Chapter 24

Tanya crowded the hostages into Andrei's office. He leaned back in his chair, with his feet up on the desk, and shut his eyes. "So you're telling me that my brother, who has never won a fight in his life – and believe me, I would know – managed to throw off three much larger men so he could strangle a child."

"I got back just in time to hit him in the head and knock him out."

"And why was he strangling a child? He's just an overgrown kid himself."

Tanya turned to El. "Why did he attack you? What did you say?" El whimpered. Tanya sighed.

"He's flayed," Nancy said.

"Whipped? Sure, we whipped him, but that doesn't explain anything."

"No, I mean his mind is flayed. This happened before in Hawkins. The thing on the other side of that barrier you're trying to break through took control of people's minds. It wanted to kill El because she's the only one who can stop it."

Tanya translated, then turned back. "How do you know?"

"I've seen what it does to people. It makes them really strong, for a little while, but then it breaks their bodies down for fuel." Nancy shook her head. "He looked a lot like the people it took in Hawkins."

Tanya relayed the answer. Andrei scoffed. "You expect us to believe that?"

"There's one way to find out," Will said. "It can't stand heat. Put him in a really hot room. If he's flayed, you can force it out."

"I think we should try it," Tanya said.

"It's ridiculous," Andrei responded.

"Do you have a better explanation for how your mouse of a brother, who we've been starving for six months, suddenly found the strength to throw three of our enforcers?" She paused to let the point sink in. "There's a village not too far away with a banya. We take him there. If the Americans are lying, he just gets sweaty, and we punish them when we get back. If they're right-" She trailed off.

Andrei sighed. "We've earned a trip to the banya anyway. We'll stop for a drink on the way back from this fool's errand. Then we'll make the Americans pay."

Later that evening

Alexei woke in a cell with a splitting headache. His hands were chained behind his back, and his feet were shackled together. They'd stopped him. Had they stopped him in time?

The door opened. His brother was standing outside. "Have you lost your mind?" Andrei asked.

"I think so," Alexei said. "Is she alive?"

"Yes." The thing screamed in rage. Alexei laid his head against the wall and squeezed his eyes shut. "Come on. We're taking a trip."

Alexei got up and followed, with guards flanking him, and another following him. The thing was looking for escape routes and trying to decide if it could break the chains. They led him to a truck and ordered him inside. He complied, and they drove off into the dark.

They arrived in a tiny village. The guards pulled him out and pushed him into a grubby cement building. The humidity hit as soon as they opened the door, and the thing screamed. The steam baths. He tried to turn back, but the three guards held him, and he couldn't fight with his hands chained. His brother was waving his gun and yelling something about a police emergency, and the half-naked men cleared out. Then they threw him in, clothes and all, and put their shoulders into the door.

He tried to run at the door and break his way out, but they recruited all the men left to hold it. He screamed, begged for his life, threatened, anything, but they held him in. Finally, he collapsed to the floor, feeling like some evil thing was shredding his organs and dragging them out through his skin. "It's not my fault," he wailed. "The thing did it." But it wasn't him speaking, it was the thing, making its last desperate play for Andrei's pity. Then he vomited, and for one horrific moment he thought he'd thrown up his own stomach. But it slithered away, through the grates in the floor.

He stayed where he had fallen and waited. Nothing spoke in his head. He closed his eyes. He hadn't felt this tired since he was bleeding out at the fair. Whatever might come, he had to rest. He thought he heard the door opening, but it sounded faint and distant. Someone jostled him. Four faces were hovering above him. Andrei actually looked concerned. Well, they were brothers, and in spite of everything, he didn't think Andrei wanted to be untwinned anymore than he did. "It's gone," he said, and he smiled. The guards picked him up and dragged him out. He didn't have the strength to resist, or even to cooperate. He thought he heard Andrei yelling at the banya patrons that they hadn't seen anything, but he couldn't bring himself to worry about it. He slept as soon as they stuffed him in the back of the truck.

His whole body was shivering when he awoke. They were back at the prison. The guards ordered him to get out and walk, but his legs crumpled as soon as his feet touched the snow. They dragged him in, and up the stairs to Andrei's office. Joyce and the children were sitting on the floor, talking quietly while Tanya kept an eye on them. El was with them. She was alright. It hadn't won. He felt strangely at peace, ready to fade away now that he knew that.

The guards plunked him on the floor. He slumped and his head lolled to one side. Andrei came up behind him and looked around at the Americans. Then he locked eyes with Tanya.

"We may have misjudged the situation," he said.