𝗔𝗟𝗟 𝗜 𝗪𝗔𝗡𝗧𝗘𝗗 ━━━━ 𝒎𝒂𝒙 𝒎𝒂𝒚𝒇𝒊𝒆𝒍𝒅

𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙛𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙩𝙮 𝙩𝙬𝙤

[𝗘𝗣𝗜𝗦𝗢𝗗𝗘 𝗦𝗜𝗫: 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗗𝗜𝗩𝗘]

DUSTIN RUNS THROUGH BUSHES AND peeks at his compass, noticing how rapidly it's changing direction.

"something's happening," he says to himself before continuing to run off. "dustin? can you slow down? dustin?" eddie calls out as max, sage, and lucas follow behind him with steve and robin and nancy behind him.

"i think we're getting close," dustin says, turned back to eddie with a smile before turning back around and getting his shirt gripped on. "watch your step, big guy," eddie says and he pulls dustin back from falling in the water.

"oh man," steve sighs as he walks over. "you got to be shitting me,"

"yeah," eddie agreed. "i thought these woods were familiar,"

"lover's lake," robin declared as she stared out at the lake.

sage and max glance at each other, memories of them swimming together in the lake appearing in their heads. the couple blush at the memory before listening to dustin talk.

"this is confounding," dustin whispers. "there's a gate in lover's lake?" max says, coming to realization, cheeks still pink. "whenever the demogorgon attacked," nancy started. "it always left an opening. maybe vecna's the same way?"

"yeah, only one way to find out," steve said in reply before eddie motioned the teens to follow him. "great, more walking," sage complained.

"calm down, wheeler," eddie told her then saw what he was looking for, and pulled the tarp off.

the teens looked down at the boat before steve and eddie took ahold of it, and carefully placed it down in the water.

"easy. i . . . i said easy, man," steve told the munson adult. "sorry, dude," eddie mumbled before robin used the harrington teen and munson adult's head as help as she walked onto the small boat. "thank you,"

"yeah, that works too,"

eddie got onto the boat after and reached his hand out for nancy, helping her onto the boat.

"wheeler," eddie said. "thanks," nancy replied and took a seat next to robin.

dustin was about to get onto the boat, but eddie stopped him.

"hey, hey, hey, you trying to sink us?" eddie asked, pushing dustin's head back. the henderson teen stared at the munson adult confused. "this thing holds three people tops, okay?"