𝐚𝐬 𝐢𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐬

Chapter Sixteen.

THE OTHER seven are in a huddle around Skull Rock as Eddie is crouched, eating and drinking his water as he tells them what happened. "When I got to shore, I tried calling you guys, but, uh..." He takes a swing from his water canister, pausing.

"My walkie was busted, man." He said when he finished. "Drenched. So, uh, I did the thing that I do now, apparently." He says as he wipes his mouth, smiling at them. "I ran." He then chuckles as Allison frowns at that, not finding any amusement in it so his grin fades, glancing down. "Do you know what time this was? The attack?" Nancy now asked.

"Yeah, no, I--I know exactly what time it was." Eddie says as he begun to unclasp his wristwatch. "My walkie wasn't the only thing that got soaked." He shook the watch gently before tossing it to Nancy who quickly caught it. "9:27." She says, nodding softly.

"Same time our flashlights went kablooey." Robin says and Allison looks at her. "Which means what?" She asked curiously. "That that surge of energy was Vecna attacking Patrick." The Wheeler girl spoke up making the Godfrey glance over at her quickly.

"Well, we're one step closer."

"Yeah. We know how Vecna attacks." Allison says as she shrugs. "And where he attacks from." Lucas spoke, hands on his hips. "So now we just need to sneak into his lair in the Upside Down and drive a stake through his heart." Max glanced up at Robin and Allison. "If he even has a heart." Allison retorted.

"A stake? Is he like a vamp-- is he a vampire?" Steve's tone got serious as Allison looks at him with furrowed brows and squinted eyes. "It was a metaphor." Max explains to the Harrington. "A bullet should work on him, right?" Eddie spoke up. "I say we chop his head off." Lucas says and Allison nods. "Totally." She says. "Yeah, I'd say all of the above, but we can't do any of that until we gind a way into the Upside Down." Nancy interrupted their plans.

"We need El to get her powers back." Max spoke up. "Yeah, everything was way easier. We had this girl." Steve looks at Allison, rambling. "She had superpowers. And she--" "superpowers. Yeah. You mentioned her." Eddie interrupted the moment as Allison quickly glanced over at him and Steve nods softly, glancing down at the ground.

"Hey, uh, Henderson's not, uh, cursed, is he?" The Munson now asked as Allison glanced over, noticing Dustin was acting a bit weird. He was pacing back and forth with his compass in hand. "Cursed? No, no. He's fine." Steve says, his arms crossed as he looked at Dustin. "Mental?" He looks back at Eddie, "absolutely." He says and Allison chuckles softly.

"Boom!" Dustin's yell echoed as they all flinched and looked over at him. "Bada... bada... boom." He says, pointing at Steve who gave a look. "I was right." He informs them and Allison sighs. "Skull Rock was north." He then stated as Allison just looks at Steve to her right. "Seriously? You're serious?" The Harrington asked, leaning forward.

"Mm-hmm."

"This is Skull Rock. Okay?" The Harrington exclaimed, gesturing to the rock behind Allison and Eddie. "You're totally, absolutely 100% wrong. Right now." He says and Dustin leans forward. "Yes. And no." He enlights him. "Oh, my God." Steve puts his hands over his face as Allison raised her eyebrows.

"This compass worked correctly when we left the Wheelers'." Dustin raised the compass and Allison glanced at Eddie who's intrigued and intently listening. "It was correct when we got in the car on Curly. But it started to slip the further east we went. Now it's way off. When I was leading us here, I wasn't wrong." He tells them, pointing towards himself.

He raised his hand, "the compass was." He says. "So you're using faulty equipment. Dude, you're still wrong." Steve exclaims as he gestured towards him. "Except it isn't faulty. Lucas, do you rememebr what can effect a compass?" The Henderson boy now points to his friend. "An electromagnetic field." The Sinclair replied, pointing at him.

"Yep." Dustin turns to the others. "I'm sorry, I must've skipped that class." Robin says as Allison was also confused what the two fifteen year old boys were on about. "In the presence of a stronger electromagnetic field, the needle will deflect towards that power. So either there's some super big magnet around here, or..." Dustin tells them, "there's a gate." Lucas finished off his statement.

Dustin points towards the boy, smiling widely. "But we're nowhere near the lab." Nancy tells her as Allison glanced over at her. "But what if, somehow, there's another gate?" The curly headed boy spoke up again.

"A gate that we don't know about. It'd have to be smaller. Way less powerful." Nancy glanced to the ground. "Snack-size gate." Robin says, looking over at Dustin. "How? Why?" Steve asked, sounding confused.

"No idea. All I know is that something is causing this disturbance, and the last time we've seen anything like it, it was a gate. And I hope it is because then we'd have a way to Vecna." The Henderson now explains. "And a shot at freeing Max from this curse." He adds before he just turns and walked away.

"Where are you going? Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey." Steve stopped the boy who turns to them again. "Eddie's still a wanted man. We can't just go hike in the woods." The older explains as he gestured towards Eddie who Allison now looks at. "This little steel capsule might be the key to saving both Max and Eddie. What say you, Eddie the Banished?" Dustin asked and they all look at the Munson.

"I say you're asking me to follow you into Mordor, which, if I'm totally straight with you, I think is a really bad idea. But, uh, the Shire..." Eddie looks up at the sky, "the Shire is burning." He says before glancing over at Dustin who they all look at to find him bouncing up and down excitedly with a wide grin.

"So in nerd terms, yes?" Allison turns to Eddie who got up. "Yep. Mordor it is." He says, walking away and past Nancy. The others are quick to follow but then Allison notices Eddie running back as Steve looks at her. "What is Mordor?" He asked and she simply shrugs as Eddie bent over, picking up his water canister and his stolen radio from the ground as Allison and Steve look over at him.

"Get your stuff, dude. Let's go."

Eddie rushed to Allison's side, lazily slinging an arm around her shoulders. "Did you guys take good care of Allie for me?" He asked and Allison just rolled her eyes. "Her karate skills show me she doesn't need anyone to take care of her. I think she could take me." Steve says and Eddie raised his brows as the Harrington glanced over. "In a fight." He clarified.

"Yep. I'm amazing in karate. I got a black belt." Allison beams up at Eddie who chuckled. "Scary when we were young teens and even scarier now as an adult. Though, you still look like a young teen." He says, taking a jab at her height as she glared up at him. "Shut up, Munson." She says as Steve glanced between them, smiling faintly to himself.

"Harrington, did I ever tell you that this girl, right here, literally body slammed your old friend, Tommy Hagan before?" He asked and Steve nods quickly. "Yep. Tommy never shut up about it after it happened." He says and Allison snorts. "Gross." She says afterwards. After as Steve got ahead of them, Allison kept glancing at Eddie who was now taking sips from his canister again. "I'm glad you're okay, Eds... I was a bit worried it was you when they said they found a body." She says quietly.

He looks at her, frowning and she just sighs, reaching out to grab his hand. She doesn't say anything, just interlocks their fingers together. He looks down at their hands, smiling widely as he then glanced around the woods.

authors note allie and eddie.
steve lowkey having a thing for allison 🤭