Dustin's calculations were almost always accurate but this time, they were way, way off as Eddie and Isaac pulled up to the crash site to find about thirty vehicles in various stages of being completely inoperable. Those who had been on their way into town had been forced to either continue on on foot or retreat back to their homes and those who had been on their way out were left with no other option but to find shelter at one of the safehouses. And some hadn't made it at all, for Eddie saw blood splatters everywhere, some body parts, and a few bodies still sitting in the cars with flies buzzing around their corpses after they had not survived the initial crash.

Eddie tried not to pay attention to any car in particular, but after working as a mechanic in a small town for three months, he had come to know some of the cars and their owners quite well and recognized a handful of them. He spotted a middle-aged couple's stationwagon and saw that the woman was still in the passenger seat, having been crushed by the head-on collision. The man had either run for it or met a fouler fate.

Surveying the scene, Eddie bent double and put his hands on his knees, trying to swallow back his nausea. He allowed himself to count to ten and then took the tow cable from the truck bed to attach it to the first car as Isaac moved to the driver's seat and backed up onto the grassy shoulder until he had completely pulled the car off of the road.

So went the next few hours of work. They had to improvise with some vehicles that were smashed beyond recognition into little more than hunks of metal that resembled crushed soda pop cans and find some way to attach the tow cable. They had to step over and around body parts and try to be respectful of the dead, sometimes moving entire limbs and bodies aside so as not to run them over. More than once Isaac had to come and drag a body out of a car because Eddie recognized the owner and went to be violently sick in the bushes for a few minutes.

He never expected to ever be around a dead body and even after the death of Jonathan Byers, had assumed that the body count he would come across during the rest of his lifetime would equal zero, but this was excessive. He couldn't help but tally the numbers in his head and as they came down to the last few cars, Eddie had recognized bits and pieces of at least fifteen people. Fifteen acquaintances, neighbors, maybe even distant friends who Eddie had known and spoken to–gone.

He hadn't thought about it until now, but assuming that there was a Hawkins left after all of this, assuming they could again defeat Vecna and reclaim their lives, what would happen to the town and its people? How could anyone continue to live here, knowing that so many people had died and that such horrible, gruesome things had happened? Those who remained here couldn't see themselves relocating anywhere else and like Eddie, had never thought about the world beyond this small town. So where would they go? How would they move on if there was anything to salvage at the end of this war with the world Eleven had accidentally introduced to theirs?

"Come on, we're almost finished," said Isaac, snapping Eddie out of a daze.

Both of them were sweating profusely and eagerly awaiting the sunset where the night would bring about some form of relief. They had good coverage from the sun by the overhanging canopy of trees, but the air was humid and suffocating even without them physically exerting themselves.

Eddie reached for the canteen of water he had thought to bring along in the passenger seat of the truck and knocked back a few swallows before handing it to Isaac and turning on the walkie.

"Steve, the road's almost clear. Start the van and head to the lab now. Anyone else from Spring Break party copy, the road to the lab is almost–"

"Turn it off," said Isaac suddenly and Eddie was now far too used to his brother giving abrupt commands to question him, so he switched the radio off.

Wandering out onto the road ahead of them was a full-grown demogorgon, drawn in by the smell of rotting blood. It was twice the size of a demodog and twice as lethal by the looks of its talons and enormous head. This thing wouldn't go down with a couple of bullets to the throat, that was for certain. They would need to rain hellfire down on it and even with both Eddie and Isaac pumping it full of lead, they couldn't be sure that it would be enough.

"I can lead it off toward the lab. They'll have set up a perimeter and it'll be heavily guarded," said Isaac. "Steve will be coming through here in a few minutes so you can catch a ride after you get these last few cars out've the way."

"And how d'you expect me to do that without a truck?"

"Push," Isaac suggested. "If you can unstick the wheels, you can roll them right off the road. Plus, a little help from Vecna should make moving those cars a piece of cake."

"No, thanks."

"Do you wanna be the bait in this scenario?"

No, Eddie didn't want to go anywhere near that demogorgon, but he didn't get to sit this one out. Isaac was the better driver, the better fighter, and more likely to be able to hold the demogorgon off if he needed to, and he had volunteered for the less favorable option already, so Eddie couldn't be ungrateful with his luck of the draw. Taking his pack, walkie, and weapons from the truck, Eddie let Isaac slide into the driver's seat.

"I'll see you there," Isaac told him reassuringly, then reversed, sending up four small fountains of smoke from each tire as he retreated up the road toward the lab and the demogorgon followed in hot pursuit, leaving Eddie free to throw his weight against the last two cars.

He had to get several running starts, colliding with the front or back bumper of each car to get the wheels rocking in place until he gained just enough momentum to push the cars to tipping point where they rolled right down into the grassy ditch to smash into the other vehicles that had already been pulled aside. Even though he had both felt and looked stupid charging at dead cars on a deserted road, he still felt somewhat pleased that he had managed to finish the job with no help whatsoever from his new superhuman abilities, courtesy of Vecna. He had moved those cars with some elbow grease and nothing more than his lean, unathletic frame.

His ears picked up the sound of tires on asphalt and as he stood there on the median, he saw a vehicle he didn't recognize heading straight for him. The windows were tinted so he wasn't able to identify the driver from a distance, but since the Camaro was slowing down upon its approach, he was inclined to think that the driver recognized him, though that probably wasn't a good thing given the current hostile climate after the afternoon's breaking news on how the Munson Brothers were out for blood.

Eddie stepped off to the side, praying for Nancy or some other party member or their family to emerge from the car, but he knew he wouldn't be happy with the results of whoever stepped out. It never occurred to him to go for his Colt because he hadn't thought that he would need it against the living. How very wrong he was.

A revolver preceded the hands, arms, torso, and then face of Jason Carver as he stood up from the driver's seat and said, "Hands up and don't you dare reach for that gun or I'll put a bullet between your eyes, Munson."

Dead inside, hating himself for his carelessness and hating Jason more, Eddie placed his hands atop his head in surrender and watched Jason's usual batch of three backup jocks exit the car with a collection of kidnapping supplies such as rope, duct tape, and a monkey wrench. Due to Andy's untimely death, Jason had replaced his friend with an underclassman, Bryce, but still had Chance and Ethan from their graduating class. All three of them hurried forward to search and relieve Eddie of his gear.

Eddie would have asked how Jason knew to look for him here, but he remembered that he had told Jason as much the moment he ran into him while out looking for gas for the Chevrolet. Next time–if there was a next time–Eddie would just keep his trap shut. The only consolation he got from seeing Jason here now was the bruising underneath his eyes from his broken nose and the fact that his nose has swollen to a bulbous purple knob on his face which clashed horribly with his blond hair.

"Where's your brother?" Jason asked, scanning the nearby cars in case Isaac happened to be hiding nearby.

"Not here," said Eddie simply. Panicking would do him no good right now; he needed to remain calm and focused, needed to keep his head clear to think of a way out of this even though the odds had never been more out of his favor.

"Sucks for you. The one time you need him most and don't have him around."

"I've just got one question before this goes any further: why go to all the trouble of starting a manhunt for me if you're just planning on killing me anyway?"

"Just in case you don't die like you're supposed to. Can't tell with you Munson's nowadays; you don't stay dead."

"Congratulations, you're only about three quarters as stupid as everyone thinks you are. Your parents must be so proud."

"If you wanna fight back, now is the time," Jason invited, ignoring Eddie's insult.

"I'm not gonna have a throwdown with you just to get stabbed in the back by one of these goons if I get the upper hand. You hit me and you know that something else will fight back which will probably end up killing all of you, so why don't you do yourselves a favor and just let me be on my way? Chances are we won't survive to the end of the week anyway so we don't need to race to the finish line to see who dies first."

"Yeah, that fit you had, going nuts on me and trying to break open my face? You won't be pulling that on me twice."

"It's not like I can control when it happens, dude. I gave you a chance to walk out–"

"You threw me out–"

"You caused that. I didn't have to bring you back to my house but I did because it was the decent thing to do. I took you in and gave you three very simple rules. I protected your ass in my own home and was willing to think better of you and bury the past, however much it went against my better judgment to do so. And what did you do to return the favor? You pulled a gun on my brother and shot him. You almost shot me and you hurt Chrissy. I had every right to blow your brains out but instead I broke your nose and sent you on your way because you were a threat to my family. I went through all of that just so you could come back on a vengeful vendetta? Jesus, you really are an authentic, genuine, first-class, solid gold piece of shit."

"Eddie, it's Chrissy, we're about five minutes out from the roadblock, where are you?"

"Answer her," said Jason. "Tell her everything's fine. If you try to speak in code or go off-script, I'll shoot you in your knee."

Heart racing, knowing he only had seconds, Eddie took the walkie as Bryce shoved it into his hands and said as levelly as he could, "Still on Winthrop, right by the crash. I'm on foot since Isaac had to take the truck. You should see me when you come through." Then, he punched the talk button in a series of specified taps to spell out S–O–S and hoped that Chrissy could pick up on his call for help before Bryce snatched the radio back.

There was a sickening self-satisfied smirk on Jason's face as he stuffed the walkie into Eddie's pack and threw the whole thing into the back of his car. "Good thing about Chrissy is she always bounces back after a traumatic experience. She always got over it when her mom hit her. In a few months, she'll get over you too."

The son of a bitch knew. He had known all along that Chrissy's mother was being abusive and had done nothing to stop it, unlike Eddie who had helped her stage a jailbreak ten minutes after finding out. Jason had known his girlfriend was hurting and had told her to suck it up and now had the gall to stand here and mock both her and Eddie about it.

"After all of this is over, she may even want to come back to me," Jason mused.

"You stay away from her," Eddie snarled. "You fucking stay away from her."

Stretching out a piece of rope, Chance ordered Eddie to hold up his wrists but when Eddie refused, Ethan struck him in the stomach with the monkey wrench. At gunpoint, Eddie was forced to allow them to bind his wrists together behind him and drag him around to the back of the Camaro where they popped open the trunk.

"Jason, don't do this, man. There's no coming back from this if you put me in that trunk," said Eddie, now starting to feel mounting anxiety that he wasn't going to be able to get himself out of this if he didn't know where he was being taken.

"I'll take my chances. Now, are you going to get in yourself, or do we need to get rough with you?"

Eddie brought his shoulder up into Jason's already broken nose and turned to run but Ethan clobbered him across the shoulder blades with a crowbar and then he, Bryce, and Chance dogpiled Eddie, slapping a strip of duct tape over his mouth and making the ropes at his wrists extra tight as Jason swore now that his nose was bleeding again.

He couldn't have said how, but in that moment as he struggled and made the jocks fight for every inch of ground against him, Eddie sensed someone else there with them, someone watching without being seen, and it wasn't Vecna. His eyes scanned the road in both directions and it might have been the distortion of the summer weather along with the Upside Down climate, but he thought he could discern the outline of someone standing about ten feet away from him.

Hauling him up by his ankles and bound wrists, Chance and Ethan tossed him into the trunk and slammed the door down, dousing him in darkness and stifling heat. He tried to gauge their direction based off of which side of the trunk he rolled to with every turn, but it was impossible. He had no way of knowing where they were taking him and once they got to wherever they were going, he knew he would have milliseconds to react, take in his bearings, and make a break for it once they opened the trunk. His chances were about as slim as Isaac's new figure, but he had to try.

After he concluded that they had been driving for maybe half an hour, he felt the ride become increasingly bumpier as he flew up to smack his head on the low ceiling several times. They must be off-road now and Eddie tried to think of which areas of the woods offered even enough ground for a car not meant for rough terrain to traverse as easily as the Camaro was doing. He could rule out the woods surrounding the quarry due to there being no steady incline but with a sinking feeling, he realized that the car was actually tilting at a downward slant which meant they had to be heading for Lover's Lake.

The car came to a stop and Eddie quickly scrambled to his knees, pulse pounding as he heard Jason and the others coming around the back for him. The trunk popped open to reveal the early night sky and he launched himself out, tackling Bryce and making it all of five feet before something struck him across the back of his legs. He went down but was lugged back to his feet almost instantly and cut free before being stripped of his leather jacket. Chance then retied his hands together in front of him with a thicker and scratchier line of rope and pulled Eddie's upper body flush over the hood of Jason's car. The other end of the rope was tied to a tree trunk and then two more separate ropes were used to bind Eddie's legs to the front tire. Struggling to twist about so they couldn't hold him in place, Eddie kicked and flailed to no avail as Ethan slammed the side of his face down onto the hood.

"Hold him right there," said Jason and Eddie heard what sounded like a belt buckle being undone. They had reached the torture segment of this very long night much quicker than Eddie thought they would. "And take that tape off of his mouth. I wanna hear him."

Then, Eddie felt the unmistakable pressure of the crowbar poking against his back end.

Immediately, Eddie's mind went to the absolute worst possible place and he squirmed, fighting back with enough force that Ethan had to flash a knife in front of his face to make him stop. "You do that again and I'll carve out a chunk of flesh from your cheek," he promised.

"Jason, please…" Eddie hated hearing himself beg but he was terrified of the pain Jason had in store for him and he had to do everything within his very limited power to hold that pain at bay for as long as possible.

"We passed 'please' a long time ago."

Something sharp and metallic ripped into the skin along Eddie's back and his shoulders pulled together in reactionary pain. His first thought was instant relief that Jason wasn't as depraved as Eddie thought he might be but that respite lasted for only a heartbeat. He sank his teeth into his bottom lip and braced for another strike as the belt buckle hit him in the small of his back. This was mortifying, infuriating, and so goddamned wrong. Hawkins was under attack, hostile creatures were dragging people away to their deaths, the very air itself looked like a settling of dust over a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and Eddie was being tortured by his high school bully who found it necessary to blame Eddie as the source of all of his problems.

It proved that sometimes, being the better man was not enough. Sometimes, to survive, you had to do the unthinkable and go against everything you believed in because some people did not deserve forgiveness. Eddie was learning that the hard way and if the hatred in Jason's eyes was to be believed, it would be the last lesson Eddie ever learned.

"You're gonna need to make some more noise if you want your brother to hear you, Munson. Where is he now, huh? He's always come to your rescue before, so where is he now?"

The belt buckle sank deep on the third strike and Eddie couldn't contain the yelp that escaped him like a beaten dog. The next handful of hits came in quick succession and Eddie lost count as well as the will to fight back. He was numb everywhere except where the belt had struck.

He knew he had to be on the verge of blacking out, for his eyes were showing him a blurred image of the Upside Down storm glinting off the surface of Lover's Lake some fifty feet ahead of him. It would only add to his humiliation if he pissed himself before he lost consciousness.

"Jason…stop…"

The belt cut him across the back of his neck.

"Stop it!"

Eddie's face was sticking to the hood now with a combination of silent tears and saliva as he fought to suppress his agony. They were too close to the lake and his voice would carry and bring any demodog, bat, spider, or feline within ten miles down on them and Eddie wasn't counting on his recently acquired camouflage to protect him against the enticing scent of fresh blood.

He felt Jason's hand in his hair, yanking back only to slam Eddie's head back onto the car in an effort to coax a sound out of him. Eddie could only muster a strangled choke as if someone had delivered a square punch to his gut.

"Scream like the bitch you are, Munson."

For the first time, Eddie waited, wanting the essence of Vecna inside of him to take charge and aid him. He wanted that power now as he never had before. He was glad to be infected with this monstrosity, as it was the only thing strong enough to make his tormenters hurt as he did. But it didn't come. It might as well have not existed for all the help it gave him.

And he understood that he was alone in this fight because to fight back was the right thing and Vecna did not come to the call of righteousness. Now that Eddie finally needed it, he had nothing.

"We can do this all night," Jason promised. "I've got all the time in the world."

He couldn't beat Eddie forever. Eventually, it would have to stop, and then what? Would he move on to some other form of punishment, or would he be satisfied and finish it? Eddie saw a cinder block with another rope tied to it sitting on the bank and felt his stomach drop. They were going to drown him or kill him and sink his body to hide the evidence.

The belt fastened around his neck and Eddie gave a garbled outcry as he felt Jason tighten his hold and heard his voice in Eddie's ear, "Are we having fun yet?"

"Fuck you," Eddie spat, deciding with a resounding finality that he would beg no more, that he would die defiant. Of all the things he had expected to die from since finding out about Vecna and the Upside Down, dying at the hands of Jason Carver was nowhere near to topping that list. He was supposed to die differently than this, more meaningfully than this, if not heroically. It was never fate's intention to allow him to do anything so selfless as die a noble death in protecting a loved one or facing off against the monster inside his head, but meeting his end like this was unacceptable.

The pressure at his throat was gone and the belt lashed at his back once again. Then, he heard the telltale flick of a lighter being brought to life and though Jason had no way of knowing that heat would have a much more profound impact on Eddie now, he still intended to burn him. Eddie couldn't see what Jason was doing behind him but after some time, his body surged forward against the car to try and pull away from what was obviously heated metal being held close to his back to inflame his wounds.

This would be it. If nothing else, heat would be the one thing to draw the infection to the surface and give Eddie the means to fight back, assuming he was still conscious in the next few seconds.

Suddenly, Chance went flying as if thrown by some invisible force and Eddie lifted his head just far enough off of the car to see him collide with a tree and slide down to the ground, limp and lifeless. Eddie had to contort his body to watch the scene unfold but he saw Bryce slam against Jason hard enough to break a few bones in both of them.

"Cut him loose," demanded Isaac's rage-filled voice with that hint of Vecna lingering at the end of it and Eddie gave a dry sob of relief.

Ethan complied, cutting the ropes around Eddie's legs and starting on the one that bound him over the hood when Jason began to gather himself up with his revolver in hand. Taking advantage of Isaac's distracted form, Ethan did the smart thing and ran, quickly swallowed by the black and red fog lingering around the banks of the lake. Bryce had been knocked out cold but Jason was raising his arm to fire at Isaac. Eddie hollered out a warning but Isaac had already deflected the shot by swatting Jason's arm aside. The echo left by the gunshot was deafening in the still, polluted air. Isaac snatched the revolver from Jason, seized him by his lapels, and threw him bodily into his own car door with the strength of ten men.

Eddie expected to see a rabid, foaming face marred with black webbing and blacked-out eyes when the headlights fell upon Isaac's face, but what he saw was nothing. Isaac's face was one of absolute calm.

Trembling, bleeding, Eddie crawled forward onto the hood to slacken the ropes still tied to his wrists and tried to work the bindings off of him as he watched Isaac continuously shove Jason into the door until the metal began to crunch under the impact. This was not an act of sadism on Isaac's part as it had been on Jason's, but it was still disturbing and Eddie knew that whatever happened here would haunt him for the rest of his days. Jason had been given so many chances but his pride was a powerful thing, strong enough to blind him to reason, and he was about to pay the ultimate price for it.

Jason was on the ground, bleeding from the mouth most likely due to a collapsed lung. Isaac's hands closed around Jason's throat and now, as he had expected, Eddie could see the black webbing veins throbbing at his wrists and across his throat, see the maddened look beyond recall in his eyes.

Eddie tried to shout to Isaac to make him stop, but his voice died within him at the sight of Jason's face turning purple. He knew what was about to happen seconds before it did and turned away as he heard the sound of a windpipe being crushed. It was a quiet death, much quieter than anything else had been that involved Isaac of late. The infection had made such primal sounds come out of both Eddie and Isaac before but the entire time Isaac had been assaulting Jason, he hadn't made a sound and that was far more disconcerting than if he had screamed.

Hunched over with his gaze on the ground, Eddie could see Isaac's boots approaching as he sat on the hood still bound and still in denial at what had just happened. "How did you find me?" he asked, trying to delay the inevitable conversation that was coming.

"Eleven was in the void," Isaac explained, and Eddie remembered the presence he had sensed on the road right before he had been stuffed in the car trunk. "She told me over the walkie that she saw them taking you and guided me the whole way."

"On foot?"

"Well, you don't see a car around anywhere, do you? Here…" Isaac severed the ropes still secured around Eddie's wrists and Eddie slid off the hood, determinedly looking anywhere but at the spot where Jason's body lay. "What did they do to you?" asked Isaac but Eddie wouldn't meet his gaze.

He was not in control, not one bit. His brother had just murdered the man who had openly and willingly been torturing him. Shame, fear, despair, pain–it was all too much to co-exist inside of him at this moment. He had been so certain that something much more intrusive and humiliating had been about to happen to him with Jason and though it had not come to that, his back still bore the marks of degradation, proof that he had begged for his life and been laughed at. And as he always had before, Isaac had come to Eddie's rescue except he had gone too far this time. He had once promised Eddie that he would only hurt Jason if Jason had intentions to hurt Eddie first. Eddie had done his best to prevent that, asked his brother to be merciful, and hoped that the jocks could survive a bullet if Isaac intended to carry out his threat. But Isaac had murdered Jason on Eddie's behalf because Eddie had once again failed to deal with the situation on his own.

"Let me see…" Isaac tried to turn him around but the mere act of being touched set Eddie off and he shoved Isaac's hands away.

"Don't touch me."

"What happened?"

"Nothing."

"That puddle of blood you're standing in looks like a lot more than nothing."

"What's that?" Eddie countered, gesturing without looking at Jason's body. "What the actual fuck is that right there?"

"Nothing," replied Isaac savagely.

"The same sort of nothing that happened to me, then."

"I want to know what he did to you."

"Why? You already killed him; you can't hurt him more after finding out what he did." That horrible blackness came back to Isaac's eyes and Eddie knew he would have to admit a hard truth to keep his brother mentally present. "He didn't. I thought he might because I was panicking, but that was never something he would have done. He just wanted me to think he might. It was all with a belt, nothing else."

"Would you let me see?"

Eddie couldn't understand where his reluctance was coming from. He had been beaten by Jason twice before but had never had such a strong and negative reaction in the aftermath. Perhaps it was the nature of the attack, the underlying implication that Jason was willing to do worse and could have if Isaac hadn't arrived when he did. Maybe it was due to the fact that this attack had been premeditated, planned out to perfection with the intent of making Eddie suffer both mentally and physically. Before, he had been disappointed in himself for being unable to defend himself, but he had also been proud to have been the honorable man and tried to stray from violence no matter how ugly things got. Now, he was ashamed to show his brother the results of his inaction.

He didn't want to see the pity he knew was coming, didn't want to hear the lecture Isaac would have reserved for a moment such as this, but Isaac didn't give him a choice. His brother put his hands on either side of Eddie's jaw and rotated Eddie's face around to look at him. Even now, Eddie tried to avoid meeting his brother's eye and tried to not think about what those hands had just done moments ago.

"You look at me, Edison."

He did, and he did not see pity in those dark brown eyes so like his own. He saw–satisfaction. Pride. Acceptance.

"You are a better, stronger man than that piece of shit ever could have been. He went after you the way he did because you took the high road and you refused to come down to his level. What he did to you was out of anger because you were better than him in every sense of the word. You're more human than he ever was and you are not a product of what he did to you. Hear me? What happened here, what led to this, it wasn't your fault."

Eddie didn't believe him, but he had nothing left within him to resist, so he hung his head and put his hands on the hood as Isaac pulled up his shirt in the back. He could feel the material sticking to the ripped patches of skin and the contact made the open wounds burn. He clenched his nails into the perfect waxed coating of Jason's car as he heard Isaac swear.

"Jesus Christ, Eddie…"

"H-how bad is it?"

"D'you want me to lie?"

"Yeah, sure."

"Just a couple scratches."

"Okay, now tell the truth."

"There's nine lesions about five millimeters deep apiece on your back and by the looks of it, maybe two or three more on your butt and–for fuck's sake, did he burn you?."

"Yeah, he did. So what does that mean?"

"That means we need to get you to the lab yesterday so the doctors can take care of this."

Eddie stepped out of Isaac's reach and pulled his shirt back down. "No, when we get there, I'll ask for the supplies to treat my back and then you'll help me, but we don't tell anyone else."

"Uh, no, that's not how that works. You don't take care of those properly and they'll get infected."

"And you used to be a pharmacist and I've learned a thing or two about infections so between the two of us, we should be able to figure it out."

"This needs to be taken care of professionally."

"No."

Eddie hadn't meant for it to come out so commanding, so sinister, but as he slammed his hand down to emphasize his point, he realized that he had just dented the car hood and there were black marks rippling across his knuckles as he lifted it out of the fist-shaped dent.

"Stop looking at me like that," said Isaac, taking a measured step back which was rich considering how he had just murdered Jason. "I can see it happening to you, now stop it."

It was the infection of the Upside Down clouding better judgment and reason. It was what made Eddie feel unclean and not himself. It had killed Jason. And it was finally putting in an appearance now that Eddie didn't want it.

He stuffed his fist into his other hand and cradled both to his stomach, waiting for the moment to pass. He massaged the skin across his knuckles to try and force the webbing to go away, to remove the evidence as if it were blood on his hands.

"I'm gonna take you to the lab now," said Isaac authoritatively. "I'll ask for supplies and patch you up as best as I can and wait to see if they start to seal on their own like your stomach did, but if they don't, I'm telling a doctor that you got lashed by one of those tentacle monsters and we're getting you proper treatment. Deal?"

Eddie nodded and even that took an enormous amount of effort.

Isaac dragged Jason's body away from the car door which was now useless since he had used Jason to smash it in. With Chance and Bryce still unconscious, Isaac relieved them of all weapons and left them as they were, which should have bothered Eddie, but he had nothing left to feel. Those boys would have gone along with Jason's scheme to kill him and though Eddie and Isaac wouldn't kill them, they weren't required to save them either. If something found them before they woke up, that was karma at its finest.

Eddie had to climb into the back seat from the driver's side and lay down on his stomach, clutching his reacquired Colt to his chest as a defense against an enemy that wasn't there. He barely registered Isaac speaking into his walkie.

"This is Isaac. I've got him, headed back now."

Time didn't exist on the trip to the lab. It might have been a few seconds or several hours that Eddie lay in the back seat with his face pressed to the cool leather. His mind was drifting, never settling, focused on nothing with not a thought in his head. He was simply an existence in space, devoid of life until a floodlight hit him full on in the face and he squinted to see sandbag fortified walls at least eight feet high surrounding the distinctive block shape of the Hawkins Lab. He heard the sound of a metal gate rolling open, then Isaac drove the car right up to the front doors.

Backing slowly out of the car on all fours, Eddie felt Isaac helping him along by his belt loops and then motioning that he should put his jacket back on to hide his wounds from the welcoming party that was waiting for them just inside.

When he had wanted nothing more than to see all of their faces one last time as Jason sank the metal belt buckle into his back, Eddie now couldn't stand the thought of being hugged and coddled by any of them. So went the curse of the plague living inside of him.

"You just keep walking and I'll handle it," Isaac told him. "Head to the staircase and go to the second floor, make a right, and you're the fourth door down on your right again. I'll be up with the supplies as soon as I can."

Inside, there was a bustle of activity, for the Spring Break party had all come to the lab in support of the Munson Brothers, some at the expense of leaving their family members behind. There were doctors, agents, soldiers, and a few other townsfolk who hadn't been able to make it Downtown in the chaos and had decided to hole up here. At the forefront were Chrissy, Max, and Dustin who all looked like they were about to pounce on Eddie in what would be an extremely painful hug, but Isaac intercepted them and as ordered, Eddie kept walking toward the sign overhead that directed him to the staircase.

"He's gonna need a little while before he's ready to talk. I won't say anything more than that because it's not my place. If he wants to, he'll let you know, but it's not gonna be now and it's not gonna be tonight. I'm gonna ask you all to please give him some privacy and I'll check back in with you in the morning."

It killed Eddie to have to bypass them all when he knew they were hurting for him despite not knowing what had happened to him. Eleven might have told them he had been taken, but unless she had remained in the void to watch Jason torture him, none of them knew what had been done to him and Eddie planned to keep it that way. He hated himself for resenting their presence right now when it should have been the thing he wanted most, had he been human.

The room that had been prepped for him was just like his other hospital room except smaller. There wasn't a hospital bed, but there was a mattress and little else, not that Eddie had expected a five-star hotel experience. He could see Chrissy's belongings already in the corner of the room and his stomach shriveled at the thought of what he was supposed to say to her when she came to bed tonight.

Was he supposed to tell her that he didn't want her there? Was he supposed to lie? She would know he was in pain and find some way to see the marks on his back. Then what would he tell her? She would want to hold him, comfort him, and assure him that he was safe in her arms, but how was he supposed to break her heart in telling her that being touched at all right now was excruciating after what had been done to him?

His own girlfriend and Jason had found a way to make Eddie fear to be touched by her. Even in death, the prick had won.

"Got it all," announced Isaac as he shut the door behind him and dumped an armful of medical supplies on the mattress.

"How'd they take it?" asked Eddie.

"I think Max's reaction was worst. She looked like she wanted to knock my block off, but they're your friends; they understand that you've been through hell and sometimes just need to be left alone. And after everything you've done for them today, I think they owe you at least one night's respite from burning questions. Now, you wanna stand up or lay down while I do this?"

"I'll stand."

Eddie let his jacket fall at his feet and then reaching over to grab the inner shirt tag at his back, he pulled with much wincing until he had completely removed that article of clothing as well. He brushed his hair away from his shoulder blades and put his hands on the windowsill.

Isaac had a touch more knowledge than Eddie did when it came to dressing wounds and it was thanks to this knowledge that the process was far less painful than actually receiving the wounds had been. He worked swiftly and efficiently to the best of his ability.

"I got all the upper ones, but I can still see two going down past your boxers so–"

"Forget it," said Eddie quickly.

"Eddie, I literally changed your diapers, I've seen you butterball-ass naked before."

"That was before I was a self-aware being and had no shame. I'm not dropping my pants."

"Just let me see how far down the marks go and then I can tell you if they're somewhere you can reach to take care of them yourself."

"Fine." Eddie tugged backwards at the elastic band of his boxers to give Isaac enough of a view to follow the cuts to their end point.

"About halfway down," Isaac concluded. "Sitting is gonna be a bitch for a few days. Here." He handed Eddie some gauze and ointment. "Patch yourself up in the bathroom and I'll be back in a few."

The bathroom was just slightly cleaner than Eddie's which was saying something since this entire building had stood abandoned for almost two years and the housekeeping hadn't been a booming business during that time. Dropping his underpants, Eddie turned his back to the mirror and clumsily applied dressings to the whip marks on his butt which were thankfully the least painful and least serious.

Thinking longingly of his bed back home and begrudgingly accepting that he might never get to sleep in it again, Eddie let himself out of the bathroom only to come face to face with Chrissy who–for the first time in Eddie's memory–looked livid. Any protest he might have had for being in the same room with her died in his throat at the sight of her fury, but it was not directed at him.

"I heard your S-O-S and asked Eleven to look for you. She told us Jason found you but she wouldn't say anything else. Isaac said to give you time and if I was an good, patient girlfriend, I would, but I do not want to be patient right now. I want you to tell me what that son of a bitch did to you. I know he did something because you wouldn't even look at me when you walked in. I know he hurt you and I know almost all the reasons he had for doing it were to punish you for being with me."

All she had to do was lean around him to see his back and he wouldn't be able to stop her, but she didn't. She was still leaving it up to him even if her words and her face said otherwise.

He expected the excuses to come, to tell her that he wasn't ready, that he couldn't show her or admit what had been done to him, but the pressure inside was building and if he didn't find an outlet, there was going to be hell to pay. He might as well reveal all now because she would find out a lot sooner than everyone else anyway and be more upset with him for trying to conceal it from her.

"They ambushed me. They knew I would be there and they drove up on me, stuffed me in the trunk, drove me to a wooded area, tied me across the hood of Jason's car, and beat me with a belt. I think their plan was to tie my ankles to a cinder block and toss me in the lake when they were done or make me bleed heavily enough to attract a demodog or two but Jason wasn't even close to being done when Isaac got there. I thought it was Eleven at first–I wish it had been because Isaac, he…he…"

He could see it happening even though he had purposefully looked away to avoid having that memory ingrained in his mind. He could hear Jason's throat caving in, hear his last splutters for breath, hear the silence that followed.

"Isaac killed Jason. He threw him around like he was a rag doll and crushed his lungs and then strangled him. My brother murdered someone because of me."

Chrissy reached out a hand to him but he withdrew and his own reluctance for physical contact enraged him. Why was he like this?

"Eddie, what you've been through, it would be traumatic for anyone–"

"I'm so fucking sick of trauma! I'm sick of it happening to me! I'm sick of being the target, being the one who can't get a fucking hold on his emotions, being so confused and angry and scared of everything. Jason got to me because I'm a pathetic piece of shit, a coward just like he said I was and I could have saved myself so much pain if I'd just had the guts to shoot him, even in the leg or the arm, but I didn't. I put myself in that situation and had to be rescued–again."

"Your brother's actions are not your fault and you should be ashamed for thinking so little of yourself," said Chrissy fiercely.

"I am! I'm ashamed because what Jason did was fucking terrifying. I thought–I thought he was gonna…" He couldn't get the word out. It was too vulgar to say aloud and saying it would solidify his fear of it, make his humiliation all too real. He felt hot tears brimming in his eyes and wiped them away with the back of his hand. "The way he beat me and degraded me…that shouldn't have happened to me. He was a twisted fuck and I'm glad he's dead for doing that to me but then I feel ashamed for feeling any satisfaction about that."

Chrissy was crying for him now, hands clasped at her mouth. He knew she was trying so hard to understand him, to somehow take on some of his pain.

"I can't be more than this and I never wanted to be but with everything that's happened, people expect me to be. This is what I am and what I've always been; always the weak one, always afraid and hesitant, and it's costing me. But I can't even try to be more than that because I'm not human anymore. It's bullshit! This shouldn't be happening to me! I don't want to do this anymore. I'm tired of not being me and not being human. I just want to go back to the miserable old life I had when nothing even remotely interesting or dangerous happened. I just want to be able to hold you and be with you and not be afraid that I might hurt you or worse but I don't even know what's me anymore. I don't know how to live with this."

He felt it coming, felt Vecna surging forward as if fueled by Eddie's misery. As they had when Isaac lost control, the lights above flickered and Eddie backed himself into the corner of the room, biting down on his knuckles. He could see Chrissy still standing there in horror at what was happening to him and he couldn't let her see him like this.

"I need you to leave for a few minutes," he told her through strained teeth.

"Eddie, I can't–

"Baby, please, I don't wanna hurt you, but I won't be able to help it if you don't get out now!" The last word exploded in a roar that sounded exactly like Isaac's earlier outburst in the living room. It was not Eddie's voice.

Isaac burst in, brushed past Chrissy, folded Eddie's arms across his chest, and locked his own arms across them before plopping down on the floor. He stuffed his knife handle into Eddie's mouth to prevent him from biting his tongue in half. It was a brace for impact sort of move and when the wave finally hit, it hit unforgivingly.

Pain lanced through Eddie's chest, his heart, his very being. It was the thrill of a lifetime for Vecna to be able to feed on such wanton misery. Eddie felt as if something were trying to force its way out of his skin, not caring if it ripped him in half as it did so. His bones were shattering, his organs were aflame. Surely, he had to be dying.

Somewhere, he heard a voice that had to be his own sobbing for his brother.

"I know it hurts, I know, but I'm here," said Isaac, sounding close to tears himself as he held Eddie through it. "It'll pass, I promise. Just hold on."

Then Chrissy was there, locking hands with Eddie even though he knew his fingers had to be crushing her. She pressed her lips to his palm, begged him to fight, told him that she loved him.

The spell broke and Eddie felt himself go limp in Isaac's arms. The whole thing had gone on for less than a minute but had felt like a lifetime. Eddie was still alive even though every bone in his body felt battered and every instinct was telling him that he ought to be dead. This was only his first time experiencing Vecna's full power fighting to break out of him. Isaac had been through this at least twice already.

And if Will Byers was to be believed, Eddie would have to go through all of that again if he wanted to be rid of it.

Isaac and Chrissy helped to move him to the mattress since he found that he wasn't even capable of lifting one finger without their assistance. It was a tight squeeze, but Chrissy gently nestled in behind him, careful to avoid upsetting his wounds and Isaac lay down at the head of the mattress with one hand planted firmly, protectively across Eddie's brow. They held him through the night, prepared to subdue him again if needed, but he had already expelled everything that had made this detonation so shattering. He had confessed everything to them and in doing so, had removed just a small portion of the infection, the part that relied on his doubts to sustain itself. It was a small victory, and one he would not be allowed to win again.

It was time to get this fucking thing out of him.

/ / /

AUTHOR'S NOTES: 1.) If you've not read the prequel to this story, I changed Eddie's full name to Edison instead of Edward. There is no reason why, continue.

2.) For those asking, I have bits and pieces of chapters already prewritten but for the most part, I just sit and type up each chapter night by night because I have partial insomnia. I think there will be a slow decrease in the speed with which I upload, though, since I've now used up most of my prewritten notes.