The sun rose low over Hawkins, bathing the small town in a peaceful, almost serene glow. Ironic, Anna thought, given the havoc being wrought upon them with the disappearance of d'Artagnan, but the people of Hawkins were none the wiser, going about their morning in sweet, blissful ignorance.

Since discovering the disappearance of the baby Demogorgon, Steve, Dustin, and Anna had spent the night putting together a plan to trap Dart, after a trip to Bradley's Big Buy for enough meat to lure him across town, and gasoline for once they'd finally manage to catch him. Their friends were still missing in action, leaving the three of them alone to bait the small creature, and hope they'd be enough to take him down.

"You're sure this is going to work?" Anna asked, eyeing the boys skeptically from where she sat on the couch in the Hendersons' living room.

Despite having no luck finding Mews at Loch Nora the day before, her mother and Aunt Nora had gone back out first thing in the morning, in an attempt to hang as many posters around town as they could to get their cat home. It twisted at Anna's heartstrings to see her mother so broken up about their missing pet, especially while knowing the truth about the feline's fate, but she couldn't bear for Claudia to know about what had really happened to Mews.

"Do you have a better plan?" Dustin deadpanned, and Anna put her hands up in surrender, shaking her head.

"Sorry," she murmured.

"Try Roberts one more time," Steve suggested, reaching for where his bat rested against the wall near the front door. "Nobody was home at my house still, but maybe he might, and he can find Becca and Michelle."

"Good idea," Anna agreed, pulling herself off the couch as she reached for the phone against the wall, punching in the familiar number before resting the device against her ear.

"Hello?" a familiar voice answered on the second ring.

"Landon!" Anna exclaimed in relief. "Where the hell have you guys been?"

"Working?" he asked skeptically. "I pulled a double last night. What's the rush?"

"We don't have a lot of time, but I need you to get Becca and Michelle and meet us at the old junkyard this afternoon." Anna explained. "I'm with Dustin and Steve, but we couldn't get a hold of anyone else."

"Anna, is everything okay?" Landon asked.

"If you have time to grab another hunting trap from the store, we could really use it." Anna said simply, and she could hear the sharp intake of breath from the other line.

"I'll find the girls and we'll meet you guys there." Landon said, a new tone in his voice that she couldn't quite decipher. "See you later."

Anna set the phone back on the receiver, her heart beginning to beat a little faster as she turned back towards the boys. "Let's go catch us a monster."

Each of them reached for a bucket filled with chunks of the meat they'd purchased from Bradley's Big Buy, piling into Steve's car, where the rest of the supplies already waited in the trunk. The drive over was eerily silent, as the three of them each pondered over their proposed plan of attack, though for Anna, it was more so about all of the ways everything could go terribly wrong if they weren't careful. Already they'd unleashed a horror upon Hawkins worse than anything the townspeople had ever faced, so it was up to them to capture it before anyone else met the same fates as Will and Barbara.

Anna stared out the window of the driver's seat as the sound of gravel crunched under the tires of the BMW, the train tracks on the edge of town coming into view. Steve shifted the car into park, killing the engine as they immediately opened the car doors, climbing outside into the cloudy morning air. Anna carried the buckets over to the trunk as Steve pulled the hatch open, and she set them down on the ground before moving to help him get the rest of the supplies out of the trunk and pack them into the backpacks on each of their backs. However, at the sound of static crackling from Dustin's walkie talkie, a voice followed soon after, causing them to jump from the sudden noise.

"Dustin!" a voice called from the speaker. "This is Lucas, do you copy? Dustin!"

Dustin exchanged a satisfied smirk with Anna as he pulled up the yellow gloves covering his hands, identical pairs covering Steve and Anna's. "Well, well, well," he chided into the microphone on his headset. "Look who it is."

"Sorry, man," Lucas apologized. "My stupid sister turned it off."

"Well, when you were having sister problems, Dart grew again, he escaped, and I'm pretty sure he's a baby Demogorgon," Dustin explained.

"Wait, what?" Lucas asked.

"I'll explain later, just meet me, Anna, and Steve at the old junkyard." Dustin instructed. "Landon, Becca, and Michelle are coming, too."

"Steve?" Lucas repeated.

"And bring your binoculars and wrist rocket." Dustin continued.

"Steve Harrington?" Lucas asked again as Steve exchanged a brief glance with Anna before shutting the door to the now-empty trunk, and Anna hoisted the now-full backpack onto her shoulders.

"Alright, let's go," Steve said, nodding to the two Henderson siblings, and they each moved down to pick up a bucket of the meat before following Steve to the metal train tracks.

"Just be there, stat." Dustin said simply. "Over and out." Dustin hung up the walkie talkie, shifting his attention back to the two older teenagers. "I think that went well."

"Oh yeah, Dusty, real well." Anna chided as they began to follow the path of the tracks, tossing chunks of meat from their buckets onto the ground to begin leaving the trail for Dart to follow.

The path was quiet, a little too quiet for Anna's liking as she strained her ears to try and catch any hint of the baby Demogorgon lurking nearby, although she came up short. For all she knew, Dart could be all the way in Illinois by now, but from what little she knew about the Upside Down and its creatures, she didn't think he'd move too far away from the gate. She just hoped they had enough time to leave the trail and get to the junkyard before he followed them.

"So let me get this straight one last time." Steve spoke up after a while. "You kept something you knew was probably dangerous in order to impress a girl who... who you just met?"

"Alright, that's grossly oversimplifying things." Dustin defended.

"I mean, why would a girl like some nasty slug anyway?" Steve asked. "Anna, would you like it if some guy brought you a slug?"

"It wouldn't be my favorite," Anna admitted.

"An interdimensional slug?" Dustin pointed out. "Because it's awesome."

"Well, even if she thought it was cool, which she didn't," Steve continued. "I... I just, I don't know, I just feel like you're trying way too hard, man."

"Well, not everyone can have your perfect hair, alright?" Dustin retorted, and Anna watched as the two boys now walked side by side, with Anna a few steps behind, watching their conversation.

"It's not about the hair, man." Steve assured him. "The key with girls is just... just acting like you don't care."

"Even if you do?" Dustin asked.

"Yeah, exactly," Steve confirmed with a slight shrug. "It drives them nuts."

"Then what?"

"You just wait, until, uh..." Steve paused, turning back to toss another piece of meat on the trail behind him, narrowly missing Anna's shoes. "Shit, sorry," he chuckled nervously before looking back at Dustin. "Until you feel it, you know?"

"Feel what?" Dustin asked.

"It's like before it's gonna storm, you know?" Steve explained. "You can't see it, but you can feel it, like this, uh..." he trailed off, searching for the right word. "Electricity, you know?"

"Oh, like in the electromagnetic field when the clouds in the atmosphere-" Dustin began, and Anna couldn't help but roll her eyes at her brother's obliviousness, though she'd be lying if she said she wasn't amused by the conversation between the two boys.

"No, no, no, no, no, no," Steve corrected. "Like a... like a sexual electricity," he explained.

"Oh," Dustin mused.

"You feel that and then you make your move." Steve instructed.

"So that's when you kiss her?" Dustin asked, causing Anna's eyes to widen slightly as she processed his words.

"No, whoa, whoa, slow down, Romeo." Steve chuckled. "Sure, okay, some girls, yeah, they want you to be aggressive. You know, strong, hot and heavy, like a... I don't know, like a lion. But others, you gotta be slow, you gotta be stealthy, like a... like a ninja."

"What type is Nancy?" Dustin asked.

"Nancy's different," Steve said, his voice taking on a different tone that Anna couldn't quite place, causing her to pinch her eyebrows together slightly as she watched him speak. "She's different than the other girls.

"Yeah, she seems pretty special, I guess," Dustin agreed.

"Yeah, yeah, she is."

"But this girl's special too, you know." Dustin continued, pulling on Anna's heartstrings as she listened to him talk about the girl at school he'd mentioned a few times over the past week, Max. "It's just, like, something about her."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hey, hey, hey," Steve said, coming to a halt and throwing an arm out in front of Dustin to stop him, causing Anna to narrowly avoid colliding with the two of them.

"What?"

"You're not falling in love with this girl, are you?" Steve asked.

"No," Dustin assured him, shaking his head. "No,"

"Okay, good," Steve said, satisfied. "Don't."

"I won't," Dustin said.

"She's only going to break your heart and you're too young for that shit." Steve warned, the conversation lulling for a moment as he looked back at Dustin for a moment, an unspoken argument happening inside Steve's mind before he sighed. "Fabergé," he spoke up again, causing the Hendersons to look back at him with equally confused grins.

"What?" Dustin asked.

"It's Fabergé Organics," Steve explained, pointing up at his hair. "Use the shampoo and the conditioner, and when your hair's damp- not when it's wet, okay, when it's damp- you do four puffs of the Farrah Fawcett spray."

"Farrah Fawcett spray?" Dustin asked, amused.

"Yeah, Farrah Fawcett," Steve sighed, coming to a stop as he looked back at Dustin with an intimidating glare. "You tell anyone that I just told you that and your ass is grass, you're dead, Henderson, do you understand?"

"Yep," Dustin assured him, nodding.

"I knew that can of hairspray wasn't Becca's," Anna murmured, catching Steve's attention as he looked back at her with a smirk, shaking his head.

"I'm going to regret that," Steve muttered under his breath.

Anna watched as Dustin hurried ahead of them, walking faster along the train tracks, and Steve hung back, looking over at Anna as the distance between Dustin and the older teenagers began to widen. "Can we talk?" he asked, his voice low enough to be out of Dustin's earshot.

"Yeah," Anna said, her eyebrows pinching together slightly as she tried to keep the surprise from her tone. "Sure."

"I just, you know, I wanted to say I'm sorry." Steve explained. "I was pissed at Nancy for everything that happened at the party, and when you didn't show up afterwards, I assumed you were mad at me, too."

"I thought you wouldn't want to see me." Anna admitted. "The party was a mess, and after everything with Nancy I figured having to keep watch over somebody sleepwalking was the last thing you needed on your plate. I was just trying to be a good friend, give you a night off, but I'm sorry if I hurt you."

The two walked in silence for a moment, the only sounds reaching their ears that of leaves crunching under their shoes and the dull thudding of the trail being left behind for Dart to follow into the trap. "I wouldn't have taken her side, you know." Anna spoke up finally. "I mean, we were all pretty messed up after last year, so I can't say I blame her for the way she handled things. But you didn't deserve that."

"Yeah," Steve said quietly. "Deep down, I know you wouldn't have. But you guys have been friends for longer, so I understand if you have that whole girl code thing going on. I shouldn't have taken it out on you, though."

Steve looked up ahead to where Dustin still wandered, blissfully unaware of the conversation taking place behind him, and when Steve was confident the younger boy was still out of earshot, he looked back at Anna again. "I've been worried about you, actually." Steve admitted. "You know, about the sleepwalking."

Anna shrugged nonchalantly. "It's hard to sleepwalk when you haven't really been sleeping."

"Wait," Steve stopped for a moment, his eyebrows creasing together as he looked back at her with a concerned expression written on his face. "You haven't been sleeping since Halloween night?"

"A few hours here and there, maybe?" Anna shrugged again. "It's hard to tell. But I was too freaked out to try and get a real night's sleep, after the night in the pool."

"Well," Steve said, beginning to walk again as he mindlessly tossed another piece of meat down onto the railroad tracks, "Once we find Dart and this is all over, you're welcome to come back over again, if you'd like."

Anna nodded. "Yeah," she agreed, a feeling of relief starting to settle in that, though she still didn't know what exactly they were about to face, she and Steve might finally be okay again, after all. "Yeah, I'd like that."