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The extension of the Don’t Be Stupid rules applied to everyone, and Mike thought it the same as swallowing rocks.
He knew El had been bored out of her mind when they were kids and she was on lockdown, but this kind of patience took a special kind of control that he wasn’t sure he had, or could be cured by her existence alone, or by loving her harder.
It was so annoying.
1) Keep your head down.
2) Follow the rules and blend in.
3) Stay focused on the next crawl.
How was Hopper, the Chief of All Things Stupid and Reckless, supposed to tell the four — basically the five of them — not to do anything when all their lives, they’d done something? And it’s always worked. Things were just different because of the armed soldiers or the cameras or the metal grates covering the literal portal to an evil dimension?
No. Certainly not.
Mike couldn’t stand this bullshit. And his tolerance was getting slimmer each day.
“And then Andy tried to break into Dustin’s locker.” Will’s voice suddenly stopped sounding like background cafeteria static, everything hitting Mike at once. “…it was bad.”
“He’s bad. The asshole thinks that everything in the world can be solved with fists, so that’s his problem,” Dustin said, tapping his Sprite against the table like it was a toy. He was wearing a white hat with drawn-on red and black devils, clearly as a sign of protest. “That’s why I hope he breaks them.”
“Dustin.”
“What?”
If things were normal, the incredulity in Dustin’s tone would make Mike want to intervene, but this time around, his brain felt too filled with mush to even try, and besides, what was the point? Dustin wouldn’t listen.
There was something about today that just wouldn’t settle.
“Guys! Guys, guys, guys, guys-!” Lucas nearly collided with the table, a stack of papers flying wildly in his hand that made Mike think he was about to announce that he had failed a test or something. Lucas was completely out of breath, but his hands wouldn’t let go of the papers, yet before any of them could even ask, the portable radio started to respond first.
“Good afternoon, friends! This is Rockin’ Robin, bringing back to you our awesome tunes of today!” They heard a rubber chicken in the background, which made Dustin roll his eyes. “And what a special gift I have for you, my lovely fans. Not only is this song one of my personal favorites, but rated on a scale of one to ten, I’d give it a resounding Eleven, because who doesn’t love a good double meaning of a song that literally lets you know that The Police are watching you.”
And just like that, The Police’s Every Breath You Take started to play through the radio’s speaker.
Mike jumped. He was never a big fan of this system, because the anticipation set him on edge constantly, like a pit in his stomach, and interrupted his sleep sometimes, but that wasn’t the reason this time.
It was their song.
He and El’s.
The first time they danced, the second time they kissed, the third time he admitted to himself that he was in love. The other boys started to scramble to get a notepad, but Mike couldn’t bring himself to move until Dustin shook him. “Did you not hear what she said?”
“Wha-?”
“Before anyone grabs their beloved, you should know, while mistaken to be a song about that sweet, sweet romance, Every Breath You Take is actually a song about obsession and stalking, meaning our man Sting is really looking for that girl here…totally creepy, huh? Probably the kind of creepy that would make The Police put up missing posters to really find that girl that got away, but hey, good on her because I would not want my face plastered across every surface in our town. Also, a fun fact about the Police to woo your friends, did you know that they played at a sold-out concert at a Californian college campus in 1979 for three thousand dollars per body! Oops, sorry, guys, I mean-, for an audience of three thousand people for only a couple of dollars? Silly me, too much coffee today!”
A laugh track cut through Robin’s voice next, undoubtedly Steve's doing, but Mike couldn’t laugh. Someone at the next table did. Someone who didn’t know what this actually meant.
“Alright, that’s all for now. I will be back with some more 'Robin rocks!' before all you schoolkids get out of class, just so you have the perfect amount of melodies while you head to all your afternoon hangouts. Plan to go shopping, or to the arcade, or maybe even that special someone’s house, but until then, you are dismissed!”
The music got louder, and Robin’s voice stopped, but Mike still couldn’t move. His mind was scrambling to put together what he had just heard, but even that had to be wrong…
“That’s what I was trying to tell you guys,” Lucas whispered, voice dropping to an impossible decibel. He laid out the papers on the table, trying to cover them with his back as Will slid across to cover the other side, and staring at what was in front of him, for Mike, made everything stop all at once.
MISSING TEEN.
Name: Jane Hopper.
Then, he snatched one up, eyes scanning every little word as his mouth said the same thing over and over again, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.”
“Wait-, is she actually missing?” Dustin asked, taking one of the papers himself. "No way Hopper does this."
“No, Nancy said Murray saw her this morning at the drop,” Lucas said. “But do you know what this means?”
“Military’s looking for her,” Will finished. “Or, more than before.”
“Jesus Christ.”
Dustin’s fingers drummed against the table. “Should we call the number? Try to defer them?”
“They’re probably recording everything,” Lucas replied. “They’d have our voices, Hop wouldn’t want us to.”
Will ran a shaky hand through his hair. “This is bad. This is-, this is so bad.”
“It’s a trap,” Mike muttered, almost tearing the paper with how roughly he was holding it. “They’re baiting the town. She’s not missing. She’s hiding. And if we saw these-”
“-then everyone else will too,” Dustin said.
Mike started pacing, a nervous habit he’d forgotten to try to fix. “Oh shit. Shit, shit, shit. What if someone recognizes her? Hopper. Everyone knows that name; they think he’s dead, but everyone knows that name.”
“Could this reach Lenora?” Lucas asked. Will shook his head, but that didn’t look like he believed it completely. "How far does a missing persons' thing go?"
Mike’s pace suddenly stopped with this weird, liminal quiet, like his body had moved before his mind had caught up. The boys went silent. “They’re gonna find her.”
Dustin glanced at Will and Lucas. “No, they’re not.”
“They will. They have everything. Money, flyers, weapons. Eyes on every road, every window,” His voice cracked. “They don’t know she’s being hunted, a three-thousand-dollar reward, what the hell? They’ll think they’re helping!”
Lucas reached up, his hand against Mike’s back. “We’re not gonna let that happen. Hopper’s not gonna let that happen.”
Mike considered this, just for a second.
Then his body started to move again, and he was grabbing his backpack and heading for the busy cafeteria exit.
“El, please stop.”
El did not stop. Wasn’t planning on it, didn’t want to, and neither Hopper nor Joyce could force her unless she was bleeding on the ground and couldn’t walk. In theory, at least. "No."
Joyce grabbed her arm, holding her still. “We aren’t going to reset the course, then. Not like this.”
“Fine. I’ll do it myself.”
“You’re going to make it worse,” Hopper insisted, trying to block her path, the sun casting shadows of the first aid kit on the dead grass.
El stood up anyway, shaking and gradual like a baby deer, trying to force all her weight on her good ankle. “It’s sprained, not twisted. I landed wrong, that’s all.”
“Yeah, and another wrong land ends up with it twisted, and then what? You know we can’t take you to a doctor.”
“Murray can.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Okay, I’ll fix it then. I’ve done it before, remember? Starcourt?”
“If you think-,”
Joyce held up her hands between them, staring down at Hopper first and pointing away from the two of them before turning all her attention back to El, hands on her shoulders. “Eleven. I am begging you to stop before you make it worse.”
It wouldn't get worse. Honestly, El couldn’t decide whether to cry or scream at her. The pain in her ankle wasn’t even the worst of it because that title went to the pressure under her skin, telling her over and over again that she had to move. She had to do something, and not just sit here like this was a sports game she could tap out of, especially not after what she heard over the radio, and even more so, not after Henry was still dormant. “Stop what, exactly?”
“This training. Hurting yourself over it. If, and it’s a very large if, Vecna shows up on the next crawl, do you really want to fight him with a sprained ankle?”
El stared at Hopper. “I wouldn’t really have a choice, I’d just do it.”
Hopper rolled his eyes, forcing Joyce to step in again. “Okay, look. How about we just go back to the cabin, ice your ankle, figure out what the hell is going on with these posters, and go from there?”
They didn't give her a choice.
They made it back to the cabin by mid-afternoon, Hopper basically carrying El throughout the tunnels the whole time, even if she insisted she could walk. It wasn’t even that bad of a sprain, in her opinion. She just miscalculated the final jump over the bus.
Joyce helped El to the couch (not that El asked) and handed her a plastic bag of half-melted ice wrapped in an old T-shirt. “Keep that there for about fifteen minutes. We’ll be right back.”
She kissed her head and vanished behind the bedroom door with Hopper, undoubtedly to argue in that calm way they do: about what to do, how to do it, and conveniently, leave El out of everything.
And she just sat there.
The cabin had lost its charm a long time ago. It was still her home, but El couldn’t focus on the love in it anymore, not the smells, or the forest line, or the sounds. She wasn’t sure if this was just her imagination or if the Gate had driven them away, but critters hardly came by anymore. The smoke in the air was permanent (and probably super unhealthy), and it wasn’t the nice woodland kind that suggested someone was hosting a campfire. And inside the cabin, even if people kept coming in and out now because the group was using it as a hub, constantly felt too empty.
El sighed, leaning back against the couch. She wasn’t stupid. She knew they were scared. But the scariest thing was that she wasn’t anymore. Not since the crawl first began, or the red mist, or since she saw what Henry really was. She was annoyed, if anything. He was too patient; he hadn’t moved or struck. Will hadn’t felt anything, and Max…
Well, Max hadn’t given them anything.
And that had to mean he was planning something. That meant this waiting, this bullshit waiting, wasn’t safety, it was bait. El had lived in enough cages in her life to know when a trap was being set, and she knew how Henry worked. That's why she couldn't risk not doing anything.
The static on the radio cracked once, loud enough to make her jump, and then smoothed out again. It started to play some old forgotten song with too many drums and not enough words. Probably something Hopper liked. Wasn’t Robin. No updates.
And then, she started to think about Mike. He hadn’t stopped coming over either, but he’s been more attached to her side since the crawls started. She’d tried to pretend not to notice, because she couldn’t afford to be distracted, but he helped more than he knew. Especially with hope. She could’ve used his voice right now. So when the knock hit the door, then again, a little more rushed and a little more panicked, she knew she partially got her wish.
She hit the cabin floor with her own fist, C plus I in Morse. Come In.
Mike ran in, slamming the door even though El knew he hadn’t come alone; it was the middle of the day, after all. His hoodie was half-zipped, and his hair was wind-thrashed, even though he took the tunnels. Flyer still gripped in his hand. He looked like he’d just sprinted five miles and lost his voice in the middle of it.
“I came as fast as I could. Did you hear? Are you okay?” he said, walking over to her side, then getting a full view of her ankle. “I-, oh my God, are you okay?”
El shrugged. “It’s fine.”
“That’s not fine,” he said, crouching next to her. “That looks-,”
“It’s sprained,” she cut him off. “Just sprained.”
Mike opened his mouth, then closed it. Then looked back at the door like he expected Joyce to materialize and confirm it. She obviously didn’t, so he looked at El again and sat down on the floor beside her knees. He hadn’t even taken off his backpack. “They’re everywhere,” he said after a moment. “The flyers. I counted at least eight walking to the shelter. They’re literally everywhere.”
“I know.”
“Lucas found them at school. Robin warned us-,” he stopped himself, realizing how breathless he sounded. “It’s real.”
“I know,” El mumbled again, and softer this time. “I heard it too.”
Mike’s shoulders dropped like someone had popped a hole in his back. He pulled the crumpled flyer from his pocket and flattened it with shaking fingers.
Reward for information leading to the location of missing child. A reward totaling $3000.00 will be PAID for all leads which result in the location of Jane Hopper or her body. Last seen walking on the sidewalk near Hawkins High School where she mysteriously disappeared that afternoon, June 13. 1986. Contact the Hawkins Police Department if you have any information regarding the whereabouts of this person. Call 765-303-2020.
“We were on the baseball field,” El said. “June 13th, that’s…,”
“Six days after your birthday.”
El looked down. “That’s fitting. The world always does this to me, why am I surprised they figured that out now?”
“That’s just one thing,” Mike tried, but El steamrolled right over it.
“You know that’s my mugshot, right?” she pointed at the photo, her finger hitting the tip of her forehead, before a horrible realization settled in. “That’s-...oh my God.”
Mike nearly jerked up by her sudden change of voice, panic filling his own. “What? What is it?”
“Everything from-, they have everything,” The words stopped forming, but her brain was screaming.
He reached up, grabbing her hand to try to calm her. “What do you mean?”
“They have everything,” El repeated. “My fingerprints. Anything from Lenora Hills, they have. All the information from the school, the house, everything. They could’ve gotten my height from the police booking or from the wall in the hallway that Joyce marked. On the trim by the laundry room. They know how tall I am.”
Her voice broke on the word tall like it was a confession. “They know everything.”
“Okay…,” Mike started, like he was trying to figure out what to say next until it clicked. “Okay, maybe that’s true, maybe it’s not. What we do know is that we can stop them.”
“How?”
“Take the posters down. Make our own narrative, gossip, whatever. The military won’t know where it started, we can be discreet about throwing away the posters. It says the last time you were seen was two weeks ago. Isn’t that a cold case now? Or, they don’t think they will find you if you were gone for that long. School’s about to be out in a couple days. We can fix this.”
El glanced down at the paper again, eyes narrowing on the second sentence in particular: A reward totaling $3000.00 will be PAID for all leads which result in the location of Jane Hopper or her body.
“Or her body,” El muttered, looking back up at him. “Dead? I’d have to be dead? What would the military want with me if I’m dead? Confirmation? Would you tell people I was dead?”
“No,” Mike said immediately. “That’s not-, that’s not what that means.”
El didn’t look convinced. “That’s what it says. They don’t care which one. Alive or dead. Either way, they win.”
Mike shook his head. “No. Listen to me.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, forcing her to meet his eyes. “We don’t need to focus on that. You can’t let them get in your head like that. Leave that to us. I know I ran too fast to get here, but Dustin, and Lucas, and Will are right behind me. They’ll be here, and so will everyone from WSQK. We create pandemonium. Throw the military off, defeat the whole purpose of the posters in the first place. You don’t have to be dead to be a mystery.”
El didn’t believe him. She wanted to. There was something about his voice that sounded so sure, like this plan was bulletproof when she knew it couldn’t be that easy. Her eyes met his again, glassy from tears building. “Are you sure?”
Mike kissed her hand, still not moving his eyes from hers, comforting her the best way he knew how. “I promise.”
Hopper was very against Mike’s plan.
Mike still did it anyway.
His fireplace was lit every single night, papers crinkling on the logs, and no one questioned a thing.