𝐝𝐚𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐥〡STEVE HARRINGTON

27

"It's Will, he drew these. He has something stuck inside of him, a piece of the Upside Down."

"Like a Demogorgon?" Andy questioned, but Joyce shook her head. "No, more like a mind controller. Will knows things that he knows and he drew all of these because of that. Your dad thought they looked like vines or plants or something, and he rushed off to find the source, but that was a whole day ago now. We could find him if only we knew where the source is. That is what we're trying to figure out."

Andy sighed, trying to take in all the information she had just been told and understand it. It was a lot to come to terms with, but she wasn't surprised. After Will's episode at the school, it was only a matter of time before everything got dangerous again. She needed to find her dad, not just to ensure his safety but to help Eleven too. Wherever she was.

Before she could reply to Joyce, Bob's enthusiastic voice called from the living room. "It's a map. It's a map of Hawkins!"

Joyce and Andy flashed each other a confused look before rushing to the main room to hear about Bob's clever theory. He was Bob the Brain after all. "So the lines aren't roads, but they act like roads." He ran around the house, pointing to different sections of the drawings. "And they act like roads cause when you follow them, you'll see they don't go over water. They're underground."

He stopped and stared at the others, expecting them to all eagerly agree, but they just appeared dumbfounded, their normal size brains not grasping the concept.

"Andy, catch this." Bob called and he threw Andy a tape measure from the kitchen that she caught. She had also grown close with him too. She spent a lot of time at the Byers house with Jonathan, especially on movie nights when Bob would be round. She admired how nice he was, that was a good quality to have she thought. She liked him even though he often made jokes about her and Jonathan dating which made both teens physically repulsed.

Bob sat at the dining room table with a map of Hawkins and an assortment of coloured pens he had pulled from his inside coat pocket. Everyone jumped from space to space around the house, measuring distances from one location to another, while Bob labeled them down on the map, trying to find out where Hopper would be.

"What about Tippercanoe to Danford Creek?"

Andy hurried from her spot in the living room towards the dining room where Danford Creek was located. She became tangled in the yellow tape, having to unravel herself before continuing on. She pressed the measurement onto the sign and read it. "Sixteen feet, ten inches." She called. She had learned more about what was in Hawkins and its geography in the last half an hour than she had in her entire life. It made want to go out exploring once it was all over.

"Danford to Jordan?" Bob shouted and Andy went to dash to her next location, but Joyce stopped her in her tracks. "Oh, come on. This has got to be enough? Can't you figure it out?"

The woman was becoming impatient at how long it was taking, even though Bob was trying his best and they would be nowhere without him. But every second they spent in the house, Hopper was growing unsafer. They all approached the table, peering over at the map that was scribbled with straight lines and numbers.

"I mean if you're twisting my arm, and you are twisting my arm." Bob ummed and ahhed, glaring up at his girlfriend. "I would say that X is maybe a half-mile southeast of Danford."

"Thank you!" Joyce squealed, kissing Bob's cheek and leaving him flustered, before snatching up the map and darting out the room. The kids, Andy included, followed after her and Bob hesitated not knowing what was happening. "What? Are we really going?"

They bundled into the car and a few seconds later Bob did too. Then they were off.

Meanwhile, Steve Harrington plowed up the dirt path towards the Hopper trailer, not knowing that no one lived there anymore. He held a red bouquet of flowers in his hand and in his head went over exactly what he was going to say to Andy. That he was sorry and wanted to be with her, whatever that took and however long it would take. But most importantly he wanted to tell her he loved her.