1 | 𝐊𝐑𝐘𝐏𝐓𝐎𝐍𝐈𝐓𝐄 ( B. HARGROVE ) UNDER CONSTRUCTION!

THIRTEEN

"I can't believe you, Dean!" Katherine snapped her hands pooling with blood. "Why do you always have to do this? Be the hero?" 

"Kat - you are overreacting!" Dean grimaced. "I was just trying to help, I'm not trying to be a hero," 

"Really? Dean, you threw yourself in front of that thing," Sam pointed out, making Kat's mouth drop open. 

"Dean! Seriously?" Kat sneered. "You can't pull that shit anymore! Not after what happened a year ago," 

That was when Dean died - for real this time. Katherine remembered burying him and Sam and Kat being on their own until a few months later Dean magically rose from the dead - literally. Katherine rubbed her temples as she stood up and looked around the house. There were hand drawn pictures everywhere, that looked like a tunnel, or even worse a monster someone would only see in their dreams. 

Katherine notice Jonathan kneeling over a little boy, who she found out to be Will Byers, Jonathan's younger brother who Kat hadn't met yet. But Dustin had briefly filled her in with what had happened a few months before when Will went missing. 

And Will was one of the reasons everyone was still in this mess. 

"Dr. Owens, Dr. Sam Owens," Jim Hopper, the cop who had been working with her brothers snapped over the phone. He was calling someone, anyone who would help to see if they could actually help with what was going on in the lab. "I don't know how many people are there!" he cursed as Kat went and stood beside Steve. 

"Is your brother going to be okay?" Steve asked quietly. 

Kat shrugged. If she was being honest with herself, she didn't know if he was actually alright. But then she realized it was Dean, so of course, he was going to make it through in one piece. 

"Yeah, he should be fine," Kat replied, hugging herself and smiling softly. "He has been through a lot worse," Literally, she thought to herself. "Is Will going to be okay?" 

Steve shrugged. 

"He has been through a lot in the past few months," Steve replied as they both walked into the kitchen. 

Jim slammed the phone back onto the receiver and huffed a sigh of frustration. 

"They didn't believe you, did they?" Dustin asked as the four kids sat at the table waiting. 

"We'll see," was all Hopper could muster up as an answer. 

"We'll see? We can't just sit here while those things are loose!" Mike exploded. Kat was a bit shocked, because he was only like 12, and he had such a strong opinion on it. 

"We stay here, and we wait for help," Hopper replied as if he was making the decisions for everyone. He then walked out of the kitchen, leaving a deadly silence in the room that weighed everyone else down. 

"I don't want to stay here and wait," Katherine muttered as she uncrossed her arms and grabbed Dean's keys off the table to the Impala out front. 

"Wait! Kat, where are you going?" Steve asked following her to the door. 

"I am going to do something because Winchesters don't wait around," Kat snapped. "While you guys are all staring at the phone that is never going to ring, I am going to kill this thing that has been ruining your lives for the past year, and has almost killed my brother and Will," 

"Katherine, you can't do this by yourself!" Dustin protested. "Those Demo-dogs will kill you," 

"Demo-dogs?" Max questions. 

"Demogorgon dogs? Its a compound," Dustin said in a 'duh voice'. "It's a -" 

"We don't have time for that right now," Kat interrupted. "Do you see that?" she asked pointing to Will lying motionless on the living room couch, and Sam sitting with his head in his hands as he watched over Dean, who had passed out from blood loss already - but the bleeding had stopped. 

"He has an entire army," Dustin pointed out. 

"His army," Mike said softly. "His army!" he said as if he had come t a realization. 

"What do you mean?" Steve asked, clearly confused with the entire situation. 

"His Army, maybe if we stop him, we can stop his army too," Mike suggested. 

"Take down the King, the rest follow," Katherine murmured. "I like this kid's thinking," 

Mike rushed over to e desk and pulled up a drawing of what looked like a demon to Kat. 

"The shadow monster," Dustin said, identifying the creature. 

"It to Will the day in the field," Mike explained to everyone. "the doctor said it was just like a virus, it had infected him. 

"Like he was possessed," Kat said. 

"And so this virus is connecting him to the tunnels?" Max asked. 

"There are tunnels?" Sam and Kat asked in shock. 

"To the tunnels, monsters, the Upside Down, to everything," Mike nodded. 

"You guys are going to have to slow down here," Steve mentioned, clearly out of the loop. 

"Okay, okay, the shadow monsters inside of everything. And if the vines feel something like pain, then so does Will," Mike explained. 

"And so does Dart," Lucas added. 

"Like what Mr. Clarke taught us," Mike replied. "The hive mind," 

"Wait - you are telling me that this monster is inside of Will?" Sam asked, looking over at the boy lying on the couch. 

"What's the hive mind?" Steve asked. 

"A collective consciousness," Sam, Dustin and Kat all said in unison. 

"Its a superorganism, hard to kill," Kat added on. "And if what Mike is saying is true, then that thing is the brain, it controls everything," 

"Like the mind flayer!" Dustin said in realization. 

"The what?" half of the group chorused.