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Chapter Thirteen
Take On Me
The heavy pounding footsteps were just undetected when Mike managed to break into a supply closet down a hallway. Despite his father's disposition of being virtually the most monotone and boring Republican patriot man he'd ever met, his childhood had some interesting books filled with undercover tactics and even lockpicking. He'd always carried a hair clip with him ever since it got him out of a sticky situation in freshman year.
He hears the squeaking of several feet on the polished linoleum floors and felt his heartbeat pick up to an unearthly rhythm. Mike kept himself as quiet as possible and waited for them to disappear. The shadows under the door were passing by the supply closet and eventually after they became too far off to detect him, Mike felt himself relax just evenly so. It wouldn't last long, he knew that.
He switched the light on in the closet, which turned out to be more of a room of three shelves, filled with different miscellaneous stuff ranging from juvenile weapons, magazines that inspired lewd and bad behaviour, Playboy's, several lighters, hockey gear, baseball bats and even a B.B. gun.
"Whoa," he whispered in awe.
Mike didn't know that Hawkins High confiscation loot could be quite worth fitting a whole room with tags and all - their own evidence locker so to speak, but he took the B.B. gun immediately into his backpack and found a can of pepper spray and put that in his coat pocket, thanking the previous owners by the name of Gary Winkleman and Suzie Roberts, knowing he couldn't leave something so valuable behind in a time of danger as such.
He knew he could run as well as the average fifteen-year-old who wasn't overweight, but as he continued to look around to see the potential aids to his escape, his eyes landed on something that made him almost smile.
Mike made his way over to the electric bike, a brand new addition to the collection of Hawkins High's most wanted from the look of things. It had a star next to its tag, the confiscation reason being the uncertainty of nearly running over students in the parking lot with zero hesitation, the motor attached not helping the accused's case.
"Ronnie Fenway," Mike read aloud. He was one of the jerks in Junior year who was egging Troy Donovan on only the night before in the Starcourt Mall parking lot.
Mike snorted and didn't have to think twice, as he took the bike handles and pulled it forward. Just as he adjusted the seat, he pulled out the Supercom and strapped it to the bike handles with some duct tape, turned it on and he took a few deep breaths. He pulled the door open and checked the hallway. When it was pictured empty, Mike kicked in the motor and sat back on the seat.
There was a big chance that this wouldn't work, but Mike couldn't hedge his bets, not when Eleven was on the line.
He made a sharp turn out of the supply closet and went in the opposite direction. Mike found himself reaching one of the corners after the library before he ran into one of the armed men. He was just shorter than Mike, reddish hair slicked back and moustache thick and well-trimmed.
"Playing hookey on detention kid?" came the sly greeting, chilling Mike to the bone.
His instincts kicked in and pulled out the pepper spray before the guy could react and be potentially lethal.
The grotesque noise this nameless henchman had exhibited was enough to get Mike rolling onward. He didn't think it would be safe to do a victory catchphrase when he'd only managed to knock out one of the men.
Four blissfully unaware teenagers sat by the school bus in the junkyard, the Cimarron parked not far off from their locale. Lucas picked out a red apple out of his backpack and threw it Eleven's way, to which she stopped mid-air with a simple stare and let it fall in her lap, where she sat on a rusted out beach chair.
"We're going to have to teach you hand-eye coordination and get you to eat some fruit and vegetables," Lucas said as he bit into his own apple, taking a seat next to her.
Dustin was arguing with Will about Stephen King's better novels. She didn't know much about it but Lucas suggested maybe not to bother with it since she might find his stuff a little too true to life. She didn't understand the term but when he pulled a face that felt very similar to her focusing face, Eleven seemed to see what he was intimating about this King's work.
Lucas was quite jittery, especially after Eleven explained she thought she'd seen one of Papa's vans around the cul-de-sac in the previous hour when Will calmed them down and explained it was, in fact, someone they knew. It still put Lucas on edge and made him quite paranoid of all his surroundings.
"Lucas?" Eleven asked him in her usual quiet tone.
He seemed surprised by her talking to him, but nevertheless, he accommodated her. "What's up Weirdo?"
"You and Mike do the same thing," she gestured at his bouncing leg.
Lucas stopped it with his hands and smiled awkwardly. "Yeah, guess I'm nervous."
"Nervous?"
Lucas nodded, looking down at his sneaker covered feet in thought, "It's great your back El, I just don't want this all to go down the same way it did last time."
"Not again," Eleven looked rather determined, "I'm not going away again."
Despite her limited wording in this instance, Lucas understood the many meanings behind it. Eleven planned to stick around in the open. She wouldn't be put away with the Lab and her life expectancy would probably plummet in the Upside Down if she were sent back there unintentionally for the second time.
"I'll hold you to that," Lucas said with a kind smile. "And I don't want to bum everyone out - don't want Mike to go down memory lane when he gets here -"
A rough screaming sound echoes in Lucas' backpack, alerting everybody around him to the noise. Lucas picked up his backpack and struggled to get his Supercom under the actually healthy food he'd brought for Eleven so that she wouldn't lose her teeth on Dustin's preferred diet.
"Come in! Come in! Mayday! Mayday! Brenner's Men are at the school! Standby!"
It took a few go's before Will interpreted it best, the audible heady crackling of distance and the strange noise of what sounded like a motor drowning out some of the words making them all second guess.
"He said Brenner's men!" Will got up out of his chair. "Mike's in trouble at school!"
Eleven followed suit as Lucas rifled around for his keys and told Dustin to respond and take over transmission, headset on and ready to report as he hastily picks up his backpack. "Loud and clear Mike, we're coming to you now - sit tight, over."
Dustin and Will throw themselves in the backseat and when Eleven is about to follow them, Lucas gently grabs her arm and stops her. "I think we might need you in the front seat...in case anything happens."
She nodded thoroughly once she understood.
"NO! NO! - I can't if - lead them to the Eggos," Mike's transmission barely gets through.
Just before Lucas starts the car, the sound of gunshots ring throughout Mike's transmission. Lucas finds his foot out of his control as he speeds out of the junkyard recklessly causing Dustin and Will to fall back and the latter to start coughing roughly. Eleven cards her fingers through her hair after she takes a glance at Will, fear in her eyes and a renewed viperous motive within her as she holds onto the dashboard.
"Jesus, Lucas!"
"It wasn't me!"
Eleven is concentrating on what's out in front of her through the windscreen and it suddenly makes sense as to what is, in fact, controlling the Cimarron.
"El, don't use your powers on the car!" Lucas told her off.
"If Mike's in trouble, you might be the only one who can save him," Dustin reasoned with her, albeit loudly. "You can't waste your energy."
El fell back against the passenger seat in the front and Lucas' foot was relinquished to his great relief, but still kept to a decent speed, careful not to attract the attention on the local roads.
Will is giving great hacking coughs to Dustin's immediate concern, as Mike calls in again with more gunshots ringing out on his transmission.
"We need to continue to the second spot!"
"Don't need to tell us twice Mike, over," Dustin stated clearly into his Supercom, turning his attention to Lucas, "We need to get to the Quarry, stat."
"What?!" Lucas shouts enraged. "Did you not hear the gunshots, Dustin?!"
"Contingency Plan Lucas, just do it!"
Lucas took a sharp right turn at hearing this and Dustin turned to Will, who was going blue from the coughing now to his distress.
"Are you seriously choking right now?" Dustin said loudly as he tried to pull Will away from the seat and forward. He laid his hand spread out on his friend's back before giving him a whopping hard smack in the centre.
It didn't get much of anything out, except for the questionable sludge that Will hadn't seen in a year and Eleven turned around in her seat to check on him. Dustin couldn't see it from where he was positioned trying to right Will's airway, but she could see the tip of something wet and slick coming out of his mouth.
Eleven focused her eyes on the creatures hanging out of Will, practically paralysing him in the process. It came out in one fell swoop of her eye motion, and Dustin started freaking out.
"What the fuck is that?!"
"What? What?!" Lucas started yelling.
"Concentrate," Eleven gave Lucas a direct order, in a voice he had only heard when she meant business and so decided not to disobey it.
She looked at Dustin and simply said, "Hold him back."
"What's happening to him?!" Dustin asked with a scream.
"Later," She simply replied sharply.
Will's eyes were almost rolling back to show the whites. She had seen this happen once that morning already. She had understood now that it was how he came to her to communicate in the Upside Down - a weird transportation system but a useful one at the time. Now it was causing a nuisance to her kindred spirit.
"Will, you need to come back, please."
But there was no response. He didn't rise as quickly as she had begged and pleaded with him.
She couldn't pull him back.
There was an ugly screech against the linoleum as he skidded around another corner, riding at 10 miles an hour in due thanks to the motor, hoping to find the entrance at some point without running into his fourth armed CIA guy. He'd managed well enough with the last three when it came to apprehending them with something as simple as pepper spray. They must've underestimated how unprepared he was - or in this instance, how lucky he was to come across that supply closet.
Just as he rounded the last corner heading toward the entrance of the school, Mike heard the one gunshot that made an impact.
On the ground halfway up the hall were two of Brenner's men, and laying on the ground was a recently shot Mr Howard, a bullet in his temple and starting to bleed out as the men stepped away from the pooling.
"Oh my God," Mike expressed with pure terror.
They turned swiftly as they both heard him and held their guns up. "Come quietly and no one else will get hurt kid," a tall blond man said, his gun aimed directly at Mike's head.
Mike closed his eyes. How could he have been so close and yet so damn far from getting out of this?
The atmosphere felt colder as it swept over him. Logically, it should have been the nausea of seeing a dead man on the floor after getting the traumatic images of lots of dead people surrounding him who held guns to him three years prior.
But then the lights began to flicker.
Mike's heart, which he thought should've been at its capacity to jump out of his chest, was painfully pounding for a fifteen-year-old kid about to be sent to an early grave.
The red pool was getting thicker and wider around Mr Howard's head.
His hair stood up on end and there was a sound of far off roaring that made Mike go rigid, the men before him hardly inspiring his sudden state.
The men looked around at the dull lighting fixtures lose control, carefully, completely unaware of what was to come.
For once, a Demogorgon turning up in his school might have been to Mike's advantage.
"You'll have to outrun them first," he said rather bravely.
Just as he was about to respond a gunshot went through the man's head and scattered him out onto the floor. Mike badly wanted to vomit at the fresh sight, but as the second apprehender, a man of darker complexion and long black curly hair in a ponytail was about to shoot at the mystery marksman, his body bounced at the three bullets that landed in his chest.
Mike choked on his scream when he heard the new gunmen entering the school.
They came around the corner, looking like average citizens the way they were dressed, not a suave clean suit in sight with the blue jeans and the puffy green jackets, yellow sunglasses on one and a cigarette hanging from the ear of the other.
The guy with the yellow sunglasses looked directly at Mike and said, "What are you still doing Wheeler?! Get out of here!"
Mike didn't know how this man knew his name but decided to take his advice regardless. He sped past the dead bodies and rode past them, barely giving them a look back as he rode out past the school doors and into the parking lot.
His hands felt it first, the wet ground that had a constant stickiness to everything that it touched. A sliminess that couldn't be avoided. He'd never woken up here, in this part of the Upside Down. He was close to the Quarry as he could see.
Will knew that the distance between the Quarry and the Junkyard was great and not easy to get back to. He didn't want to be separated from his friends when he came to and his greatest anxieties told him they wouldn't be able to find him, that they wouldn't be able to bring him back.
Will, feeling scared and very alone, had cradled himself into a ball once his whole mind was present in this awful place.
He knew he couldn't be here forever, it just never lasted that long.
But time was beginning to drag on. And the only time he had made the effort to stay around long enough was when he knew Eleven was with him, near and holding onto his warmth.
Will desperately wished that she was there, even if only for the company. He didn't know how much longer he would cope as his thoughts dragged him deeper and under with this world once more.
Before he could send himself into a fit of hyperventilation, a gurgling noise ricocheted from the Quarry. He gasped and stood up, nearly tripping over a rock covered in a heavy patch of the disease that festered on every space it could in the Upside Down on his way up.
The clawed feet came up, one by one until an alarming amount of heads began to peer over the edge of the Quarry too. Will could barely breathe as he stood frozen on the spot.
No, Will had very rarely bumped into the actual creatures themselves, always fortunate to be in places where they weren't as prevalent.
If Mike's basement in the Upside Down was Eleven's place to call home then the Quarry was practically the demogorgons sanctuary, and Will was finding that out in the worst way possible.
He turned and ran, knowing that his feet alone would only get him so far.
But he couldn't give in. Not without a chance to hide.
The bike took him up the harder hills on the roads of Hawkins, and after about five minutes of riding on the electric bike, Mike felt that whoever those two men were, had done him a solid in holding up Brenner's men in order for him to get away.
Mike only hoped they got out okay too.
He leaned his wrist against the transmission button and started to message the party. "Dustin, Lucas, Will, I'm in the clear. Some weird guys who weren't with Brenner got me out before I ran into anyone else. I'm making my way to the secondary location now. Over."
"We copy," Dustin said, but his voice shook through the transmission despite the distance closing in on the Supercoms. "We're at the secondary location. The Eggos are safe. Will on the other hand…"
"I'm coming now, over and out," Mike scrambled out his words in a panic.
His breath was hitching from the stitch that appeared in his side, but he was slogging on with the amount of speed someone running from a hoard of unearthly creatures should try and keep up.
The Demogorgon creatures, that were on all fours which was new to him, were chasing him and were beginning to close the distance. Will refused to look back. It would kill him.
He tried to survey his surroundings on the way in some vain hope to find a hiding place that couldn't be easily accessed by the hulking creatures on his heels.
Will was struck roughly by a moving vine and was almost catapulted onto his face. He was covered by a number of these finicky nimble bastards. And as he scratched at the ground in search of freedom, feeling the scraping to raw fresh skin, Will was slowly coming to realise that he wasn't going to get a reprieve.
Will Byers was trapped, and he was trapped for good this time.
He turned his body, at least wanting to face his death head-on. He didn't want to cower, the way everyone expected him to.
If it was inevitable, he would face it.
The creatures slowed down, the muscles under their skin clenching with thirst with every step that came toward him. They were calculating - too smart for something that was merely programmed to be bloodthirsty. It would be a horrific way to die.
One of them pounced and just as the scream left his lungs, it was thrown all the way back into the Quarry.
Another one moved up viciously sniffing and roaring in Will's face. One of its clawed hands took to his chest. But Will never felt the penetration that would end his life. It had barely touched his shirt before it was thrown.
Come back, Will.
There was a recognition that flowed over the creatures as they roared and backed away. There was an accustomed fear as some ran and the brave few stuck around only for one to be smacked down by an invisible force.
Eleven.
Will!
Eleven had stopped the car at a certain spot by the Quarry, which stunned and irked Lucas, but it didn't last long when Dustin's whining voice had him turn his attention on a very frozen friend of his in the backseat, his eyes rolled back and his skin turning so pale it looked almost pale. When they were safely in park, Eleven told Lucas and Dustin to take Will out of the car. It was the most serious they had seen her, the least amount of emotion they had witnessed within her since they had both seen her only 24 hours before. She wasn't going to take prisoners at that moment.
Lucas and Dustin laid Will up against the car when Eleven said she needed him sitting up.
To her luck, Dustin had decided to wear his iconic cap, for old time's sake. Eleven held out her hand to him and asked, "I need your hat."
Dustin's curls sprung free when he gave her his hat, telling her, "Okay, but it's really big."
"Good," she answered simply. She sat down in front of Will and crossed her legs. She put the baseball hat on her head and let it slip over her eyes. While it didn't close off her hearing, her sight being closed off would be enough under the circumstances Eleven was dealt with.
"Don't talk," Eleven advised the two and they both looked at each other before nodding.
She needed to be immersed, anchored to the boy in front of her so that she could help him. She attempted to find his every emotion underneath his paralysis, a strong current that blared a nothingness, blank being a front to keep him locked from where he couldn't run.
Eleven couldn't let him slip deeper, not after everything he had done for her.
Will could barely register what was happening, frightened to see his entrails covering the floor as his imagination took flight with his fear. Instead, as he heard her powerful voice, stunted but very much present call to him, he began to see a strange glimmer, flickering of warm colour.
The shape was forming and the formidable creatures who could also be deemed stupid by their own kind began to slink away. The recognition wasn't there for them, as they began to multiply without Eleven's presence in their universe, but the form was enough to sate their curiosity, to turn away from their blood lust for a moment.
Eleven was before him, faded and blinking out of existence often, but as she backed the creatures away with her might, Will could only focus on remaining calm. He had to get out of the Upside Down, but he didn't know-how.
It was then Will felt a tugging, and looked around for the source, to see nothing but pure invisibility pull at him.
Come back, Will. You can come back.
Will swallowed his initial fears away and tried to do as he was told. How he would manage it he didn't know. He started to click his heels together in some morbid fashion.
But the very nature behind his act reminded him of the humanity on the other side.
That was when he felt it.
It began from the tips of his toes and came rushing through his veins up to the very messy hair on his head. He felt breathless and suddenly he began to cough.
Cough, cough, cough.
Will's body jolted forward with life, giving great hacking coughs into the rough gravel, his hands pierced with several small stones. It eventually slid out of his throat and onto the ground in front of them.
Dustin and Lucas' voices could be heard, Lucas attempting not to throw up from what he just witnessed and Dustin shouting expletives into the Winter sun. Lucas's efforts were unsuccessful as he hurled his guts out by a tree and Dustin could be heard expressing his disgust again on the matter.
"What the fuck just happened?! Why are there slugs coming out of Will?!"
Eleven helped Will to lean against the car again and he looked immediately grateful to see her presence in full as he held onto her.
"Oh God, I thought you were going back, El."
"I was here, the whole time. I promise," she said quietly as she comforted him physically.
In the chaos, they managed to completely miss the motorised bike riding in on their location, as a heavily frazzled Mike dropped the bike to the ground to see what the fuss around Will was all about when Dustin held him back.
"Dude needs the space. Just saw him hurl up a slug."
"A what?"
"Good point, what the fuck just happened Will...Will?"
Will was laid to rest against the car as Eleven gave him some space, allowing the others to look at him. He was incredibly peaky, looking more like their new arrival did not two nights ago. Greener in the face, and giving great heaving breaths to recapture the fresh air that stung his lungs. Mike's shoulders sagged at the awful sight as did Dustin.
Lucas wiped his mouth upon his return and found the source for his sudden bout of illness.
As he was about to approach it, rather reluctant to actually touch it - Will stopped him.
"Don't go near it. Don't touch it with your bare hands."
"Wasn't planning on it," Lucas looked horrified by the suggestion.
"Will, what is that?" Mike asked sternly.
Eleven raised the squirming slug, as it expanded to its full size, struggling against the invisible hold Eleven had on it. It was far too long to comfortably cough up, which explained why some of the contents of Will's stomach was attached to it. Even Eleven couldn't hold back the grimace that rose to the surface of her face, Mike reiterating his question. Hearing Dustin continue to mutter swears to himself as Lucas silently stared at the creature floating at Eleven's behest, Mike's question cut through the crust of Will's temperament.
"It's exactly what you think it is, Mike! Is that what you want to hear?!"
Dustin stops his muttering as the three standing look at each other, highly alarmed at Will's change, his demeanour screaming a mixture of disdain and regret, his skin becoming slicked with sweat. As they fall silent at the scene before them, Eleven adjusting herself to help comfort Will and keep a hold of the creature from scurrying away, Lucas is the first to speak into the heightened tension.
"Why do I get a distinct feeling that this isn't the first time this has happened?" he asked, voice full of anguish.
Will sighs and falls back into Eleven's side, embracing the comfort she has offered him. Squeezing his shoulder, Will finds a modicum of courage - a courage required to be honest with the three people before him. They all equally have their own expressions of concern, Mike being visibly upset at this clearly having gone on for years and only cluing in now - understandably frustrated that Will had never given them an idea of what was really happening to his body, Dustin immediately knowing why Will didn't tell them, because despite always being the first to inform the guys of anything that was happening in his life, Will didn't like going into the messy details of his life, and Lucas just looking upset for Will, that he had dealt with this - with no one but himself to deal with it. Will's eyes close in immediate regret, how he managed to keep this secret for so long was beyond him, but he supposed that with Eleven's presence, things were likely to come out sooner rather than later.
"I'll tell you everything. I will, I swear," Will said tiredly as he shook somewhat as the chill air washed over him. "But first, we have to make sure that thing is burned to ashes."
A deafening shot rang out into the tense atmosphere. Many bullets were whizzing past, hoping to land against something but instead ricocheting off of the brick walls of Hawkins High. When one of the finely dressed shady agents acquired his machine gun, the shots were unstoppable and landed on its intended target.
They were outnumbered, they could see this the minute they went on the defence for Michael Wheeler. And from what they could do, he was able to get away and be out of sight, the slashed tires having been effective in his escape. Wilkins was also glad the kid was smart enough to grab some form of transportation other than his lanky limbs, because it made their job a hell of a lot easier, even when it was still going terribly south for the two mysterious saviours.
The bullet pierced Sayer in the heart. Wilkins looked horrified at his partner's, especially when he knew Sayer would have preferred a hit to the head to knock him dead sooner rather than a later demise.
They were stupid enough to think this was more routine than it could be dangerous. They didn't bother to equip themselves with the proper protective gear that day.
The world picked up its pace again when Wilkins ran out of bullets. About to grab the unused magazine clip off of his slowly dying partner, Wilkins saw the three remaining agents narrowing in on him. He wouldn't reach it in time.
It didn't stop him from trying though.
Shot in one of his knees, Wilkins fell to the ground, screaming out in agony.
"Fucking Christ!"
Sayer yelled out valiantly, "Don't tell them anything Wilkins!"
Wilkins witnessed a bullet soar through and crush through Sayer's temple, effectively silencing him for good.
Wilkins too wasn't conscious for much longer, having been whacked on the head with the blunt end of the machine gun.
Sayer's assessment seemed correct. Wilkins was alive, which meant they were planning on keeping him around.
As the three men remaining lugged Wilkins and Sayer's bodies into the van, piled up with an inconvenience that was a school teacher supervising weekend detention, one of the heavily armed men shoved his gun into the chest of one of his inferiors.
"What the hell was that back there?"
"What?" a very defensive blond man responded with unease.
"We don't have time to play games," the leader responded harshly.
"Chilton's dead and so is Harris," the other one relayed upon them. He slowed down the moment he remembered the shell-shocked Rolands sitting against the van, covered in blood, the shredded body of the ginger Johnson beside him and Gerald missing from the scene entirely. "Johnson has barely anything left to ship home. And Gerald isn't even reporting back but no one can find him."
The leader turned sharply toward the pinned inferior. "I don't want to hear that. Find him."
"Yes sir," the agent replied swiftly, finally being released from the hold of the leader.
The leader barked out his orders to scour every inch of the school building for any other evidence of their presence and to find Gerald as soon as possible. The two walked back inside the school with haste, as the leader moved to the driver's seat of the van. Pulling up an inbuilt mobile telephone attached to the dashboard, he dials a number and waits for the ringing to finish.
"What's the update Lemon?"
"The kid got away. He had help. But we've eliminated the issue."
There is a shortness of breath over the line.
"You killed his friends?"
"They were adults sir, well-armed adults too."
There is a deep sigh on the other end, and the leader can feel the slight tension in his neck when he hears this.
"Why were there armed adults at what you told me would be a routine operation, Lemon?"
"We weren't counting on there being anyone else except for a supervisor, they were just as surprised to see us, sir-"
"And yet Lemon, they still managed to let Wheeler escape. This was meant to be the most water-tight plan and you're telling me we now have detractors? I thought you were on top of this?"
"Sir, the boy wouldn't have gone far -"
Louis, the blond who had been pretending that he wasn't seeing what he had before, held up the polaroid from the camera around his neck, used specifically post-incident when things were messy. Lemon snatched the polaroid from his hand and looked carefully at the seeping entrance into the high school wall - it being transparent that this was a lot bigger a job than they were intending to deal with today. A polished leather size 11 shoe left behind on its side on the floor before it and the grey sock tugged on the sticky entrance.
It confirmed their worst fears.
"Just get back immediately. We need to regroup - the boy is already aware so this doesn't buy us much time."
"Uh, yes - yes sir," the leader spoke reluctantly.
"Why did you hesitate Lemon?" the receiver spoke, frustration building in his tone.
Lemon continued to hesitate as he caught sight of a body torn to shreds being carried into the van - the other missing entirely at this point, and potentially stuck within a plane of existence that none wished to explore from the horror stories of only a few years past. He coughed to clear his throat and pressed on to communicate with his superior.
"The threat wasn't ultimately due to the adult shooters - there was something else in the premises which has been made clear now. Rolands is missing and we have located an opening."
There was a silence briefly after he relayed this to his often unforgiving director. They were nearly finished and ready to go, ever efficient and now motivated by a real fear of the unknown returning when the director spoke once more on his end.
"It seems we have proof that the connection is strong again...did anyone see the girl?"
"There has been no sighting, sir."
"Then there is no evidence that experiment 11 has returned. Keep looking and find the boy - if there is anyone she will go to, it is him."
"We'll keep looking sir...what do you want us to do with the bodies?"
"I'll be in touch once the coroner has been paid off. For now, keep them."
As the director cut off from communication, Lemon grimaced, perturbed. "I was afraid he would say that."
The creature wriggles before them in pure excruciation until it stills after a rather loud crack echoes, and the noises of torture are silenced.
"Sorry, you were taking too long and Will didn't like it."
Eleven had taken up the duty of being by Will's side, physically and emotionally becoming his lean-to, as he weakly sat up against Lucas' car beside her. Her legs are hitched up closer to her body, much less green looking next to the unhealthy sheen on Will's splayed legs. His head is leaning on her shoulder, his neck not wanting to hold the burden of Will's heavy and very warm head. He too squirmed at the sight, Lucas' hatred fueling his desire to be upchucking again.
Mike is the first to turn, clearly upset and Dustin tries to be the most reasonable as he tries to look encouraging to Will. Lucas is still staring at the dead creature on the ground.
"Tell us everything. Now."
Will sighed, wishing he could be anywhere else in this moment.
He received a squeeze of comfort from Eleven's hand, and so begins.
"I've been disappearing into the Upside Down, ever since I came back. I told you that...but I didn't tell you what happens every single time I come back."
Lucas turned at the mention that this happened every single time. He is also the first to sit on an old keg found a little further away, to listen to the tale with more comfort in mind. Dustin crouches closer to the ground to be at their level. Mike still stands.
"It was way more infrequent than it has been lately," Will says quietly. Before Mike can pipe up in regards to 'lately', Eleven and Dustin shoot him a warning look that stops him in his tracks.
"But it always goes the same way. I would feel myself seizing up, feel myself slipping from any surface, whether I was standing, sitting or laying down. It used to just happen at my house. I would find myself beginning to breathe too quickly, my head would spin...I would return and I never told anyone - well until Eleven was in my room sleeping one night. It's been getting worse lately as I said. I could usually map out when my next episode would happen and could plan for it."
"What about the operation you had?" Dustin asked thoughtfully. "They told your mom they got rid of everything."
Will shrugged, "I guess it was too minuscule to have noticed anything that could have been left over? I don't really know...I didn't want to freak my mom out again because physically, I thought I could handle it."
"Then it happened more frequently?" Dustin guessed.
Will nodded, "I usually could recover quickly. No one else was suffering and it was just the price I had to pay for surviving it for so long. They were normally the size of a quarter so I could get rid of them easily. Made sure they never lived after a couple of mistakes that returned from down my sink drain into the bathroom."
Lucas' eyes widened in alarm, "They're in the sewers?"
"I got rid of both mistakes properly, I didn't want anyone else to get this...this disease."
"So what made it happen more frequently?" Mike asked, trying to remain calm in all of this new information he was processing.
"It's kind of obvious what made it more frequent," Dustin said as his eyes trailed over to Eleven.
Eleven could read what was happening a little sooner because she had witnessed him return twice to the Upside Down and see the results of his efforts each time, the incident prior to the chaos that had just passed them. Her eyes were tearing up.
"I'm so sorry Will," her voice filled with agony.
Will, for the first time since returning, made the effort to exude what little strength he had to sit up and turn to her. Upon the realisation of what she and Dustin had both intimated, he wasn't going to allow that theory to blow them all sideways from what they were trying to achieve with her return.
"I know what you're thinking. You going back will make no difference to me being sick. I was sick when you weren't here too."
"But - but what if the way I got here-"
"I don't care. It's done, I told you we would deal with it if it came to that."
"Deal with what?" Lucas questioned roughly.
Will harshly turned to Lucas. "I didn't want El to stay there - not even if it meant the Demogorgon coming to our dimension. Are you telling me you would have done any differently?"
Lucas looked down. He couldn't fault that as messed up kids if he had somehow found Eleven alive, he would have brought her back too, no matter the consequences to the universe's shift.
"Look, you've already confirmed that there isn't an army breeding in the sewers of Hawkins, so I think it's just a matter of getting Will to a hospital -"
"There isn't an army," Mike blanched, "But they were definitely in the school as I was escaping."
"You saw a Demogorgon?" Dustin asked, eyes wide, but no intonation in his voice, hopeful that Mike had been seeing trauma from his past when fleeing murder.
"No - but the lights flickered, and there was that smell...you remember, smelt like a sewer and it was all hot - smelled like Dustin's grandma's hoarder house in Florida - and I saw Mr Howard's blood pooling around his head, a head attached to a dead Mr Howard, so yeah, I would say the Demogorgon returning is pretty likely."
"Mr Howard's dead?!" Lucas screeched.
"Say it any louder Lucas? I'm pretty sure Chicago couldn't hear you!" Dustin furiously whispered.
"Well we might be heading there if Mr Howard is dead, Demogorgons are returning and we are smuggling a fugitive across Hawkins, Dustin!"
Eleven felt Will getting hotter by the second beside her, the current panic forcing him to come to terms with the height of danger they were in now, Lucas persisting in his listings of all the things that were going wrong and could make it further worse.
"Not to mention, Mike was the last one to see Mr Howard alive so he could be framed for murder for all we know -"
Will's body temperature rose higher and Eleven clapped the ground suddenly forcing some of her unnatural element into it, causing a vibration to run through them all to desist from going to pieces.
They all looked to the thunderous Eleven and saw Will, looking as though he was about to collapse, jumping into action in different directions.
Dustin found a clean cloth in his bag and drenched it in his bottled water. It was cool. Lucas brought his bottle of water in his possession to Will's weakened lips, Eleven helping him to drink. Dustin passed his wet hand towel to Eleven who placed it on Will's forehead.
"Mom made your favourite, Bologna and cheese. You need to eat Will."
"Aren't you hungry?" Will feebly pressed. Mike shook his head, "I think I lost my appetite back at school, to be honest."
Will nodded and Mike passed the sandwich into his hands, which barely grabbed it.
Once they all focused on Will, the din of the previous fallout had died.
Will was force-fed rather patiently by Eleven as the boys set up a temporary camp of sorts with a blanket in the back of Lucas' car by their ailing friend and the much calmer Eleven.
"Okay, we can't lose control like we just did," Dustin admitted. "But we do need to be honest with each other - and we do need a plan."
"Mike, was there anything else that happened when you ran away from detention?" Lucas asked, "Maybe go back from the beginning."
As Mike recounted the events, he pressed on about the more important details after Dustin mentioned there was no benefit from hearing about the escape elements unless he was just trying to impress El, which earned him an apple being aimed at his head.
The story came to a grinding halt when Mike mentioned the men, not in suits - the ones who knew him by name and looked like average joe's coming from a bar in the middle of the day, scruffy and unshaven and one wearing distinct sunglasses.
"They called you 'Wheeler'?" asked Lucas carefully. "And then helped you get away?"
Mike nodded, his confusion equally clear. "I thought they were like - like when cops go in plain clothes when they're undercover and they were like doing surveillance for the suits. I thought I hit the end of the line…"
Mike trailed off. "I don't know why they were on my side. But they were shooting Brenner's men...so I just kept going."
Lucas' shoulders slumped, stumped as to who the newcomers could be. Dustin also equally perplexed by the situation had laid himself fully down and said quietly said to himself, "What the fuck is going on?"
Will seemed to have perked up during the story being told, his ailment having lifted somewhat and not needing to lean as heavily on Eleven after some bedside care and rest. "Maybe they helped you escape because they are actually good."
"We won't know anyway because we're not going to investigate it. This can remain a mystery, and I'm fine with that," Lucas outright claimed as he pushed himself off the ground and dusted whatever didn't touch his threadbare blanket. "We need to leave here, we've been in stasis for too long and we need to keep moving."
"You're right, c'mon let's get going," Dustin said distractedly.
"Well that's a first," Lucas pointedly commented.
Mike was still stolen to the thought of the two men helping him get away, hoping that they escaped with their lives intact, in the wonder of who they were and why they helped him. Dustin helped Will up, releasing Eleven from the duty and she gently padded over to Mike. She touched his shoulder lightly, taking him out of his reverie as his eyes whipped to hers in surprise, gulping at the closeness of her vicinity to him.
"Need some help?"
She offered his hand and stood back up to her full height. He gingerly took it and was pulled up, as he towered somewhat and needed to rebalance himself.
"Thanks...we might need to lay low for a while, and since they went after me -"
"We won't be going back home, I know."
Mike nodded solemnly. "But I'm not leaving you."
"Mike-"
"We'll figure something out, El. But if I'm not with you, I might go out of my mind, and I can't afford to do that."
Eleven thoroughly understood what it meant to miss Mike, so she knew why he felt this way. But the circumstances had changed vastly in the matter of only a couple of hours. The danger was no longer just a whisper but a raging siren in her situation. She couldn't risk any of them getting hurt, or for Will's illness to become potentially fatal. She would likely throw out the chessboard in due time, but for now, she was okay to play the game and with Mike leading her for the time being.
Because a part of her was too selfish to run from him yet. And he felt the same in letting her go on her own sooner rather than later.
"I promised you wouldn't leave us again. We stick together."
Eleven looked into his eyes and knew he meant it.
"Okay."
It's been a very long time. Soz.
Honestly, I got stuck. I got a full-time job. And when I started to lose my mind over the mundanity of my life, I returned. Writing soothes me. I need to understand a schedule. But I have this whole story planned out. It's a matter of writing the chapters now, and changing things when it suits the plot and the prose.
And I'm late for a date night, so please be wary I've only read over it the three times instead of the normal 5 times to make sure there are fewer mistakes in this one. In reading back, I called Ms. Martinez' office the "Principle's" office, so there might be the occasional slip up here and there.
Oh and my country is on fire which is why I stopped being an adult (TM) for a moment and returned to writing fanfiction, a deeply secret past time of mine.
Enjoy x