you are not alone → stranger things

xxix. driving

Saturday noon
Mike's POV

My door burst open out of nowhere, and El barreled into my room. I smiled broadly at her and stood. "There you are."

"Come with me. Now." Her expression gave no room to protest.

My smile disappeared. Something was up. "What is it?"

"Thessalhydra."

I paused, then ran after her outside. "Bye mom!" I yelled over my shoulder.

"Where are you going?!" she called back. But I didn't answer, shutting the door firmly.

El ran to the police car and got in the back. I followed, and there was Mrs. Byers and the chief. "Can I have an explanation, please?" I asked.

"Let El do it," Hopper muttered. "She's the one who figured it all out anyways." He backed out and sped away.

I looked at El, and she looked back at me. I raised my eyebrows. She smiled half-heartedly, and I noticed the fear in her eyes. I reached over and laced my fingers in hers. "Whatever's happening, I'm sure it'll be fine," I reassured her.

She didn't look so sure.

We suddenly stopped abruptly, and I tore my eyes away from El, my head smacking the back of the seat. "What the-" There were no cars behind or in front of us. Why were we stopping?

"Who's that girl?" Mrs. Byers asked. "Do you know her?"

I leaned over to look out of the windshield, and Max was standing in front of the car, looking extremely stressed. "Uh, yeah, she goes to my school," I stammered. I got out and walked out to her. "What are you doing?"

"I..." She stumbled over her words. "I saw you in the car with Eleven and figured you were doing something about Will. And I wanna help."

I stared at her wordlessly. "How do you know about Eleven?" I finally asked.

She looked at her feet. "I know what really happened to Will in November. I know about that monster. I know all that stuff."

All I could do was blink. "How?"

"Is that really important right now, Mike?" She brushed past me impatiently and stood next to the car door, resting her hand on the handle. "Can I come or not?"

"Ask them," I said, still trying to process how she knew that stuff. She was turning out to be a way different person than I'd originally thought: not just some annoying tomboy intent on annoying the crap out of me.

Five minutes later there I was, stuck in the middle between a scared telepathic girl and a slightly annoyed tomboy. The only difference was that I was holding El's hand.

I suddenly thought of something weird. "Max," I asked, "what was that thing you were threatening Troy with the other day?"

She snickered. "Oh, that. I saw him following Jennifer Hayes around at the mall last weekend, making goo-goo eyes at her. I didn't tell him I saw until I had to use it to make him go away; blackmail, you know."

We laughed for a few moments, then the awkward silence returned. A minute later, Max said loudly, "Okay, can someone explain now?" Hopper had told her the same thing he'd told me when she got in.

El took a deep breath. "Yes." And she began to explain.

"After Will came back from the Upside Down, he could never have been the same no matter how hard anyone tried to make him. He had - has - it inside him. And that's not just literally. He physically has a piece of it in him now. I do too, but not like him since I was never in danger. I was born with it, and so it's a little like I belong there. With Will, he's a regular human. His body can't adjust to it... well, my guess is that the piece of the Upside Down inside him is being forced out somehow. And it doesn't like that. So it... became something. The thessalhydra. It took Will, but I don't know why. Then it took those sewage men, probably because it was hungry. And now we're going to the lab to go in the Upside Down to get Will out of there."

I had never heard her talk so much, and I hadn't even known she could. And the stuff she was saying was... mind-blowing.

"So there's a new monster?" Max asked. She shuddered. "That's-"

"We're here," Hopper interrupted. "Everyone out."