. "Is this a joke?" He stalked toward her feeling his hands start shaking. "You ran off with your friends to make all this up, some stupid crackpot story."

"I don't care if you believe it," Max told him, her voice rising over his the way Veronica's did when she was mad. It was enough to make him pause. "They're going to kill the thing controlling all of them, and if we don't get Ronnie back I'm pretty sure it's gonna kill her too."

The two stared each other down, tension rippling from them in angry waves. There was a moment the three boys thought he'd drag her home, their eyes moving from where Steve lay passed out on the floor to where Billy stood with bloodstained knuckles. But he let go of another breath and the air seemed to change in the Byers house, as if giving back the breath that'd been sucked out when he'd stormed in. "What's the plan?"

That Max didn't have the answer to. She turned to Mike who stepped forward. "We were gonna go down and burn it from the inside. And see if we could lure your sister out," he was quick to add. They were all scared of Billy, who still looked like he'd snap at the drop of a hat.

His eyes were hard as he glared down at Max. "I swear to god if you're lying."

"I'm not," she told him, no hesitation. "She recognized me," this time she was telling all of them, because Dustin had scoffed at her and Lucas hadn't believed her even though he tried saying he did. "She's still in there."

Nothing about any of this made any goddamn sense, but that had started with Ronnie. He knew she killed that boy in the woods, that she almost killed Billy twice and ran both times to keep herself from doing it. "I've got a thing of gas in the trunk."

Max's eyes flooded with relief. And for a second, a very short second that passed just as quickly as it'd come, she wanted to hug him. But the three boys began moving; Dustin grabbing a wet cloth and kneeling by Steve while Mike and Lucas began looting through the Byers house for more gas canisters. "I'm gonna help them get everything," she told Billy, still waiting for him snap out of it and drag her home.

They grabbed scarves and bandanas, anything to use as goggles, Mike found rope in the shed and ax. After placing a couple bandaids on the two places his face kept bleeding, Dustin looked up from Steve to where Max's brother stood taking a hard drag of another cigarette. "We need to get him into your car," he said knowing Steve would be the hardest thing to move.

"He's deadweight, he stays here." Billy's rough grumble offered no place for refusal, ready to grab Max and leave them all here so they could go after Veronica.

Dustin stood as though it made a difference, as though the top of his head reached higher than Billy's shoulder. "Look, the deadweight saved our asses tonight. Steve's the only reason we made it out of the junkyard when the demodogs, and your girlfriend, tried to eat us."

Billy stared him down seeing the heavy way he swallowed, the distance he kept ready to make a run for it if Billy moved. He talked a tough game but the kid was scared of him. With a huff of a laugh Billy pulled his keys out of his pocket and threw them at him. Dustin flinched as they hit his chest, and he scrambled to catch them before they hit the floor. "Car's out front," Billy told him before leaning against the wall and finishing his smoke.

Dustin looked from the keys to the door then to the window where he could see Billy's Camero. He grabbed Steve's arms and pulled, the weight of him had Dustin almost falling on his ass. Giving a sharp jerk he tried again, this time Steve slid a little on the floor.

"Jesus Christ," Billy groaned holding the cigarette between his lips. "Get the damn door."

Dustin jumped out of the wall as Billy stalked over, his boots thumping loudly on the hardwood. But as Billy bent grabbing a fistful of Steve's jacket Dustin hurried first to pull the front door open, then he ran to the car to open the passenger's side door. Behind him Billy hauled Steve's ass through the dirt like he was nothing more than a wet blanket.

He threw Harrington in the back seat and tossed his limp legs in after him. "Get in," he told the kid before turning to the three still in the house. "Anyone not in the goddamn car is getting their ass left."

"Your brother's a dick," Mike told Max as they went outside to store everything they found in the trunk.

She grumbled a quiet, "tell me about it," in response.

Now that they were all outside Billy looked between the thirteen year old kids he let convince him this was real. This was such bullshit. "Who knows where we're going?"

Lucas raised the map he held and flinched as Billy's hand clamped down on his shoulder to drag him towards the car. "You're in front, everyone else in the back."

Max was pressed between the window and Dustin as Billy floored it up the road Lucas directed him down. The backseat was really only big enough for two people, instead there were three kids and Steve who was finally starting to wake up. He groaned reaching a hand to his nose, feeling like he had the worst cold and couldn't breathe through it.

"No don't touch it," Dustin said pulling his hand away. "Hey Buddy," he said when Steve's head lulled to the side to look at him. "It's okay. You put up a good fight – he kicked your ass, but you put up a good fight. You're okay."

His swollen bleary eyes followed the sound of a mean scoff to where Billy sat behind the wheel, his cold blue eyes flicking to the rearview and smirking when he met Steve's widening stare. "What's going on?" Lucas gave directions to turn left in half a mile, and Steve looked from him to Max on Dustin's other side then to Mike on the other side of Steve himself. They were all here, with Billy who almost killed him, speeding down a dark road. They were going after Veronica. "Oh my god," he groaned trying to sit up as panic rose in his tight chest.

"Just relax, he's on our side now," Dustin tried telling him. "We're just gonna get his girl back."

From Steve's left Mike said, "I thought she was your sister."

"Step sister," Max and Billy said at the same time, like the word step made it okay.

"Oh my god," Steve cried a little louder. She'd been huge, could eat them whole in one bite huge.

"They were gonna leave you behind," Dustin told him feeling him squirming around as he still tried to sit up. "I promised you'd be cool."

But Steve either wasn't listening or couldn't hear beneath the pounding in his head. "Stop the car," he yelled wanting to be out of there. Wanting to be away from Billy and these crazy kids that kept almost getting him killed. "Stop the car."

"Enough Harrington!" The sharp edge of Billy's voice boomed like a clap of thunder quieting all four of the backseat. "Next person that talks is getting thrown out of this car."

Next to him Lucas pointed ahead on the left. Billy hadn't eased up on the gas, they were going too fast. "That's Mt Sinai."

"Shit," he hissed hitting the breaks as he swerved too far right to make a wide turn. The tail of the car hit a mailbox as the back wheels hit grass before he got them straightened out. He whooped loudly as the kids in the back stared with wide terrified eyes.

The only person that spoke, that trusted the situation enough to keep speaking, was Lucas he led Billy to the tunnels. He led them off road and the tires kicked up dirt as they raced for the pumpkin patch. They were all thrown forward as Billy hit the breaks, stopping before he drove into the hole.

Leaving the keys in the ignition and the headlights on illuminating the space in front of them, Billy climbed out and slowly stepped forward. Steve was behind him falling out of the car before he pulled himself upright, trying to tell them they weren't doing this. While Dustin calmed him down, reminding him he'd promised Nancy to take care of them, Max came around the side of the car and stood beside Billy.

"What the hell is this?" he tried asking her, but she didn't have any other answer besides shaking her head. He pulled on the goggles she gave him and tied the scarf around his nose and mouth. "No chance you'd stay with the car?"

She handed him the ax Mike had found in the shed. "No chance," she agreed, wondering if it was the thought of how mad Neil would be if something happened or if Billy actually cared. Some days she almost thought he might.

The other boys flanked him as they all stood over the dark hole that reeked of something old and decaying. "Ladies first, Harrington."

Steve scoffed as he made his way next to Billy, wondering who the hell had given him an ax. "She's your girl, Hargrove."

Shooting him a dark look Billy grabbed the rope and scaled down, his boots hitting the soft ground finding himself in the dark. He stepped to one of the walls looking at the black vines running along them and the ground like spider webs. A few years ago Max had gotten really interested in ants and Ronnie had bought her a little ant farm where she could see the tunnels they burrowed – before Billy dumped it out and tossed it in the move.

Before he could touch it Lucas grabbed his arm, and quickly stepped back when Billy turned to him. "Maybe don't touch it," Lucas offered with a shrug.

Ahead of them Steve called, muffled behind a red bandana, "from here on out I'm leading the way. Let's go – Billy take up the rear, don't let anyone get eaten."

Following the light of Lucas and Max's flashlights Billy realized he was in over his head. This wasn't supposed to be his life, there were no such things as monsters. Half a mile ahead of them the girl he was here for had caught the scent of his cologne.