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Brooke Henderson was furious—furious didn’t even begin to cover what she was feeling as she sat in the dark corner of Dustin’s bedroom, waiting. The clock glowed, it was 10pm. Rain tapped against the window. When Dustin finally crept inside, soaked and trying to be quiet, he nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw her silhouette on his bed.
“Oh shit,” he muttered under his breath.
“Where the hell have you been, Dustin?” Brooke whisper-yelled, standing up, she was dressed for a bed with pink stripped Pajamas set. “Do you know what time it is? I told you to stay home.”
He refused to meet her eyes, shifting and he was dripping on the carpet floor.
“If you don’t tell me exactly what you were doing out in the rain,” she warned, “I’m waking Mom up and telling her you snuck out.”
“We… we went looking for Will,” he mumbled.
Brooke stared at him in disbelief. “Are you fucking kidding me? You went searching in the dark without an adult? What if the man who took him grabbed you too? Did you even think about that?” she whisper yelled , didn’t want to wake up their mother, she was losing her mind hearing the words spilling out of Dustin’s mouth.
When she found out, that Will Byers was missing, she couldn’t stop her imagination running wild, how cit could have been Dustin and was the kidnapper tracking him too
Dustin stayed silent, shoulders hunched.
“That’s it. I’m getting Mom,” she snapped, moving toward the door. “You’ve been taking advantage of me. I’m done covering for you.”
“Wait! Don’t tell her, please,” Dustin begged.
Brooke stopped, her anger cracking. “Do you know how scared I’ve been? I couldn’t stop thinking—what if whoever took Will tries to take you too? What would Mom do? What would I do?” Her voice broke, and tears spilled over.
“I’m sorry, Brooke,” Dustin whispered, hugging her tightly.
She held him just as tight before pulling back and wiping her face. “Last warning. If you pull something like this again, I’m done.”
She turned to leave.
“Wait,” Dustin said quickly. “There’s more.”
He told her about the girl they’d found—a bald girl in the woods, wearing a Benny’s Burgers T-shirt stained with blood. He explained how she barely spoke, how she was hiding in Mike’s basement, how she seemed… strange.
“If Mike’s plan goes well, fine,” Brooke said after listening. “But if anything feels off, I’m stepping in.”
“But the Party—”
“Screw the Party, Dustin. This is serious.”
And it was serious. Benny Hammond had supposedly killed himself, and Brooke didn’t believe that for a second. Dustin had mentioned the girl wore a Benny’s shirt. That was too much of a coincidence.
After school the next day, Brooke biked straight to Mike’s house. The girl was still there.
The boys told her everything—that the girl had powers, that she knew Will, that she could move things with her mind.
At this point, Brooke was willing to believe them.
“Do you believe us?” Dustin asked cautiously.
She nodded. “Yes. I do.”
She slipped out before Karen Wheeler could catch her, and the next day she joined the boys behind the school to search for Will.
At school, Nancy stopped her in the hallway.
“Have you seen Barb?”
Brooke frowned. “No.”
Nancy walked away, worry etched across her face. Brooke didn’t understand why Nancy had asked her. They barely knew each other outside of shared classes, then realized she was asking everyone. The last Brooke had heard, Barb had been at Steve Harrington’s party through a grapevine. In Brooke’s mind, Steve Harrington was still a grade-A douchebag.
She pushed that aside and focused on the boys.
She walked beside El while the boys argued ahead. El led them toward Will’s house, and another scuffle broke out. Brooke was trying to mediate when police cars sped past. The boys immediately decided to follow.
Brooke felt less like a participant and more like a babysitter trying to keep them alive.
When they reached the quarry and saw police pulling a child’s body from the water, Brooke’s stomach dropped. She covered Dustin and Lucas’s eyes, but Mike shoved her away and ran off, screaming at El.
Later, Lucas offered to walk El back to Mike’s house.
“You sure you’ve got her?” Brooke asked him quietly.
He nodded.
That night Dustin crawled into Brooke’s bed and fell asleep in her arms. Her heart ached for Will.
The next day, school buzzed with the news: Will Byers was dead. Barb was missing after a party at Steve Harrington’s house. Teenagers whispered wild theories. Police suspected Barb had run away. Brooke didn’t buy it. Barb wasn’t the running-away type. As an introvert herself, Brooke recognized another one. Barb had loving family, who adored her. She didn’t seem like someone who would just disappear.
At lunch, Dustin found Brooke sitting outside in the sitting parking lot as the school was getting louder just like her mind, she needs time to think.
“Will’s alive,” he gasped as he ran from middle schhol to high school looking for her
“What?” Brooke asked in shock, “How..Where?” she fumbled with asking the right question
“I heard him. We heard him, EL used her powers, we heard him through the ham radio in AV Club. He was talking to Mrs. Byers.”
“You brought El to school?” she whisper yelled, checking to see if someone was eavesdropping their conversation, “Don’t joke about that,” Brooke warned sharply. “That’s not something you prank me about.”
“Listen, we got in covered, nobody knows, I mean Mr. Clarke caught us, We told she was Mike’s Swedish cousin. Oh, she made Troy pee in his pants” Dustin said
“DUSTIN HENDERSON” Brooke yelled, a few head turned her way, she cupped her mouth surprised by her own reaction
“Listen, You said you trust us,” Dustin insisted. “Trust me. I’m not lying. Will is alive”
“I swear to God, Dustin—”
“Yeah, yeah, you’ll smother me in my sleep,” he finished, repeating her usual threat.
That evening, Brooke sneaked back into Mike’s basement. Dustin had a theory about a gate—about another dimension the boys were calling the Upside Down. How to look for them and they planned to search for it after Will’s funeral.
At the funeral, Brooke peeled away from the crowd. If Will was alive, there was no point in mourning him. Instead, she sat in front of her father’s grave and talked quietly, asking him for guidance. Her mother later told her the Sinclairs were offering them a ride home since she had to return to work.
After changing, Brooke and Dustin biked back to Mike’s house and set out with the others to search for the gate. Hours passed. They were exhausted. Dustin realized they were going in circles.
Another argument broke out—this time physical. Before Brooke could intervene, El shoved Lucas hard with her powers. He hit his head on the ground.
Lucas kept brushing her off when she tried to check him.
“Shut up and stay still, Sinclair,” Brooke snapped. “I swear I’ll ask Erica to smother you in your sleep.”
That worked. Nothing scared Lucas more than his little sister.
Once Brooke confirmed he wasn’t bleeding, they realized El had run off. It was getting dark. Everyone was angry and tired.
The next morning Dustin was gone before Brooke woke up. As she biked toward the Wheeler house, she noticed several Department of Energy vans speeding in the same direction. She slowed and watched from a distance as men in suits stepped out.
Her stomach dropped.
She spotted Dustin, Mike, and El sneaking away from the basement door.
“Shit,” she breathed. The bad men. The ones El had warned about.
They pedaled hard as a car chased them. Another van barreled toward them from the opposite direction. Brooke thought they were done for—
Until the van suddenly lifted into the air and flipped, crashing down and blocking the road.
“Holy shit!” Brooke yelled, exhilarated.
It felt like a scene from one of her books. She stopped believing in magic or supernatural stuff, when her father told her that tooth fairy, easter bunny and Santa don’t exist. Now she was harboring a fugitive with superpowers.
They regrouped with Lucas and fled to the junkyard. Helicopters circled overhead. They hid inside an old broken bus, huddled together in the dark.
They didn’t know how long they stayed there before Nancy’s voice crackled through the radio, followed by Chief Hopper’s. Brooke wanted to respond, but Dustin insisted they couldn’t trust anyone. Mike looked at her helplessly.
She nodded at him.
He reached for the radio.
Soon enough, just as Dustin had predicted, armed men began searching the junkyard. El buried her face in Brooke’s chest. Dustin pressed against her back. Mike and Lucas flanked them.
Then they heard fighting.
Chief Hopper appeared in their line of sight.
Relief flooded Brooke’s body. Hopper looked shocked to see her among the kids, but he didn’t argue. He loaded them into his truck and drove straight to Will’s house.
Brooke swore under her breath when she stepped inside and saw Christmas lights covering the walls and ceiling. Nancy, Jonathan, and Mrs. Byers were already there.
The boys began explaining everything they knew. El clung to Brooke, watching the adults warily.
El tried to look for Barb and Will. At this point, Barb’s disappearance had to be connected to the Upside Down as well, but El was unsuccessful. Everyone felt deflated and broken. After a quick bathroom break, El offered to try again.
“ I can look for them in the bath,” she said.
Dustin immediately phoned his science teacher, Mr. Clarke, to get information on how to build a sensory deprivation tank. He coaxed his teacher into giving him everything he needed to know, and once he hung up, he quickly made a list.
“We need salt. Lots of it,” Dustin said.
“How much?” Brooke asked.
“Fifteen hundred pounds,” he replied.
“The school,” Hopper said, snapping his fingers.
Everyone loaded into the two cars and drove to the middle school. They split into groups of two: Mike, El, and Joyce went to find goggles; Brooke and Nancy were on water flow duty; Dustin and Lucas handled water temperature; Hopper and Jonathan were in charge of the salt.
They worked as a team, surprisingly, they were a good team, most of them, never spoke more than greeting and soon everything was ready. Brooke remained quiet, speaking to Nancy only when necessary. Once the bath was prepared, Joyce and Brooke helped El settle into it. When El announced that Barb was dead, Nancy broke into sobs, her distress nearly pulling El under during the process. Joyce quickly consoled her while El searched for Will. She found him, and soon everyone could hear his pleas for help crackling through the radio.
Not long after, Hopper and Joyce headed back to the lab to find Will in the Upside Down. Once they pinpointed his location, Dustin, Lucas, Mike, and El stayed inside the gym while the teenagers lingered in the school corridor. Brooke couldn’t help but notice how close Nancy and Jonathan seemed. She knew Nancy was dating Steve. Even if he could be an asshole, he didn’t deserve betrayal like that.
Nancy wanted revenge for Barb’s death. She wanted to lure the monster out, kill it, and create a safe passage for Hopper and Joyce. Jonathan agreed, and so did Brooke, to get rid of this monster once and for all. They set out for the Byers’ house, making a quick stop at the police station to pick up weapons.
They managed to lure the creature. They fought it. They bled. Brooke’s leg was scraped by the monster’s sharp talon. They rushed back to the middle school, only to find an ambulance outside. Someone had been taken away, their face was covered by white cloth. Dustin was furious.
“Where the hell were you?” he yelled when he saw Brooke, not seeming to care that she was bleeding.
“I was so scared something had happened. You left us all alone. Nobody was there to protect us,” Dustin cried, tears streaming down his face.
“He died. He is dead because of us… because of me,” Dustin broke down.
“Who died, Dustin?” Brooke asked, suddenly worried about Lucas and Mike.
“Steve,” he whispered.
“Who?” Brooke pressed.
“Steve Harrington. He came here looking for Nancy, bruised and beaten. He wanted to leave, but bad men found us. I asked him to stay. I begged him to stay. I wouldn’t have done it if I’d known where you were… or if you had been there. Now he’s dead,” Dustin wailed.
Brooke’s heart clenched. The blood loss made her dizzy, her vision swimming. The world tilted, and everything went black.