☾𝙸'𝚖 𝚂𝚘𝚛𝚛𝚢☽

𖣘𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝟸𝟺𖣘

𖣘𖣘𝙿𝚎𝚘𝚙𝚕𝚎 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚐𝚘𝚗𝚗𝚊 𝚐𝚎𝚝 𝚑𝚞𝚛𝚝𖣘𖣘

𝙼𝚊𝚡'𝚜 𝙿𝙾𝚅:

I watched as El shook Hopper's still body, tears down her face as the man failed to respond. "Why is he picking these people? It makes no sense!" Mike exclaimed. "Is that really important now?" Jonathon demanded as he rushed to El's side with the rest of us. There was that far off look in Hopper's eyes, the exact one I had seen in Morrigan and Quinn. Quinn god I missed her voice already. What had even happened to normal her? Was she dead? She couldn't be, she was standing in the same room as me right now.

The brunette stood in the corner of the room, watching blankly as we tried to wake Hopper. Steve stood beside her, still trying to wake her from her trance. I stood up and walked to the older boy's side. "God why won't she wake up- now Hopper. Why them? Why?" Steve was muttering. "Steve?" I asked. He snapped round to face me. I could see the tears he was trying to desperately fight back. A few had slipped out on the way here but we all ignored it, no matter how hard things got Steve had to be the brave face for us.

"He's getting up!" Joyce exclaimed. Me and Steve turned to look as Hopper got to his feet. He walked towards the corner of the room and to our horror, pulled a pistol from a drawer. He turned to face us, hand on the trigger. "Hopper! Please!" El cried, Will trying to urge her away from the man. There was a loud bang as a bullet tore through the air and split through the wooden floor board. A warning shot.

Steve grabbed El and dragged her through the door. I spared one last glance to Quinn before I ran out the door and piled into Steve's car with the others. Another bullet thudded into the tree next to us and Steve started speeding away. I let El cry into my shoulder on the way back to Steve and Quinn's. I stroked her hair gently, letting tears fall silently down my face.

Once we reached the house we got into our normal meeting place. The living room. "Now he's got Hopper, there's gotta be a reason he's collecting these people." Lucas spoke. "What reasons?" I asked, hopelessly failing to hide the emotion in my voice. "Hopper, he's strong and close to El, who's destroyed big parts of the Upside down before. Morrigan owned a lab that was entirely based on experimenting and learning about the upside down. Quinn-" I clenched my fists at her name. I needed her so desperately. I needed her back. "Quinn, she's strong and smart, close to El too. The Devil's trying to get to El and destroy anyone who threatens the upside down." Dustin said, it was clear he had been thinking this through on the way here.

The door crashed opened just as he stopped speaking. We all got up and Steve stepped in front of all of us. Someone was here. I could hear them running through the house, right towards us.

𝚀𝚞𝚒𝚗𝚗'𝚜 𝙿𝙾𝚅:

Soon enough Hopper had joined us. The Devil had convinced him that El would come to harm if he didn't say yes. Now here they were. Three mindless puppets for the devil. "Do you think we would be able to get control again?" I asked, now safe to talk since the Devil had gone off to haunt someone else's peaceful day. "I don't know, I haven't tried." Morrigan sighed. "Try, maybe it'll work." I encouraged. "Yeah, we should at least try." Hopper agreed.

Morrigan squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her fists. My eyes widened as her image began to fade in and out of my vision. I glanced out my vision to what was happening in real life. The Devil had lead us to some sort of abandoned factory which we all sat in. I watched in complete shock as Morrigan was able to stand up and looked around. She had completely disappeared from whatever mind prison we were in.

"Guys? Guys! I did it!" She exclaimed, waving her hands in front of her faces. "I'll go find the others! Try and escape!" She told us, running out the doors. Me and Hopper copied what Morrigan had done. Though we were still trapped. "Why can't we leave?" I paced the area, my heart beating against my chest knowing the devil could catch us at any moment.

"There has to be something different with Morrigan, a reason she could leave and not us." Hopper told me, placing two hands on my shoulders and looking me in the eyes. "But what? What's so different about the two of us?" I queried. "I'm not sure." Hopper mumbled. We sat in silence, thinking of any possible solution but none seemed to match up.

We both turned at the sound of walking. The Devil stood in front of us now, eyes narrowed, burning with anger. "How'd she find a way to escape? How'd you figure it out? That's the problem with getting the best subjects they're too quick to escape." The Devil rambled, circling us now. "Trust me, if we knew, we'd be gone too." I spat. "Temper, temper. You should really calm down. Wouldn't want me to slip up and accidentally get Steve and Max hurt now would you?" The Devil challenged.

"You can't hurt them, that would break our deal." I retorted. The demon lashed his tail at my sentence. He glared silently. There was something about the mentioning of the deal that seemed to really get under his scales.

Max's POV:

"Morrigan?" Steve exclaimed as the blonde woman burst into the room. "There you are! I don't know how long until he gets back to them so let me explain! Please!" She panted. We all nodded eagerly, waiting for the explanation. "Me, Quinn and Hopper all said yes to a deal with the Devil. I said yes because he said he'd bring back my lab and everyone Ive lost back, Hopper said yes because the Devil threatened El otherwise, and Quinn said yes because he threatened Steve and Max,"

I felt a wave of guilt wash over me as Doctor Morrigan told us the deals they had all made. Quinn had been taken by the Devil for me. Simply just so I wouldn't be in harm's way. I could tell by the look on Steve's face that he felt the same way.

"We were all trapped in this place, I think it was part of the upside down, but we could see what our bodies were doing. Like we were watching everything we did with no control over it," Morrigan continued. "Quinn and Hopper said I should try to escape, so I did. And I was able to basically straight away. But Quinn and Hopper were still in a trance when I woke up in my body so- they weren't able to escape."

"Why wouldn't they be able to escape and you would?" I demanded. "I'm not sure." The woman shook her head. There was a slight silence over us before Dustin clicked his fingers. "You said your deal with the Devil was that he would give you everything back right?" Dustin checked with Morrigan. She nodded for confirmation. "You didn't get anything back. He didn't hold up his end of the deal." Dustin looked around all of us to make sure we were following. "There are these things I've heard of called 'Pact Devils', they make deals with people for their souls. This Devil who's taken Hopper and Quinn. It's not the Devil it's a Pact Devil. If they don't hold up their end of the deal, the soul is free to take back."

We all came to a quick realisation once Dustin finished explaining. "We make sure the Pact Devil breaks his deal, we get the souls back, we get the people we care about back." Robin spoke quickly. "That means people are gonna have to get hurt, are we prepared for that?" Lucas asked. "Put me on the brink of death for all I care, I'm getting Quinn and Hopper back!" Steve spoke confidently. "Same here." I nodded, trying to match his confidence.

"Right, let's get started then."