anonymous131415
Declared dead at birth, Joyce Byers' daughter vanished into the hands of Dr. Martin Brenner, raised in silence and shadows as 005-a child shaped into a weapon, tested beyond her limits, taught to obey, and trained to fight a war she never chose. She was told she was special. She was told she existed for a reason. She was never told she was loved.
At twelve years old, she escaped.
When Joyce finds a strange, quiet girl wandering the streets of Hawkins-frightened, guarded, and insisting she has no family-she sees the impossible: the same eyes, the same instincts, the same pieces of her son Jonathan reflected back at her. Joyce names her Mallory, unaware of the truth her daughter is hiding... and the number etched into her skin.
Starting over isn't easy. Hawkins High whispers. Teachers watch her too closely. Mallory doesn't understand how to be a normal teenager, only how to survive. But in the noise of the world, two unexpected people see past her silence-Robin Buckley and Eddie Munson, who welcome her without questions she isn't ready to answer.
As old experiments resurface, secrets strain the Byers family, and the past refuses to stay buried, Mallory must confront what she was made to be-and decide whether she's more than the weapon Brenner tried to create.
Because monsters don't always come from the Upside Down.
Sometimes, they wear lab coats.