(Y/N)
"Is there a number we can call for your parents?" Mike asks the girl. We brought her to his house to try and help her, but she hasn't been too helpful.

"Where's your hair? Do you have cancer?" Dustin asks.

"Dustin!" I reprimand, hitting his arm.

"Did you run away?" Lucas asks.

"Are you in some kind of trouble? Mike asks.

"Is that blood?" Lucas asks. He reaches out to touch her and Mike slaps his hand away.

"Stop it! You're freaking her out!" he says.

"She's freaking me out!" Lucas says.

"I bet she's deaf," Dustin says.

"Okay, guys. Saying to her and asking her so many things at once isn't helping," I say. I kneel down to her slowly and carefully, not wanting to scare her more than she already is. "Mike, why don't you get her some clean clothes? She seems awfully cold."

He grabs clothes from the laundry basket and hands them to the girl.

"You wait here and I'll take her into the bathroom and help her, okay?" I say. I lead her to the bathroom. When I start to close the door, she stops it with her hand. "You don't want it closed?"

"No," she utters.

"Oh, you do speak." I smile warmly. "How about this?" I close the door mostly, leaving it ajar. "Is that better?"

"Yes," she says.

Mike
"This is mental," Dustin says.

"At least we heard she can talk," I say.

"She said 'no' and 'yes'. Your three-year-old sister says more," Lucas says. "There's something seriously wrong with her. Like, wrong in the head." He taps his forehead. "I bet she escaped from Pennhurst."

"From where?" I ask.

"The nuthouse in Kerley County," he says.

Dustin smiles. "You got a lot of family there?"

"Bite me."

"Seriously, though," Lucas says, "think about it. That would explain her shave hair and why she's so weird. She's an escapee is the point. She's probably a psycho."

"Like Michael Myers," Dustin says.

"Exactly! We shouldn't have brought her here! And now she's in an enclosed space with (Y/N) and she could do God-knows-what!"

"So you just wanted to leave her out in that storm?" I ask.

"Yes! We went out to find Will, not another problem."

"I think we should tell your mom," Dustin says.

"I second that," Lucas says.

"Who's crazy now?" I ask.

"How is that crazy?" Lucas asks.

"'Cause we weren't supposed to be out tonight, remember?" I say.

"So?"

"So if I tell my mom, and she tells your mom and your mom,"—I look to Dustin—"and (Y/N)'s mom . . ."

"Oh, man," Dustin says.

"Our houses become Alcatraz," Lucas says.

"Exactly," I say. "We'll never find Will. So here's the plan—she'll sleep here tonight."

"You're letting a girl—," Dustin starts.

"Just listen! In the morning, she sneaks around my house, goes to the front door, and rings my doorbell. My mom will answer and know exactly what to do. She'll send her back to Pennhurst or wherever she comes from. We'll be totally in the clear. And tomorrow night, we go back out. And this time, we find Will."

Once (Y/N) and the girl come out of the bathroom, I create a little bed under a table for the girl to sleep.

"Hey, um, Mike?" (Y/N) says as the guys head upstairs. "You sure you don't want me to take her to my house?"

"No, it's fine. I wouldn't want your mom to notice her and get you in trouble," I say.

She scoffs. "Like my mom would notice her. She barely even notices her own freaking kid."

Crap. Shouldn't have said that. "Yeah. Sorry. But it's fine. I'm sure it'll be okay."

"Just . . . be careful," she says. "Walkie-talkie me if something goes wrong, okay?"

"Yeah, okay."

And with that, she leaves. I turn to the girl. "Hey, um, I never asked your name."

She looks up at me in hesitation, and then pulls back her sleeve to reveal a small 011 tattooed on her forearm.

"Is that real?" I ask, reaching to touch her arm. She pulls away from me. "Sorry, I've just . . . never seen a kid with a tattoo before. What's it mean? Eleven?" She points to herself. "That's your name?" She nods. "Eleven. Okay. Um, well, my name's Mike. Short for Michael. Maybe we can call you 'El'. Short for Eleven." She nods again. "Um, well, okay. 'Night, El."

I stand up and she says, "'Night, Mike."

I drop the blanket like a curtain to conceal her hiding place. With one last glance at her, I flick the lights off and walk upstairs to get some sleep myself.

Joyce
"All right, Mom, breakfast is ready," Jonathan says, setting a plate on the table.

"What? No, be careful of the poster," I say, moving it out of the way.

"Yeah, okay."

"I can't eat," I say.

"I just need you to eat, Mom."

"Listen. Listen, the Xerox place opens in, like, thirty minutes."

"Yeah."

"And I don't want you to go alone."

"No, I know. I told you; I got it."

"I'm gonna have Karen take you, 'cause I should be here. And we need to make, what, two hundred, three hundred copies? How much is a copy? Ten cents? If we—" I start gathering money, but he grabs my hands.

"Mom. You can't get like this, okay?"

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

"No, it's okay," he says.

There's a knock at the door and I open it to find Hopper. "We've been waiting six hours!"

"I know; I came as soon as I could," he says.

"Six hours."

"A little bit of trust here, all right? We've been searching all night. Went all the way to Cartersville."

"And?"

"Nothing."

"God." I cover my mouth with my hand, ready for the tears to start falling again.

"Flo says you got a phone call?"

"Yeah." I point at the blackened phone.

He holds it. "Storm barbecued this pretty good."

"The storm?"

"What else?"

"You're saying that that's not weird?"

"No, it's weird."

"Can we, like, trace who made the call?" Jonathan ask. "Contact the—"

"No, it doesn't work like that," Hopper says. "Now, you're sure it was Will? Because Flo said you just heard some breathing."

"No, it was him," I say, my voice breaking. "It was Will. And he was scared. And then something—"

"It was probably just a prank call. It was somebody trying to scare you."

"Who would do that?" Jonathan asks.

"Well, this thing's been on TV," Hopper says. "It brings out all the crazies, you know. False leads, prank calls, uh . . ."

"No, Hopper, it was not a prank. It was him," I say.

"Joyce—"

"Come on; how about a little trust here? What, you think I'm . . . I'm making this up?"

"I'm not saying you're making it up. All I'm saying is it's an emotional time for you."

"And you think I don't know my own son's breathing? Wouldn't you know your daughter's?"

He looks at me like that was the wrong thing to say—which it probably was—and we're both quiet for a moment before he asks, "You hear from, uh, Lonnie yet?"

"No," I say.

"It's been long enough. I'm having him checked out." He puts his hat on and starts for the door.

"Oh, come on! You're wasting your time!" but before I can stop him, he's already out the door and on his way to the car.

Jonathan
"Hey, Hopper," I call, following after him. "Hopper. Let me go."

He turns to face me. "I'm sorry?"

"To Lonnie's. You know, if Will's there, it means he ran away. And if he sees the cops, he'll think he's in trouble. He'll . . . He'll hide. You know, he's good at hiding."

"Yeah?" He grabs my shoulders. "Well, cops are good at finding, okay? Stay here with your mom." He punches my shoulder, somewhere in between harshly and softly. "She needs you." And with that, he gets in his car and drives away.

Mike
I pocket an extra Eggo for El. {Okay but for the next week my lunch is Eggos and only Eggos. I'm not lying.} I wolf mine down so I can get back to her quickly.

"Slow down, Mike," Nancy says. "That's disgusting."

I look at her and ask through the Eggos still in my mouth, "Do a lot of studying last night?"

"Yeah, actually, I did," she says.

"What was your test on, again?" I ask. "Human anatomy?"

She glares at me and kicks me under the table and I kick her back.

"Hey, what's going on?" Mom asks.

"Nothing," we say in unison.

.^.^.^.^.

When I meet El back in the basement, she's fiddling around with my walkie-talkie.

"Hey, you found my supercomm," I say. "Pretty cool, huh? I talk to my friends with it. Mostly Lucas and (Y/N), 'cause they live so close. Signal's pretty weak." That, and, I'm not going to lie. I enjoy talking to (Y/N). A lot. Like, a lot, a lot.

I take the Eggo out of my pocket and hand it to her. "Got you breakfast." She takes it and immediately chows down on it.

"So, listen, this is gonna sound a little weird, but I just need you to go out there. Then go to the front door and ring the doorbell. My mom will answer and you'll tell her that you're lost and that you need help. But whatever you do, you can't tell her about last night or that you know me. Understand?" She looks at me and doesn't reply. "Really, it's no big deal. We'll just pretend to meet each other again. And my mom—she'll know who to call."

She looks at me again for a couple seconds before answering, "No."

"No?"

She shakes her head. "No."

"No . . . you don't want my mom to get help?"

She shakes her head again.

"You're in trouble, aren't you?" I ask. She looks up at me and I take that as I "yes". "Who . . . Who are you in trouble with?"

"Bad," she whispers.

"Bad? Bad people?"

She nods.

"They want to hurt you? The bad people?"

She puts her fingers to her head in a gun shape, and then points it at me. "Understand?"

"Michael, where are you?" Mom shouts from upstairs, startling me. "We're going to be late! Let's go!"

"All right, I'll be back," I tell El. "Just stay here, okay? Stay here." I pull the blanket down and rush upstairs.

Dr. Brenner
"When was this?"

"Last night," Frazier says. "Less than two miles away."

"And the boy?"

"Still missing."

I listen to the recording we had picked up of Byers. "It was my son. I know it. And I heard something else."

"Something else?" the Hawkins Police secretary asks.

"It was like, uh, some kind of animal. I don't . . . I don't know. Just please tell Hop to hurry."

Hopper
"Hey, anything?" I ask the officers on search duty.

"No, you?" Callahan asks.

"No, nothing but a dead phone."

"Joyce?"

"About one step from falling off the edge."

"She's been a few steps for a while now, hasn't she?" Powell asks.

"Kid's missing, man," I say. "Show a little class."

I turn to the rest of the party. "All right, come on! Let's go! We got a lot of ground to cover."

Okay, but has anyone seen any teasers for season two? I haven't watched the preview—I don't want to; I'm weird that way—but I've read an article in Entertainment and WHY MUST THEY ALWAYS PUT WILL IN DANGER. LIKE CAN'T THEY JUST LEAVE THE POOR CHILD ALONE? Like, I get that Will's still sick and all—even though it's been a year . . .—and he's still recovering from the Upside Down. But why can't we put the danger on someone else? Like Lucas. I've never especially liked him.
Please don't hate me.