BILLIE JEAN ( eddie munson.. ) ✔

024. Doing The Best They Can..

"Think about it. Doesn't it sound like Vecna wants the demon gone?" She made eye contact with her older brother, "He's been trying to contact you since he started off his Hawkins destruction plan, didn't he? That's why you saw Eddie run away from his trailer, after Vecna took Chrissy from us. Vecna was so desperate to make sure we can deal with Kevin that he risked his whole plan, from the beginning."

"You think he's scared of the demon?" Nancy tried to understand.

"Not scared," Billie shook her head. That didn't sound right.

"Threatened," Barry gave her the word she needed. "Four chimes," he quoted what Max had previously pointed out. "Four gates to unleash the Upside Down," he also quoted Nancy's visions, then sighed. "There's four of us," Barry looked up at Billie.

"You've had the symptoms for the longest!" Dustin almost jumped at the realization, pointing at Barry then turning to Billie. "Vecna wanted to start his plan in September, when you got here. Four perfect victims with a fifth maybe in case anything went wrong with the original plan..."

"But then Kevin's curse and the Mirror Man blocked Vecna's curse on us and he couldn't take us," Sam concluded, understanding where Dustin was going.

"So you were right," Billie faintly ghosted a smile.

"They have a rivalry over you. Personal vendetta actually," Dustin shrugged. "Vecna had to look for new victims when Mirror Man claimed monopoly over you four."

Max sighed, shaking her head, "So if we exorcize the demon, we are just playing by Vecna's rules. Doing him a favor and basically giving him his fourth kill for free."

"We are still using Vecna," Robin whispered after a while, glad the conversation answered her dilemma. "Alright, good to know."

"We can't exorcize the demon this time though," Billie pointed out.

"Why not?" Steve and Dustin asked at the same time.

"It went great last time," Robin reminded Billie.

"Because the demon was not there fully," Billie shook her head. "It was... a partial possession and even then, we got incredibly lucky with saving Steve. This," she pointed back at the demon tied to the chair, "is the real deal. A full demon. Not only am I not qualified for this, but if we do even one thing wrong during the exorcism, the demon might kill Devin."

"The demon might kill Devin anyhow," Barry spoke into the conversation, not happy with what he said, but aware he was the only one willing to say it. "Don't you want to at least try to save our brother's soul?"

"You're forgetting we're in a bit of a messed up position here," Eddie cut in. "Like Max said, the second the demon is gone and it is no longer attached to the Carter's, Vecna is gonna do a russian roulette on them and have his fourth kill, no matter what we plan on doing."

"So we must kill Vecna first," Nancy nodded.

"Kill Vecna?!" Robin exclaimed, eyes wider than they should be. "Nancy, I support your strength and the motivation behind this, but this guy can turn us to puddles of brains with a flick of his hand!"

"He will murder the entire town if we don't do something about it!" Nancy argued back.

"The only reason we made it out alive is because he wanted us to get out," Steve shouted over her and the whole conversation spiraled upwards in noise.

"He's not scared of us," Robin's voice shivered and her knees bounced nervously as she sat there, trying not to show the full strength of the panic attack suffocating her. "And for good reason."