I anxiously bit my nails and bounce my leg up and down, hoping the boys were safe and okay until I hear a car pull into the driveway of the Byers home.
We all rush out to see Lucas, Mike, and Dustin, along with the girl I had met in the forest a few nights ago.
"Dustin!" I say as I run over to him and give him the tightest hug as he wraps his arms around me. "We are never leaving each other again."
"Noted." He says, as we walk into the house.
"Mike!" Nancy says, pulling him into a hug. "I was so worried about you."
"Yeah," Mike sighs. "Me too."
Nancy grips Mike's shoulders as she looks over at the small girl. "Is that my dress?"
===
"Okay," Mike says, showing us about the place called the 'Upside down' that he learned about from Eleven and my old science teacher Mr. Clarke. "So, in this example, we're the acrobat. Will and Barbra, and that monster, they're the flea. And this is the Upside Down, where Will is hiding. Mr. Clarke said the only way to get there is through a rip of time and space."
"A gate." Dustin says.
"That we tracked to Hawkins lab." Lucas pipes in.
"With our compasses." Dustin shrugged.
There was a long pause between everyone until Dustin pipes up again. "Okay, so the gate has a really strong electromagnetic field, and that can change the directions of a compass needle."
"Is this gate underground?" Hopper asks the boys.
"Yes." Eleven says.
"Near a large water tank?" He asks her with an eyebrow raise.
"Yes." She nods.
"How do you know all that?" Dustin asks Hopper.
"He's seen it." I whisper, eyes widening in realization.
"Is there any way that you could... that you could reach Will?" Joyce asks Eleven. "That you could talk to him in this—"
"The Upside Down." Eleven says softly.
"Down. Yeah." Joyce nodded.
Eleven nods and Joyce lets out a sigh as Jonathan rubs her shoulders.
"And my friend Barbra?" Nancy asks. "Can you find her, too?"
===
Surrounding the kitchen table, we anxiously wait as Eleven sits with a walkie talkie and a the picture of Barb from the party and one of Will the party had given us, set out on the table in front of her, a static noise coming from the walkie-talkie.
The light above the small table starts to flicker as I pick at my fingers, waiting for something to happen.
Eleven opens her eyes and looks at us with a look of sadness.
"I'm sorry." She whispers, locking eyes with me across the table.
"What's wrong?" Joyce asks, clutching Jonathan's hand that rested on her shoulder. "What happened?"
"I can't find them."
===
"Whenever she uses her powers, she gets weak." Mike explained as we all sat around the kitchen table, waiting for the young girl to come back from the bathroom
"The more energy she uses, the more tired she gets." Dustin continued.
"Like, she flipped the van earlier." Lucas said.
"It was awesome."
"But she's drained." Mike continues.
"Like a bad battery." Dustin said, looking between all of us.
"Well..." Joyce stammers. "How do we make her better?"
"We don't." Mike nods. "We just have to wait and try again."
"Well, how long?" I ask.
"I don't know." Mike shrugs his shoulders, looking down.
"The bath." Eleven whispers, making her way out of the bathroom.
"What?" Joyce asks.
"I can find them." She spoke up once more.
We all look around at each other, confusion evident in all of our faces, until she speaks up again.
"In the bath."
===
"Mr. Clarke? It's Dustin."
Anxiously, all of us stood in the kitchen looking at Dustin who held the phone to his ear as he talked to his science teacher.
"I have a science question."
Nervously biting my lip, I make eye contact with Lucas before averting my attention back to my little brother.
"You always say we should never stop being curious." Dustin says. "To always open any curiosity door we find. Why are you keeping this curiosity door locked?"
Grabbing the closest notepad and pencil, I hand it to Dustin, who was writing down each and every single detail Mr. Clarke had said to him.
"Uh-huh. Uh-huh. How much? Uh-huh. Yup, all right. Yeah, we'll be careful. Definitely. All right, Mr. Clarke. Yeah, I'll see you on Monday. I'll see you Monday, Mr. Clarke. Bye."
Dustin clicked off the phone, placing it on the table and facing us, aiming his pencil directly at Joyce.
"Do you still have that kiddie pool we bobbed for apples in?" Dustin asks, looking at the notepad in front of him.
"I think so." Joyce nods. "Yeah."
"Yeah." Jonathan affirms.
"Good," Dustin says. "Then we just need salt. Lots of it."
"How much is "lots?" I ask, raising an eyebrow at my brother.
"1,500 pounds."
===
We all end up at Hawkins Middle School as Nancy and I went to the back shed to get hoses while Lucas, Mike and Dustin were setting up the pool, Jonathan goes with Hopper to get the salt and Joyce helps Eleven get ready.
"Hey, (Y/n)?" Nancy asks as we adjusted the water temperature for the boys.
"Yeah?" I say, turning to face her
"Do you like Steve?" She asks me simply.
"Warmer!" Lucas shouts from the gymnasium.
"Wha..." I laugh, adjusting the heat as a blush grows on my face. "Why would you think that?"
"You look at him like he's the best thing to ever be brought into your life." Nancy shrugged.
"Alright fine," I say. "I do have a small thing for him, but he likes you, so i'm not going to do anything about it."
"Colder!"
Nancy lets out a laugh as she was turning the nob to cool down the water.
"What's so funny?" I narrow my eyebrows with a chuckle.
"I don't know," She sighs, shrugging her shoulders. "I just don't think Steve likes me as much as he likes you."
"Nance, he doesn't li—" I say, furrowing my eyebrows at the girl.
"He talks about you all the time." She deadpans" He speaks of you as if you were the best thing that has ever happened to him. Even if he doesn't realize it yet, he likes you."
"Warmer!"
"Nancy," I laugh and turn the nob to make the water warmer. "He loves you, I swear."
"Right there!" Lucas screams, seeing as that was are cue to go into the gym.
"We'll talk about this later." She says, shutting off the water.
I let out a laugh and follow Nancy out of the small room.
===
Everyone finds a place around the kiddie pool, me being in between Joyce and Nancy as Eleven removes the yellow and green striped socks off her feet and placing the goggles that had been duck-taped on her head.
Hopper and Joyce guide Eleven into the pool as she lays down and floats up in the water.
The lights above us started flickering, indicating she had started looking for Barb and Will.
"Barbra?" Eleven muttered as started to pant heavily as the lights turned off completely, causing us all to look up.
"What's going on?" Nancy asks.
"I don't know." Mike said, furrowing his brows.
"Is Barb okay?" Nancy asks Eleven. "Is she okay?"
"Gone. Gone." Eleven whimpered, her breathing getting quicker by the minute. "Gone."
"It's okay." Joyce soothes. "It's okay. It's okay."
"Gone. Gone!"
"It's okay. It's okay." Joyce says, gripping her wrists, trying to calm her down."Hey, It's okay."
Eleven started panting as I grab her free hand, trying to soothe her as well.
"It's okay." I say, stroking her hand. "we're right here."
"We're right here, honey." Joyce says. "It's okay. You're safe."
"Castle Byers."
Joyce looks at us, perplexed as she continues to hold Eleven.
"Will?" Eleven asks, her voice small while squeezing my hand.
Joyce gasps, leaning forward closer to the small girl.
"You tell him... tell him i'm coming. Mom is coming."
"Hurry." Will's voice said through the small walkie-talkie on the cart.
"Okay." Joyce shudders. "Listen, you need to tell him to... to stay where he is. We're coming. We're coming, okay? We're coming, honey."
A minute later she shoots up from the water, her whimpering echoing loudly through the radio, ripping off the goggles and starts panting heavily.
She curled up into a ball while hugging Joyce. Stroking her hand, I make eye contact with her, nodding to let her know it was going to be okay.
===
Nancy and I sit with our backs against the wall and our knees pulled into our chest, outside of the gym after cleaning everything up and telling the boys to stay put in the gym and keep an eye on Eleven.
Jonathan walks inside after trying to go help Joyce and Hopper and slides down the wall, sitting next to the two of us.
"We have to go back to the station." I say after a moment of silence.
"What?"
"Your mom and Hopper are just walking in there like bait." Nancy says. "That thing is still in there. And we cant just sit here and let it get them, too."
"We can't." I say.
"You still wanna try it out?" Jonathan sighs.
"I wanna finish what we started." Nancy says. "I want to kill it."
"Then let's go kill this son of a bitch." I say.
===
The three of us sneak into the police station, a police man was lounging on one of the desks, his feet propped up as he listened to the radio while going through a deck of playing cards, not spotting us once as we grab the items we had bought earlier that day.
On our way out, I grab a fire extinguisher, seeing as it would be a good idea, since our plan did involved some fire.
"You guys ready?" Jonathan asks us, before getting into his car.
We nod, Nancy hopping into the front seat as I get in the back. We speed off to they Byers house, ready to kill this damn monster.
===