"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-Sixty-Seven: The Destruction And The Agony
(The Piggyback, Pt. 7)
***
The Upside Down was tearing itself apart.
The whole hell-dimension was shaking around her, enough to have Rowan snap out of her crushing grief as she let go of Eddie to pull Dustin and Alistair to her, shielding them as much as she could with her body, before she grabbed Eddie again—because he may be gone, but Rowan was damned if she let this place take his body just as it had taken his life—and held him as close to her as she could, as the Upside Down rumbled with such great force it felt like it was being torn apart at the seams. Rowan could feel Alistair holding her tightly and Dustin clutching her arm with one hand and holding onto Eddie with the other as Rowan used all of her telekinesis to hold on to Dustin and Alistair while she clung on to Eddie, as the Upside Down continued shaking like it was falling apart—
And that was when Rowan saw the red explode. Right from the Munson trailer.
Her eyes widened and her breath caught in her throat as a glowing red light ruptured the Upside Down, carving a line through it, longer and longer until the end disappeared from view, crawling to connect somewhere else. And Rowan's blood froze, because that was the gate. That was the gate Nancy saw in her visions, that was it, growing beyond Eddie's trailer, tearing apart the barrier between worlds.
Which meant that the other gates would be doing the same. That meant...
That meant they lost and Vecna had won. Instead of saving the world, they'd lost and it was destroyed. Hawkins—the town she fought so long for, that she shed blood and tears for, that she gave up her teen years and relative innocence for, the place that was her home—was destroyed.
They'd lost.
That meant Max... did she... had she...
Rowan didn't have time to think the thought—didn't have the time to feel the second, crushing round of cataclysmic grief slam into her—because somewhere in the Upside Down, the gates connected.
And the shockwave of them colliding rattled throughout the Upside Down.
Rowan gritted her teeth as she braced herself, as Dustin and Alistair held onto her tighter and she clutched onto Eddie tighter, until it ended and the Upside Down stopped shaking.
Then, and only then, did Rowan drop her telekinetic hold on the boys.
Once she did, Dustin took hold of Eddie, pulling him into his arms. Rowan let him as she sat there, grief still carving through her, hollowing her out as her heart detonated a final time. But she didn't scream as the tears poured down, as the blood dried on her gloves, her fingers, on her jeans. She didn't howl, didn't wail, didn't sob as Dustin was doing, as Alistair stood and said, "Max... that can't be her. Vecna, he... h-he's dead, right Rowan? Max, sh-she's fine, right? That gate... that can't be her, ri-right? Rowan? Rowan?"
