Nyctophilia 🌪 Reddie

xx

Lina was equally as annoyed that she had to go on mission with Richie and Eddie. She hated Richie's tendencies to mess around and despised Eddie's attitude toward her earlier. Not only that, but they weren't even going after the Hive. They were going after Richie's brother, who played little to no role in the entirety of the situation.

Richie and Eddie sat side by side in the back of the car Lina was driving, not speaking. Richie was working with a computer to break into city cameras and find out where Mike was, but it took him a little longer since the country codes were different.

"Have you found him yet?" Lina asked as they neared the main city, which was near an hour away from the base.

"Working on it," Richie said in a light tone, trying not to start any arguments. "I'm analyzing all of the cameras, shouldn't be long until-"

The computer started to beep loudly and Richie smirked.

"Found them."

He transferred the location to Lina, who began to drive toward where Mike and Will were. They weren't far, so they were just hoping to stay on track and avoid any issues.

Especially with the Hive potentially lurking around.

•••

Mike and Robin sat quietly at the library they had entered, patiently waiting for the flash drive to connect to the computers. It was a long waiting process, but even dead, Mike had no trust in Zack Denbrough. There was no chance he'd bring Richie or any of the ex-Hive members a flash drive from him without absolute certainty that they wouldn't be tracked.

Steve and Will were walking around, trying to walk off their boredom. Will hadn't had a vision since the one in Hawkins, and Steve was bored because he didn't know French. If he did, he claimed he'd have actually read one of the books, though Robin said the actual chances of that happening were really low.

"Guys," Mike hissed at the pair, who turned away from their fruitless search to find books in English. "Come on, it's working."

They all ran to the computer where Robin stood, blocking it from the view of people around them. Robin clicked on the icon that came up with the drive and at first the screen was black, then shakily pulled into focus. They could see that it was being placed in a pocket, moving shakily with whoever was holding it.

They saw Brenner walking around, shaking hands with the camera holder with a grin. There was no audio, but it didn't seem necessary. They saw people filing around as Brenner guided the camera holder to an open room. 

"El," Mike whispered, seeing El sitting in an empty room, seemingly unconscious. There was an IV tube in her arm.

The pair of the camera holder and Brenner stood there for a few minutes, and they assumed that they were conversing but couldn't tell due to the lack of audio. Then, they walked down a hallway to a room where there were four doors and then a large cage.

Brenner nodded to two men, who pulled a person from one of the cells. They threw him into the cage, where he started pounding on the bars. The teenagers could tell he was screaming, even without the audio.

Then, another door was opening, and something crawled out.

"The Demogoron," Will whispered, seeing the monster crawl out. "Zack wasn't lying."

"They found a way to replicate it," Mike said, absentmindedly grabbing Will's hand, before realizing and pulling away.

"That guy said they didn't need the gate to do it, so how-" Robin began, only to be cut off by someone yelling behind them.

"Qu'est-ce que tu fais?!" a lady yelled, glaring at the group. (I don't know French, this is google translate I'm sorry)

"Projet scolaire," Robin said with a smile, unplugging the flash drive and leaving the library seconds later.

"Zack is trying to help. Or, was, before he died. We need to get this drive to Richie," Mike said, taking it from Robin and putting it in his pocket.

"What if the Hive-" Will began, but didn't get a chance to keep speaking.

"Finds you? Then that'd be real shitty," came an annoyed voice from behind them.

All four shipped around to see Eddie wearing a hoodie to conceal his face, a girl with blonde hair and hazel eyes standing beside him.

"Eddie?" Mike asked, feeling relieved. If Eddie was there, Richie had to be nearby.

"Come on, the Hive is all over this damn country," Eddie snarled, turning around.

The Hawkins group followed without hesitation, though Robin and Steve didn't fully trust Eddie. They didn't know him, having only met him once months ago.

They all ran toward a car, and Eddie opened the door, telling them to get inside. Once they did, the girl threw on her seatbelt and started driving.

Richie sat in the back of the car, smirking when they got in. "Long time no see, Mikey," he said, grateful his brother was okay.

"Hey, Rich," Mike said leaning in the back to hug his brother. "Are you gonna tell me why you're wanted by the government?"

"Are you gonna tell me why the hell you're in France?" Richie shot back, knowing that it couldn't just be a coincidence.

Mike tossed him the flash drive. "Might want to check that there's no tracker on this. Zack Denbrough gave it to us."

"What?" Eddie asked, leaning over the seat to look at the twins. "He gave you something and you didn't immediately get rid of it?!"

"Calm down, Kaspbrack. He gave it to us and died minutes after. Gave some speech about how this was too far out of his comfort zone and how he was just trying to change the way the country was ran and that Brenner's doing something worse. We watched it."

Richie nodded and plugged it in, watching the video that the others had watched not thirty minutes before. He also scanned it for trackers and explosives, but it was clean.

"Seems like he was telling the truth," Richie said.

The video was unsettling, seeing El in captivity and a man be torn apart by a monster, but it was proof that there was something worse. Mike explained the monster was the same one they had faced in the past, and how he didn't know their plan for it.

He was cut off when Lina screamed loudly from the front of the vehicle. All of the passengers looked up and they almost died of fear.

"Guess they found a plan for it," Richie murmured, though his joke wasn't appreciated by the group.

The monster had been released and was running straight at their car, its teeth gleaming in the sun.