Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
AMARA AND KEVIN COLLIDED IN AN ALMIGHTY embrace, clinging to each other after days apart. She melted into his familiar warmth, burying her face into his shoulder and blocking out the world for just a few seconds. They weren't alone in their manner of greeting; Joyce had scooped Will and Jonathan into a hug as well while Hopper immediately began fussing over Eleven's wounds (Kevin had to commend him for not glaring at Mike's close proximity to his daughter). Murray was correct – though he had every right to fret over his sister's safety, especially when he'd accurately pinpointed her location, she was alive and nothing counted more.
"I knew you'd be here," Kevin whispered, tightening his hold around her. "I just knew it. You're too reckless for your own good, you know that?"
"And you're not?" Amara giggled weakly, pulling away a fraction to look at him. He definitely looked worse for wear, a patchwork of gasoline stains embellishing his shirt and a smudge of dirt on his cheekbone. "You don't look like you've been stocking shelves."
"You got me there," Kevin conceded, carefully extracting a glass shard from her hair. "I'm just glad you're alive."
"I killed someone."
"I don't care, I don't care," Kevin professed, shocking Amara at how quickly he'd glanced over the matter of her taking a human life when she was still struggling to forgive herself for it. "Chances are the bastard deserved it. And I'd hate to think of what Mom and Dad would say if I had to tell them you'd died."
"They're not back yet, are they?" Amara queried. "I don't even know what day it is... "
"It's the Fourth of July," Kevin informed Amara. Now that she thought about it, most of the storefronts were adorned with decorations in the colors red, white, and blue, which she hadn't had a chance to look at when she was fleeing for her life from the Russians. "They aren't back yet, but they will be soon."
They migrated to the fountain at the center of the mall, where everyone disclosed what they'd been through in a much calmer fashion. While Amara and Kevin's respective groups had been caught up in a Russian incursion of Hawkins and the reopening of the gate, Eleven and her companions had been engaged in a war of their own. The fraction the gate had opened had reawakened the fragment of the Mind Flayer that had once inhabited Will's body, which had laid dormant in Hawkins even when the Demodogs had died. It had infected dozens of townspeople, most notably Billy Hargrove, and liquefied their bodies into a gargantuan mass all for the purpose of defeating Eleven. Amara now understood why Max looked so haunted and what Will had meant when he'd hugged her – they'd been MIA for so long that the others feared they'd been infected too.
"The Mind Flayer, it built this monster in Hawkins, to stop El, to kill her and pave a way into our world," Mike explained. The fact that the Mind Flayer was active once more undoubtedly posed an obstacle to them closing the gate again, and it pained Amara to think of how many people had lost a loved one in the process – she was beyond grateful that her parents had chosen this week to go on their anniversary trip.
