"I swear, if I'm dying tonight because of you, I'm gonna haunt your ass so hard, Harrington!"
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah! I'm gonna go full Poltergeist and shit!"
"Then bring it, Graveswood."
"Challenge accepted."
***
In which after years of suppressing their...
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Chapter One Hundred-And-Forty-Six: On The Search For Eddie, Again
(The Dive)
***
Vecna was in the Upside Down.
That was all Rowan could think of, the domineering thought that took up residence in her mind, ratcheting around with her mantra and her fantasies of gruesomely murdering Vecna with a smile full of both glee and revenge on her face. She could hardly sleep that night, consumed by that thought, and when she did manage to catch a few fitful hours, she spent them trying to dream-walk into the Upside Down, into the Creel House, into being fucking present and fucking kill Vecna right then and there, to no avail, leaving her either in a black void or a litany of nightmares. It was like Vecna was doing everything in his power to avoid dragging her dream-self into the Upside Down and avoid her murderous vengeance if she became present there.
Which was a problem, because her dream-walking was the only feasible way to get into the Upside Down without an open gate.
Because though Rowan knew that Vecna was from the Upside Down, she'd held the hope he was just an invisible psycho running around Hawkins killing people, which made the chance of clearing Eddie's name and getting revenge for Chrissy seem only impractical. Now, though?
Now it was impossible.
Throughout the night, Steve was there—mostly because they were sleeping next to each other on the floor of the now-cramped basement—but when Rowan woke up gasping from a nightmare or couldn't sleep with that realisation stuck in her head, he was there, holding her close, stroking her hair and murmuring softly that it was okay, it was just a dream, that he was here. Rowan would have felt terrible keeping him awake, but she didn't think hardly anyone was actually sleeping tonight, much less Steve. And she was relieved to have Steve there, to feel his arms around her and hear his heartbeat.
And throughout the night, Rowan looked back over to Max and Alistair, sleeping next to each other, Cami, Lucas and Dustin next to them, her brother's bag pressed to his chest, Hugin inside. Sometimes they woke up from nightmares before falling to fitful sleep. Alistair was next to her on her other side, so Rowan would twist around and stroke his hair and whisper she was here, he was safe, and adjust his headphones while doing the same with Max's via her mind, and straining her ears to check music was playing. If not, a blink of her eyes and it was rewound and playing again. No way was Vecna getting them on her watch.
In the end, just like that night after going into and escaping the Upside Down with Nancy years ago, Rowan passed out from pure exhaustion, the faint lyrics of Running Up That Hill and I'm Still Standing playing in her ears along with Steve's heartbeat.
The next morning passed in a haze—they got up, checked with Max and Alistair that Vecna hadn't managed to get them during the night, get some breakfast from the happily obliging Mrs. Wheeler despite there being eleven people, which she must be asking questions about, and they went over what they knew over said breakfast.
