Eddie was lying in his room, legs on his bed, torso hanging down off its edge. His head was surrounded by cassette tapes. Case upon case littered the floor. He wasn't sure what exactly had possessed him to go through his collection. If anyone had asked him to bring out a specific song (they never did) or show them a specific band (they never did), it would have been a lost cause. They were on his dresser, his side table, stuffed inside shoeboxes under his bed, in little piles of two or three on the carpet. There were tapes in his sock drawer, tapes squished between the mattress and the wall, one tape he'd just found this morning in the bathroom's medicine cabinet. Anthrax, Armed & Dangerous, sitting pretty between Wayne's back pills and some very expired Advil. He couldn't remember how or why it had gotten there.

It was like that with all of his music. It was like that with all of his stuff. If it wasn't snortable or a well-loved instrument, heaven help you if you needed to find any of Eddie Munson's personal effects. He just wasn't organized. He took great pride in his library of tunes, but it wasn't because he had them alphabetized, or the cases color-coded. It was because no matter where he found a tape, in the medicine cabinet or stacked with a few others in his room, he knew it was good music. Every tape. Just like his wares—he was big on quality, not efficiency.

Eddie picked up another of Iron Maiden's tracks. He had two of these, for some reason. Two Killers, one self-titled, three Powerslaves—why did he have three Powerslaves? He could sell one, keep the other as a backup. He flicked Killers in the vague direction of its twin—it was somewhere in that area, probably—and reached for a case that looked, upside-down, a bit like a Def Leppard cover.

He wasn't doing this to get organized. He was doing this because he didn't want to go to sleep.

It didn't help that his uncle was now working security at the plant, asleep during the day and absent all night.

Eddie wasn't kidding himself into believing that this self-inflicted labor had any real, practical purpose. In about ten more minutes he'd have stopped halfway through to get a snack, smoked a bit, gotten high and forgotten the whole thing. Or else he would finish the task to his own satisfaction, leave everything scrambled on the floor, and then go for a smoke. This wasn't about productivity. This was about distraction.

Yesterday in the cafeteria, after the whole Walkman mission, Chrissy had seemed like a total zombie. Eddie was convinced he now looked ten times as undead. Forty-eight hours without sleep. Maybe one or two weed-induced catnaps, maybe, because his body was traitorous as ever, but even then….

Whatever Vecna had pushed on Cunningham, whatever she'd seen while rising toward the grimy lid of this trailer, it had to have been scarier than just watching her see it. Her vision must have had her perfect cheer squad sleep schedule by its throat, Eddie was sure. Part of him felt guilty for being this unwilling to crash. He hadn't been seconds from death, seconds from his eyes popping like bloody water balloons, seconds from his limbs snapping easy like low pine tree branches.

But getting a front-row seat to that kind of process—however incomplete—it did something to him. Drugs weren't helping as much as he'd expected. This was only night two and he couldn't close his eyes without seeing her up there, seeing the lamps and lights flash and flicker hard. What else might he have seen that night, had he not stumbled backward, knocked into Wayne's handheld radio, and been rescued by tinny Billy Joel? If Max Mayfield hadn't burst into the trailer, his freshman sheep and their three mental babysitters right behind her?

Turns out he didn't have to wonder. His imagination supplied Vecna's unreached grand finale.

Hence the great Cassette Purge of '86.

A loud, sudden rapping on his one window had Eddie jerking upright, close to cardiac arrest.

"Geez—son of a—"

He scrambled for his old mini flashlight, drowning in the depths of his closet. It was out of batteries.

The rapping continued. He pictured his meticulously-painted Vecna figurine, blown up to twice his own size and leering in through the window.

Eddie spat profanities around the flashlight, jamming it in between his teeth as he dug beneath the bedframe for a dusty package of double-As. Upon finally rekindling the ancient silver thing—tasted like pennies—he flicked it on and shone it outside the window.

Someone pasty and obviously human fell backward as the light beamed into their eyes. Eddie heard the thud, heard more colorful language being thrown around outside.

He unlocked the window, pushing it hard outward with a piercing squeaking sound. Rust. Eddie leaned out tentatively, slowly, gaze darting around. The flashlight was flipping out now, flickering madly no matter how often he knocked it against the window frame.

"Seriously?" Steve Harrington was blinking like a sickly cat up into the strobe lighting. Six black figures of varying height were standing somewhere behind him. "What were you gonna do, throw a rave?"

Eddie let out the breath he'd been holding, shoveling his hair out of his face. It was just the Scooby Doo wannabes.

"No offense, dude, but that whole Shakespeare thing doesn't really do it for me." Eddie kept the light up, absently, so he could see who he was talking to. The fact that it was antagonizing Steve was a pleasant bonus. His voice came out hoarser than usual; when was the last time he'd consumed non-alcoholic liquid? Two days—two and a half? "Buy me a drink first."

Steve rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger, flinching. "Geez, man, turn that off—"

"What is this, what's going on?"

"Boogie on down here and find out, Munson, I'm not selling Samoas—"

"Well, we just live to disappoint, then, don't we Harrington?"

"Guys!" Dustin stepped into view, shutting down the two seniors in the middle of a riveting I-can-shout-louder-over-you match. A huge backpack practically dwarfed him, and a canteen swung on a carabiner from his belt loop. "Eddie, get down here, we got the gate!"

Eddie wrinkled his nose at the shrimp, tilting his head. We got the gate? Was that code for something? More A-Team cryptic flair? He turned off the psycho flashlight and let the dim light of his own bedroom wash over the boys in the yard. Apparently, further details were being reserved for people standing in wet grass at 2 AM.

When he swapped his sweatpants for jeans and made it outside, tugging on his jacket/vest combo, Eddie was instantly engulfed in a small crowd of people. Robin, Nancy, Max, Lucas, and Chrissy stood restlessly behind his trailer. They too wore huge backpacks or were carrying sacks of some kind with them. Max was just holding a Hefty trash liner in one hand, while Chrissy was hugging what looked like a rolled-up sleeping bag. Both girls had headphones slung around their necks.

Eddie stared from Wheeler to Henderson, Steve to Lucas. He raised his eyebrows. "Are we going camping?"

"We found a gate," Dustin breathed. "It's in the school."

"Gate?"

"A gate into the Upside Down," Lucas supplied.

"If my theory is correct," Dustin added, in the voice of someone who knew his theory was correct, "then every time Vecna takes a life, another tear in the fabric of space and time opens."

"Fred died in the school," said Nancy, "so we know there's at least one gate in the basement."

"And that's…good." Eddie blinked at them disbelievingly. "Right?"

"It means we have a way to get to Vecna," explained Wheeler. She was shifting from foot to foot, and her eyes kept jumping from Max to Chrissy.

"Wai-wai-wait," Eddie held up a finger on each hand, feeling his stomach flip over, "no one said anything about getting to Vecna."

"We already know where he's staking out," Dustin swept on excitedly, ignoring Eddie's protests.

"Okay. Yes." Eddie forced a pained, stressed smile, steepling his hands instead. "But see, no one said anything about getting to Vecna."

"Would you rather he just stick around?" Mayfield demanded, with an exaggerated shrug that surpassed most seasoned, bitter adults he knew. "Maybe take me next? Or her?" She jerked her head toward Chrissy, who had her headphones on now and was pacing slightly, looking at the grass.

She had a point. But this was a suicide bombing. This was idiotic.

"So—so—so what, we get in there and we just slit his throat?" Eddie demanded. "You think we can take him?"

"I voted bullets," Robin offered, voice scratchy as though she'd been the last among them to wake up for this.

"This is not a discussion. Okay? This has to be the plan right now," Nancy explained, in the same tone his teachers over the year had used when they'd handed him a bad grade. Her hair was shoved mercilessly behind an ear, gaze shooting blue fire at him. It seemed she was all too used to being questioned. "Either we kill Vecna, or he kills Max—or Chrissy."

Chrissy couldn't hear any of this, Eddie knew. She was dutifully drinking her Joel Juice and keeping Vecna at bay. Still, the blunt reminders that the wispy cheerleader had a target painted on her back—that little Red Riding Hood, with her massive black trash bag bunched in one hand, eyes just as bloodshot as Eddie's must have been, was also in danger? He wondered how Chrissy couldn't at least sense the weight of it in the air, every time it was said. He wondered how she was standing, actually.

"And you want to do this now." Eddie leaned down a bit, attempting eye-level. "In the high school?"

"Eddie, remember—time-sensitive." Dustin snapped his fingers.

Lucas batted those wildly snapping fingers away from his nose. "Can you not?"

"I think I have glaucoma," Steve whispered somewhere in the background.

"You don't even know how to spell glaucoma," scoffed Robin.

Eddie threw his arms up. "Okay, great. Great! So we go to this gate, we hop on in, we take him out."

"Easy-peasy," Dustin confirmed, pointing at him with a grin. He looked altogether too enthralled with the idea of demon-murdering and a road trip to hell.

"I'm sorry. Doesn't that require, y'know. Breaking into Hawkins High?" Eddie let his arms slap back down against his sides.

"We've done it before," shrugged Lucas.

"That was the middle school." Dustin flapped a hand. "Different stakes."

Eddie opened his mouth to ask the barrage of questions that flew into his brain in response to that. How many times had this group done this? Had they been fighting the same world of monsters for years? His gaze caught Chrissy, arms wrapped tight around her sleeping bag, wearing out a tiny path back and forth in the grass. She was in jeans and a white sweater, looking cold and tiny and out of it. Her head moved slightly to the beat in her headphones. He realized this conversation was taking too long—if two people here were already on borrowed time, the story behind their apparent middle-school felony was more than unnecessary.

Instead, he shook his hair out of the way, pressed two fingers to his forehead, and settled for the more relevant, "And all the cops are off-duty tonight, is that it?"

"Well, no, we're not total morons," Steve huffed, rolling his eyes. "That's where you come in."

"Yeah, you have a van, right?" Robin strode past the group, heading vaguely around the end of the trailer.

Eddie darted in front of her. "Woah woah woah, nobody drives my baby but me. All right?"

"Your baby?" Robin snorted. It was possibly the most unladylike sound he'd ever heard come from a girl.

"You're a terrible driver," Max grunted.

"No license, no opinion, Red."

"Hey, she would know," Steve assured him, shooting Mayfield a very dirty look that Eddie was too stressed to try and unpack. "Believe me."

"Bite me, Harrington."

"Eddie, we have to use your van to get everyone to the school," Nancy interrupted, raising her voice above the squabbling. "The more cars we park in the lot, the more conspicuous we are. Your van can hold all of us, and—if you park in the back, no one will notice. We need you."

Eddie listened to this with a growing sense that he was about to lose all control over his car, his night, and maybe his bladder if they didn't speed this along. He inhaled, raked a hand back through his curls, and let it all out again with a too-loud puff. He reached into his pocket, where the van keys could always be found, whether he was wearing those jeans or not. "This is so stupid, this is so stupid, this is so stupid—"

Everyone followed him to the van, Dustin sliding into shotgun without any competition, the rest piling into the back.

"Okay, uh—" Fingers gripping the wheel tightly, Eddie craned around to examine his passengers. "No seatbelts or anything back there, so um. Y'know. Get handsy."

Robin's mouth snapped open, opinion simmering to the surface and on the cusp of actual audio.

Then Eddie gunned it in reverse and whatever she was going to say turned into a short yelp as they all pitched forwards. Being the designated driver had its perks.

When they got to the school, the first thing they did was trek, hunched and paranoid, around the entire building. They left their overnight bags—because apparently everyone had agreed upon spending the night together for this—in the van and checked every door, every window. Of course, it was all locked. The kitchen door, the doors for every hallway, the emergency exit in the back. Each window was pushed and prodded until thumbs and fingertips were sore.

Steve kept checking over his shoulders, keeping a sharp eye out for any onlookers. He rounded every corner first, ushering the group past him once he'd "secured the area". Max was listening to Kate Bush on full volume, arms folded tight over her chest like she was cold. Every now and then as they walked, Sinclair would look over at her like a dog waiting to be let in out of the rain. Robin kept up a steady stream of whispered suggestions for every dead end, and Dustin kept jiggling the door handles after Steve, as though that might magically make them give way. Chrissy stayed at the rear of the pack, sometimes humming the song in her headphones, mostly remaining eerily quiet. Eddie found himself playing rain-dog too, glancing back to make sure her feet stayed firmly on the ground.

Nancy was, for some strange reason, holding a massive rock in one hand. Robin explained this was to break off any external locks, but obviously this band of do-gooders had very little experience with breaking-and-entering.

"Uh, hate to be the clan pessimist, but that's not gonna do anything," Eddie snorted, watching Steve secure the area for the millionth time. There really was no need; after two murders, Hawkins was a ghost town at night. "Places like this tighten up from the inside, Wheeler. What you're gonna want is either the key or a card, credit card? Something thin—slides between the deadbolt and the strike, y'know—" He mimicked the clicking of a latch with hands and tongue. "Pops it open. You're not gonna find any padlocks out here."

Nancy didn't turn around, and she didn't abandon the rock. "It'll work just as well on windows."

And that was the end of any Miyagi/LaRusso potential between them.

Dustin blinked up at Eddie, feet crunching on the asphalt as they rushed past Steve around another corner. It felt like they'd circled the school ten times by now. "So…you know all that how?"

Eddie gave him a sideways glance. "Common knowledge?"

"Deadbolt strikes and credit cards are common knowledge?"

"Hey, I didn't say I practiced what I preach, all right?" Eddie spread his palms. "My old man was loose-lipped, that's all."

Actually, his dad had been about as loose-lipped as any teacher could be when intentionally divulging information to their student. Not only had Eddie practiced this particular bit of preaching in the past, but he'd mastered the lesson at the ripe old age of ten. Of course, there was no way he was passing on that skill to Henderson. He wouldn't be the one molding little sheep into wolves. The rigmarole of high school usually did that on its own.

"Hang on—guys! Back here!"

Robin had doubled back, standing near the wall and stretching up on her tiptoes. The group joined her, crowding underneath the rectangular, too-far-up window leading into the gym. Robin's fingertips were several inches too short to reach even the lip of the window's brick ledge.

"You gotta be kidding me," said Steve. "I am not checking that one."

"It's open, dingus," Robin explained, pointing.

Sure enough, they could see the window's bottom, half an inch above the ledge, as though it had bounced up a bit after being shut the first time. Whoever had been in charge of closing it didn't bother double-checking. Eddie half expected to see some gremlin creature's hand oozing through the tiny opening. There was an entrance to the Upside Down just inside those walls, in the underbelly of this godforsaken school. If it was just sitting there, wide open for business, they might meet anything upon entry.

"Okay," sighed Steve, taking a few steps backward. "Gimme room."

"What're you gonna do, charge?" Max pulled her headphones off, snorting a harsh laugh.

"Unless you have a better idea, yes. I can reach it if I jump," Steve snapped, shaking his head. "Unbelievable."

"Why don't you just let Eddie do it?" Dustin asked. "He's tallest."

Steve shot Eddie an expression of pure venom. "By like an inch, come on!"

Eddie tried not to look like Dustin's preference made him feel even taller. This from the kid who acted like Harrington had hung the sun each and every lousy morning. He'd take what he could get. Could Harrington map out a three-month campaign in twenty-four hours? No. Could Harrington hash out the physics of TIE fighters for forty-five minutes straight? No. Could Harrington reach the big bad gym window with his tiny little noodle arms? No. And that felt good. It was the little things in life.

He rolled his sleeves up very deliberately, very slowly, bouncing his eyebrows at Steve. He didn't take a running start, and he didn't jump when he reached the wall. He strolled up, judged the distance, and stood on tiptoes, fingers brushing the ledge.

He wasn't tall enough.

And he wasn't going to hop.

Eddie wheeled around, an apology written all over his face. He directed it at everyone but Steve. "And this is why we take our vitamins, kiddies."

Lucas cursed at him under his breath. Steve's hands were on his hips.

"Just…piggyback."

Chrissy's soft voice drew everyone's attention. She was taking a break from the headphones, too, looking back at them with obvious discomfort. It wasn't like cheerleaders weren't used to being in the spotlight, but she seemed to shrink every time she had to speak, ever since the attack in the trailer. Maybe before that.

"Come again?" Eddie jammed his thumbs under his arms, leaning toward her.

She met his gaze, taking a slow breath. "If someone gets on your shoulders, they can reach."

"Someone?" Steve snorted. "Yeah, okay. Not it."

"Not it!" Nancy, Robin, and Max harmonized. It was insulting how quickly they chimed in.

Eddie and Dustin turned to face one another, perfectly in sync. No one else had to volunteer; Dustin's eyes were glittering like a kid six years his junior.

"Have at it, big guy," Eddie insisted, grinning wide and wolfish, crouching down.

Dustin beamed back and practically sprang on top of him, with a fitting lack of grace. He was precisely as heavy as Eddie had anticipated, but this DM was more than up to the challenge. Multiple spontaneous, post-Hellfire tussling sessions had prepared them for this moment. Eddie hiked the kid up farther, letting him get comfortable on his shoulders. The leather and denim spared his skin any worrying, but the same couldn't be said for his head.

"Hair," Eddie hissed. "Hair. Hair. Hair."

"Sorry, geez, don't be such a pansy," Dustin grumbled, legs pinning Eddie's curls down and tugging at them painfully. He stretched and strained with both arms to reach the window. "One sec."

"How about half a sec?"

"Can you please chill; I've almost got it! I mean god, maybe cut it once in a while and you wouldn't have this problem—"

"Over my deeeeead, bloated, waterlogged body, Henderson," seethed Eddie between the teeth of a wild smile, slightly laughing.

"Will you stop moving? Be still!"

"You guys." Nancy's sharp voice chopped through their bickering.

Eddie turned around with great difficulty, Dustin wobbling above him. Nancy was holding one end of a small ladder, Robin carrying the other end. Steve, Lucas, Max, and Chrissy all parted like the Red Sea as the girls marched toward the wall to unfold it.

"Where'd you get that?" Lucas asked.

"The door to the equipment shed had a padlock," Nancy replied, pursing her lips in something very like a smirk at Eddie.

Eddie made a scrunching, mocking face. "Way to dent that halo, Wheeler."

As the girls were setting up the ladder, Eddie pitched suddenly to the side and Dustin lost all control, arms pinwheeling as he toppled off of his shoulders. The freshman hit the ground with a yell and a curse, nothing broken or bruised, and stood up ready for revenge. Dustin barreled into Eddie's middle, full-force, and the two of them shoved and stumbled their way around the small patch of grass. Robin started chortling from her post on the ladder's bottom rung, Nancy pushing the window further up with both hands.

"Okay, children," Steve sneered, swooping backward to avoid the tumbling boys. "Settle down."

Dustin was trying repeatedly to force Eddie to the ground, and Eddie was doubled over him, attempting a headlock. Headlocks were easier when the victim kept his head in one spot.

Finally, with a weaving maneuver, two arms and several fingers outstretched in a hold-it gesture, Eddie broke away from the younger freak. They were both breathing hard. The brief play-fight had boosted his serotonin, his energy, and for a moment Eddie forgot his lack of sleep and the imprint of Vecna behind his eyes. Dustin's warm, blustery laugh was just as good as Kate Bush—better, doubtless.

Just past Dustin's head, Chrissy was openly grinning at him. It was a small smile, and her gaze was still dull and red, but it was undisguised cheer nonetheless. She was looking at Eddie in that confused, eyebrows-pinched, you're not what I thought you'd be like way, the smile making her mouth look fuller. She even seemed to be laughing a tiny bit, very quietly. She glanced at Dustin, too, for a second. There was a wrinkling at her eyes, the kind that came when people passed toddling, unbalanced little puppies being sold on a street corner. Then it was back to Eddie.

He was about to dive for Henderson again, just to keep the smiles going, when Nancy came down the ladder.

"Okay, we're in. Eddie, you take someone and start grabbing our stuff from the van. I'll spot the ladder. Everybody up, quick."

No one objected to being bossed around. Suddenly, the reality of entering the school afterhours and facing a gate to a monstrous dimension settled itself over the group like a cloud. Fred Benson had died in that building. Horribly. None of them seemed eager to climb the ladder first, but to his credit, Steve took a breath and volunteered himself. Said something about making sure there was a landing pad of some kind.

Eddie twirled his keys on one finger, fully aware he was chosen as pack mule because he was the only person who could unlock the car. Sweating from his scuffle, he immediately set off toward the van, expecting Dustin hard on his heels.

He did indeed hear someone hurrying to match his long-legged stride, but it wasn't the shrimp. It was Chrissy.

"I can help," she mumbled, hugging herself as she fell in beside him.

Eddie twitched her a smile and kept walking. After about two minutes of silence and him fiddling with his keys and his rings and every single finger he owned, he said, "So uh, shouldn't you be keeping those on?"

She looked up at him, confused.

"Headphones." Eddie pointed; palm upturned.

"Oh—" Her hands flew to the pristine black headset, and she made as if to yank them over her ears again.

"No, it's okay, it's cool," he assured her, turning slightly to face her. "I mean, if you need a break."

They kept walking, slowing down to a more comfortable pace. Chrissy stared ahead, licking her lips, letting the headphones fall back around her neck. Her ponytail was messy, loose, not as perfectly curled as it usually was. She moved like every muscle hurt.

"I'd get sick of it too." Eddie tried again. He walked backward so that she could see his face, see his smirk and raised eyebrows. "Honestly. All that Joel? I think I'd throw myself off the quarry." He acted it out, almost flinging himself to the asphalt and catching his balance at the last second in a tangle of his own legs.

Chrissy grinned tentatively, giving something in the family of a laugh on a few exhales as she responded. "It's not that bad."

Eddie whistled, long and low, miming a two-finger stick man falling to his doom. He added a splat sound effect.

She did laugh then. He slowed their pace, enjoying the sound.

"Hey, don't get me wrong, if it works it works." He clicked his tongue. "But isn't it…kind of a slow death anyway? Uptown Girl?"

"It's a good song!"

"Over and over and over and over—"

"Okay! Maybe—maybe it's not the Beatles or anything—"

"The Beatles?" Eddie slapped a hand to his heart. "Chrissy."

"I'm sorry!"

"Chrissy."

"I like this song!"

After a few seconds her laughter and his protests petered out, and they exchanged a grin as they approached the van at nearly a crawl. Eddie turned back around, side by side with her again, swinging his arms wide and long. It was easy to be on for his audience, his table of freaks in the cafeteria every day. They always delivered when it came to support. But it was even easier to be on for Chrissy, who seemed to laugh so hard and so naturally when he got started. She maintained eye contact; she made all the right faces. It wasn't support, it was genuine joy. And helping her to relax was helping him relax.

"I'm sorry," she said suddenly, voice down to a mumble again, joy slipping away.

Eddie's head reared. "Sorry?"

"For yesterday." She bit her lip. "I know, it's stupid I don't have my own, but—" Chrissy took the back of her headphones in one hand and lifted them slightly, wiggling. "Thank you. I mean—for going to all that trouble."

"Ah, well," Eddie shrugged, reaching the van and jamming the key into the driver's door. "Can't take all the credit. It's Henderson's Walkman, I'm just the delivery boy."

They wrenched open the double doors in the back, and Eddie began pulling sleeping bags and backpacks out. He set each item on the asphalt. Chrissy helped, taking care to make sure bedclothes were perched on top of the backpacks instead of directly on the ground.

Eddie's gaze landed on her hands as she reached for her own small, pink backpack. They were shaking again. He tried to catch her eye, but her head was tilted so that her bangs hid her face.

"Hey, uh…" Eddie's head bobbed toward the school. "Do you actually wanna go in there?"

She didn't look at him. "I don't…really think I have a choice."

He paused, both hands gripping somebody's pillow hard. Eddie tossed it on the pile, shutting the car door closest to him. He kept his eyes fixed on her. "You sure? Cuz I can take you home right now—"

"No—"

"Seriously. It's no skin off my back, Cunningham, I swear."

"No, really—" Chrissy turned slightly, pointing her shoulder at him, letting her backpack drop back against the van bed. "I can't go home. I'll be fine."

He studied her, bending again, trying to snag at her expression. Get a sense of what she was talking about. The truth was, if Chrissy copped out of this mess, he himself would feel far freer to do it too. He'd have the excuse of making sure she was okay (and he did want to make sure she was okay, bonus), and he'd be able to go back to his trailer and wait until daylight. Wait until Wayne came home, wait for the morning and hope these meddling kids had slain Vecna by breakfast. They'd needed his car, not him specifically. And Chrissy was clearly petrified just being here. Just being this close to the thing that had nearly killed her, this close to its lair, to its world. On the whole, he'd be doing a good deed.

Then she said, "I wanna kill it."

Eddie's eyebrows sunk so far low over his eyes, it was a wonder he could see her at all.

"What he did…" Chrissy took a shuddering breath. "That thing…I want him gone. I don't want it hanging over me anymore. I just want it to stop."

Just when he thought she couldn't have surprised him more. Yes, she sounded close to tears (who could blame her?), but she also sounded firmly planted. She wasn't the murderous type, couldn't be, but—she wasn't the drug-dealing type, either. In spite of that, she was—or was going to have been—his most recent customer. She was choosing to go into that building and face down the creature that had definitely tried to snuff her out. And it wasn't malicious, it wasn't out of anger. He could tell from her tone. She wasn't seeking revenge. She was just hurtling toward what needed to be done.

In that second, Chrissy seemed taller than him. She seemed larger than life. Eddie understood operating out of necessity, maybe better than anyone he'd ever met, but this was something else. Even as she stood there hunched and frightened, she didn't see any other option than what was undoubtedly the right thing to do. Dangerous, stupid, risky, impossible. Still right.

She fit right in with that ragtag group climbing into the gym.

"All right then," Eddie exhaled, reaching around behind her to close that door, too. "Let's go slay us a dragon."

Chrissy turned to meet his eyes, finally. The fear in them made his own heart scramble into his throat, but the smile she gave him was big and real and he couldn't let her see how scared he was with her. He wouldn't.

One of them had to make it up that ladder without fainting. And Eddie would never live it down in his own head if she kept out-climbing him.

(Author's Note: Please remember that reviews/comments help motivate me to continue. Love hearing your thoughts! Thank you. -Doverstar)