꧁꧂

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴛʜɪʀᴛᴇᴇɴ: ʙʀᴇᴀᴋ ᴍᴇ ᴅᴏᴡɴ

Her hair was slicked back down to the back of her neck, damp from the looks of it, and most of the clothes that she wore other than the white sneakers was black. Eyeshadow seemed to have been thrown on at the last minute over high eyelids. It wasn't the El I knew from back November. Then again, the El I knew from last November I thought was dead.

Mike and Eleven hugged while I stood there, shocked to the core. She wasn't... dead? Yes, of course Parker, you complete and utter dumbass. How else is she standing here?

"Is that..." I heard Max murmur, yet I stared still at Eleven. This girl? I owed her basically everything. I felt a nudge and looked over at Maxine.

"Uh- yeah." I tried to smile but it seemed fake even to me. Looking back, Mike kept his head on El's shoulder as the hug continued, the couple not wanting it to end.

"I never gave up on you." Mike told her, pulling away as I saw a broad smile on his face. "I called you every night. Every night for-"

"353 days..." El finished his sentence. He hadn't been the only one counting, huh... "I heard." She told the boy.

"Why didn't you tell me you were there?" Mike asked, confused on why contact hadn't been made so much sooner. "That you were okay?"

"Because I wouldn't let her." Hopper stepped over to them both, still holding his gun, but looking only at El. "The hell is this?" He asked, quiet tone. "Where have you been?"

"Where have you been?" El retaliated, causing me to think quick. Where have you been? Hop pulled her into his embrace, kissing the top of her head. That's when the penny dropped.

"You've been hiding her." Mike says, reading my mind. Oh my God. He was about to kill Hopper right here, if we're not careful. Silence sat awkwardly between us all. "YOU'VE BEEN HIDING HER ALL THIS TIME." The boy pushed the back of Hop and he turned to look back at Mike, grabbing his shirt.

"Hey!" He told the boy. "Let's talk. Alone." Jesus. Even I would've shit my pants with that tone. Mike turned hot in his heels, storming out of the room with Hopper following his every step.

⊹˚˖⁺

"We missed you." Lucas says as El hugged both him and Dustin tightly. I could only stare.

"I missed you, too." Eleven says, holding them tightly.

"We talked about you pretty much every day." Dustin says with a grin, making me smile weakly.

When they pulled away, El looked at them both, turning to me before glancing back at Dustin, hand reaching out to his mouth. "Teeth." She suddenly said, pulling her hand back away after a moment.

"What?" Dustin says, confused like he'd just been asked to work out the mass of the sun.

"You have teeth." She said, adding on to her last sentence.

Dustin smiled over proudly to Lucas, of who was also smiling back at him. "Oh, you like these pearls?" The boy purred, of which El did not like. She moved away from him slightly, looking over at me.

"Hey." I say, voice quiet than ever. "I'm not uh-" The girl stepped forward before I could even choke the words out, wrapping her arms around me. Letting it sink in, I smiled lightly, reciprocating the action. She'd grown so much, huh... "I missed you." I eventually say in between a chuckle.

When Eleven pulled away, she smiled better than I could currently. "I missed you, too." She told me.

"Eleven?" Max called the girl as she walked into the living area, causing the smile to stick on my face, just a much stronger stick, now. "Hey, um, I'm Max." She introduced herself, holding out her hand for the girl to shake. "I've heard a lot about you."

She looked down at the hand being put out for her before stepping forward, pushing pass Max to the room she'd just come from, talking to Mom.

"What the fuck was that..." I murmured; eyebrows furrowed.

"I mean, she wasn't too friendly when she met us," Dustin said, but I could see the hurt on Max's face.

"Yeah, but if Max is with us, it's quite obvious that she's not someone from the lab... or some Russian spy-" I argued, just a few hints of pissed off tone in my voice.

⊹˚˖⁺

"It's not like it was before." Hopper sighed. "It's grown." Joyce and El had come up with the plan of Eleven closing the gate just how she'd opened it before, which I was all for as long as she survived to tell the tale. "A lot. I mean, that's considering we can get in there." The group of us stood around our small kitchen table, listening. "The place is crawling with those dogs."

"Demo-dogs." Dustin corrected him, looking back at Hop as he did so.

Hop looked right back at him. "I'm sorry, what?"

"I said, uh, Demo-dogs..." Dustin continued. "Like Demogorgon and dogs..." He murmured. Was this really the biggest problem right now? Apparently so... "You put them together, it sounds pretty badass..."

"How is this important right now?" A concerned Hopper asked the smaller boy.

"It's not... I'm sorry..." Dustin said, turning back to us at the table.

"I can do it." El told the man, of who was not having it.

"You're not hearing me." He fired back at her. The tired look on his face really spoke the words of how he wasn't in the mood for arguing with Eleven over if she was going to put herself in such a situation. We didn't have that many options, though...

"I'm hearing you." She argued. "I can do it."

"Even if El can, there's still another problem." Mike spoke up. "If the brain dies, the body dies."

Max furrowed her eyebrows over at the boy. "I thought that was the whole point." She says.

"No... Will's still apart of the body." I say in realisation. Fuck.

"Closing the gate will kill him." Mike confirms. Lovely. Just what I needed to hear.

Mom started to wonder towards Will's room, with all of us following her as she showed a thinking and confused expression on her face- not a hurt one, though.

Will laid there so still it practically shocked me to the core. His head looked up at the ceiling as he held his eyes shut. The pain inside me continued at the sight of him. "He likes it cold..." Mom murmured, glancing over at the open window.

"What?" Hop asked her, not sure where she was going with it.

"It's what Will kept saying to me." Joyce continued, "He likes it cold." She walked over, slamming the window shut as we tried to connect the dots. "We keep giving it what it wants."

"If this is a virus, and Will's the host, then..." Nancy slowly pieced together what Mom was saying and the penny dropped for me.

"Then it needs to uninhabitable for the host." I say, looking down at Will on the bed with Johnathan next to the boy.

"So, if he likes it cold..." Nancy carried on, looking at me to finish her sentence.

"Then we're gonna have to burn it out of him..." I murmur, not tearing my eyes off of Will. Oh my God. We have to burn it out of him.

⊹˚˖⁺

"I DON'T UNDERSTAND-" As I argued, Mom turned on her heels and looked over at me as I followed the every move of both her and Hopper. "First- I'm no longer allowed to go to the lab any longer because its's bad for Will. Now- his life is ON THE LINE and you're not letting me be there? Such bullshit-" She raised an eyebrow at my words.

"I am PROTECTING YOU, PARKER-" My mother argued with me from across the kitchen, making me scoff. Everyone could hear, and we were the only ones in the room. "If you go with us, you'll be in danger-"

"SO is Will. So will you, and so will Johnathan and Nancy." I pointed out to her, throwing my hands in the air as I listened to the hypocrisy. I had to go. I had to.

"Parker Byers," Mom began, using the lovely full name card, "you are not going. That is final." She went to leave but I lost it again.

"Oh! Look at you! Mini Park, so much still to learn!" I mocked, tired. "But hey- why don't you invite the milkman while you're at it! Maybe the librarian, too!"

Mom sent me a glare at how I was acting, but I was so overly pissed it was beyond her. "You're staying here." She told me firmly. "You will be safe." Safe was such a lose word tonight, I don't think we could even use that as I term. "I love you, okay, Park?" She told me when I wouldn't make eye contact. "Stay out of trouble, and we'll be back soon." Before I can even argue again, she's left the room, slamming the front door.

"Utter bullshit." I muttered after hearing the loud slam.

Moments of silence in our house went by and I groaned, walking towards the door where the others were heading to watch them all drive off. Bullshit. Complete bullshit.