"I need your assistance with Subject Two," Dr. Brenner informed Sarah.

"Subject Two?" Sarah asked, still frozen to her spot by her younger self's door.

Dr. Brenner sighed and wiped his hand across his face. "Yes, Subject Two, the mind-reader and matter-manipulator," he said in exasperation. "She's turned Joey into a dog."

"Y-yes, Pa-Dr. Brenner, sir," Sarah stammered, just barely catching herself from calling him "Papa".

Dr. Brenner's eyebrow raised as he gave her a strange look. Sarah bit the inside of her lip, hoping that he'd let her slip-up slide, but she wasn't so lucky.

"What's your name?" Dr. Brenner asked, taking a few steps closer to Sarah.

"Sarah," Sarah answered immediately, wincing as she made yet another mistake. There was something about being back in his presence in the Lab that was making her uncharacteristically nervous. It didn't help that she still hadn't completely recovered from her realization that she couldn't change anything and that her life was seemingly predetermined. "Sarah Harrington, sir."

"Sarah?" Dr. Brenner asked, taking another few steps closer to Sarah.

Sarah instinctively tugged at her left sleeve to cover her tattoo, drawing Dr. Brenner's attention towards it.

"Show me your wrist," he demanded, now closing the space between them and trapping Sarah against the wall.

Sarah's mind and heart both raced in tandem as she tried to determine what to do. She struggled to focus on anything, making it very difficult to open a portal. Zapping Dr. Brenner with her electricity would temporarily incapacitate him, but she could hear other Lab personnel shuffling along the adjacent hallways. She wouldn't make it far. Dr. Brenner would immediately know that she was one of his subjects and the entire Lab would come down on her in a matter of minutes. She'd be a prisoner, yet again. 

"I've got an idea," James' voice informed her. 

Sarah instinctively pushed his voice to the back of her head, but part of it lingered. Despite the fact that she had told herself that she'd never use James' abilities again, they did present an ideal way out of her current predicament. 

Was it bad to use bad abilities against a bad person? 

"No."

Sarah wasn't entirely sure how to activate James' abilities since the first time had been an accident, but her gut guided her. She locked eyes with Dr. Brenner and focused on what she wanted him to do, repeating the instructions over and over in her head. 

It didn't happen at first, but after a few moments of intense concentration, Dr. Brenner backed away from Sarah with a vacant look in his eyes. He then slowly turned away from her and began to walk down the hallway. Sarah didn't breathe again until he had disappeared from sight, at which point she turned to face the wall to open a portal out of the Lab.

With Dr. Brenner gone, she was able to focus a little better, but she still felt a panic rising in her every time she heard movement nearby. Like always, she envisioned Hawkins, but like always, it took her anywhere but. Sarah didn't even look at the portal before she stumbled through to the other side. Anywhere was better than where she was. 

When the portal snapped shut behind her, Sarah lifted her head to take in her surroundings. She was both relieved and disappointed to find that she had ended up right back where she had started. 

Her bedroom in the Diagonal.

Sarah looked over to find that Diane was still standing in the same spot, waiting for her with open arms and a sympathetic smile.

Sarah wanted to be mad at Diane for proving her wrong. She wanted to throw things, break things. Scream until her lungs burst. But she was too tired to continue fighting the inevitable. 

So instead she rushed towards her mother and broke down in her arms. 

"But...that's not possible," Sarah muttered, staring off into the trees beyond Enzo's. "We killed them all."

"Maybe you missed one?" Steve offered, following her line of sight. "Or maybe it's a bear...like a really sick bear..."

Sarah neglected to answer and instead began to walk towards the source of the noise.

"So, we're just going to go straight towards it?" Steve called out to Sarah, hanging back by the car. When he still didn't get a response, he bit his lip, slapped his hands against his legs, and took off after Sarah. "Ten years later and I'm still following this girl into life-threatening situations," he muttered to himself.

Sarah had already made it into the trees by the time Steve caught up with her. She stood still, her ears perked and listening intently for any other noises. When she heard a ruffle of leaves twenty feet to her left, she immediately took off after it. 

"Hey, wait!" Steve called out breathlessly as she left him behind yet again. "Hold up!"

Steve nearly collided with Sarah when he caught up to her again and Sarah had to grab Steve to prevent him from dropping to the ground. With wide eyes, she put a finger to her mouth to signal to Steve to be quiet. Her finger then extended towards a small clearing before them where a lone creature was ruffling around in a bush. 

Crouched down, the creature didn't look much bigger than a dog, but when Steve accidentally stepped on a twig and alerted it to their presence, it elongated until it was taller than them. It's sharp claws swiped through the night air as it snapped its head to-and-fro to sniff out the source. 

"Stay back," Sarah whispered to Steve as she stepped out into the clearing.

"What are you doing?!" Steve whispered back. His hands instinctively clenched and unclenched, longing for the spiked bat he used to carry in his youth. 

Once Sarah was visible beneath the pale moon light that snuck through the thinning autumn branches, the Demogorgon turned its head towards her and let out a low growl. Sarah's hands lit up in a bright blue glow as strands of electricity flickered between her fingers. 

Sarah took an aggressive step towards the Demogorgon to unleash her electricity upon it, but as she did so, it cowered away from her. Surprised, Sarah's attack faltered for a split second before the electricity leapt from her fingers and wrapped around the Demogorgon, sending it to the ground in agonizing screams. It died only moments later, curled up in a fetal position.

Once Steve was confident that the Demogorgon was dead, he climbed out into the clearing and joined Sarah by her side. "Nicely done," Steve commended her. 

"Thanks," Sarah muttered absentmindedly, a perplexed look spanning her face as she stared down at the Demogorgon's fried corpse. 

"Is something wrong?" Steve asked, his eyes darting from Sarah to the Demogorgon and back. 

"That was...weird," Sarah answered after a few moments of silent contemplation.

"How do you mean?"

"It didn't attack," Sarah explained. "It cowered from me, like it was afraid. That's never happened before."

"Yeah, that is weird," Steve agreed, a similar look of confusion now settled on his features. 

"It looks like a Demogorgon..." Sarah muttered to herself, trying to understand it all. "But it didn't act like a Demogorgon..."

"What do you think this means?" Steve asked. "Is Hawkins in danger again?" 

"I don't know..." Sarah answered quietly, her eyes still glued to the Demogorgon. "But it's not something good."

★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★