YOUR SONG | steve harrington

022

After Eleven confirmed that she would be able to close the gate, since she had been the one who opened it a year ago, the group discussed their plans on what to do.

Hopper sighed. "It's not like it was before. It's grown. A lot. And, I mean, that's considering we can get in there. The place is crawling with those dogs," he pointed out.

"Demodogs," Dustin quickly corrected him.

Hopper gave him a look. "I'm sorry, what?"

"I said, uh, Demodogs. Like Demogorgon and dogs," he explained once again. "You put them together, it sounds pretty badass—"

"How is this important right now?" Hopper cut him off irritatedly.

"It's not. I'm sorry."

"I can do it," Eleven spoke up.

"You're not hearing me," Hopper said, shaking his head.

"I'm hearing you. I can do it," she assured him.

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

"I thought that was the whole point," Max said in confusion.

"It is, but if we're really right about this...I mean, if El closes the gate and kills the Mind Flayer's army..."

"Will's a part of that army," Lucas finished for the Wheeler boy.

"So closing the gate would kill him," Chris realized, his brows knitted together in concern.

"Exactly," Mike whispered.

Everyone looked towards Joyce, whose face was written with a number of different emotions. She then abruptly got up, walking over to Will's room. The others quickly followed, not knowing how they were going to be able to pull this off.

"How are we supposed to kill this thing without killing Will?" Alicia whispered to Beverly.

"I have no idea, but...we don't have a lot of time to figure it out," she responded. This was nothing like it was last year, and even though Beverly wasn't up against that huge Demogorgon, she was somehow even more terrified.

"He likes it cold," Joyce voiced once they all formed a group in Will's room.

"What?"

"It's what's Will kept saying to me. He likes it cold," Joyce told them before she went over and shut the window that was letting a cool breeze in. "We keep giving it what it wants."

"If this is a virus, and Will's the host, then..." Nancy trailed off, looking down at Jonathan since he was sitting down.

"Then we need to make the hose uninhabitable," Jonathan continued.

"So if he likes it cold..."

"We need to burn it out of him," Joyce finished for the Wheeler girl.

"We have to do it somewhere he doesn't know this time," Mike said.

"Yeah, somewhere far away," Dustin agreed.

"Where could that be?" Beverly asked out loud, and some of them shook their heads.

"I know a place," Hopper said before he looked at Joyce and Jonathan. "Come on." He grabbed Will's body from the bed, heading out of the room with Joyce and Jonathan behind him.

"Is he not gonna tell us where they're going?" Steve spoke up and they all shook their heads, used to Hopper just storming out like that without giving them any details. "Great."

They all started to file out of the room, getting ready for what was about to go down. "Hey, Beverly?" Chris called out and Beverly turned around, seeing that he was the only one left in the room. "Can we, uh, talk for a sec?"