He could not bring himself to grieve because he did not yet believe it. He would never believe it, not until he saw a body. Isaac was living proof that anything concerning the Upside Down could only be considered dead if there was a body. Eddie had an idea, a faint hope, and he prayed that he was spot on the money but before he could put the plan into action, he found himself nose to nose with Steve who was shaking him wildly, demanding answers.
"What did you do?" he thundered with spit flying from his mouth. "Did you let him come out here? Is that kid dead because of you?" He was absolutely deranged, skin waxy, eyes bloodshot, snot running from both nostrils from crying.
Eddie didn't want to give him or anyone else false hope, but he also felt that there was no use in denying his part in what had happened. He had told Dustin to go back inside–and done nothing to enforce that. He hadn't doubled down on his insistence when the UDC's came, but encouraged Dustin to use his fireworks. He'd allowed Dustin to take Robin instead of seeing both of them safely into the building. Damn right Eddie was at fault here.
"Steve, let him go," said Nancy, tugging at Steve's arm, but Steve's grief was too great to rationalize.
Anticipating what was to come once he admitted his part in what had just happened, Eddie managed to mutter, "I didn't do enough to save him."
Steve went silent for a moment, then tucked his arm back to punch Eddie in the nose, but Isaac intercepted that hit, looking pained not only from his bruised throat thanks to Steve's bat, but also the loss of the Party member he had been closest to apart from Chrissy and Max. There was a silent battle of wills as Steve attempted to wrench his arm free of Isaac's grasp while Isaac looked like he would have invited Steve to have a go at him but in the end, Steve gave up and allowed Nancy to console him once again.
"This isn't over," said Eddie, wishing he could receive such a hug right now but knowing he was not deserving of one. He appealed to Eleven whose face was awash with tears for her friend, but she nodded as she understood his intention.
Taking the blindfold she kept on her from her pocket, she marched with purpose to where the generators were humming at the far side of the parking lot, sat down cross-legged before them, and tied the blindfold over her eyes.
The act was so unexpected by everyone apart from Eddie that no one spoke or moved as the surviving soldiers began to take stock of casualties and radio to the other safe houses for backup at first light. Hopper was the first to break from the spell of unexpected quiet and radioed inside to let the others know what had happened as well as to call down for some nurses to take Robin upstairs. He made quite a speech about staying indoors but some forty seconds later, Lucas, Will, and Mike had burst through the glass doors demanding the story again, for they wouldn't believe it until they heard it in person from Hopper's own lips.
Eddie could't look at them as Hopper delivered the news, partially because there was a slim hope that their worry was unwarranted but also because he didn't want to see the accusatory expressions he knew he would get from them–intentional or not. He crossed his arms over his chest and turned away from the Party as he watched Eleven sitting and searching for any sign of life, any indication that Dustin had survived. His forearms stung from where the bats had bitten through his leather jacket but those injuries were the least of his worries right now.
"Eddie, you're leaking," said Will presently and Eddie looked back to see that he was standing in a puddle of his own blood, as his bandages had stopped absorbing the newly irritated wounds and the blood had soaked through his jeans to start dripping off the bottoms. All of that throwing himself about and being yanked around apparently was more than enough to ruin all of Doctor Hummel's hard work, just as Eddie had been instructed to avoid.
He dropped his jacket from his shoulders and his bite marks were thrown into greater relief.
"Goddamn," said Steve quietly as he got a full look at Eddie in all of his wounded glory but besides the fact that Eddie was the one bleeding most profusely, he was not the only one to have suffered injuries. Everyone had claw marks of some sort, Steve's middle had several punctures from the displacer beast's barbed tail, Nancy's leg was bleeding from where she had been dragged along the blacktop, Hopper had a nasty cut across his neck, and Murray was nursing a mangled arm. In fact, the only one who appeared unscathed was Isaac, but his maimed hand and bullet wound were bleeding again from his own doing.
Lucas regarded Eddie's red-soaked back looking a bit queasy. "That's not from just now, is it?"
"What is that?" asked Steve somewhat awkwardly after attacking Eddie both physically and verbally just minutes ago, not that Eddie held that against him. Eddie had very nearly gone after Steve in a similar fashion for no good reason right after Isaac had been sucked through the portal in the Upside Down. Grief made people abandon their senses in favor of doing something to combat the pain and though Eddie wasn't keen to admit it, Steve had had a much stronger, much longer lasting friendship with Dustin, so he was in a worse way than Eddie.
"Jason," answered Eddie simply to sum up the majority of his injuries.
"What did he beat you with?"
"A belt."
"That son of a bitch," swore Nancy, her hair positively bristling with her anger. "When I get a hold of him–"
"He's dead," said Isaac tonelessly from where he had sat down with his head in his hands.
"Dead? But when–how–" Nancy stole a glance at Eddie in an almost apologetic manner. "Eddie, did you…?"
Before Eddie could think up a lie to deflect the blame from both himself and his brother, Isaac spoke up without looking at any of them, "I strangled him."
"You strangled him?" Mike repeated. "Like, you killed another human being?"
"Jason was a human being by the loosest definition, but yeah, I killed him. He was about to murder my brother for no good goddamned reason, so I put him in the ground where he belonged before that could happen. Does anyone have a problem with that?" It could have been taken as a challenge, but it sounded more like a plea for mercy.
Hopper turned to glance at Eleven who was still deep in the void and Eddie shook his head. "She doesn't know. Only Isaac, Chrissy, and I knew until now."
"And we're sure it wasn't Vecna who made Isaac do that?" asked Lucas nervously.
"Vecna didn't need to help out with that. I promised the fucker I would kill him if he put his hands on Eddie again. He had a plan with the intention of torturing and humiliating and eventually murdering my brother and I had no reservations about killing him before he could finish the job. If anyone has a problem with that, I'll face the music when the time comes, but I'd prefer to get it out now rather than risk anyone thinking Eddie did it."
It took a profound amount of courage to be able to admit what Isaac just had in front of these people who knew and cared for him, but also knew how dangerous he now was. Eddie and Isaac had both become part of the Party at the same time after living unfulfilling lives with little to no familial interaction, but both of them had become something other, something worse under Vecna's influence and to be under the Party's scrutiny now was terrifying. To be feared because of something they couldn't control, to be put on display while waiting for judgment to fall, it was the worst feeling.
"As far as I'm concerned, this Jason died like a lot of people have been dying lately–because of the UDC's," said Hopper. "I've killed too, and with good reason. So has El. And we did that on our own, not with some psycho demon egging us on. You were protecting your brother from someone who'd already hurt him before. In my eyes, that's justified."
"I'm honestly surprised that you didn't kill him that night at the trailer park," added Nancy. "I wouldn't have blamed you then and I don't blame you now. I'm not saying anyone deserves to die, but Jason made that decision to do what he did to Eddie and you were protecting him."
Eddie found this slightly unfair that Nancy was so understanding of what Isaac had done, but had just moments ago looked horrified thinking that Eddie was capable of the same thing. How and why was it okay for Isaac to have taken a life but not Eddie? Why was it a bigger deal for Eddie to potentially have killed someone, but with Isaac, it was almost expected? It wasn't in either of their nature to be violent, but Isaac had confided in Eddie alone that he would kill if he had no other choice. Eddie had never made that confession to anyone.
Not that Eddie wanted to have killed anyone, but these double standards held deeper meaning for Eddie as he realized that no one believed him capable of making hard decisions like the one Isaac had had to make. There was always someone else, someone older or more experienced to make the call for things that could have horrible repercussions and with how often that had happened, no one expected Eddie to ever step up. He was one of the four young adults to participate in the more difficult and dangerous things of late, but he was just following a pre-set order by someone like Hopper, Isaac, or Owens. He wasn't capable of doing more than that…or so everyone thought.
"How many times did Jason hit you if you're bleeding that badly?" asked Will, thankfully changing the subject to a much less painful subject of Eddie's heavily scarred back.
"I lost count," said Eddie truthfully, as he couldn't remember and also didn't know if there were more marks after his latest vision from Vecna or just an inflammation of the already existing welts and lacerations.
"Let me have a look," offered Hopper. "And send you back upstairs to get you fixed up if we need to."
"I'm not going anywhere until El has some news for us," said Eddie firmly.
"She's coming back with news, not sure how good it is," said Mike forebodingly as Eleven trudged back toward them with her trademark bloody nose and her blindfold hanging from her hand.
She appeared close to tears as she looked between Mike, Will, and Lucas and said brokenly, "I couldn't find him."
"Is he dead?" Lucas choked.
"No," said Eddie without being entirely sure how he knew the answer. He recalled asking Eleven to search for Isaac after their first time battling Vecna, how she had been unable to locate him at all. No body, no living form, nothing. He was just gone. Hidden from her sight. And until proven otherwise, no body meant no hastily drawn conclusions. No body, no proof.
"Vecna has him," said Isaac darkly, staring at a spot on the pavement. "He's still alive."
There were a series of mutterings from the others, some of slim hope, some of doubt, but Isaac paid heed to none of them, rubbing at his temples and wincing as if he had just seen something in his head that he would rather have not borne witness to.
"How do you know that?" demanded Steve.
"D'you really need to ask at this point?" said Isaac stormily. "I can feel it. Give it another hour or two and I'll probably see it if Vecna doesn't show it to Eddie or El first. Those bats took him right to Vecna and he's still alive, being used as bait."
"Because Vecna knows we'll come for him," said Steve determinedly. "We're going to get him."
"We don't even know where he is," countered Eddie.
"And we don't have the resources to be charging off into battle after all of this," Murray pointed out, waving his arm at the remaining soldiers scattered around the compound. "We need a more solid plan than 'just go get him'."
"No, Vecna will be coming to us and using Dustin as a shield," said Eddie, resigned to this fact since the moment he saw Dustin's feet leave the ground as the bats began to carry him away. It shamed him to admit it, but he almost, almost, would rather have had Dustin be dead right now than being held hostage and used for such a purpose as Vecna intended to use him for. If he had died, that would have been it and Eddie would never, ever be able to recover from that fact, but he was still alive and Vecna had taken him to force them all to make an impossible decision.
"Okay, seriously, Eddie, how do you know that? I'd understand if Vecna already showed you, but he hasn't yet, right? So this is just guesswork?"
"He can feel it, can't you?" said Will shrewdly. "Just like Isaac. We didn't completely burn Vecna out of you."
"No, you did. But I'm still connected to him somehow, just like you, and I know he took Dustin specifically because he was the easiest person to get who would affect El, Isaac, and me, the three people he's got his eye on. He knows that with a hostage, we can't come at him like we did before."
"But isn't Isaac technically his hostage?" asked Mike. "We can't kill him while a part of him is still in Isaac, but I thought we'd agreed to hold off on another burn until we could simultaneously burn the source."
Nancy was staring at Mike as if he had just expressed his desire to become a stripper and then snapped her fingers in triumph. "That's it. That's what we have to do. We have to–"
"Time out," called Isaac. "If you're about to express your idea for a plan, you should have anyone and everyone who might have a part to play present including those Party members who listened to orders and are still upstairs and any lab staff you might need. And I need to not be present for this because if I know, Vecna knows. So whoever wants to come with me to chain me back up in the lobby…"
He trailed off dejectedly, but only because he was used to being in charge in these situations or at least a senior active participant and now had to resort to kicking himself out of being in the know because of the risk that Vecna might thwart their plans by hearing them through Isaac.
"I'll come with you," Eddie offered, but Isaac turned him down.
"No, you go get patched up again. Hopper's got me, right, chief?"
It was a mark of how Isaac was relying on the former chief of police to take his place at the head of the Party as the eldest and the one who shared those fierce protective instincts to all younger members.
"I've got you," said Hopper in agreement. "Nancy, get Joyce and Susan in the conference room. Have someone sit in with Max, check on Robin, and see if we can't transport Chrissy over too. Steve, go find Owens and Brenner. The rest of you, head upstairs and wait for me."
The others began to trickle inside to their respective duties, but Will remained with Eddie, walking just slightly behind and to the left of him to catch him in case he should fall. As they began to climb the stairs to the second floor, Eddie could feel Will's hand guarding him at the back. Maybe the kid felt that Eddie needed someone's presence in the moment, maybe he was thinking of his own experience in dealing with crap similar to this, but Eddie was more grateful than he could express to just know Will was there.
It felt childish to say so, but what Eddie wanted most right now was a parental hug, something not even Isaac could give him. He wanted a parent who knew everything he had gone through, understood it, and was capable of helping to fix it, but no such person existed or ever had. Wayne had known about the Upside Down for a few short days but had no idea how to fight Vecna's forces, which left Eddie with nothing and no one to turn to now that it seemed that Judgment Day was here for them.
Doctor Hummel was there to admit Eddie to a room for privacy, but she had to be quick, as there were numerous soldiers in worse shape to tend to. Will waited outside while Eddie got his bandages redressed for what seemed liked the dozenth time, but when Eddie went back out, he found not Will, but Mrs. Byers instead and she looked like she had been waiting specifically to talk to him, though Eddie couldn't imagine what about.
"Hopper wants us all in the conference room," he told her.
"Hop can wait. I wanted to check on you after Nancy told me what happened outside with Dustin."
"We'll get him back," said Eddie quickly. "Still working on the how, but we will."
"We will," said Mrs. Byers. "I see that look on your face and I know it because I've seen it on my boys and I know I've probably had it a time or two over the years. It's the look of someone thinking they have to take on the weight of the whole world by themselves."
"Well, that's nothing new, just more of the same, not that it makes it any better."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
The open invitation to spill his guts to an older adult who had been through this before, who had a family member who had suffered at the hands of Vecna, who would understand and be able to empathize–it was too good to be true when Eddie had been holding out for this very thing just minutes ago, but he latched onto the offer like it was a life preserver.
"I don't know what's gonna happen next and I'm scared shitless," he spilled in a rush to get it all out before his nerve failed him. "I thought it seemed impossible taking Vecna down before, but now that he's got Dustin, I don't see how we're gonna be able to pull this off. I know he took Dustin because he was the youngest one outside and the one we all would try to rescue. No offense, but if it had been Hopper or Murray, I don't think the rest of the Party would feel the anger and frustration that we're all feeling because Dustin's just a kid. Vecna couldn't reach anyone inside, so he went for the one kid and now that kid is in the line of fire and we're outta options. If we try to save him, Vecna will kill him but if we hold back and let Vecna do what he wants, everyone else dies and then Dustin dies anyway. How are you supposed to weigh that? How can you willingly let someone die to save everyone?"
Mrs. Byers had a solemn, faraway look about her and answered him without really seeing him, "I had to do that. I had to make the decision that I thought would kill Hopper to close the gate last summer. And I had to live with that knowledge for a while before I found out that Hop was alive. It was only me at the time and I had to make that decision, but this isn't like that and there are more of us than just Vecna. But just know that you can never tell what choices you'll make until you only have one and you have to make it now or risk having no options at all. You never know what you'll do until the second that you have to do it. Whatever that decision is for you, you'll know what it is when the time comes. You'll do it for the people you love just like I did and I'd do it again. I will do anything to protect my boy."
"God, I'm such a loser," said Eddie with a wrench in his heart. "I just apologized to Will a couple days ago and haven't ever told you–but I'm sorry, Mrs. Byers, for your son. I'm sorry about Jonathan–"
"Don't you dare accept responsibility for what Jonathan did," said Mrs. Byers sternly. "Chrissy's told me how you tend to take all the faults and wrongdoings upon yourself like you think it's your job to be everyone's punching bag. You're too young to be thinking you have to do that. No, what my son did was to try and save his brother and no one made him do it. He made that decision to go into the Upside Down with you all and he was there to stop Vecna from killing Will and I fully believe that he went in there knowing he was going to die for Will. That was his choice."
Eddie wanted to say something else–maybe not argue–but say something to alleviate the burden of guilt he still felt all these months later for not doing something to prevent Jonathan's murder. Mrs. Byers seemed to guess his inner conflict and shook her head, tapping her forefinger against his chest.
"You're only two years older than Jonathan was and still young enough to have been my son, so in my eyes, you're a kid. A kid who has a very good support system but who's afraid to use it because you don't want anyone else to get hurt and the more you bottle it up, the worse it'll get. I think I know what I'm talking about, don't you?"
Yes, he did. Eddie had discovered this year that sharing his turmoil left the receivers worse off than if he had just kept his mouth shut. He did not fare well with show and tell. That seemed to be Vecna's real curse: isolation. Making the infected feel cut off from everyone else and unable to share their inner struggles for fear of spreading that doubt. Will, Eleven, Chrissy, Max, Eddie, Isaac, they all had felt so miserably alone under Vecna's influence. They also happened to have such understanding and selfless friends who wanted to help distribute and carry some of that doubt, which was the reason they all were still alive.
"I can see you trying to shoulder all of this responsibility and I'll tell you what I told my son when I saw him trying to do the same thing: you're too young for it. You don't owe the world anything, so stop thinking you have to do this alone. You're a young man who has been through more than you should have. You lost your uncle, you watched as your sister and your girlfriend were almost killed, you just watched Vecna kidnap Dustin, and you live with what's happening to your brother every day, every hour. It's too much for one person to handle, so share some of it, okay? That's why we're here."
She didn't even have to ask to hug him; he leaned into her and set his forehead on her shoulder. He wanted the release to come, but he was too tightly wound, too frightened, too far gone to manage anything but an immense sigh as Mrs. Byers put her arms around him and nestled a hand in his hair to soothe him.
"Let it out," she encouraged.
He wanted to. He had wanted to for days now, but he would have to wait just a little bit longer.
Far sooner than he wanted, he dropped his shoulders in an indication that Mrs. Byers should let go of him and they both should head to the conference room where everyone else was already gathered and waiting for them. Chrissy was on crutches with an IV pole beside her and her wrist handcuffed to the space heater as a precaution. Steve was sitting right beside her, though Eddie noted how Steve had disarmed himself so Chrissy couldn't suddenly seize a weapon from him. Robin, surprisingly, was also present, though her face looked like someone had put it through a wood chipper and her left shoulder looked extremely bulky compared to her right, given the heavy layers of bandages used to treat the enormous bite wound from the demodog. Everyone else was scattered around still looking punch drunk from what they had temporarily believed was the loss of Dustin, but knowing that Vecna was intending to use Dustin as either bait, a shield, both, or something worse, none of them were feeling too optimistic about whatever plan they might be laying out.
Eleven was the first one to speak this time and she sounded both terrified and certain of what she had to say. "I can't find Henry or Dustin, but Isaac said he can feel both of them and he can feel Henry's strength now that he has Dustin. From what Henry has shown me, I think he will try to come here and use Dustin so that we can't attack without hurting Dustin."
"What's he want so bad that he'd come here?" asked Steve.
"The resistance is here," reasoned Murray. "Everyone who's ever put up a fight against him, a couple people who succeeded in killing him, and anyone who's ever pissed him off. He won't continue attacking Hawkins so long as there's people who will try to stop him."
"It would be a safe bet to say that he's after El and Doctor Brenner since El is the only one who can fight him and he has a longstanding history with Doctor Brenner," said Nancy. "And obviously he still feels the need to claim what he sees as his, so he'll come for Chrissy and Max. He'll want to reclaim Isaac and separate him from us so we can't attempt another burn. And of course, he wants Eddie."
"For no other reason we can think of except that Eddie's pissed him off one too many times," said Lucas. "He'll come to the lab with Dustin on a stick and watch us tear ourselves apart trying to decide if we want to sacrifice all of mankind for one friend or continue to oppose him."
"Then we make sure he can't get to the lab and cut him off," said Mike. "We get to him before he can get to us, catch him unaware and get Dustin back."
"If we know which way he's coming from, we can set traps to try and ensnare him before he gets here. Are you ready to face him again, El?" asked Will.
As the exceptionally brave young woman she was, Eleven gave a stout nod. It was just shit luck that she had to kill Vecna again, but she'd done it before when she wasn't as powerful and that was surely a comforting thought.
"But Vecna could come from any direction and we don't exactly have a tracker on him to know which direction that'll be," Steve reminded them.
"So we make him go in the direction we want him to go," suggested Hopper. "Drench the surrounding woods in kerosine, light 'em up, make the woods uninhabitable for him."
"Start a forest fire, that's a swell idea," said Murray in a condescending tone that Eddie had a feeling he had used with Hopper several times before this.
"We need him to take a specific path to get to us and that's the only way we can do it," said Mike. "He'll be hurting since we have to set the woods on fire and the Upside Down has spread far enough that burning the woods will affect him. That pain should keep him distracted and during that time, we send burners out to where Eddie first saw the fissure open during the earthquake. That's the hub and once we have Vecna where we want him, we give the signal to the burners to light the hub on fire. Then we burn the infection out of Isaac and when it's out of him, then Eleven can finish him off. With the woods, the hub, and Isaac all taking hits at the same time, Venca will be in too much pain to be able to fight back, and that's the best window we're gonna get."
"Once we start this fire, there'll be no controlling it," reminded Brenner. "It could go very wrong or veer off in a direction that we don't want."
"Not accounting for the sketchy weather we've been having, the meteorologist still hanging around town said it looks like we could be getting some rain in the next twenty-four hours," said Owens with a shrug. "It's not a lot to go on, but short of having the fire department on standby, it's the best we've got."
"It'll be acidic rain," said Murray.
"Rain is rain, and if we're planning on lighting the woods on fire, we'll have to take it."
"What if the fire spreads here, though?" asked Mrs. Byers. "If the lab catches on fire, we don't have anywhere to go."
"She brings up a valid point," Robin chimed in. "We can have everyone hunkering down in the basement, but if the surrounding area starts going up in flames and the only escape route is on the road that we're trying to make Vecna take, we're kinda setting ourselves up for failure here."
"Vecna won't make it to the lab," said Eddie. "That's the whole point, is keeping him from getting here by taking him out on the road we choose. We pin him down like we did before where we want to finish it and we make sure to finish it. We don't have another option this time."
Everyone else was in agreement, though Eddie could see that some like Hopper and Nancy saw a gaping flaw in the plan. Neither of them spoke out, but Eddie hoped that they would just keep quiet for however long it took him to fill in that hole. They would be pissed when they found out how he beat them to the punch, but in time, they'd come to forgive him. Or they wouldn't. He had no way of knowing and all he could do was hope.
/ /
Walkies with fresh batteries were distributed around, teams were set, and the call had been placed to the other two safehouses to send all available kerosine and flamethrowers toward the woods surrounding the lab. All that remained was to see that Isaac could catch no wind of anything they were about to set in motion, a task left to Eddie.
He found Isaac flat on the lobby floor, chained in place where Hopper had left him after redressing his wounds. It looked like he had found something to scuff the floor with and had been playing tic-tac-toe with himself for some time judging by the twenty or so crossed-out games etched upon the tile. Isaac sat up eagerly at the sight of Eddie approaching and offered up his wrists.
"I know you can't tell me what the plan is, but please tell me you've got something for me to do instead of just sitting here on my ass until it's time to burn me again."
"You're with me."
"Doing what?"
"Can't tell you that."
"Sounds great, let's go."
"I've just got a few more things I need to do first, but I wanted to give you an update so you're not going stir-crazy. I'll be back in fifteen. Can you travel in sunlight?"
"What sunlight?"
Eddie glanced outside. He had lost all sense of time of day after sleeping through daylight hours and being wide awake in the middle of the night, but he had thought it was nearing seven or eight in the morning and while that was true, outside did not reflect that. He could have been fooled if someone told him it was still midnight, for the sun had finally lost its battle with the Upside Down's storms and not one beam of sunlight could penetrate the heavy thunderclouds.
"Nice of Vecna to give a miserable forecast for his lieutenant to walk around in."
"I feel so very favored," said Isaac sardonically. "Whatever you're planning on doing, I hope it works. I'm sick of seeing those storm clouds."
"It'll work," Eddie assured him, then held up a blindfold. "Some people need to walk by here and we can't have you looking at them, so this has to go on."
"You know Vecna can just make me pull it off if he wants."
"Which is why I'm going to have to shackle your wrists behind you for the next fifteen minutes."
"Smart cookie," Isaac complimented, then allowed Eddie to bind him and blindfold him before adding as Eddie headed back toward the staircase, "I'll just wait here, y'know, put all my pressing appointments on hold until you get back."
In an act he would entrust to no one else, Eddie was the one to carry Max down into the sub-levels with Lucas and Mrs. Hargrove both wheeling the various machines connected to her down the two flights of stairs. The three of them along with all remaining hospital staff and refugees with no battle experience were to remain here until Hopper, Nancy, or Steve sounded the all-clear or gave word for them to evacuate. There was still that lingering fear that evacuation would mean driving straight into the path Vecna was supposed to take and possibly colliding with him on the road, but if all went according to plan (Eddie's plan, anyway), Vecna would never reach the lab.
As Eddie set Max down on the cot previously occupied by Isaac, he gave a start and almost dropped her at the sight of her eyes half-open. It had been only days, yet seemed like years when he had last seen that striking color of blue, but by the way her pupils were dilated, he knew that she could see him quite clearly. He closed a hand around her left which was momentarily unoccupied, leaving her vulnerable to attack if Vecna chose this moment to try and make her commit suicide again.
Her lips parted, mouthing something faint, almost indiscernible. "Eddie…"
He set her head down on the pillows and had to lean closer to convince himself that he had heard her speak, nearly pressing his ear to her lips to listen for an active breath.
"I'm here, Max," he told her, hoping to get at least one syllable out of her before he had to leave. "Talk to me, kiddo, I can hear you."
"Don't…go…"
Did she know? Had Vecna shown her what would be happening by day's end? Or was her subconscious just basing her fears off of what she knew of him and his penchant for getting into trouble? If she had been fully awake, she would have probably said the same thing after reading his face since she, Chrissy, and Isaac were the only ones who were experts at interpreting his facial expressions. But he would never know what was going through her head at this very moment to prompt her to come out of her coma just long enough to speak to him. If he didn't know any better, he would have said that Vecna was releasing his hold on her in the hopes that her words would make Eddie lose his nerve, but Eddie was positive that this time, Vecna had no influence on any of his decisions.
"I'll be back soon," Eddie told Max, though her eyes had already closed again. He kissed the top of her head, lingering longer than he should have, but no one noticed those extra few seconds he spent with her.
"Come back to her," said Mrs. Hargrove as Eddie backed away from the bed. "Please try to come back to her."
"I always try, Susan. That's all I can do."
Eddie allowed her to hug him, feeling extremely lucky to have gotten two motherly hugs this day when he had gone without any for almost twenty-one years. He was positively spoiled right now and as he had with Max, stayed in contact with Mrs. Hargrove just a bit longer than normal to savor what could very well be his last parental hug. At the door, Lucas had a crowbar in hand, for he would be guarding the room against attack as the last line of defense between Max, Mrs. Hargrove, and whatever Vecna sent their way if Eddie and the others didn't manage to do their job.
For once, it did not go against his better judgment as Eddie handed Lucas a revolver with the command, "With your life, Sinclair."
"With my life," Lucas promised.
"Good man." Eddie clapped his arm and then shut the door behind him.
Up and down the corridor, he saw other doors shutting, heard locks turning as the remaining survivors barricaded themselves in to wait out what promised to be a very long, stressful, nail-bitingly anxiety-driven day. Trying not to think of what the hallway would look like in a state of mass chaos if they didn't manage to do what they needed to, Eddie took to the stairs, pacing himself as he made his way straight up to the roof where Chrissy, Robin, Mrs. Byers, Mike, and Will were stationed to be the eyes and ears to all of those individuals who were about to brave the woods and surrounding areas.
Chrissy's left hand was cuffed to a pipe and her right clutched a set of binoculars. She had access to a radio, but there was nothing else that she could possibly harm herself with and she couldn't pitch herself off of the roof, but Mike remained nearby just in case. He would be the main communicator to all ground-side parties, relaying information across the board as to what he could see, how quickly the fire was spreading, and alerting to any signs of amassing UDC's. Mrs. Byers and Robin would also be helping out on this front since neither had much weapon experience and both had family and friends who would not let them leave the lab for various reasons, mainly being that they had enough people to accomplish what needed to be done out on the road without their participation and the fact that Robin had suffered a grievous wound. She didn't look at all pleased to be left behind while Steve and Nancy got to take part in the final battle plans, but with a rifle in hand, she seemed as content as she could be, given the current situation.
The one sight Eddie was not prepared for was Will Byers with a Mossberg resting across his shoulders almost casually as if he had done this before and while it was neither his nor Eddie's first rodeo, Eddie had not yet seen him armed. He was the youngest Party member, coming in just a few months after Eleven, and though he was taller than all of the younger members apart from Mike, he still looked far too young to be anywhere near such a lethal weapon.
"What're you doing holding a shotgun?" Eddie asked him almost accusingly.
"My dad showed me how to use one," said Will, frowning slightly as if he knew what Eddie was thinking. "Never had to actually shoot one since I got kidnapped by the demogorgon before I could get off a shot, but I know how. Of everyone on this roof who's allowed to have a gun, I probably know what I'm doing more than anyone else. And I can do it if I need to."
"You won't need to," said Eddie, praying he was right. "But all the same, good luck. And this goes without saying, but I'm gonna say it anyway; please don't go near Chrissy with that in your hands."
"I know, I won't," Will promised, then hugged Eddie, making him realize that he might not be able to handle too many more of those since everyone seemed to be of a like mind that they all thought he was going to die and they were giving him one last farewell hug. He had hoped to approach all of this by avoiding such painful goodbyes, but apparently, having friends meant that every goodbye was a painful one and so he had to endure another hug from both Mrs. Byers and Mike but thankfully, Robin only gave him a two-fingered salute in confidence that he would be back.
Which left Chrissy.
She looked happier than she had been while confined to her bed in the hospital wing, but she was still quite pale from blood loss and was fighting a losing battle in trying to remain positive yet again in the fact of sending Eddie off to do dangerous work while she had to watch him go on without her. She lifted her binoculars to her eyes, scanning the woods below to the west, knowing multiple teams were out there, moving into position and dousing everything within sight with kerosine.
"It's not much, but at least it's helping somehow," she said as she sensed Eddie's eyes on her. "And it'll help keep my brain occupied while I wait for you to come back."
"I know you said you weren't gonna be left behind anymore, but that was before we knew how Vecna was planning on calling dibs on you again. But this time, I promise, I promise, will be the last time," Eddie told her. "And if anything goes wrong, you get off of this roof pronto. You're too exposed up here if the bats come back through and I'm not putting it past a demodog to be able to scale the building in under a minute."
"I know, we've been over it a dozen times already and Mrs. Byers has evacuation mapped out to perfection. We're going to be just fine, so you make sure you do the same. You and Isaac both. Be safe, don't do anything stupid, and tell El to get Dustin back."
"That's the plan."
Eddie stood there watching her, reveling in the sight of her, drinking it all in. Even after everything, she was still surprising him with her resilience, her determination, and her optimism. It would be a sin against nature to have a light such as hers stamped out by everything Eddie was fighting against, which made him determined to fight back that much harder. Laying his weapons down out of reach, he went to her and wrapped his arms around her waist, careful to avoid her back and to not upset her wounded leg. He didn't kiss her, but held her for at least two minutes, which both took up the span of a lifetime and were over in a heartbeat. It would have pleased him to remain on the rooftop with her like the coward he was always accused of being, but the one time he was least prepared for it, he had to face his fears head-on and his only consolation was that this would be the last time.
It had better be, anyway.
He couldn't think of anything different to say to her that he hadn't said several times over, so he said nothing, squeezed her with as much meaning as he could put into that single gesture, and broke away before he could do something he might regret like handcuff himself to the roof right next to her so he'd be forced to remain behind.
"That was longer than fifteen minutes, just so you know," Isaac complained when Eddie approached him a few minutes later in the lobby.
"How did you know it was me walking out here?" asked Eddie as he went to take off Isaac's blindfold.
"Hyper-sensitivity, remember? I recognized your walk pattern. Your left foot falls heavy."
"Well, it's creepy, so quit it." Eddie readjusted the handcuffs for Isaac to be able to walk with his hands in front of him, pocketed the cuffs key, and stood before the glass doors, surveying the world of unnatural storms and bleak prospects that lay before him just on the other side. "You ready for this?" he asked Isaac.
"Have I ever been, for any of it?"
"Actually, now that I think of it, no. We both got spring-boarded into this and just kind of accepted that the world's been slowly burning around us."
"So it's just more of the same old, same old, isn't it?"
"Pretty much."
Eddie and Isaac exchanged indifferent glances. They should not have been as comfortable or nonchalant about the prospect of heading into such a shitshow, but this had become the norm for the two of them and there was nothing they could face that they didn't already anticipate might happen. By all accounts, this should be their playground by now and though it definitely wasn't, it was at least familiar, as screwed up as that was. They both had been to hell and back, so there was nothing new to marching right back into hell again like it was any other Tuesday.
"I'll rock-paper-scissors you for who gets to drive the car," said Isaac as Eddie brought out a key ring.
"Sorry, bro, it's stick, so you'll need full range of motion with both hands."
"I'd rather walk barefoot through broken glass than have you drive again."
"Enjoy the ride because we'll be walking in about five minutes."
"I was joking. You're an extremely responsible, safe, and considerate driver," said Isaac unconvincingly.
"I wasn't."
Isaac flipped him off and backed into the door to open it for Eddie. As he passed out of the lab's shadow, Eddie got a cold and unpleasant prickling feeling down his spine that one way or another, he would not be setting foot inside of this building again and all at once, his body was reluctant to let him go any further as if it knew what was about to happen. But he forced himself to take those thirty or so steps to the car, buckle in, and drive out the open and unguarded gate. Isaac shut it behind them, but with no soldiers left to defend the compound, they both realized the gravity of the situation at the same time that they were the last line of defense and that this harebrained, half-assed, last-ditch, desperate attempt at a plan had better work.
