The forest was unnervingly quiet at this time of night. No birds, no insects, not even the rustle of leaves in the wind. The trees towered over me, their branches blocking most of the moonlight and leaving everything ahead swallowed in darkness.
Every instinct told me to stay quiet. To hide.
Instead, I had to do the exact opposite.
The only portal I knew was currently open was inside Hawkins Lab, and trying to get in through there had been immediately discarded for being both nearly impossible and incredibly stupid.
That left me with one other option.
If I didn't want to involve Eleven and ask her to open another portal, I needed a Demogorgon to open one for me.
I knew they could create temporary openings between dimensions when they crossed over to hunt. So rather than finding my own way into the Upside Down, I needed to wait for one of them to come through and use the opening it created.
If I wanted the monster to come out of hiding, I needed to make sure it knew I was here.
Alone.
An easy target.
I stepped deeper into the woods, deliberately letting my boots crunch against the dead leaves beneath me.
"Come on," I whispered into the darkness.
Nothing answered.
I swallowed hard.
Using myself as bait had sounded a lot less terrifying when I wasn't actually standing alone in the middle of a dark forest waiting for something to hunt me.
There was one more thing I could do.
Blood.
Demogorgons were attracted to blood. I knew that much from what I remembered of the series. If there was one reliable way to get the creature's attention, that was probably it.
Unfortunately, that meant I needed to bleed.
As in, deliberately cut myself and willingly let my blood spill out from where it was perfectly safe and exactly where it was supposed to be—inside my body.
Yeah.
I really hated this plan.
Unfortunately, it was also the closest thing I had to a 'good' one.
Earlier, I'd asked Natasha a completely innocent, definitely-not-suspicious hypothetical question about where someone could get injured without seriously affecting their ability to run or fight afterwards.
Naturally, she'd immediately asked why.
Naturally, I hadn't told her.
And naturally, she'd figured out that I was plotting something anyway.
Lying to Natasha Romanoff was impossible. The woman could probably tell you were hiding something because you blinked half a second too slowly.
She'd still answered, though not without looking at me like she was already regretting it.
The upper outer shoulder.
An injury there, she'd explained, was less likely to interfere with my leg mobility or completely ruin my ability to fight.
I reached for my shoulder with the kitchen knife.
Even knowing exactly what I needed to do didn't make deliberately hurting myself any easier.
I hesitated.
Then forced myself to do it.
Pain made me suck in a sharp breath.
"Fuck."
I quickly put the knife away and looked around.
Nothing.
Not yet.
I adjusted the mace in my hand and took another slow step forward, making sure the sound of my boots carried through the silent forest.
"Well, come on, then," I called into the darkness, louder this time. "Dinner's ready."
Still nothing.
I glanced down at myself.
A ten-year-old girl wandering alone through the woods in the middle of the night, injured and apparently completely defenceless.
Perfect monster food.
I almost laughed.
"Oh no," I announced dramatically to the empty forest. "I'm just a poor, defenceless little girl, all alone in the scary woods."
I tightened my grip around the mace.
The weight of my bow rested reassuringly against my back, the arrows secured beside it.
"Please, Mr Monster, don't come eat me."
I tilted my head, staring between the trees.
"Even though I'm probably delicious prey. What a yummy little meal."
Yeah.
Defenceless.
Absolutely.
I rolled my shoulders and immediately regretted it when pain shot through the injured one.
"Okay. Ow. Still defenceless, though."
The joke died when something moved behind me.
Not loudly.
Just one faint crunch of leaves.
I froze.
For several seconds, the forest returned to absolute silence.
Then—
another crunch.
Closer.
My fingers tightened around the mace.
All traces of humour disappeared.
Another sound came from somewhere to my left.
A branch snapping.
Then silence.
My heart hammered against my ribs as I slowly turned towards the sound, searching the darkness between the trees.
At first, I saw nothing.
Then something moved.
A tall shape slipped between two trees, barely distinguishable from the darkness surrounding it.
Too tall to be human.
Too thin.
My breath caught.
For all my planning, all my weapons and all my stupid jokes about being monster food, actually seeing that silhouette made every survival instinct in my body scream the same thing.
Run.
I tightened my grip on the mace instead.
Because there it was.
The Demogorgon.