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The fourth of July was one of many things.
One: a fun day for families to get together and have barbecues and shoot fireworks and laugh.
But, for Beth, it was her nightmare. But, she didn't know that.
•
Beth's shaky breaths came out in small huffs, her hands still shaking from the episode she had in the void. Max's arm was resting across her shoulder for comfort, trying to somehow calm the teenager.
Eventually, Beth's breath slowed and she was able to get a few words out that weren't choked and stuttered on.
"He told me he was building something. And it was all for me." Beth told the kids who were patiently waiting for her to calm herself down enough to tell them what happened, the sound of the booming fireworks from the county fair a few miles away bursting through Hopper's cabin in small pops and booms.
"But, I don't get it. El was the one who closed the gate last year." Beth scrunched her eyebrows in confusion as she spoke. "Why do they want me?"
Will sighed, looking up from nervously playing with his hands. "You escaped the link of the flayed. The only reason I'm not a target is because you broke from the chain and gained powers that were strong enough to stop a few flayed minds. He knows you're powerful."
"But why me?" Beth asked, still confused.
"Because, with what you're able to do, he knows your powers are stronger than El's." Nancy explained, grasping the concept of why the mind flayer and his army was coming after her.
"El's powers took time to develop. It took her entire life to figure out how to control her power, and she's still working on it. You? Your powers came within days of you breaking from the flayed. And you're developing more, stronger, powers, right?"
Beth nodded in response.
Nancy snapped her fingers. "That's why. He knows you're powerful enough to stop him completely. Not just shutting the gate, not just stoping it. Killing it."
Beth sighed shakily, looking over to El. "What am I gonna do?"
"You have to figure out what else you can do. Then, we can try to save who we can and stop the mind flayer from killing anybody else." El replied, patting Beth's shoulder comfortingly.
