• The Best Hargrove • Steve Harrington x Reader •

Chapter Ten

"The mind flayer, it built this monster in Hawkins" Mike explained. "And that's just one tiny piece of it" Nancy added.

"How big is this thing?" Hopper asked, pacing back in forth around the fountain you all sat at. "It's big" Jonathan replied. "Thirty feet at least.."

"Yeah.. it sort of destroyed your Cabin.." Hopper looked pissed now. Lucas mouthed a 'sorry'. You knew this thing was big, but you had never seen it for yourself so hearing the size according to Jonathan made your eyes the size of golfballs. "Okay, so, just to be clear, this big fleshy monster thing that tried to hurt El is some kind of gigantic.. weapon?" Steve asked. "Yes," Nancy agreed.

"But instead of like, screws and metal, the mind flayer made its weapon out of.. melted people?" he continued, looking really disgusted. "Yes, exactly" Nancy added. She looked like she was getting annoyed. "Oh, okay yeah, I'm.. just makin' sure.."

"Are we sure this thing is still out there? Still alive?" Joice queried, clearly unsure and doubtful of this whole situation. "El beat the shit out of it but, yeah, it's still alive" Max confirmed, Joyce looked confused, afraid almost. I mean, who wouldn't be afraid if the thing that tried to kill her son was back for more?

"But if we close the gate again-" Will started. "Cut the brain from the body" Max added. "And kill it, theoretically.." Lucas finished.

The group stayed silent for a few seconds, all in deep thought before the same bearded man rushed back waving papers in the air. "Yoo-hoo, yoo-hoo!" he called. He signalled you all to follow him.

He smashed the papers onto a table and pointed at the drawings. It looked a lot like that Russian base, maybe that's what it was? "Okay, this is what Alexei called 'the Hub', now, the Hub takes us to the vault room" he explained, tapping his finger on the same spot throughout that whole sentence. "Okay, but where's the gate?" Hopper interrogated.

"Right here. I don't know the scale on this, but I think it's fairly close to the vault room, maybe.. fifty feet or so" he continued, placing his finger on different parts of the drawing, until Erica stepped in, and you already knew where this was going.

"More like five hundred" she spoke up, walking closer to the table and leaning on it. "What, you're just gonna waltz in there like it's commie Disneyland or something?" she sassed.

"I'm sorry, who are you..?" the man asked, looking around the room for an answer. "Erica Sinclair, who are you?"

"Murray... Bauman?" he stood straight up, looking down at Erica.

"Listen, Mr. Bunman, I'm not trying to tell you how to do things, but I've been down in that shit hole for twenty-four hours, and with all due respect," she pointed to everyone in the room. "You do what this man tells you, you're all gonna die."

"I'm sorry, why is this four-year-old speaking to me??" he really did not know what was coming for him. "Uh, I'm ten you bald bastard!" she insulted, placing her hands on her hips. "Erica!" Lucas called. "Just the facts!"

"She's right, you're all gonna die but you don't have to.. excuse me, may I?" Dustin stepped in, moving closer to Murray and the table. "Please" he smiled.

Dustin sat down on the chair, flipping through the pages. "See this room here? This is a storage facility" he circles the room depicted using a pencil. "There's a hatch under here that feeds into their underground ventilation system. That will lead you to the base of the weapon" he continues, drawing a line from one room to the other, which had that giant machine and the gate.