Chapter 44

Sofia watched as Will frantically painted what he saw. Her nose wasn’t bleeding anymore, but it did hurt. Robin told her to be still.

And Sofia was still, but her mind was going a thousand miles per hour. It was nerve wracking to think Dustin was somewhere in the upside-down, maybe in danger, maybe dead already. Could the military have found them? What would they do if they did?

Would they hit him in search of answers, like it happened to her in ’85?

Robin and Joyce came back inside, after trying to contact the other group. “Anything?” Sofia asked, to which Robin shook her head.

Will kept on painting, too focused to notice all the stares. When he stopped, Joyce asked what it was.

“I don’t know, but I could feel it’s important to him. I had this feeling he didn’t want me there. I wasn’t supposed to see it” Will answered, slowly.

“You’ve never been this close to the hive mind before. I mean, that thing was, like, feet away. You jacked into it” Robin said, her theory proving to be more correct.

“But this never happened before, right? Like, at Starcourt, with the mindflayer, this didn’t happen. So why now? What’s changed?” Sofia asked, still puzzled, still confused about everything.

Will looked at her but hesitated with his words. 

“Holly. Where was Holly?” Joyce asked, remembering the girl.

Will started painting more, and then explained “She was attached to this… this spire. And she became a part of it somehow, like it was doing something to her. And… And there were others. There were three others”.

“Okay, right… Night one, Vecna kidnaps Holly. Night two, he takes three more” Robin said, thinking out loud, closer to the drawing, “If this is accurate, he’s coming for eight more, which brings him to a total of 12”.

“What does he want with them? And why kids?” Joyce asked, followed by another question from Erica, “And why 12?”.

“The clock” Sofia said, straight away, coming to some sort of realization. “Last year, he showed a clock to his victims. Don’t you remember? Max saw it at school. Maybe that’s his thing”.

“Maybe he is a clockmaker afterall” Robin joked, quietly, to which Sofia chuckled.

Will looked back at his painting, before saying “We have to stop him before he takes any more and buy Dustin and the others time to find this place, to find Holly”.

“If we can pinpoint his exact targets, we could get them out of Hawkins” Joyce suggested, and right after that Mike and Lucas showed up, panting.

“On the way here, we saw soldiers load Debbie Miller onto a bus with a bunch more kids. We followed them for two blocks more, and they loaded more kids onto it…” Mike explained, out of breath.

“Vecna’s not the only one that wants these kids” Joyce said, quietly, thinking out loud.

The group drove back to the Squawk. In the car, Robin hummed their song, their lullaby. Everything will be alright tonight. I will love you ’till I reach the end. I will see you in the sky.

She wished it was just them in the car, so she could put her hand in Sofia’s thigh and give her a careful kiss on her nose, to make her feel okay. But Derek and Erica were in there, so the song was their only form of affection.

When the kids left the car, Sofia searched frantically for a joint. She was hopeful that maybe one had fallen to the seats, or maybe under. “What are you looking for?” Robin asked, knowing already.

Sofia sighed. “A joint” she said, feeling ashamed, helpless, “I haven’t smoked all day, alright? And I got punched”.

“Fair enough” Robin said, recognizing the improvement. 

Just to her luck, Sofia found half a joint, celebrating with a squeal. Robin smiled at her, playfully rolling her eyes. 

It was 4am. The two girls exited the car and sat on the hood. “But you gotta share, okay?” Robin said, serious tone but a smile in her face.

Sofia chuckled while shaking her head. At least this way Sofia couldn’t really get stoned. 

And so they smoked, wishing time could stop. They watched the stars. Robin put her arm around Sofia, pulling her closer. “I think I’m going to call in sick” the shorter girl said, quietly.

“I think that’s a good idea” Robin said, after chuckling.

Half an hour later, they walked to the basement of the Squawk. Sofia took a nap while Robin ‘rested her eyes’.

When it was finally time, Sofia drove Erica to her post in the church after calling the hospital to inform she couldn’t go work today. When the blue eyed girl got back to the station, things were already moving.

“They’re taking them into a barracks second from the library” Erica said, focused.

Joyce grabbed an acrylic sheet and projected it. “The north tunnel of the MACZ runs right underneath the barracks” she said, pointing at it.

“If we’re right, the military is trying to protect these kids. So this barracks is gonna be heavily guarded. We have to dig up into the barracks, unnoticed, grab the kids, get them to Murray, smuggle them out of Hawkins” Mike said, adding layers of difficulty to their plan.

Sofia, leaning against the table in front of the projector, looked over to Robin to try and see if she has any plan, but the girl is deep in thought. “Dick” she muttered, zoned out.

“What?” Will and Sofia asked at the same time, though with very different expressions on their faces.

“What? Oh. Sorry. Did I say that out loud? I thought I was talking in my head. But you guys know Tom, Dick, and Harry, right? Seriously? None of you have seen The Great Escape?” Robin said, trying to put her thoughts into words.

“Ooh” Sofia said, realizing what Robin meant. Of course she’s seen the movie. They did so together.

Robin walks over to the table Sofia’s leaning against and sits down, embracing herself for a long explanation. “Basically, it’s about these POWs, right? And they’re stuck in a barracks just like this one. They need to escape, so they dig these tunnels, and they call their tunnels Tom, Dick, and Harry. They have to hide the tunnels from the Nazis. So they put Tom in this dark corner, and they put Harry under the stove, and they put Dick in the washroom. And personally, for us, I like Dick. Oh, um… Sorry. The washroom. I actually don’t even… Never mind”.

Sofia tries to hide her laugh, she really does, but it comes out in the form of a weird smirk, so she hides her face.

“Okay, say we go with Dick. How do we find the washroom? How do we get the kids to it?” Joyce asked.

“How do we know which kids are being targeted by Vecna?” Lucas added.

“We use an inside man, someone who could get into the barracks, measure the distance to the washroom, find out which kids have seen Mr. Whatsit, and somehow avoid the military all together” Mike explained.

“Someone that could just walk in, no questions asked” Sofia added, nodding, while her gaze falls under Derek.

They spent a few hours making up the plan, making sure it’d work. They contacted Murray, and stayed busy until after lunch time. 

Dustin, Dustin, Dustin. Was he okay? Was he safe? Why were they still there? Why haven’t they been able to contact them?

Sofia spent two hours on the van, trying to get a signal, to hear a voice, anything but static. But no. It remained radio silent.

Robin sat through it with Sofia, also nervous about the group.

Afterwards, Murray arrived with their requests. Sofia couldn’t still look at him properly. She barely remembered that one night but, after begging Robin to tell her what happened, she regretted every second of it.

But she also never apologized to him, knowing he’d just make a stupid joke or say something unnecessary. 

In that moment, Derek spoke through the walkie-talkie: he was in. The plan was going well.

Just a few minutes later, they started walking down the hill to the tunnels. Sofia walked quietly next to Robin, bumping shoulders every now and then.

God, Sofia wanted a joint so badly. Everything is so stressful.

She insisted Robin walked to the tunnel first. The two girls shared a look when they noticed how Will and Mike interacted. Oh, they knew.