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THE LINE WAS STILL SILENT. Kevin had been feverishly punching in the numbers to his house, Scoops Ahoy, Robin's house, and just about every household Amara's friends resided ever since he and the others learned the full implications behind what had started as magnets no longer sticking to fridges and whiteboards. The Russians had indeed infiltrated Hawkins, and they were fucking reopening the gate to the fucking Upside Down. He wasn't alone in his worry – Hopper had raided the kitchen for alcohol to quell his racing nerves, and Joyce was also trying to contact Will and his friends. To make matters worse it was the Fourth of July, the day Eurydice and Scott would be returning from New York and unknowingly walking into an ambush.
"Hello, you've reached the Reid residence. Please leave – "
"Goddammit!" Kevin slammed the phone onto the hook so harshly that the device rattled. He instinctively pivoted to the kitchen, hoping that Murray Bauman, the ex-journalist-turned-conspiracy-theorist-turned-right-all-along owner of the warehouse the four travelers were inhabiting for the time being, the only person Hopper knew to be fluent in Russian, hadn't overheard the din. Luckily, he hadn't.
"No luck, I'm guessing?" Joyce queried, having hung up the phone in a far more delicate manner than her co-worker. She was frazzled as she typically was when her children and their friends were in danger, grateful that she hadn't ignored her hunch that something was off once again.
"Nope," Kevin sighed. "It went to voicemail, again. The Hendersons and the Sinclairs didn't pick up either, and Mrs. Wheeler told me everyone went to the movies yesterday. She hasn't seen them since."
"Did she tell you which ones?" was what Joyce asked next, anxiously shifting on her heels.
"No, just Mike and his friends," Kevin relayed. "I didn't have the chance to ask more before one of her friends called, but I'm assuming that Will's one of them."
"Okay, that's good to know," Joyce murmured, appearing the slightest bit relieved to have some indication of where one of her kids was last even if she didn't know where he and his friends were now. "And what about your sister?"
"Nothing," Kevin shook his head somberly, eyes fixed on his tattered reeboks. He felt like such a shitty brother; he was supposed to protect Amara from everything from insecure bullies to their parents finding out about the Upside Down, and he had failed spectacularly. Not only did he not know where she was but she likely didn't know where he was, either. "I feel so stupid, I shouldn't have come along – "
"Hey, hey, hey, it's okay," Joyce enveloped Kevin in a hug, leaning on her toes to reach him fully. The two of them had worked at Melvald's together for nearly three years and were closer than most co-workers, having known each other long enough for him to reveal that Amara had entrusted him with the truth of the supernatural realm and for her to enlist his help in deducing what had caused the magnets to fall in the first place, which they now understood the answer to. "Look, I don't know Amara that well, but she seems like a very strong person. I'm sure she's fine wherever she is."
