Strange Love • Steve Harrington

Battle At Starcourt

"Aunt Joyce!" The boys stood by her as I ran to her. I gave her the hug.

"What happened to you?" She cried into my shoulder.

"Im okay now." I looked at her. "I told him." She looks at me. "I told Steve I like him."

"And you said that you wanted to wait." We chuckled.

"The Mind Flayer, it built this monster in Hawkins, to stop El, to kill her and pave a way into our world." Mike started to say.

"And it almost did. That was just one tiny piece of it."

"How big is this thing?" Aunt Joyce asked as we joined the conversation.

"It's big. Thirty feet, at least." My eyes widen.

"It sorta destroyed your cabin." Lucas said as he looked at Hooper. Hopper sighed. "Sorry."

"Okay, so, just to be clear, this this big fleshy spider thing that hurt El, it's some kind of gigantic weapon?" Steve asked.

"Yes."

"But instead of, like, screws and metal, the Mind Flayer made its weapon with melted people."

"Yes, exactly." My mouth dropped. Im sorry melted people?

"Yeah, okay. Yeah, I'm just making sure." Steve nodded.

"Are we sure this thing is still out there, still alive?" Aunt Joyce pointed out.

"El beat the shit out of it, but, yeah, it's still alive." Max said as she hugged my side.

"But if we close the gate again-"

"We cut the brain off from the body."

"And kill it. Theoretically."

"Yoo-hoo! Yoo-hoo!" We saw the bald man waving some papers in the air as he ran to us. "Okay, this is what Alexei called "the hub"." He puts the map on the table and showed us. "Now, the hub takes us to the vault room."

"Okay, where's the gate?"

"Right here. I don't know the scale on this, but I think it's fairly close to the vault room, maybe 50 feet or so."

"More like 500." Erica steps in. The Hop and the bald guy looked at her crazy. "What, you're just gonna waltz in there like it's commie Disneyland or something?"

"I'm sorry, who are you?" The bald man asked.

"Erica Sinclair. Who are you?" She pointed at him.

"Murray Bauman." He introduces himself.

"Listen, Mr. Bunman, I'm not trying to tell you how to do things, but I've been down in that shithole for 24 hours. And with all due respect, you do what this man tells you, you're all gonna die."

"I'm sorry, why is this four-year-old speaking to me?" Murray points at her.

"Um, I'm ten, you bald bastard!" We all stunned by the way Erica spoke to him. I mean it wasn't news for us, Robin, Steve, Dustin and I.