CONTENT WARNING: This chapter contains mentions of abuse.

"Mom, what the hell is going on?"

"I'll explain everything once we're in a safe place to talk," Dorothy told Jenna as she continued driving.

"I don't think anyone can hear us talking in the car with the windows up."

"That doesn't mean we aren't being watched."

Jenna, Carter, and Dana exchanged puzzled and worried looks as they sat in silence for the rest of the ride. They even looked out the window to make sure that no one was following them, and fortunately, none of the vans from before were around from what they saw. All Jenna could do was grow worried as her mom kept driving, the speed only going up. As much as she wanted to tell her to slow down, she could see from her side profile that she was just as concerned for her.

A while later, Dorothy pulled into the gravel driveway of a small house that Jenna and Dana didn't recognize. Carter, however, seemed to know where they were, even with the confused expression he had on his face.

"Ms. Howard, why are we at the Byers'?" he asked.

"We'll talk once we get inside. Let's go." She was the first to get out of the car with the same manila folder from before in her hand, and the teenagers followed suit.

When they got to the house, Jenna stopped the moment she passed through the entrance. There were strings of lights all over the house, hanging up all over the place. There was nothing but trash scattered on the floor, along with most of the furniture destroyed. She then saw the alphabet written in black paint on one wall, followed by the hole in another wall at the front of the house covered in tarp to prevent anything from coming in until it was fixed.

"What the hell happened here?" Jenna asked.

"Sit down, you three," she told them as she closed the door and grabbed a chair nearby.

The three of them headed for the couch, wiping off any dirt and papers on there, and sat down, to which Dorothy placed her chair across from them.

"Okay, now can you explain all of this?" Jenna questioned, almost at the point of getting annoyed.

Her mom took a deep breath before she began to talk. "Joyce swears she's been hearing Will ever since he disappeared and has been trying to get in contact with him. It started with her phone going out, then seeing stuff in the walls, the lights flickering..."

"So, has she actually talked to him?" Jenna inquired.

"She said she has."

"And you believe her?"

Sighing, her mom leaned back in the chair. "I wasn't sure at first, but it wasn't until after I picked you up from school the other day that I thought maybe she was onto something. Then, Chief Hopper started to get suspicious regarding Will's disappearance, which led him to do some digging into Hawkins Lab, and that was when he connected the dots with you, Jenna. I think the lab figured out who you really are."

Carter and Dana had their eyes on Jenna, but Jenna kept hers on Dorothy.

"So you and Joyce Byers decided to join the investigation?" she asked.

"It's a lot bigger than any of us thought," Dorothy said. "All Joyce wanted was for Will to come home, and I just wanted to keep you safe." Pausing, she waved the manila folder in her hand in front of them. "When I saw some people watching the house, I grabbed this and got out as fast as I could. Who knows what would've happened if I had stayed there."

Dana pointed at the folder, looking at Jenna. "Everything about you is in that folder?"

She nodded her head. "Yeah." She grabbed it from her mom and handed it to Dana. "Take a look."

Dana opened the folder and glanced at everything inside it.

Sighing, Carter spoke up. "So, where's Chief Hopper and Joyce Byers now?"

"At the station, bailing out your friends," Dorothy replied. "He got a call when we were--" She suddenly stopped, and judging by the wide eyes and quickly closing her mouth, it was obvious that she had said too much, something she wasn't supposed to say at all.

"When you were what?" Jenna asked. "Mom, were you with Chief Hopper and Joyce Byers today?"

Opening her mouth, though hesitant to still say anything, she could only let out a sigh before speaking up again. "Jenna--"

Before any other words came out of her mouth, the sound of a car outside cut her off. Looking out the window, they saw Chief Hopper, Joyce Byers, Jonathan, and Nancy pile out of the car and dash frantically inside the house, with Nancy being the only one to stop to look around as the others rushed towards the back of the house.

"Holy..." she mumbled, looking at everything in shock.

"Dad?" Dana called out, standing up to go follow him.

"What's going on?" Dorothy asked, getting up from her chair, to which Jenna and Carter did the same as they followed the others into the hallway.

"Looks like Hawkins Lab isn't just looking for Jenna," the chief stated. "They're looking for some other kids, too."

"Who else can they be looking for?" Jenna asked.

"My brother," Nancy spoke up. "He and his friends, they..." Trailing off, she began to have a panicked expression on her face. "They have this girl with them, and I guess she's in danger, too."

"What girl?" Carter questioned.

The adults exchanged concerned looks for a minute.

"You didn't tell Jenna about the other girl?" Joyce asked.

"I was about to before you guys showed up," Dorothy stated.

"Tell me what?" Jenna spoke up again. "Mom, what is it?"

She turned to face her, and just like before, it seemed as if she was almost uncertain to say anything. "Hawkins Lab is looking for another girl that was a test subject. She must've ran away from the lab around the time Will disappeared."

Jenna widened her eyes. "Another test subject like me? And I'm just hearing about this now?"

"We just figured this out today," she explained. "We visited with her mom and she's...not well. She was a part of the experiments like your mom was, went through the same things with the drugs and her pregnancy."

"But what happened?"

"Dr. Brenner is what happened," she answered. "That's something we can talk about later."

"I'd rather you tell me now," Jenna said, getting impatient at the way her mom wasn't telling her everything.

"Jenna, now is not the time," she replied with a stern tone.

Before she could respond, the sound of Nancy's worrying voice chimed in.

"Mike, are you there? Mike?" she said through a walkie-talkie. "Mike, it's me, Nancy. Mike, are you there? Answer. Mike, we need you to answer. This is an emergency, Mike. Do you copy?" She paused to see if she would get a response, but nothing. "Mike, do you copy? I need you to answer. We need to know that you're there, Mike."

Finally, Chief Hopper took the walkie-talkie from her hand and began to talk into it. "Listen, kid, this is the chief. If you're there, pick up. We know you're in trouble and we know about the girl. We can protect you, we can help you, but you gotta pick up. Are you there? Do you copy? Over." After waiting for a moment, there was still silence, in which the chief huffed a sigh and looked at the others. "Anybody got any other ideas?"

"Yeah, I copy."

They all jumped at the sound of Mike Wheeler's voice from the walkie-talkie, also relieved that he answered back.

"Oh, my God," Nancy said with a breath of relief.

"It's Mike. I'm here. We're here."

The chief was quick to get back to him. "Good. Where are you guys?"

As Mike explained to him where they were, the others piled back into the living room. Not long after the chief talked to Mike, he told them to wait at the house until he got back from getting Mike and his friends, along with the girl.

They waited for hours, the sun finally going down and the night was now among them. Everyone started to get hungry, so Joyce offered some apple slices to settle their stomachs for now. While it wasn't much, they were all grateful, considering the situation they were in at the moment.

When the sound of a car pulled into the driveway, Joyce, Jonathan, and Nancy were on their feet and ran outside. The rest waited a few minutes for them to come in, and when they did, Jenna's eyes went straight to the girl with the shaved head in a pink dress and blue jacket. She looked terrified to be here, and Jenna felt sorry for her.

"Hi, honey," Dorothy said to her in a gentle voice, crouching down in front of her. "What's your name?"

The girl froze, her breathing getting faster than usual. "Eleven," she mumbled.

Eleven. That was her name, the only one she knew.

Immediately, Jenna hurried to find a pen from a drawer, gripping one in a matter of seconds. She used it to trace the scar on her wrist, drawing out the numbers that were there once before. Turning around, she took a look at the girl before she slowly made her way towards her.

"Eleven, right?" Jenna asked. When she nodded her head, she continued approaching her, getting on my knees next to her mom and holding out her arm. "You and I have something in common. See? This is my number. I'm Five."

Eleven stared at the numbers on Jenna's arm, as if she was in a trance. With some reluctance, she held up her arm and showed Jenna where her tattoo was completely visible: 011.

"You know bad men," she said.

"Sort of," Jenna admitted. "I don't remember much about them. I esca-- got out when I was very little. I doubt you remember me at all from the lab." She knew she had to use her words carefully around the girl, especially when she didn't know how much she had been through with Hawkins Lab and getting out when she did. "I go by a different name now. It's Jenna."

The girl looked at her with a blank expression for a moment, then spoke up. "Jenna."

She nodded. "That's right."

Suddenly, the chief called the others in to go to the kitchen, and they obliged. The smaller boys were sitting at the table, and the rest let Eleven take the last seat. Once everyone was all settled with introductions, Mike had a drawing of a line across the paper with a person standing on it, then what looked like a string hanging from the bottom. He held it out in front of everyone to show, and we stood around the table, ready to listen to what he had to say.

"Okay, so, in this example, we're the acrobat." He pointed at the stick figure. "Will and Barbara, and that monster, they're this flea." He then pointed at the small dot under the line. "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," the curly-haired boy, Dustin, was his name, added.

"That we tracked to Hawkins Lab," the darker boy, Lucas, with a bandana around his head chimed in.

"With our compasses," the curly-haired boy spoke up. "The gate has a really strong electromagnetic field, and that can change the directions of a compass needle."

"Is this gate underground?" the chief asked.

"Yes," Eleven muttered.

"Near a large water tank?"

Eleven nodded her head. "Yes."

"How do you know all that?" Dustin asked.

"Because he's seen it," Mike said.

"Is there any way that you could...that you could reach Will?" Joyce asked, trying not to sound desperate. "Could you talk to him in this--"

"The Upside Down," Eleven finished.

Joyce nodded her head. "Yeah."

Eleven nodded her head.

"And my friend, Barbara? Can you find her, too?" Nancy asked.

Eleven barely nodded at Nancy's questions this time.

"Wait a sec," Carter said with a puzzled expression on his face. "This Upside Down. It's basically another dimension, isn't it?"

"Yeah, pretty much," Dustin stated. "Why?"

Carter then turned to face Jenna. "Do you want to tell them or should I?"

When Jenna realized what he was referring to, she widened her eyes and let out a scoff, shaking her head. "You don't actually think--"

"Yeah, I do," he cut her off. "You've been there before, Howard."

"Wait, what?" her mom asked. "Jenna, what is he talking about?"

Jenna knew that she was now in deep shit. "After Will went missing, and my...powers starting showing up more frequent--"

"Wait, you have powers, too?!" Lucas interrupted her with a shocked tone.

She stared at him and nodded. "Yeah, I do."

"What can you do?" Mike was next to ask.

"Can you move things with your mind like Eleven?" Dustin questioned next.

"No, I can't."

"So, what can you do?" Nancy inquired.

Jenna huffed a sigh. "Thermokinesis. I'm sure you geeks know what that is."

Dustin nodded his head, grinning. "Awesome."

"Can I continue, please?" she asked, getting frustrated. When no one said another word, she continued. "Anyway, there were times where I found myself...well, not in this world, like I was here one minute and then next thing I know I was in some place I didn't recognize. I mean, it looked like this world, like a mirrored version of it, but at the same time--"

"--it wasn't actually this world," Mike finished.

Jenna nodded again. "Exactly."

"So you've been to this Upside Down," her mom stated.

"Yeah, I think so." She couldn't bear the thought of telling everyone what she saw, for she knew it would only get Joyce, Jonathan, and Nancy even more worried.

"And you didn't think to tell me this before?" her mom asked, raising her eyebrows.

"I didn't want to worry you any more about it."

"Jenna, all I do is worry about you! You're my daughter, and it's my job to protect you!"

"Mom, what if you can't protect me from these people? There's only so much you can do with the kind of weapons they have, you know."

"I can damn well try my hardest, because they're gonna have to get to me first before they get to you," she said firmly.

The tension around the kitchen started to get thick as everyone decided to get ready and set up for Eleven to find Will and Barbara. The only noise that was heard was coming from the static of the radio. Eleven, with her eyes closed, tried to focus on just that, and Jenna wondered if she could feel everyone staring at her. As the lights flickered for a second, she opened her eyes when the static from the radio became faint.

With an apologetic look, she whispered, "I'm sorry."

"What's wrong? What happened?" Joyce asked frantically.

"I can't find them," Eleven replied, her voice cracking, almost at the verge of crying.

"It's okay, sweetheart," Dorothy assured her. "How about you go to the bathroom and take a moment to yourself, okay?"

When the little girl left to go to the bathroom, the rest stood around, trying to think of another way to contact Will and Barbara. None of them wanted to push Eleven to her limit, as she was so small and fragile. This was too much of what felt like a burden to put on her.

Then, Nancy's eyes went to Jenna. "Do you think you could contact them?"

"Me?" she asked.

"Yeah, you said you've been there before," Lucas pointed out.

"And you're not going to try, Jenna," her mom intervened.

Jenna looked at her with annoyance. "Mom--"

"No, absolutely not," she cut her off. "We're not having this discussion."

"Well, what else are we supposed to do, then? What if Eleven can't contact them?"

"We will figure something out, but putting you in even more danger by going to that place is out of the question."

She exhaled loudly in response, folding her arms over her chest.

"El has to be careful," Mike explained. "Whenever she uses her powers, she gets weak."

"The more energy she uses, the more tired she gets," Dustin said.

"Like, she flipped a van earlier," Lucas stated.

"It was awesome," Dustin added.

Jenna, Dana, and Carter looked at each other and thought back to the van I had smoked earlier today.

"But she's drained," Mike said.

"Like a bad battery," Dustin stated.

"Well...how do we make her better?" Joyce questioned.

"We don't," Mike answered. "We just have to wait and try again."

"Well, how long will that take?" Nancy asked.

"I don't know," her brother replied.

This only frustrated everyone more.

"The bath." Turning around, we saw Eleven was standing there.

"What?" Joyce asked.

"I can find them. In the bath."

When none of them knew what she meant, that was when Dustin headed for the phone and dialed a number, already seeing that he knew someone who could help.

"Mr. Clarke? It's Dustin...Yeah, yeah. I just, I...I have a science question. Do you know anything about sensory deprivation tanks? Specifically, how to build one?"

They watched Dustin as he continued to talk to his teacher over the phone, and with some convincing, he grabbed a notebook and sat back down at the table with the phone still pressed against his ear, jotting down everything he was hearing. After another minute, Dustin thanked Mr. Clarke, then hung up the phone and looked at Joyce.

"Do you still have that kiddie pool we bobbed for apples in?" he asked her.

"I think so, yeah," she replied.

"Good. Then we just need salt. Lots of it."

"How much are we talking?" the chief questioned.

Dustin looked back down at the notebook, then up at the chief again. "1500 pounds."

"Holy shit," Carter muttered next to Jenna.

"Well, where are we gonna get that much salt?" Nancy asked.

The chief let out a sigh. "I think I know where."

*******

"I have to say, this is not what I expected to be doing on a Saturday night," Dorothy said as she and Jenna were in her car, making their way to Hawkins Middle School.

"You and me both," Jenna stated. Sitting in the passenger's seat, she had her arms crossed over her chest as she kept her eyes on the road.

"You know, I'm trying to imagine me picking you up from a party after you drank too much. Instead, we're running away from bad guys and trying to contact kids in another dimension." She chuckled at this.

She smiled a bit, too. "It sounds crazy when you say it out loud."

"It is crazy. Real, yes, but still crazy." She paused, sighing. "I wanted you to be a normal teenager. All I wanted was to keep you safe from all of this, and I failed at that."

Jenna turned to face her. "Mom, it's not your fault," she said with assurance.

She shook her head. "I should've done better. Eleven's mom, she..." Trailing off, Jenna could see some tears forming in her eyes. "She fought hard to get her daughter back, and she lost. Now, after what those people did to her, she's just a damn vegetable, her brain completely fried."

Her eyes went wide. "Oh my God..."

Dorothy nodded her head. "Yeah, her sister looks out for her, but...she's just there now, while her daughter is out here trying to escape these bad people. And if they catch her, if they catch you--"

"They won't," she told her. "We won't let them."

She stayed quiet for a minute, then spoke up again. "I can't lose you, Jenna. I know we're not related by blood, but I will always love you as if you were one of my own. You're all that I have left."

"You won't lose me," she replied. "I promise."

When they arrived at the school, everyone else was already there. The chief managed to get the door open as they headed inside the school, splitting up into different directions. Jenna and Carter headed towards the back of the school with the chief and Jonathan to look for salt, walking behind the adult.

"Thanks for standing up for me today, Carter," Jonathan said next to her.

"Hey, we outcasts have to stick together, right?" Carter replied, his tone almost lighthearted.

A moment later, Jenna and Carter split up from the other two as they headed for the cafeteria to find some salt in the back, while the chief and Jonathan checked somewhere else to find any.

"Do you really think the school would keep a shit ton of salt here?" Carter asked as they weaved around the tables.

"It's worth a shot at looking," Jenna said, heading to the kitchen, with him following behind her. "Maybe the school needs a decent supply of it."

"For what, to trigger high blood pressure in kids?"

Jenna rolled her eyes. "Just shut up and help me look for some."

Huffing a sigh, he helped her check every pantry and cabinet for salt, but there wasn't enough that would even be worth taking to the others.

"Well, this was a bust," she stated.

"I think Hopper and Jonathan will have better luck with the deicing salt supply in the back," Carter explained. "Come on, let's head to the gym."

"Wait," she stopped him. "How's your eye?"

"What?" he questioned, furrowing his brows.

"Your eye. How's it doing?"

"Oh," he simply stated, his expression blank. "It's, uh...it's better."

"Good," she said. "Have you told the chief about it?"

He then gave her an annoyed expression. "Howard, I told you to drop it."

"How the hell can I?" she retorted. "That looks serious and you're acting like it's not a big deal."

"Because it's not," he snapped.

It was then Jenna realized that from the way he was acting, it was as if he was used to it. "This really isn't the first time this has happened to you, is it?"

"You don't know what you're talking about," he said, glaring at her.

"I think I do," she told him. "Maybe I haven't noticed it before, but--"

"Maybe you did, but you just didn't give two shits about it," he cut her off angrily.

She couldn't help but scoff in response. "If you think I would've ignored seeing that black eye on your face the many times we've run into each other--"

"Do you really expect me to believe that you'd help me out if you knew the truth, even after the way you and your stupid friends treated me over the years?" Carter shot Jenna a dirty look. "Just because we've been hanging out these last few days trying to figure this whole shit out, it doesn't mean that anything has actually changed. None of this will have made a fucking difference once we find Will and Barbara. You're just going to go back to your old life, partying and acting as if nothing ever changed, as if you never had these powers in the first place."

"That's not true," she protested, shaking her head. "There's no way in hell any of our lives will go back to normal after all of this is over."

"But you want it to," he pointed out. "I can tell that you didn't want any of this to happen to you, because God forbid anything terrible goes wrong in your perfect life."

"You don't know a thing about me," she snapped.

"Neither do you!" he shouted. "Still, that didn't stop you and your friends from calling me a freak, an emo, Carter the Cutter, did it?"

Jenna opened her mouth to respond, but no more words came out. She knew that he was right about all of it, and she was too wrapped up in her own world, in this new version of her world with her own problems, to realize that. As much as she did want to go back to the old Jenna Howard, to the Jenna that really didn't care about anyone but herself and her own life, there was no way she could do that now, not when there was more to me that she never knew, and she had to figure out who that was.

But first, Jenna needed to help Carter.

"Look, I know that you and I aren't exactly friends, but I want to help you," she said.

He rolled his eyes. "We've already been over this--"

"I don't care," she interrupted him. "This is fucking serious, Carter. Whatever boys did this to you--"

"It wasn't anyone from school."

"Then who was it?"

Hesitant, he took a deep breath as they began to walk out of the kitchen. "My dad."

Her eyes grew sad. "Your dad? Why would he--"

"Because he's a fucking alcoholic," he cut her off. "That's what he does, gets drunk and takes it out on the nearest thing he can reach." His body tensed up, hands in his pockets. "There are times when I stay out late at night to avoid being at home. It didn't make a damn difference, though, still getting his belt or fist whenever I came back."

Jenna felt her heart sink to her stomach. "Shit. Carter, I didn't--"

"--know. Yeah, I can tell," he said in a blunt tone. "I do a pretty good job at hiding it. Why else would I always wear hoodies?"

His long sleeves were something Jenna and her friends always bullied him about, wanting him to roll up the sleeves to see what scars he made on his arms. Now, after hearing all of this, she realized they weren't scars at all, and the guilt began to hit her in the face.

"Carter, I'm sorry," was what came out of her mouth next. "If I had known, if any of us had known--"

"Nothing would've changed whether you did know or not," he said. "People like you and Craig Bennett and the rest of the popular kids at school don't care about freaks like me and Jonathan Byers."

"Well, I'm telling you now that I care," she stated firmly. "And I want to help you, Carter. Have you tried reporting it?"

"No, I can't. You're the only one I've told, and to be honest, I'd rather keep it that way. Besides, I only have a few more months until I graduate and then--"

"But how much more of it can you take?" she cut him off as they entered the hallway. "You need to tell someone."

"Howard, I just said--"

"Come on, we can go tell Hopper right now and--"

"Tell me what?" the chief's voice boomed down the hallway as Jonathan was pushing a cart with bags of salt behind him.

Jenna turned to face Carter. "Do you want to tell him or should I?"

Carter stared at her for another moment before turning towards the chief. "I want to talk to you about something."

Hopper nodded his head. "Okay, yeah." He then looked up at Jenna. "We need more hoses for the pool."

"Sure, I'll go get some from outside." With that, Jenna turned on her heel and headed for the door leading into the night.

Walking along the brick wall, Jenna thought of Carter and hoped that he would tell Chief Hopper as to what was going on with him. Next, Eleven came to mind, wanting this plan involving her to work. They had come this far into finding Will and Barbara, and there was no going back now. They had to finish this and they had to find them and get Hawkins somewhat back to normal.

When Jenna turned the corner of the school, she was met with a hand covering her mouth, muffling her screams.

"Shut up, you stupid girl!" the man hissed as he dragged her away from the building and towards a van parked not too far from the school.

Looking at the van, Jenna widened her eyes as she saw it was the same van from this afternoon.

Fuck.

Jenna let out a cry for help as she was thrown into the back of the van, the door sliding shut before she could make an escape. Panicking, she looked around for any way out, but there was nothing. Before she knew it, the engine was starting up.

"Let me out of here!" she yelled. "Let me go, you stupid--"

All of a sudden, she was met with a blow to the head and darkness to follow.

~~~~~~~

A/N: This chapter was a lot longer than I anticipated OOPS.

Anyway, it's getting good now that we're almost at the end of part one!

Comment, vote, more to come for the end of PART ONE.

-A