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This was proving to be the longest night of their lives. Sam didn't even know what time it was anymore. Just that it was late. The moon shone down, bathing her in a dim glow, and she felt the cool breeze that came with the night.

"Locked," Jonathan said after trying to open the mall's emergency exit doors.

"Are you sure?" Will asked him, stepping forward to open the doors himself — however, they were still locked. "Oh."

"I've got an idea," Corey stepped forward with the axe from Hopper's cabin in his grasp and over his shoulder. Everyone turned to look at him, confused.

Desperately, Jonathan asked, "Where did you get the axe?"

"Stole it from the cabin, obviously," Corey snapped. He stepped in front of the door, ready to swing the axe at the glass door. "Now let me just—"

"No, wait," Nancy stopped him in a hushed voice. "There might be an alarm."

"No one cares," deadpanned Corey.

Nancy shot him an agitated glare. "I care!"

"There wasn't an alarm at Bradley's."

"This is different."

"How is this different?"

She argued, "This is the mall — it's a big corporation and it's really famous right now," causing Corey to roll his eyes. "That means they can afford heavy security and alarms. Also, these are emergency doors — the fire alarm will go off!"

"Why don't we go through the back doors? Where the storage comes—?" Mike had started to say, but his voice was cut off by the sound of glass shattering. Sam's hands snapped up over her ears at the piercing nose. She looked to see that Corey had impatiently smashed the door with the bat against Nancy's wishes.

The door broke into millions of dangerous pieces just like the ones at Bradley's store. An alarm didn't go off, and Corey had a shit-eating smirk on his face as he stuck an arm through the door and pulled on the handle from the inside.

"Not locked," Corey smiled like an asshole, opening the door for everyone. "Ladies first."

Sam had to muster all her strength to limp into the mall. Max and Mike still had to help El walk, and Sam could tell why, because this ankle shit hurt like a bitch. She'd been trying to shut off her physical connection with El since the grocery store, but was clearly failing horribly. The throbbing pain was expanding again, and it slowly felt like it was returning to the precious, burning pain that had both girls wailing.

The group walking into the mall and quietly moved forward, trying to make their way to the movie theater. Sam could tell they were nearing the location when the smell of popcorn filled her nose, but abruptly stopped with a pulled face. Everyone else stopped out of confusion.

"Wha—?"

"I sense something," Sam whispered eerily. "Fear. Lots of it."

They all went quiet, watching as Sam's eyebrows furrowed and she tried following the source of the emotion. They heard barely-audible commotion with the moment of silence they provided for Sam. She trudged in the lead, left leg dragging with her, and soon enough Sam brought them to a small balcony on the second level that looked over the food court.

Starcourt Mall was terrifyingly mute — there wasn't the loud chatter from shoppers, or the music that would play on the speakers for everyone to enjoy. It was dead silent, and it gave off an eerie feeling that brought everyone to stay on their toes. The commotion they heard turned out to be footsteps. Not their own — but someone else's. There were multiple pairs of the sound, and they were still heard when the group all stopped moving.

They weren't alone.

There were men dressed in all black with an assortment of guns, walking around the bottom level. The man with the ponytail eventually slowed his walk and muttered something unintelligible into his Walkie. His companions flocked to his side with their guns held at eye level. All the weapons were pointed at Great American Cookies.

Instead of feeling great contentment at the baked goods store she loved so much, Sam found her heart dropped instead. She could see Dustin, Steve, Robin(?), and — Lucas's little sister? — trying their best to hide under the counter, but failing miserably. Dustin's legs were seen, and Steve's bright blue Scoops Ahoy uniform was sticking out from the side.

It was their utter terror that Sam could feel.

Sam's eyes were wide, desperate. If anything happened to the group on the level below, Sam would never forgive herself. Her eyes darted around the food court rapidly, trying to spot something that would stop those guards from creeping towards the Great American Cookies counter.

Then her gaze landed on the bright red car on display.

Sam quickly reached and grabbed El's hand, the latter turning her head to meet Sam's imperative look. Silently, she nodded towards the car that Sam spotted down below. It was hard to convey her plan without saying a single word, but then El spotted the spark in Sam's eye.

Then El knew.

The guards creeped closer to the counter, all focus on the kids hidden behind him. Sam limped forward, her friends' eyes confused on her, except for El. Her eyes closed shut, trying to focus on that feeling in her chest.

Why can't you just let things be easy?

Sam breathed in deep. The rushing feeling in her body grew.

Because they're not easy.

She could feel the electricity whizzing around her. She could tell she was doing something right when a surprised, quiet gasp sounded from behind her.

You keep pretending everything is okay. You move on to solve the next problem or the next campaign.

Sam's eyes opened, and unbeknownst to her, were flashing a bright, icy blue. She narrowed her gaze onto the red display car, trying to soak up the energy she knew resided there.

What are you afraid is going to happen if you let it in?

Jump-scaring the guards, the car alarm of the red car began wailing. The men jolted towards the right, in the direction of the car, their attention now taken off of Dustin, Steve, Robin, and Erica.

The car shook before them; the alarm blared, and the headlights blinked crazily. She watched the ponytail dude mutter something under his breath with his gun pointed at the vehicle, totally bewildered.

"Hey there."

Slowly, their heads craned up above the car. There, up on the balcony, they spotted an electrified Sam focused intently on the car underneath. Everyone else was a couple feet behind her, a safe distance away.

The aims on their guns shifted onto Sam, ready to shoot her down for the commotion she was causing.

Then El stepped up next to Sam.

She sucked in a breath, her fingers shaking as she focused, ignoring the stares of the men. El let out a cry as she swung her arm forward, and the car went flying from its spot. It went souring forward, plowing through the four guards trying to go after them.

A single gunshot was heard, but the kids heard it hit the wall. The car wrecked and flipped, crashing across the floor. It hid a pizza parlor with a loud CRASH! Sam stopped its alarm from chiming and flicked the headlights off. Her eyes returned back to normal, lightning no longer coursing through her veins. She saw the men who had gotten crushed by the car spread across the food court, lying limp in a gruesome position over their own pool of blood.

Dustin, Steve, Robin, and Erica slowly rose up from their hiding spots in astonishment. They surveyed the scene in front of them, before, finally, their heads looked up to the balcony. Sam and El panted back at them, but now that it was safe, the rest of the gang peered over the balcony to lock gazes with the quartet they'd saved.

Dustin met Sam's gaze, beaming, and laughed in relief.

The group wasted no time; they were booking it down the stationary escalators to reunite with their friends — even Sam and El, whose ankles were in more pain than anyone could imagine. El had to be walked by Mike, but Sam pushed through the pain and ran past all her eager friends.

"SPECKS, HOLY SHIT!" Dustin shouted, jogging forward too.

Sam more-so jumped at her curly-haired friend with her arms wrapping around his neck. Dustin leaned backwards, making sure they didn't fall with an oof! The duo hugged each other tighter, with Dustin's arms wrapping around Sam's waist.

"Jesus, Dustin!" Sam exclaimed. "I was dying without you. Dying. They started arguing about poo!"

"That doesn't surprise me," Dustin laughed aloud, happy to know that Sam really did miss him. He let go of hugging Sam to see that the rest of the group was finally catching up to them. El was limping as fast as she could towards Dustin with Mike's aid. Dustin hollered upon seeing her, cheered, "You flung that thing like a Hot Wheel!"

"Goldie!"

Sam was thrown and spun around in the air like a doll. Her worries had flown out the window when she spotted the Scoops Ahoy uniform, blurred in the corner of her eyes before her face was shoved in someone's chest. Sam could smell the lingering scent of awful, fancy cologne she could never afford.

"You little shit! I was so worried!"

Sam's arms were trapped at her sides as Steve Harrington held her tightly. Her shoes brushed over the floor as he rocked her side to side, pressing his chin on the top of her head. Steve pulled away only for a second, letting Sam gain balance on the floor again.

Sam's eyes widened. Steve's eyes were red and blown wide as she looked over every bruised and cut, she could see. His eye was swelling and there was blood all over her short.

"What the hell happened to your face?!"

Erica suddenly appeared, startling the Party as a whole.

"Lucas?" his little sister questioned in disbelief.

Incredulously, Lucas snapped, "What are you doing here?!"

Erica pointed back to a guilty Dustin, Steve, and Robin. "Ask them! It's their fault."

"True, yeah," Steve nodded with his hands on his hops. "Totally true. It's absolutely our fault."

"I don't understand what happened to that car," Robin breathed, bewildered.

"Well, Sam made the functions go crazy," explained Will.

"Yeah," Mike shrugged as if it was simple, "she has powers now."

"She has powers?" Steve questioned in utter shock.

Dustin pulled a face. He said, "I thought we've been knowing that."

"No one knew that," said Sam, shaking her head.

He easily disagreed, "All of us knew that."

Sam looked to see that Lucas, Max, Corey, Mike, Will, and even El were nodding in Dustin's favor.

"It's true," Max admitted. "We did."

"You just were in denial," Dustin told Sam earnestly.

Sam through her hands up in agitation. There was a snappy note to her voice when she exclaimed, "Well, I've accepted it now! Happy?"

"Actually," Dustin smiled innocently, "yes. Are they cool?"

"No," Sam denied quickly, but at the same time, Lucas cheered, "Hell yeah!"

Sam rolled her eyes, but elected not to argue the topic further. She already felt like an idiot for being wrong about her supernatural side for so long. To make up for Dustin missing all the action, she even flashed her crystal blue eyes as electricity zapped around her. Dustin's eyes went wide in awe.

"That's fucking awesome!" he hooped.

Sam tried to look disgruntled, but the praise had her tilting her head down to hide a smile. She mumbled, "Thanks, Dustin."

"And you told me you weren't actually a Druid," Dustin grinned, like an asshole. "Powers of an element? Hell yeah, I was right!"

You could talk to Will. And there is a group called the Shadow Druids in the Shadow Realm

I'm not actually a Druid, Dustin.

Shit. Sam guessed he was right.

"How the hell does mini Hughes have powers?" Robin questioned wildly. "Does your sister have them, too?"

"Stephanie is not involved in any of this," Sam pressed without leaving any room for arguments. "Please don't tell her about this. She'll kill me."

"Okay — wh — um—" stammered Robin, trying to make sense of this all. She looked like her brain was about to explode. "So you fucked up that car, Goldie?"

"No that was El," Dustin informed. "She also has superpowers."

"...I think I'm going insane."

"Superpowers," Steve nodded at Robin. "She threw it with her mind. Come on. Catch up."

Erice pointed at El with wide eyes. "That's El?"

"Who's El?" Robin desperately grasped for answers to this madness.

"I'm sorry," Nancy broke in with a rather rude hand gesturing towards Robin, "who are you?"

Robin smiled awkwardly. "I'm Robin. I work with Steve."

"She cracked the top-secret code," Dustin pointed at the girl with a proud smile.

"Yeah, which is how we found out about the Russians in the first place," Steve shrugged casually, as if he hadn't (figuratively) dropped a bomb on them.

Incredulously, Jonathan asked, "Russians? Wait, what Russians?"

Steve gestured wildly over to the dead bodies. "The Russians!"

"Those were Russians?" Max questioned with a wide-eyed expression.

Erica shrugged, said, "Some of them."

"What are you talking about?!" Lucas snapped with an exasperated face at his sister.

Sam held a hand in front of Lucas, signaling for him to be nicer to Erica. She turned towards the group they'd reunited with, and more kindly, she asked, "What do Russians have to do with the Gate?"

"Didn't you hear our code red?" Dustin asked the Party with a frown.

Mike scoffed to him. "Yeah, and I couldn't understand half of what you were saying!"

"Goddamn low battery!" cursed Dustin.

"How many times do I have to tell you with the low battery?" Steve reprimanded him strictly.

Dustin snapped, "Yeah, well, everything worked out, didn't it, Steve?"

"'Worked out'?" Erica scoffed. "We almost died!"

"Yeah, but we didn't, did we?"

Unenthusiastically, Steve huffed, "It was pretty damn close."

"Okay, Russians?" Corey questioned, having not gotten over that fact. "As in, they're working for the Russian government?"

Dustin scrutinized, "What is it you're not comprehending? Am I not speaking English? We have a full-blown Red Dawn situation."

Still confused, Max asked, "So, this has nothing to do with the Gate?"

"It has everything to do with the Gate!" exclaimed Dustin.

The sound of a body hitting the floor caught everyone's attention. Sam's gaze whipped to the right and saw that El had suddenly collapsed. Her body was weak, her nose was bleeding, and she was whimpering weakly.

In unison, they all ran to her with wide eyes.

"El!" Sam shouted in shock, running her way.

El had been curled up on the floor, so Sam rolled El's body on her back.

"What's wrong with her?" Erica asked, taking in the sickly-looking sight before her.

Max rushed to the other side of El from across Sam. Imperatively, she asked, "What's wrong? What's wrong?"

"My leg. My leg!" El cried, beads of sweat rolling down her pale face.

"Sam," Lucas spoke in worry, "we should get you away."

Sam shook her head, eyes glued on El. "I can't feel it, I — I don't know why I can't feel it."

Corey's head whipped towards Sam, instead of focusing his gaze on El. Sam didn't seem to be in any pain. At all. Just like she had looked in the grocery store when she was far enough away from El.

"You shut the connection off when you were distracted," Corey realized.

Sam let out of a breath of relief, but she looked down at El sadly.

"I don't even want to ask what that means," Robin mumbled.

"My leg," El continued to wail in pain.

Jonathan pushed past everyone and took lead of the situation. "Her leg — her leg. Okay," he said, shuffling to El's injured leg. He pulled up her pant leg, showing off the bandaging of it. Jonathan nodded to Nancy, said, "Get that off."

Nancy started peeling off the bandaging Max had done, blood seeping through of it. El's breaths were short, but they were loud and heavy — her chest dropped and rose quickly, and she cried in pain when everyone groaned in disgust at the sight of her wound. Steve preemptively put a hand around Sam's eyes from behind before she could see it. Dark, nearly black blood was rolling down her calf and dripping on the floor.

Upon further inspection, everyone apart from Sam could see that something underneath the skin of her leg was moving there. El wailed and groaned louder, hand slapping around on the floor until it held onto Sam's wrist—

Sam broke out in a heart-breaking, pained yell. There was a pain she'd never felt before, burning in her left ankle, squirming in her skin. She gripped onto Steve tightly, nails digging into her skin. Tears instantly poured out of her eyes.

"El! El, let go!" everyone began exclaiming, try to pry El's death grip off of Sam. "Let go! Let go, El!"

Mike had to rush forward and pry El's hand off of Sam's wrist. Sam immediately stopped screaming in pain, panting out heavily in Steve's arms. Sam's grip on him slackened, but Steve didn't stop trying to provide comfort for Sam — even if he had absolutely no clue what just happened with her. Sam fell back into his chest, Steve's hand going back to cover Sam's vision of El's leg. Now that Mike was right next to El, he began desperately shaking her shoulder amidst El's shouts and sobs.

"El?" he asked. "El, are you okay? El? El!"

"There's something in there!" Corey pointed out with a crazy worried look on his features.

"Get it out! Get it out!" El cried, now pulling on Mike's arm instead of Sam's. "Get it out, please!"

Jonathan stood up swiftly. He ordered, "Keep her talking. Keep her awake, okay?"

Then, he was running away from the group with no context. No one questioned Jonathan, though, because for some reason, he knew how to handle literally every weird thing like this.

El sobbed out a wail, and Sam's heart panged at the sound.

"I want to see," Sam rasped, trying to free herself from Steve.

Steve pressed his hand over Sam's eyes, firmer. "Trust me, you don't."

"No, let me see," grumbled Sam, wriggling. She shocked Steve a little with her powers, so that Steve hissed in pain and let Sam go. Sam immediately gagged at the gruesome sight of El's wound, but she swallowed the rising bile in her throat to crawl towards her friend. "El. El, stay awake."

El shook her head, weeping, as she writhed on the ground.

"Let's get her on her side," Corey ordered with a look to Dustin. "Get her on this side."

Corey, Dustin, and Steve helped to turn El's body around, facing the other way so that she could sit up against the mall tree's tile wall. El whimpered the entire way through, and Sam could tell she was getting weaker. More tired.

"Hey, El?" she asked, and El only hummed weakly in response. Sam let out a huff of light air before she even continued. "Knock, knock."

El's head whipped to Sam in confusion. Actually, everyone's had. Through the tears, El furrowed her eyebrows at Sam before she was cut off by another shout of devastating pain.

"No," El whined in a raspy, broken voice. She gripped onto Corey and Dustin tighter, pain growing.

"Come on, El. Knock, knock."

Nancy glared, "Sam, seriously. Not the time."

But Sam ignored her. In a sing-songy tune towards El, Sam cooed, "Knock, knock."

El ignored Sam, crying against the wall she was sat up against.

"Knock, knock. Knock, knock, knock, knock. Knock —"

"Stop!" wailed El, writhing for a second in a bout of more pain.

Sam's eyes flickered down at El's wound, once. Besides that, she didn't look too bothered by everyone's incredulous glares. She leaned forward a little annoyingly as she said, "I will if you answer the door!"

"Fine!" El exclaimed, voice laced with agony. "Wh-Who's there?"

"Orange."

"Orange, who?"

"Orange you glad to see me?"

It wasn't funny. Not at all. Not even a little bit. But the thing was, it wasn't the joke. It was Sam. It was her smile and her look. It was the way she said it. The mirth in her eyes, curling at the corner of her mouth. And despite her best efforts, El found herself laughing softly.

"That was terrible," croaked El.

Sam huffed, "You're laughing, though."

Proving Sam right, El giggled a little more. That was, until the pain resurfaced in great suffering. Her smile broke by a scream of pain, and she clutched onto the boys achingly.

"You know, it's not actually that bad," Robin — who was clearly freaking out — tried taking a stab at easing the tension in the air. "There was a... The goalie on my soccer team, Beth Wildfire, this other girl slid into her leg, and, like, the whole bone came out of her knee. Six inches, or something, it was insane!"

Robin laughed nervously at that, but El did not commune in the amusement this time.

"Robin," Steve looked up at her incredulously.

Still freaking out, Robin asked, "Yeah?"

"Not helping," Steve deadpanned.

Robin held her breath for a moment before nodding. "I'm sorry."

Finally, Jonathan ran back over to El and everyone at the fastest pace Sam had ever seen. Sam noted, with a twinge of terror, that Jonathan was holding a wooden spoon, disposable gloves, and a knife.

"Okay," he panted, crouching before El. "All right, El? This is gonna hurt like hell, okay?"

El sobbed, the pain growing more unbearable. "Okay," she barely managed to nod.

"I need you to stay real still," Jonathan handed her the wooden spoon before putting on the rubber, disposable kitchen gloves. "Here, you're gonna want to bite down on this, okay?"

Sam gagged, realizing what was about to happen when she saw the heated knife. She stood up instead of being so close to El's proximity.

"Jesus Christ," Dustin muttered to himself. El put the spoon in her mouth, still wailing.

The cursing only increased tenfold when Jonathan picked up the knife. With one hand, he cradled the back of El's calf. With the other, he hovered the point of the knife over El's pulsing wound.

"Holy shit," panted Corey. "Holy fuck."

Jonathan stared around hesitantly, trying to full process what he was about to do. He was just a teenage boy, and while he seemed so much older to the younger kids, he really didn't as much as everyone thought he did.

"Do it," Mike said surely, trying to invoke confidence in Jonathan.

Jonathan nodded wearily, muttering, "Okay."

He breathed in once to prepare himself, and then, he took the blazing knife to cut straight into El's skin.

El began screaming wildly through the wooden spoon, and the pain of her voice had Sam covering her ears to try and block the feeling out. She knew if El got any worse she would be unconsciously latching onto El's pain. Judging by the state of her right now, that was the last thing she wanted.

Jonathan dragged the knife down her wound as blood and pus and other fluids oozed out of it. He tried getting the process done as quick as he could while also making sure he didn't fuck up by going too fast. As El let out one long-lasting scream the entire time, everyone occasionally let out gags or curses or other, unintelligible mutters at the incredulity of it all.

When he was done with the first part, Jonathan threw the knife on the ground as El continued to scream and sob. He screwed his eyes shut at the knowledge of what was about to happen next.

Before anyone was ready for it, Jonathan took his hand and dug into El's skin.

El screeched, loud, as if the wooden spoon wasn't in her mouth at all. Everyone exclaimed, either disgusted or grimacing empathetically. Sam had to take a walk, as it had started becoming too much for her.

"Jonathan!" Nancy yelled.

"Stop talking!" exclaimed Jonathan. His hand began searching around underneath El's skin, looking for the creature. The only difference he was making was increasing the volume of El's pained screams. He cursed, "Goddamn it!" as the moving creature kept evading him.

"No!" El spit out the spoon, screeching. "STOP IT! Stop!" Will pushed Jonathan's shoulder back, and finally, Jonathan paused. "Stop!"

Jonathan took his hand out of El's leg, leaning back on his heels. El let out a grunting sob, trying to sit up.

"I can do it," she claimed. Corey and Dustin had to pull El so she was sitting all the way up. "I can do it."

El panted out repeatedly, everyone's wide-eyed stares on her. Her crying did not cease as she held out a hand, more blood beginning to pour out both of her nostrils. They could see, from underneath El's skin, that whatever was inside began vibrating. El yelled as she tried to pull the creature out with her powers.

"God!" El wailed, and the creature chittered as she almost pulled it out, but not quite. She started screaming louder, causing the glass wall behind them to shatter and the lights to flicker. Everyone nearest to the glass wall ducked, trying not to get hit by flying shards of glass.

El finally extracted the creature from her leg, and it looked to be part of the Mind Flayer's claw that had invaded itself into El's wound. Still yelling, El held the creature with her powers and threw it halfway across the mall.

The creature started to run away, but it was squashed by someone stepping on it with a big foot. All the kids' head turned up slowly, looking for the perpetrator.

It was Hopper, Joyce, and a random man at their rescue.

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"The Mind Flayer," Sam explained to the trio of adults, "it built this monster in Hawkins."

"To stop El and Sam," Mike added, "to kill them and pave a way into our world."

Max said, "And it almost got El. That was just one tiny piece of it."

Joyce pulled a face of confusion. "Why does it want to stop Sam?" she asked.

"We don't know that part, yet," Corey answered, a little frustratingly.

"How big is this thing?" Hopper questioned worriedly, pulling the young girl leaned against his chest side closer on instinct. He held an ice pack to El's forehead, letting El rest on him.

Jonathan huffed an exasperated breath. "It's big. Thirty feet, at least."

"Yeah, it sorta destroyed your cabin," Lucas grimaced, and Hopper gritted his teeth at Lucas. "Sorry."

Steve held out his hands, trying to process at all. "Okay, just to be clear, this... this big fleshy, spider thing that wants to hurt Goldie and El, it's some kind of gigantic... weapon?"

"Yes," Nancy pursed her lips.

"But instead of, like, screws and metal, the Mind Flayer made its weapon... with melted people?"

"Yes! Exactly!"

"Yeah, okay," Steve mumbled, his eyes wide and he nodded in exasperation. "I — Yeah, I'm just making sure."

Robin blinked.

Steve nodded towards Will, said, "Hey, I bet you're glad you got flayed one year earlier, huh?"

"Thanks, Steve," Will responded in a monotone voice.

"Are we sure this thing is still out there?" Joyce questioned. "Still alive?"

Max shrugged. "El beat the shit out of it, but, yeah. It's still alive."

Will started, "But if we close the Gate again—"

"We cut the brain off from the body," finished Corey.

"And kill it," said Mike.

"Theoretically," Sam and Lucas chimed in unison.

"YOO-HOO!" a sudden, unfamiliar voice broke in. Everyone turned their heads to see a middle-aged man in a dirty, white tank top strutting towards the group, waving papers around. "YOO-HOO!"

Corey looked away from the man, and back towards the group he actually knew. "Who's this random, stupid-looking guy?"

"Where did he come from?"

His name was Murray Bauman, apparently.

They didn't really have time to go in depth as to why Murray had joined Hopper and Joyce — something about translating Russian and a guy named Smirnoff, according to Hopper — so they were forced to just give Murray their attention. He placed his papers on a table by the dining area of the food court, forcing everyone to get up and walk over to him to see.

The papers Murray showed them were hand-drawn blueprints, given to him by Smirnoff (Hopper also told them Smirnoff may rest in peace, poor guy).

"Okay, this is what Alexei called 'the hub,'" Murray pointed out one area of the penciled-in blueprints. So his name was not Smirnoff. Got it. "Now, the hub takes us to the vault room."

"And where's the Gate?" Hopper asked.

"Right here," directed Murray. "I don't know the scale on this, but I think it's fairly close to the vault room, maybe 50 feet or so."

Erica scoffed, walking up and interjecting herself, "More like 500." She met Murray's bewildered stare. "What, you're just gonna waltz in there like it's Commie Disneyland or something?"

"I'm sorry, who are you?" blinked Murray, as if she was a creature from an unknown Earth that he could not afford to waste time conversing with.

"Erica Sinclair," she replied. Erica looked him up and down, unamused. "Who are you?"

Murray faltered unconfidently, caught off guard. "Murray... Bauman."

"Listen, Mr. Bunman, I'm not trying to tell you how to do things, but I've been down in that shithole for over 24 hours," Erica divulged, turning to the group of people surrounding Murray. "And with all due respect, you do what this man tells you — you're all gonna die."

Murray tilted his head condescendingly. To the air, he asked, "I'm sorry, why is this four-year-old speaking to me?"

"Um, I'm ten, you bald bastard!"

"Erica!" Lucas exclaimed over the noise of Sam's amused snort. She covered up her smile as Lucas stared at his sister in a mix of bafflement and outrage.

Erica shrugged unapologetically. "Just the facts!"

"She's right," nodded Dustin, walking up to the table where Murray's blueprints lie. "You're all gonna die, but you don't have to. Excuse me. Sorry, may I?"

"Please," Murray scoffed sarcastically.

Dustin sat down before the hand-drawn blueprints. He pulled out a colored pencil that he just happened to have, and started drawing on the blueprints. Dustin began, "Okay, see this room here? This is a storage facility. There's a hatch in here that feeds into their underground ventilation system. That will lead you to the base of the weapon. It's a bit of a maze down there, but between me and Erica, we can show you the way."

"You can 'show us the way'?" Hopper echoed, deadpan.

"Don't worry," Dustin waved a hand, already knowing what Hopper was getting at based on his expressions, "you can do all the fighting and the dangerous hero shit, and we'll just be your... navigators!"

Hopper contemplated the idea sarcastically.

"No," he shook his head sternly. "Nope."

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The adults prepared to go into the Russian base, apparently accepting no help from Dustin or Erica — Sam thought it was a terrible idea, because she knew Dustin was a genius, and she had faith in Erica, however terrifying it was to allow a ten-year-old to risk her life.

Sam watched Hopper steal a machine gun off one of the Russian guard's corpses. He was gearing up while everyone hung around, having nothing better to do.

"Well, that settles it," Erica analyzed over from the middle of the food court where the Party was. "He's gonna die. They're all gonna die."

Dustin deadpanned, "Yep. Most likely."

"You guys survived," Lucas pointed out, walking over to his sister and best friend.

"Barely," Dustin laughed. "We could've really used you guys down there."

Sam smiled sadly at her curly-haired best friend. She said, "Could've used you up here, too."

"Yeah, man," Lucas agreed as Dustin's smile grew. "We missed you, dude."

Will nodded kindly. "Yeah. Big time."

"It wasn't the same without you," said Mike.

Dustin walked over to them, and the five original friends embraced each other in a group hug.

"I missed you guys, too," Dustin muttered. "Big time."

A little distance away, Sam heard a disgusted, dramatic gag at the entire interaction. She turned her head to see Corey standing judgmentally with Erica.

"Please don't cry, nerds," Erica scoffed, ruining the moment.

"Erica," Lucas scowled, pulling away from the group hug.

"Keep saying me name, and see what happens."

Sam grinned, amused by the interaction. "I love her."

"Hey! Heads up!"

Hopper walked up to the kids, tossing Dustin a Walkie-Talkie to which he fumbled greatly to catch.

He told Dustin, "You can navigate, just from someplace safe."

"It's not that simple," said Dustin, eyeing the simple device.

Erica nodded, said, "The signal won't reach."

"Not with this," Dustin tossed the Walkie-Talkie back to Hopper. "You need something with a high enough frequency band to relay with the Russians' radio tower. But for that to work, you need someone who has both seen their comms room, and has access to a super-powered handcrafted radio tower, one preferably already situated at the highest point in Hawkins." Like a smart ass, Dustin grinned at Hopper condescendingly. "Oh, wait. That's me." Hopper clenched his jaw, trying not to strangle him. "If you want us to navigate you, you got us. But we need a head start... and a car."

Hopper stared at Dustin for a moment, trying to comprehend this little shit of a kid was real. He looked passed Dustin's shoulders to the rest of the kids, wanting to know if this was another joke of theirs. Hopper sighed when they all shrugged.

"Fine."

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Dustin, Steve, Robin, and Erica left the mall so they could drive to Cerebro with the stolen car Hopper, Joyce, and Murray had been using. Dustin had dubbed their group "Scoops Troop." Murray was "Bald Eagle," Hopper and Joyce were "Parent Trap," and Sam, Lucas, Max, Corey, El, Mike, Will, Nancy, and Jonathan were "Griswold Family." The last group's job was to just get away. Hopper and Joyce were very concerned with the safety of Sam and El, so they forced Murray to give Nancy and Jonathan the keys to his house. The group of nine would be squishing into Nancy's car for the nth time and driving to Illinois for safety from the Mind Flayer.

Sam had snuck off alone and trudged into an athletic apparel store that also sold aids with them. She took a tight ankle brace in packaging from off one of the shelves — Sam didn't feel bad for stealing in the mall, since they were all big corporations putting smaller ones down. She pulled the leg of her parachute pants up, took off her left shoe, and put the brace on. Sam wrapped it as tight as she could around her left ankle so that the pressure could distract from the pain.

"Sam, why'd you come—?"

Max came to a stop when she saw Sam's face screwed up in pain. Her shoulders were tense, and she was putting a brace over her left ankle.

"Oh, my god, you've been hiding your pain this whole time," Max realized. "You lied about not feeling anything!"

"No — Well — Wait—"

"You're still connected to El!" she accused.

Sam grimaced, tilting her head down in defeat.

"Maybe," Sam defended, looking up at Max. "I may be still connected."

Max crossed her arms and glared at Sam.

"Why haven't you been saying anything?" she asked wildly, walking up to Sam and grabbing her shoe for her. "You've been standing up for so long, do you know how dangerous that is?"

"No."

"Yeah, me neither, but it could be really dangerous!" Max snapped. She demanded, "Give me your leg."

Sam sent Max a miserable, adamant look. "Max—"

"Samantha."

Sam recoiled at the intensity of Max's stare. She brought her left leg up and rested it on Max's thigh. Max got to work gently putting Sam's shoe on.

"Please don't tell anyone," Sam mumbled.

Max looked up at Sam, lacing up the white sneaker. "Why? Sam, El is in so much pain, you're probably dying."

"That's exactly why," argued Sam. "We all need to focus on her — the girl who's actually hurt. Not me. I'm pretty sure the Mind Flayer is a million more times concerned about her, so I don't know why you all keep adding my name into the mix."

There was something sad about Max's features, and Sam didn't really understand why. "Sam..."

"What? It's true," she said. Sam set her foot down on the ground when Max was done, but the force of her foot against the ground made Sam grunt in pain. "I'm — I'm fine, Max."

"You're getting worse," Max argued. "In the grocery store you were a shorter distance away from El when the connection broke off."

"Maybe it's because El's in a shit ton of pain and we should be comforting her," shrugged Sam. She really didn't see the problem of what she was doing right now.

"Sam—"

"Maxine," she said teasingly, putting a smile on her face. "I'm seriously fine. I've been walking on it, and now I've got a brace, so basically the problem is solved."

Max raised an unamused eyebrow. "Braces are for internal injuries. El is leaking Hamburger Helper."

"And I'm not," Sam shrugged simply.

Before Max could protest, Sam started limping out of the store. The redhead began railing after her best friend in utter disapproval.

"If this comes back to bite you in the ass, I will be the first one laughing."

"Corey will probably have you beat."

"I hope you end up with a permanent limp forever."

"No, you don't."

"No. I don't."

As Sam and Max were now coming into vision, Sam put on a brave face and forced herself to stop limping. Max was astonished. It was so easy for her to do, and Max suddenly felt horrible that no one noticed she was in pain.

"Hey, where'd you guys go?" Lucas asked, standing with Corey and Mike. Will was saying goodbye to his mom, El was saying goodbye to Hopper, and Nancy and Jonathan were still getting talked to by Murray.

Sam looked at Max, wondering if she was going to rat Sam out. Max met her gaze in a side-eye, taking in the pleading look her features took. She really thought she was going to rat Sam out, but she was a sucker for those puppy-dog eyes.

"Just getting water from the water fountain," Max lied. Sam was lucky the brace was covered up by her pants.

"Probably the first time Sam drank water in three weeks," nagged Corey.

Sam shot him a look.

"The Bunman guy's been yapping for too long," Mike worried, checking his watch every second like the neurotic person he was. He walked up to where El and Hopper sat. "Hey," he broke up their discussion. "We should probably go."

El gave Hopper a tight hug before Mike and Max helped her up to leave. Sam would've been helping her walk if she didn't know making physical contact made Sam's empathy connections a million times worse. She was in enough pain as it was, although she'd rather not admit it.

"Mike?"

Mike turned back around to Hopper, confused. Lucas took Mike's place and helped El walk towards the exit. Corey walked with them, but Sam waited for Mike, not wanting to leave him behind.

"Be careful," Hopper advised.

He nodded back at Hopper with a ghost of a smile. Mike turned back around, and Sam smiled at him kindly, before the duo began walking after Lucas, Max, Corey, and El. Will, Nancy, and Jonathan caught up right behind them.

The group of nine — or Griswold Family, as they were now being called — continued out of Starcourt Mall. Sam got only a few feet from the entrance before she was suddenly grunting in pain. Those who heard looked to her in confusion, so Sam tried covering it up with a cough.

If anyone noticed she was shifting her weight, they didn't say anything.

"El, you're bleeding," Max pointed out.

Lucas looked to her in concern. "Are you okay?"

El breathed sharply, in and out, face screwed up in pain. She settled on saying, "Yeah," which did nothing to quell everyone's concern for the girl.

They reached Nancy's car, to which Jonathan was standing outside of the passenger door uncertainty. He nodded to catch Corey's attention before asking, "You want the front, Core?"

Corey pausing, surveying everyone in front of him. Nancy was hopping in the seat behind the steering wheel. El, Lucas, and Max were all hopping in the trunk. That only left four of them behind who were to set in the back.

He looked at Mike, and a small grin that only Mike could see formed on his face.

"Nah, I... I think I'll be fine," said Corey, gaze soft.

Mike grinned right back.

Will exhaled impatiently, walking right through them and going into the backseat first. Corey and Mike snapped out of it, getting in right after Will. Sam trudged behind, pace slow, but luckily not slow enough to go noticed.

"Is everyone ready?" Nancy turned around to face the kids after Jonathan got into the passenger's seat.

Half of the kids were paranoid and looking out the windows nervously to see if they'd spot the large monster stomping their way towards them again. The other half, though, were tired and ready to leave for the safe house to sleep their fears away — they nodded at Nancy, giving her the green light to go.

Nancy smiled at them, and Sam knew she meant it in a way to comfort them, to tell them everything was fine. But it gave Sam a headache, and she leaned her head on the window, feeling the cold glass on her forehead. It eased the pain slightly, but it was still there. Was this someone else's headache, or hers? Maybe she was just tired. Sam was too exhausted to search for a reason, right now.

Turning around to face the front, Nancy put her keys into the ignition to turn her car on.

The engine sputtered. Nothing happened.

"What's wrong?" Jonathan asked, a nervous beat passing throughout the car.

"I don't—" Nancy tried turning the key harder, but the car only trembled and made an empty sound. "I don't know!" She kept on trying, but nothing was happening. Nancy hit the wheel in frustration, "You can't be serious! Come on!"

Very unhelpfully, Lucas asked, "Didn't your mom just buy this car?"

"Yes," Nancy exhaled sharply, growing more agitated. "I'm sure it's fine."

"Did you leave the lights on?" Will wondered.

Nancy growled, "No!"

"Do we have gas?" questioned Lucas.

"YES!" Nancy snapped. She shoved the keys back into the ignition, hard, and just continuously turned the key. The engine just faltered and stuttered without stopping.

The noise finally had Corey fed up.

"Woah, woah, woah!" he leaned forward, grabbing Nancy's arm and pulling her backwards. "Just stop, stop!" Corey slid over Will and hopped out the car. "Pop the hood."

Corey walked swiftly to the front of the car. When he heard the hood latch clunk, Corey lifted the hood up with one hand, leaving it open for him to survey what could be wrong with Nancy's car. Nancy and Jonathan both got out of the car, too, watching Corey search through the wires in confusion.

"What the hell...?" Corey muttered.

"What?"

He gestured incredulously to a missing, crucial wire. "The ignition cable's gone."

Suddenly, another engine was heard. Unlike Nancy's car, it did not sputter, this engine roared.

Everyone turned their heads to see Billy a mile away, revving his engine.

All of the kids eyed the bright car in either fear or exasperation — of course they were the group without a task and yet they were the ones who couldn't catch a break. Corey was standing frozen until a hand latched around his wrist and began pulling him towards the mall. Jonathan was the one dragging him desperately as Nancy slammed on the door of her car.

"Back in the mall!" she shouted at everyone. "Go! Go! Go!"

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the battle of starcourt has begun!

highlights: corey with the axe again, lucas worrying about sam first when el is the one actually in pain, dustin and sam reunion, steve and sam reunion, sam loving erica (in-law energy), max figuring out sam has been hiding her pain, corey dealing with his claustrophobia because he's okay around mike, corey putting his car repair knowledge to use

so many things happened!! so many things about to happen!!

this is random but every day i fight the urge to make a tiktok and/or post my teen wolf fic

also i can't tell if i have ghost readers or not. like reading count is going up but that just could be me looking for spelling errors LMAO

(if they are ghost readers pls don't be one i love receiving comments they make me smile so wide)

anyways, here's some more tweets to close off the chapter! 2 more chapters left of season 3!

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what'd you think?