El had seen Billy, sitting in his room in Max's house, doing nothing but staring into the distance. She had now gone to get a drink whilst the others discussed.
"And that's not normal, right?" Nancy asked.
"Billy staying in his room on the fourth of July? No, that's not normal," Max said definitively. Lizzie shrugged; in all the craziness, she had forgotten that today was even the fourth of July.
"He wants us to find him," Will realised.
"Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of," Nancy said. "If we go to Billy, then the rest of the flayed know where we are."
"It's a trap, I agree, we'll be ambushed," Mike nodded.
"We won't be surprised," Lucas shrugged, saying they should go for it. "We'll know that they're coming, and we'll kick their flayed butts."
"You mean El will kick their butts," Max corrected.
"No, we're not doing that, it's too risky," Lizzie said, imploring them to agree.
"Yeah, and unnecessary," Nancy said. "Killing the flayed won't stop the Mind Flayer."
"We have to find out where it's spreading from," Lizzie nodded. "We have to find the source."
"Billy knows it," El came back into the room. "Billy's been there. To the source."
Mike shook his head. "Yeah, but-"
"It's a trap, I know," El agreed. "We can't go to Billy, but... I think there's another way. A way for me to see where he's been."
Then she explained. She was going to go inside Billy's head. Last year, El had told them all about how she had found out she had a sister, and had travelled to find her, and her mum. Then she had gone into her mum's head to find out more.
She was going to do the same with Billy.
Lizzie sighed and turned on the TV, making it go to the static sound. She handed El her blindfold and sat beside her. She was in on this one, because she wanted to help El get through it.
She sighed as Mike knelt down beside his kind of girlfriend. "El, I know you think you have to do this, but you don't," he murmured. "It's just- you've only done this once before and- your mum- she loved you, and wanted you to know what happened. But Billy's different. The Mind Flayer is in him."
El turned to him. "He can't hurt me, not in there."
"We don't know that-"
"Mike," El leaned forward and took his hand. "I need you to trust me."
Seeing that made Lizzie yearn for Dustin.
Meanwhile, Mike gave Max a quick glance (she nodded firmly) then turned back to El. "Yeah, yeah, totally."
He sat back on his chair, and as everyone else sat down around El and Lizzie as well, El pulled the blindfold round her eyes and tightened it around her head.
A few seconds.
"I'm in."
Lizzie gave a shaky breath, turning to the group. "If things get bad... pull my hand off her shoulder. I'll hopefully be able to get her out."
They nodded as Lizzie slowly moved her hand from the floor to El's shoulder. Her head shot up.
And the living room disappeared.
"He's... there," El said as Lizzie's eyes focused.
In the blackness, there was only two things. Billy, and the bed he was sitting on.
Slowly, El and Lizzie walked forward, feet splashing on the watery ground.
When they got right up next to him, Lizzie barely whispered. "He can't see us, right?"
El shook her head. "No. He'd be looking at us..."
Apparently, to go into someone's mind, you had to make direct contact with them in the void, and focus yourself on them.
"So if I hold onto you, and you to him, will that work?" Lizzie whispered. El slowly nodded.
Then she took Billy's hand. And Lizzie took her other one.
"Billy," El slowly said, after they were all connected. "Can you hear me...?"
"We want to see," Lizzie said, suddenly knowing what to do. "We want to see what happened."
Then, Billy looked up at them.
And lunged for Lizzie's hand.
"Argh!" Both girls were now getting held by him, and pulled in. They were both panting; faces sweaty, eyes glassy.
"STOP! NO! NO!" El shouted.
"LET GO!" Lizzie also begged, as the grip tightened-
Then she got what she wished for.
In a shower of memories, Lizzie and El fell backwards in sync; eyes wide, mouths open; shouting for no one to hear.
Then they landed.
The first thing Lizzie registered was cold water on her body, then the taste of salt. Whether it was from tears or the sea she now saw, she didn't know.
"Where... are we?" Lizzie asked slowly, as she and El got up.
They were on a beach. They had landed at the meeting point of land and water, but as they got up, they walked onto the wet sand, looking around as some seagulls flew away.
"E-El- Lizzie- are you okay- okay- okay..." Mike's voice echoed around. It sounded like it was coming from the sky.
"We're okay," El spoke softly. Lizzie stayed silent, for she didn't know how to speak to the people outside the void.
"What's going on-on-on..." Mike asked again.
"We're... on a beach," El told him.
"Okay, call me dense, but last time I checked, there were no beaches in Hawkins-Hawkins-Hawkins..." Lucas' voice came through.
"What else do you see?" Max's voice was unlike the others; it was clear.
"A woman," Lizzie spoke louder, hoping they heard it, for she had just seen a woman across the shore. She was beautiful, with blonde hair, a white dress, and golden earrings.
"She's... pretty," El spoke. "And I... I think she's looking at us."
The woman waved, but Lizzie was smart enough to realise it wasn't to them.
It was to the little boy who suddenly ran past them, carrying a body board.
"Yeah! Whoooo! You did it!" The woman shouted to the little boy.
"There's... a boy," Lizzie said, starting to understand...
"Did you see that?" The boy asked the woman.
"Yeah, I saw that!" The woman held the boy, kissing his forehead.
"That was at least seven feet!" The boy replied animatedly.
"I don't know what it was but it almost gave me a heart attack!"
The little boy's face softened and he asked. "Ten more minutes?"
The woman sighed, pursing her lips, but eventually, she gave on. "Yeah, okay, ten more minutes! But any longer that that and dad's gonna be mad, okay?"
But the little boy was already sprinting back towards the sea.
Then the woman shouted again. "Billy?"
The little boy turned and his mum said. "Watch out for rip currents!"
"I will!"
Lizzie instantly understood. "The boy... it's Billy. And... I think we're in a memory."
And even though she didn't see it, she could feel Max nodding as she heard. "It's California."
Lizzie sighed as she and El turned their attention to the sea where young Billy was now floating.
Then El spoke again. "I think... I think I can see it. The source?"
"What, where?" Lizzie asked more quietly.
El pointed to a place beyond the beach. A place where a blue and red storm was brewing.
"Let's go," Lizzie said without hesitation. They needed to find the source. They needed to. So why not just go for it?
After about twenty minutes, they got to the place where the beach crossed over into the red haze.
"What's... this?" El asked, as she pointed to all the weird white particles floating about the place.
Lizzie remembered seeing them before. In the tunnels... last year...
But just before she could tell El that, a voice sounded.
"Hey! Billy! Stop!"
A man and boy were standing in the red haze. The boy was Billy. And the man... was Neil. The step-dad Max was always complaining about. The one that had abused Billy since he was little.
"What the hell is wrong with you!? What did we talk about, huh?" Neil shouted, angry with his son. "You gotta slide!"
Young Billy was clearly scared as he stammered. "I-I- know-"
"Afraid you're gonna get hurt, is that it?" Neil yelled, leering over his son.
"N-no," Billy did his best to reply.
"Well, what then? What? What did I raise, a pussy for a son?!"
"Leave me ALONE!"
And with that, Billy took off, Neil yelling threats and taunts and curses after him.
"We need to follow him," El shook Lizzie, who was frozen in fear of this man. Max and Billy have to live with that...
As they ran after Billy, they heard more about his life.
"Where were you last night? Where were you?"
"I told you, I was with Wendy!"
"STOP LYING TO ME!"
"I'm not lying to you!"
"You saw him again, didn't you?"
"No! Get away from me! GET AWAY-"
Lizzie saw Billy watch as his parents argued... as his mum threw a plate at his dad...
"You- you WHORE!"
"STOP IT! Don't hurt her!"
That was when Billy launched himself at his father... hitting him... punching him... But he was young. It made no difference. Neil was strong. In one move, he got rid of Billy... and threw a punch at his wife...
"MUM!"
Billy was only young, but had just watched his dad abuse his mum... Lizzie was starting to understand why he ended up like he was...
"I don't understand... why not? No! Please mum... come home..."
El and Lizzie turned round, seeing a new memory... Billy was leaning against his bed with the telephone in his hand, calling his mum who had obviously left...
"No! How long? How long?!" He was sobbing now... "I miss you! Please... please come home..."
Both Lizzie and El had tears in their eyes as they turned to a new memory...
"Get back here!"
Billy was a teen now... fighting another boy...
"Get up! What? Are you afraid to fight me? You scared? What? Get up and fight me, pussy! PUSSY! PUSSY!"
The next memory...
"Billy come over here, I want you to meet someone..." Neil was behind Max... Billy was stood facing them... "This is your new sister. Her name's Maxine."
"Max!" Even when the girl was young she objected to being called her real name...
"Shake her hand," Neil ordered. Billy refused. "I said, shake her hand."
"WHO'S THERE? I SAID, WHO'S THERE?!"
Then, suddenly, all the red haze and wind and rain and everything that had been plaguing them disappeared, and Lizzie and El stood in what looked like an abandoned place with a big run-down building placed in the middle.
As the lightning crackled behind them, they slowly walked forward, past a car... the one with the broken windshield that Lizzie had seen the second time in the void...
Thunder rumbled as the two girls looked up, seeing the red haze above them, spiralling.
"I- I think we found it," El said to the group outside the void and the memory. "The source."
"Where, El? Where are you, Lizzie?" Max asked urgently.
Lizzie turned round, to see a sign on the big building. "Brimborn... Steel Works," she said definitively, looking at the sign.
A minute or so passed, then Mike shouted. "El! El! Lizzie- we found it! Get outta there! Get out!"
El grabbed Lizzie's hand, and the two closed their eyes...
The sea of memories... the falling... well, now they were coming up... still going through all the horrors in Billy's life-
Then, in an instant, Lizzie removed her hand from El's shoulder and got out of there.
Or so she thought.
She and El were now sitting in the exact same room that they were sitting in before they went into the void. The only difference was, there was no one there.
"Mike?" El asked, as they both got up. "Mike? Mike? MIKE?!"
"LUCAS! WILL! MAX!"
But no one answered.
No voices filled the room except theirs. But when they fell silent, one did.
"They can't hear you."
A few more seconds. Then Billy Hargrove appeared from Hopper's bedroom.
El and Lizzie both gasped and scrambled backwards.
"You shouldn't have looked for me," Billy said menacingly. "Because now I can see you."
He even put his cigarette out in Hopper's extinguisher, advancing upon them. "Now we can all... see you."
El and Lizzie slowly walked backwards-
"You... let us in," Billy directed at El. She opened the gate... "And now... you are going to have to let us stay."
He walked another step forwards, leering menacingly upon them- tears were in Lizzie's eyes- she couldn't do this-
"Don't you see? All this time... we've been building it..."
El sobbed as Lizzie shook-
"We've been building it... for you."
Billy was smirking... going in for the kill...
"All that work, all that pain... all of it... for you. Both of you."
They had backed up into the cupboards- they couldn't go any further- just get tortured-
"And now it's time."
Lizzie couldn't breathe-
"Time to end it."
She couldn't see-
"And we are going to end you two... first."
Tears- sobs-
"And when you are gone... we are going to end your friends-"
"NO!"
"And then, we are going to end... everyone."
"GET AWAY!"
In an instant, El threw Billy backwards with her powers, Lizzie tore her hand from El's shoulder, and El the blindfold off.
The two girls crashed back into the cabin with a cry.
"El!"
El immediately fell into Mike's arms, sobbing, blood streaming from her nose. Lizzie fell into Will's, also crying; hyperventilating, not able to breathe-
"It's okay, I got you, it's okay-"
But it wasn't. It wasn't. They had found the source, yes-
But it had come at a price.