Chapter 38: STEVE'S TRUTH
Steve's house was empty. Of course it was.
I'd been here twice before—once to pick him up for practice, once when we'd ended up here after a late-night drive through Hawkins with nowhere else to go. Both times, the same thing: no parents, no signs of life, just a big empty house and Steve rattling around inside it like a marble in a shoebox.
Tonight was different. Tonight I was here to break his world open.
He met me at the back door, confused but curious. "What's up? Practice isn't until tomorrow."
"I need to tell you something." I stepped past him into the backyard, putting distance between us and the house. Privacy mattered for this conversation. "And I need you to not freak out."
Steve's eyebrow rose in that skeptical way he'd perfected. "After Nancy, nothing can surprise me."
"Challenge accepted."
I led him to the center of the yard, where the floodlights from the patio provided enough illumination to see clearly but not so much that neighbors would notice anything unusual. The night air was cold—October in Indiana, temperatures dropping fast—but I barely felt it anymore. The fire kept me warm.
"Remember how you said I was better than I showed at tryouts?" I asked, turning to face him. "How you noticed I was holding back?"
"Yeah. Still haven't figured out why."
"This is why."
I raised my palm and let the fire bloom.
Steve stumbled backward so fast he almost fell over a lawn chair. "What the HELL—"
"It's okay." I kept my voice calm, the flame steady in my hand. "I control it. Been practicing for months. This is what I've been hiding."
He stared at the fire, at me, at the fire again. His hand twitched toward his pocket—phone, probably, the instinct to call someone, anyone, who could explain what he was seeing.
"How is that—how are you—" He couldn't finish a sentence. I'd broken Steve Harrington's brain.
I extinguished the flame and closed the distance between us. He didn't back away, which I took as a good sign.
"There's more," I said. "And it's going to sound insane, but I need you to listen. Remember what happened last year? The Byers kid? The thing in the Byers house?"
Steve's face changed. The confusion was still there, but something else joined it—recognition. Memory. The shadow of trauma that hadn't fully healed.
"The Demogorgon," he said quietly.
"You fought it. With Nancy and Jonathan. You helped them burn it, kill it, close the door it came through." I paused. "It's back. Different form, but same source. The Upside Down is bleeding through again, and those things are coming with it."
"How do you know about—" He stopped himself. "The fire. You have... powers. Like El."
"Different powers, but yeah. Something changed me before I came to Hawkins. Gave me abilities. And knowledge." I chose my next words carefully. "I killed one of those dog things two days ago. Used the fire. It works. They burn."
Steve was quiet for a long moment. I could see him processing, fitting pieces together, remembering the horror of that night at the Byers house and squaring it with the revelation that it wasn't over, might never be over.
Then he turned and walked toward the house.
"Steve—"
"Wait here."
He disappeared inside. I stood in the cold backyard, fire dormant in my palms, wondering if I'd misjudged everything. Maybe Steve wasn't ready. Maybe the trauma was too fresh. Maybe I'd just lost the ally I'd been counting on.
The back door opened. Steve emerged carrying a baseball bat.
Not just any bat. A bat studded with nails, the metal catching light, the handle worn smooth from use.
"I made this last year," he said, testing the grip with practiced familiarity. "After the Byers house. Kept it in my closet, told myself I was being paranoid, that it was over." He looked up at me. "Guess I wasn't paranoid."
The relief hit me like a wave. I laughed—genuine, surprised, the kind of sound I hadn't made in months. "That's it? No more questions? You see fire hands and hear about monsters and your response is to grab a weapon?"
Steve shrugged, but there was something fierce in his eyes now. Something that had been dormant since Nancy left, since his world fell apart, since he'd been forced to question everything he thought he knew about himself.
"You have fire hands," he said. "I have a bat. Let's go kill monsters."
"You're insane."
"Probably." He hefted the bat to his shoulder. "But I spent a year trying to pretend that night didn't happen. Trying to be normal. Trying to forget the sound that thing made when it came through the wall." He shook his head. "I'm done pretending. If something's coming, I'd rather fight it than hide from it."
I thought about the parking lot conversation, weeks ago, when Steve had talked about things falling apart. About finding out what was real.
"The kids know," I said. "Max brought me to meet them. They're in."
"The middle schoolers?" Steve's expression shifted. "Dustin and them?"
"They have experience. They survived last year too."
"They're kids."
"They're fighters." I met his eyes. "And so are you. So am I. We do this together, or we do it alone. I'd rather have people I trust at my back."
Steve considered that. The bat rested on his shoulder, nail-heads glinting in the floodlight.
"Together," he said finally. "But I'm keeping the bat."
"Wouldn't have it any other way."
We sat on his patio for another hour, going over what I knew, what he knew, what we could piece together from both our perspectives. Steve's memories of the Byers house were fragmented—trauma had a way of blurring details—but the essentials were clear. The Demogorgon. The fire. The Gate that had to be closed.
When I finally left, the bat was in my backseat. Steve had insisted.
"Practice together," he'd said. "You hit them with fire, I follow up with the bat. Team tactics."
I'd laughed again. It felt strange—laughing, like this, with someone who'd just accepted the impossible without breaking.
But Steve Harrington wasn't the guy everyone thought he was. Under the hair and the popularity and the swagger was someone who'd faced a monster and survived. Someone who'd lost everything and kept going. Someone who could be counted on when it mattered.
The team was almost ready.
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