chapter 010,
eleven
EMPTYING THE BYERS'S SHED WAS THE EASY PART. As Lucy helped throw their lawn mower and garden tools into the trees behind their house, she tried not to think about why they were doing it; because if she thought about Will, she would probably start crying, and she couldn't be a big help to anybody if she was crying. So she pushed all thoughts from her mind—Will, Leo, the Demo-dogs—until all she could think about was her kiss with Steve.
It probably wasn't the best thing to be thinking about as she helped Nancy staple boards over the windows in the shed. With Lucy's conscience, she knew she wouldn't be able to hold her tongue long enough to even hold the plywood up to the wall.
"Hey," Nancy said suddenly, turning to face her. She offered a smile. "What you and Steve did, um, helping the kids... That was cool. Thanks."
Lucy nodded, biting her lip and not facing Nancy. "We were just... you know, we thought it was the right thing to do, I guess."
Nancy twisted her lips to hide a smile, shaking her head. "Well, it couldn't have been easy. I mean, I know I would think it was awkward, if I was babysitting a few kids with my ex. But you and Steve don't seem to have that tension, or anything."
"Yeah, well." Lucy's voice came out harsher than she meant it to. She was just trying not to blurt out that she'd kissed him. All she needed to do was finish stapling one more board, and then she could escape back into the house.
"Um, Lucy.." Nancy was quieter, more timid than she had been a moment ago. She stopped working on the wall and turned to face the blonde completely. "I get the feeling that we might have... I don't know, started off on the wrong—"
"No, it's not that," Lucy assured her, turning her head to face her. "It's just that... well, to be honest, you've always kind of intimidated me, and I've never really talked to you before all this, and—and obviously we've both dated Steve, and now that I just kissed him, it makes it a lot more complicated—"
"Woah, wait." Nancy smiled curiously, her brow furrowed in amusement. "You kissed Steve?"
Lucy's face flushed and she made to stammer out excuses, squeezing her eyes shut.
"I'm not mad, Lucy," Nancy said, holding back a laugh. "I broke up with him. I'm just... intrigued."
That brought a frown to Lucy's face. "What? Why?"
"Well, it's obvious you guys still have feelings for each other." Nancy shrugged, gesturing with her staple gun. "I just wasn't expecting either of you to act on it. Especially not at a junkyard with a bunch of inter-dimensional monster dogs chasing you."
A laugh tumbled past Lucy's lips and she lifted her shoulders in a listless shrug. "Yeah, well. I thought we were about to die, and it was better late than never, right?"
Nancy shook her head, laughing along with Lucy, returning her attention to the plywood board and lifting the staple gun back to it. Slowly, her smile began to fade and was replaced by a faint frown of guilt, lowering her hand after stapling the last corner of the board. She turned back to Lucy, eyebrows knit together, lips parted in contemplation.
"And, Lucy," she began, not quite meeting her eyes, "Jonathan.. he feels really bad. About what he did."
Lucy clenched her jaw. She stapled the last corner of her own plywood board into the wall with more force than probably necessary, driving into it with her whole arm, then dropped the gun onto the woodworking table in front of her. She pursed her lips, then shook her head, finally speaking: "He should be able to tell me that himself."
And she gathered up the excess plywood, leaving the shed and Nancy altogether.
WHEN SHE FOUND LEO, he was right where she'd expected him to be: Will's side. He hadn't once moved, even when everybody had started remodeling the shed. He had stayed sitting on his knees by the couch, chewing on his thumbnail and staring at nothing in particular.
"Hey, little guy," Lucy said, leaning against the doorframe of the kitchen. Leo's head turned to her—his eyes were red and tired. Lucy twisted her lips. "You okay?"
Leo just raised his eyebrows.
Lucy laughed lightly, nodding. "Okay, yeah, stupid question. I just mean... how is he?"
The boy shrugged limply, his gaze falling to the ground. "Could be better. Could be worse. At least we know he's still in there. Joyce said he recognized her."
"And by 'in there,'" Lucy guessed, moving to sit across from Leo, "you mean... inside his own body? Where else would he be?"
Leo pursed his lips uneasily, glancing Lucy up and down. "You know last November, when he went missing and I was out almost every day with the party searching for him?"
Lucy nodded curiously. She didn't just remember—it was probably the most stressful week of her own life, adding on top the fact that her parents' arguing had reached a head and it was the beginning of the end for them. Lucy remembered thinking Leo was spending so much time with his friends as a way to try and ignore their parents.
"Will wasn't really missing. Well, he was, but he.. he wasn't missing in our world. He was in a whole different one. The Upside Down. It's a world between worlds—where all those monsters you saw earlier came from. And there's more of them. Different ones. And one of them—the mind flayer, the one we were talking about earlier—he's controlling all of them, like a puppet master."
"And Will.." Lucy raised her eyebrows, looking between the boy on the couch and her brother. "He's one of the puppets? How?"
"That's what we're not sure about. He... he was fine for most of the year. Up until around a week ago, when he started having episodes. He said he saw the mind flayer. A shadow version of it, at least. But soon we started to notice he wasn't being himself. He was acting weird. When we took him to the lab, they tried to set fire to all the tunnels the Demo-dogs created, and it... it affected Will. We didn't know how."
"But now we do," Lucy finished, nodding. "He's connected. Like the—the hive-mind."
Leo nodded, his face serious. "The hive-mind. Will's a spy for the mind flayer."
"But that doesn't..." Lucy's face contorted in bemusement, her mind grasping for any sense of reason to cling onto. She shook her head. "Leo, none of this makes any sense. And if I hadn't just seen those Demo-dogs with my own eyes, I'm not sure I'd believe you. But... I did, so I do. And I also believe how much trouble we're in. The risks of this. God, Leo. Is this what you were doing all that time you were gone last year?"
"Kinda," he admitted, lifting a shoulder. "We.. we also had a friend. I never told you about her. She's the one that really kept us out of danger. Her name's El—short for 011."
Lucy raised her eyebrows. "Like the—?"
"Yeah, like the number. She had superpowers, Lucy. I know that might be hard to believe, but it's true. She could do stuff with her mind. We found her in the woods one day when we were out looking for Will. She's the reason we ever found him. She died trying to save him."
Lucy stared at her little brother, her eyes scanning his face for any source of humor. But much unlike how he usually acted, Leo was completely serious, not a trace of amusement in his big eyes. He held her gaze, trying wordlessly to prove his solemness. Lucy kept staring at him. He would break, sooner or later. Tell her it was all a big joke. But he never broke. He kept staring her dead in the eyes and not once did a smile dance across his face. Lucy sighed, looking away, giving in.
"I wouldn't lie about that," Leo said, his voice soft. "I wouldn't.. What El did meant a lot to me. To all of us. I really liked her, too. And now, what she did... it was all for nothing, 'cause Will's still in trouble."
"So.. what they're doing outside in the shed—they're going to try and interrogate him, or something?"
"Or something." Hopper's agreeing voice came from behind Lucy, and she turned to see the chief and Joyce standing in the doorway.
Leo looked up to Hopper, swallowing and wetting his lips. He scrambled to his feet. "Is it time?"
Hopper's eyes darted between Lucy and Leo, then landed on Will. He gave a slight jerky nod. "We're ready."