Disclaimer: I don't own Stranger Things or any of its characters. I only own Lisa and her family. Don't steal! Read on and enjoy!

Chapter 4

"You're sure we're going the right way?" Lisa asked for probably the seventh time. Jane pinned a firm look at her sister, who immediately held up her hands in surrender. "Okay, jeez, sorry."

The pair had arrived in town maybe two hours ago. Since they got off the bus, Jane had started walking very confidently in one direction. Lisa had tried to make her stop and get them some food, but Jane was insistent that they had to find her friends. She'd reached out periodically on the trip from Chicago, tracking where her friends were. It seemed they'd started at the Lab and were now at a house somewhere in the woods. While walking through town, desperate to steal any kind of snack she could get her hands on, Lisa scanned the area. It had been five years since she'd been in Hawkins, she wondered if she'd recognized anything. When she and Kali had ran, they'd cut through the woods before gunning it to the main highway. They'd hitchhiked from there, but they'd seen Hawkins briefly. Nothing looked familiar to her hazy memories though. Not even the woods she was currently traipsing through. She'd tripped more than a few times over branches; her boots were certainly not made with a hike in the woods in mind.

An eerie screech cut through the air and Lisa stopped, pulling Jane with her.

"What the fuck was that?"

"Monsters," she answered, resuming walking and picking up the pace. "Hurry!"

""Monsters"? What do you mean "monsters"?" Her sister didn't answer. "Jane? Hey! Hello?! I need an explanation!" Jane didn't answer her though. She just broke into a run, forcing Lisa to do the same with an annoyed curse. Jane finally stopped as they reached a clearing in the woods. Catching her breath, Lisa saw a lone house with the lights on ahead of them. "Your friends in there?" Jane nodded.

The screeching they'd heard in the distance had become growls that were too close for Lisa's comfort. In the dark, she could make out things walking the perimeter of the house. Before Lisa could even ask what they were dealing with, Jane was already charging ahead. Hands raised, she started attacking the monsters, pulling them away from the house and towards her. Left with no choice, Lisa did the same. The second the monsters realized they were in danger, they began to snarl and fix their attentions to the girls instead of the house. But they didn't last long. Jane had already silenced two with a quiet squelch, Lisa managed the same with the last one. While Jane slowly approached the house, Lisa knelt down next to the thing she killed.

"What the fuck?" she muttered. She'd never seen anything like it. Just as she was about to call out to Jane, she heard a snarl behind her and froze. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw another monster crouching and ready to pounce on her. The second it charged for her, she threw a hand out and caught it mid leap. With a quick twist of her wrist, the monster's neck was snapped and she threw it ahead of her. Unfortunately, her aim was a bit off and it went flying straight through the front window of the house. She could hear terrified screams from inside and winced. "Whoops."

Jane had already unlocked the house and quietly went inside. Apparently, she thought Lisa could take care of herself since she didn't even bother to wait. Rude brat, Lisa thought irritably. Looking back at the creature before her, the blonde poked it curiously. It was slimy, absolutely disgusting. It kinda looked like a dog, similar body shape, except for its head. That part was truly freaky. No eyes, no ears. Grabbing a stick off the ground, she prodded at a seam on the head until it lifted up. Teeth, just rows and rows of sharp teeth. What the actual fuck? Rising to her feet, Lisa brushed off her pants and marched towards the house incensed. Jane had some serious fucking explaining to do. Three hours on that damn bus, not once did she mention fucking demonic monsters with heads that were just a mouth full of fucking teeth!

"When you said your friends were in danger, you could've mentioned the fucking aliens!" Lisa shouted irately from the doorway. While Jane was hugging a woman, the teenager's aggression drew the attention of the others standing around the messy living room. Her anger quickly faded once she saw all eyes were on her. "Um, hi," she greeted, waving awkwardly. "Sorry about the window," she added, gesturing to the bizarre creature she'd catapulted into the house moments ago. They stared back at her, their expressions a mixture of horror and confusion. Yikes, she thought, maybe I should've stayed with Kali after all.

"Whose this?" Hopper returned from his less than ideal chat with Mike and approached her, gun in hand. Thankfully, it wasn't pointed at Lisa. That was certainly a first for her. The blonde looked him up and down with a bored expression as he did the same to her, brow furrowed.

"You must the cop," she stated. Looking over at her sister, she remarked, "You seriously trust this walking pornstache?"

"Porn-what?!" he exclaimed. There was a muffled laugh somewhere in the room and the man glared at her. "Who the hell is this delinquent?" She snorted with laughter. It wasn't the first time she'd been called that, probably wouldn't be the last. Delinquent, Lisa wore the moniker as a badge of pride.

"Lisa," Jane answered, moving to stand beside her. "She's my sister." Lisa smirked and waved cheekily at the cop, who was still glaring at her albeit with much more confusion.

"You're El's sister?" Jane nodded at the older woman. When Lisa wiped the blood from her nose with the back of her hand, the sleeve of her leather jacket moved just enough to reveal her tattoo. Joyce's eyes widened and she reached out and grabbed the teenagers arm, which she immediately snatched back. She didn't know this woman. Even if she was Jane's friend, it didn't mean that she could trust her. Adults, in Lisa's experience, weren't to be trusted. Point blank, period. Distressed, Joyce raised her hands in apology and simply stated, "You're from the Lab? We thought El was the only one." Hopper grabbed the girl's arm, much to her frustration, and pushed up the sleeve of her jacket. Black ink spelled 007, tattooed in the same spot as his wayward ward's number.

"Used to be dozens of us," Lisa said, yanking her arm away. "Our sister and I escaped a couple years ago, been on the run ever since. Thought we were the only ones who made it out, till Janey found us." Her sister looked up at her and the pair shared a coy smile.

""Janey"?" the cop echoed. Jane quietly answered that she went to see her mother, found out her real name. Hopper's eyes widened, knowing he'd have to explain himself to the kid. He'd told her that her mother had died, trying to spare her the pain of the truth, but she obviously knew that was a lie. That was a problem for later though, once he and the kid had a minute alone. "And where'd you find the delinquent?"

"Chicago." Lisa resisted the urge to roll her eyes. It seemed her baby sister would undoubtedly buckle under the pressure in interrogation if she ever got arrested.

"You went to Chicago?!" Was she trying to give him an aneurysm?

"You have two sisters?" Lucas exclaimed in shock.

Dustin grinned and asked, "So do you have superpowers too?"

"These normies seriously know everything?" Lisa muttered to Jane, who nodded. At least these strangers were in the know. Lisa, on the other hand, still had far too many questions.

"Wait, you just left her behind?" Mike asked, angry. He moved around Hopper and shoved Lisa, the cop immediately stepping in to pull him away. "You took off and just left her at the Lab? Are you insane?!"

"Not that I have to explain myself to you, barf bag," she snapped, getting right in his face even as the cop put a hand on her shoulder to hold her back, "but Kali and I didn't even know she was alive! No clue what happened to the others. Are they...?" She looked around the room, no one could meet her eyes. Her gaze settled on Hopper, who shifted from trying to diffuse the situation with Mike to shaking his head, regretful to be the bearer of bad news. Until Lisa walked into that house, Jane was the only child from the Lab that any of them had known about. Lisa took a breath and bit back her tears. All of her brothers and sisters were dead. She, Kali and Jane were all that was left. They were all the family each other had left in the world, and she'd just abandoned Kali to help Jane fight aliens. Looking at Jane, she asked, "He killed them, didn't he?" She didn't have to clarify who "he" was, her sister knew exactly who she meant.

"I don't know." Lisa shook Hopper off her and scoffed. If Papa really was alive as Ray claimed, Lisa vowed she'd find him and kill him. Slowly. Painfully.

"Son of a bitch." Moving to the monster she'd thrown, the blonde questioned the room, "So what the fuck is this thing?"

"It's a demo-dog," Dustin answered, smiling proudly.

"Cause that explains so much," she muttered sarcastically, rolling her eyes. "I did not sign up for aliens, Janey!"

"Its not an alien! Its a demo-dog from a dimension parallel to our own," Dustin explained irately.

"They call it the Upside Down," Max told her with a shrug. "I'm new to this stuff too."

"Then you and me are sticking together," Lisa told her with a nod, content that she wasn't the only one completely out of her depth. Max smiled at her. Considering the less than welcoming greeting she got from the famed Eleven the boys kept talking about, it was cool that her big sister wasn't ignoring her or being rude. Jane, however, watched their interaction with a slight glare.

"Wait, what kind of superpowers do you have?" Steve lightly smacked Dustin and told him it wasn't the time, but the kid shook his head. "I'm just saying, depending on her powers, maybe she can help Will!"

"Whose Will?"

The room went silent. Joyce looked between the powered girls and waved for them to come with her. Jane followed easily enough but Lisa was skeptical. The blonde looked around the room. All eyes were on her, expectant. Jonathan looked at her more desperately than the others. He didn't know Lisa but, if she came with Jane, if Jane said that they could trust her, he'd take any chance he could to save his little brother. With a quiet huff, Lisa trailed after her sister to one of the bedrooms. Joyce was sitting on the bed next to her son as Jane looked him up and down.

"He's not doing well," the mother whispered.

"I know," Jane replied forlornly. "I saw."

"What else did you see?" When the pair left the room, Jonathan and Hopper came up behind Lisa who was still lingering in the doorway.

"What's wrong with him? Jane said you guys were in danger, but she left out the specifics. Obviously," she said, waving back towards the living room where her final kill rested.

Jonathan explained as best he could, Hopper filling in the blanks. Last year, his little brother had gone missing and, as it turned out, he was dragged into the Upside Down. He'd been trapped there for a week. Will had regular appointments at the Lab with a Dr. Owens upon his return, but things had been relatively quiet until Halloween. Will had an episode at school, it looked like a seizure, but he told their mother that there was a shadow monster inside him. Will claimed he could see and know whatever the monster did, calling the visions "now-memories". In order to better understand the visions, he started drawing them.

Once assembled, they depicted a maze-like pattern that looked like vines - at least that explains the creative decorations around the house, Lisa thought - so Hopper went to investigate the local pumpkin patch. Thanks to Will's visions, he knew Hopper was in danger so the cop had to be rescued but Will had another episode the moment the Lab started burning the tendrils. Will was immediately taken to the Lab for inspection and he seemed to have memory loss, but Mike realized that the creature Will had been concerned about had actually taken over Will. Mind Flayer, the kids were calling it. Then the demo-dogs invaded the Lab, Joyce's boyfriend Bob was killed, and they all ended up back at the house.

"So he's possessed by this Mind Flayer thing?" she guessed, perplexed.

"Basically. But Will's still in there! He was communicating through Morse Code," Jonathan insisted. He added that they'd been forced to put Will to sleep when the phone in the house rang. Not that it mattered because the demo-dogs had found them. Then her and Jane had showed up and saved their collective asses. "Can you help him?" Jonathan was desperate for any glimmer of hope, but Hopper was skeptical and wasn't sure he trusted the blonde punk.

Lisa shrugged and said, "No idea. But I can take a look."

She moved to sit next to Will and gingerly placed her fingertips to his temples. Taking a deep breath, Lisa cautiously lowered her mental shields. Kali had been able to get around them for years, due to their extensive training together, which was fine with Lisa because Kali never violated her mind. Will's mind, however, made no such considerations. Most minds took the shape of something familiar or comforting and were organized, places she could easily traverse, but Will's mind was a dark expanse of nothingness.

Cautiously, she took a few steps forward and tried to ignore the squelching beneath her feet. Lightning cracked in the air, bright red, and Lisa gasped as the landscape was revealed. A burning, smoky sky and those vine things Jonathan and the cop mentioned littered the ground. There were some figures in the distance, but nothing she could make out clearly. They looked like dilapidated buildings but the odd thing was that there were pieces floating in the air. It was like something out of that Dunwich Horror flick Mr. Quinn played at the drive-in one night. Thunder and lightning continued to rumble around her, still the strange red color. Blood, she realized. It all looked like blood.

Then she heard it, a voice.

"Will?" she called out.

Seven, the haunting voice growled. Lisa pulled away from Will was a terrified gasp, scrambling off the bed and crashing to the floor. Jonathan was immediately on her, questionings rapidly firing.

"What? What is it? What did you see? Is Will okay?" She shook her head and coughed, panting.

"I couldn't find him," she answered, trying to catch her breath. "But whatever this Mind Flayer thing is, it's not friendly. It shoved me out." That was a lie. She broke the connection intentionally. How the hell could a thing she'd never even heard of until five minutes ago know who she was? It terrified her. Her nose was bleeding again and she had a splitting headache. "Fuck me," she cursed miserably, clutching at her head.

"Come on, you're okay," Hopper said, helping the girl to her unsteady feet. "Let me see." Cupping her face, he started to wipe away the sweat that had formed. Using the sleeve of his coat, he gently wiped the blood from her face. Uncomfortable with his attentive actions, Lisa pushed him off her. "Calm down, I'm just trying to help you!"

"I don't need help from a cop, least of all you!" she snarled. "And last I checked, I was the one that came to help save your fat ass!" She shoved him again and Hopper grit his teeth as he nodded his head, backing away from the ungrateful teen. Jonathan was left to stand awkwardly next to his still sleeping brother, wondering if he should intervene or not. "So let's get down to business so I can get the fuck out of this Lovecraftian nightmare and back to my sister!" she snapping, shoving past the cop to rejoin the others, hoping they had a plan.

The faster this mess was sorted, the faster she could get back to Kali.