Lucas slammed the door shut, staring at Erica with a wild expression. "Demogoragn," he said flatly.

Her eyes go wide. "Shit, shit, shit! We need to go."

"Not without Max."

Erica gave him a sympathetic look. "We'll come back for her, okay? But we need to go, now."

"I can't!"

"Lucas, what other choice do we have? Stay here and be eaten, or actually escape?"

He knew she was right; she almost always was. Still, he couldn't just leave his date behind. "We have to find another way!"

"Lucas, please, use your brain!"

"But Max-"

"There's still a chance she'll live, but until then, we need to go! But, please, Lucas, I don't want to die!"

I don't want to die.

It was a line that played over and over in his mind. Max had pleaded it when she was dying. And now… and now Erica was pleading it too. He couldn't fail another person.

Running to Max's bed, he whispered, "I'll come back for you." Then, planting a kiss on Max's forehead, he took Erica by the wrist and opened the door. Lucas was lucky that the Demogorgon was more focused on a patch of nurses than on the two of them.

Barging down the staircase, they tried to make their way to another emergency exit when suddenly, a demodog raced up the steps.

Finding their way to the nearest door, they sprinted down the hallways in terror. A group of demodogs was headed after them in the corridors full of dead bodies.

"THIS WAY!" Lucas cried.

Rounding the corner, they slammed open another exit and shut it behind them. Lucas could hear the creatures banging against its metal.

As they charged out of the emergency exit, they ran in the now raining forest, the upside-down storm creating water droplets. The roads had too many monsters for them to sprint on them. Instead, they had to take the safety of the woods.

"Where are we heading to!?" Erica called over the thunder.

Lucas thought for a moment. He'd totally left his walkie behind, so the only other place was... "Weathertop!"

Robin lay on Hopper's bed, Steve cradling her head in his lap. As Joyce patched up the wound on the girl's head, Steve asked, "Will she be okay?"

"Oh, yeah, she'll be fine," Joyce smiled. "I think she's just exhausted from the crash. You were that way when you got beat up by… what's the kid's name again-"

"Billy."

"Ah, yes, him. He was Max's brother, right?"

Steve nodded his head. "Yeah."

"How did she hold before she went into a coma?"

Steve almost scoffed, but he caught himself in time. "Not the best. That's the whole reason she's in a coma. Vecna targeted her because of her trauma. She made Dustin, Lucas, and I drive all around Hawkins the day she thought she was gonna die. She was dropping off letters. When she got to Billy's, she read it to his gravestone while we were forced to stay in the car. I noticed it took her too long, so I checked on her. Short-story-short, Vecna had tranced her, and we had to rescue her. She even started to levitate. Scared the hell out of us."

Joyce nodded. "How did you guys rescue her?"

"Somehow, music is the only way to save someone from his trance. So we played her favorite song, and she eventually fell back to reality."

Joyce looked worried. "So, how did she slip into a coma?"

"Vecna killed her, but she somehow came back to life. And Lucas… Lucas was a wreck. He held her as she died, apparently. She kept telling him how she didn't want to go. Both of them shouldn't have had to go through that."

Joyce's hands were covering her mouth. She looked shocked. "Oh my god…."

"Yeah," he muttered. "But she's still in there somewhere. I know she is."

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Hopper was on the phone with Murray.

"Murray, listen, I need you to get down here. Hawkins is being invaded…. Yes…. Bring them too, okay…. We live…."

As he continued the conversation, Dustin paced the living room, hands on his walkie.

"Lucas, do you copy?"

There was only static.

"Lucas, do you copy?"

Nothing.

"Shit, shit, shit…" he cursed.

"Maybe it's 'cause of the thunder?" Will suggested.

"It'd still work," Dustin responded. "Something's wrong."

Lucas and Erica walked through the woods, their clothes soaked. Of course, Lucas wasn't 100% sure if this water was safe or not, seeing that it was from the upside down, but whatever.

He was still terrified for Max. What if something got her? What if she was hurt? So many questions raced through his head.

"She'll be okay," Erica said, reading his mind. "I just have a hunch."

Lucas only nodded. "Yeah… I know…."

"Just the facts, okay?"

"Mhm." He hesitated. "I love her."

"I know."

"I can't lose her again. It was awful, Erica. When she died in my arms."

"I could hear you from the street…" his younger sister sniffled. "I never want to hear that sound again…."

Hugging her, he said, "I'll do everything in my power so you won't have to."

"Thanks, shithead," she joked.

The first thing Robin saw was a blurry figure above her head. It was saying something incoherent to her, and though no matter how hard she tried, Robin just couldn't understand what they were talking about.

The last thing she remembered was talking to Steve, but that was about it.

Groaning from the pain in her head, Robin shifted closer to whoever she was on, to which they pulled her into their arms.

As her head rested on their chest, she saw another person enter the room, talking to her.

Mustering up the will to say anything, she went, "Huh?"

They said something else. "I-" she tried to form her sentence sleepily.

As the world came into view some more, she realized she was laying on Steve as Joyce stood over her, Hopper soon joining them.

"Hi," she mumbled.

"Hey," Steve half-smiled. "You feeling okay?"

Robin's head felt as if it were on fire. "Never better."

"Sweety, I just need to check your bandage while Hopper checks to see if you have a concussion."

As the large man shone a light in her face and had her follow his fingers with her eyes, he determined she had a moderately bad concussion. Nothing serious, though.

After Joyce and Hopper had left, it was only Robin and her best friend on the large bed.

"How long was I asleep?" she asked softly.

"Uh… about an hour. What's the last thing you actually remember?"

"We were driving away from the monsters. That's about it, though."

Steve looked at her funny. "You don't remember the convenience store?"

"No, why?"

"You were making fun of me," he groaned.

Robin snickered. "My favorite hobby. It's real easy too."

"Yeah, well, you've got a lot of material to work with."

"No shit." Listening to the thunder outside, she saw a flash of red. "Is it from the upside-down?"

Steve nodded. "It's invading Hawkins. We're trying to figure it out."

"And where are the others?"

"In the living room. Except for Lucas and Erica. Dustin's still trying to find them."

"Erica…" Robin whispered. She cared for the young sassy and bossy girl a lot. They'd almost died together at the hands of Russians, so it was hard not to have a weird sort of bond.

"Yeah," Steve sighed. "We can't do anything if we don't know where they are, though."

"They were with Max, right?"

"Yeah, why?"

"What if something happened to all of them?"

His head shook. "I don't know, but we can't think like that right now, okay?"

"Okay."

In the living room, Dustin walked up to El and asked, "Is there anyway you can find Lucas and Erica?"

"Through the void?"

Dustin nodded his head.

"Yes, I think I can," Eleven responded.

Since there was no working TV, Eleven grabbed the radio she and Max had once danced to from her room. Turning it on, she brought it to static as Mike blindfolded her.

"Remember, if anything happens-"

"Leave the void," she finished. "I know."

Everyone crowded around her as she focused on her powers.

"How long until we reach it?" Erica asked. She was drenched head to toe in flaky water.

"About five minutes."

El walked after them, examining their worried expressions.

"They're going somewhere…." El mumbled.

"Where?" Hopper questioned out of the void.

"Do you hear that?" Erica said. They stopped, and so did Eleven.

Somewhere in the distance was something sprinting toward them. Lucas's face shifted, and Erica tensed.

"RUN!" Lucas cried as a demodog crashed through the trees.

Dashing through the rain, Eleven followed them as the siblings ran for their lives.

"A demodog is trying to attack them…." Eleven said. Her entranced voice made it seem less urgent than it was.

"Where are they, El?!" Mike yelled.

"I don't know… somewhere in the woods. They are running."

"Do you know where they're headed?"

"I DON'T THINK WE'RE GONNA MAKE IT TO WEATHERTOP!" Erica screamed.

"They are trying to get to weathertop…. But they can't make it in time…."

"Weathertop, how far away is that?' Hopper asked.

"About ten minutes from here," Dustin hurried.

El heard Hopper getting up, saying something to Joyce. Nancy volunteered to join them. Steve came out of the bedroom, insisting he joined too.

Lucas and Erica had no other choice but to climb into a tree. With his swollen eye, Eleven could tell that Lucas could barely see the branches. Still. He managed to hoist Erica onto the tree before narrowly pushing himself up.

Eleven watched as the demodog tried to nip at their limbs. Erica shrieked as it grabbed her leg, causing Lucas to try and pry its teeth from her leg.

"LUCAS!" she begged. "GET IT OFF!"

"I KNOW, I'M TRYING, I'M TRYING!"

"AH!" Erica yelled in pain.

"Erica, she's- she's hurt. Her leg, it has her leg…."

"What's happening now?!" Will pleaded.

As Lucas tore its mouth off his sister, he pulled Erica away and further up the tree.

"You okay?"

"Mhm," was all she could get out before grunting.

"She's alright. They got the dog away. They are hiding in a tree."

"A tree?" Mike asked.

Eleven nodded. "They climbed it."

"Nancy, do you copy?!" Eleven heard Dustin say.

"I copy," a voice said over a walkie.

"They're in a tree, and Erica's hurt! You need to hurry!"

"Erica, breathe, okay?"

The younger girl bobbed her head. "I know."

Lucas grabbed her shoulder as another two demodogs came out of the woods, trying to climb the tree with the other.

"There are two more," Eleven whispered. "Lucas and Erica are in terrible danger."

Nobody responded, however.

"Guys?"

No one said a word.

Deciding to take off her blindfold, she saw she was no longer in the cabin. Instead, Eleven was in the lab. Why was she in the lab?

"El, what's going on now?"

Mike's girlfriend didn't respond. So he tried to call out to her again.

"El?"

Suddenly, Will touched the back of his neck. The boy sucked in his breath and turned to look at Jonathan. "He has her."