While Matthew continued to keep his eyes squeezed shut and his hands tightly clenched into fists and listened to Dokken's Breaking the Chains, the group of five middle-schoolers stood in a circle and stared up at the flickering lights, only to stop when Will brought a hand up to the back of his neck and told them, "He's here."

In response to Will's words, El only lowered her head with narrowed eyes before she quickly looked over at Matthew and said to him, "Matt." When Matt didn't respond, she once more said to him, "Matt."

When she still didn't receive a response from him, she quickly walked over to him and ripped his headphones off of his head, which got him to open his mouth to say something, only to stop when he saw that El was standing in front of him and was currently staring down at him.

Without even saying anything to him, El pointed a finger up at the flickering lights, which got him to say, "Oh. Right. Shit. Sorry."

It wasn't long after that that the six of them quickly walked past the woman that was sitting behind her desk, who was yelling after them, "Hey, hey, hey! Two at a time!"

Eventually, the six of them made it to an elevator in the hospital, where Mike was repeatedly pressing the up bottom to the elevator before he eventually stopped and said with a nod of his head, "Stairs."

With a growl, the creature let out a roar over Nancy, who had turned her head away from it, before it turned its attention away from Nancy the second a loud thud was heard.

It was then that the creature turned around to see El standing in front of the other members of the group with blood leaking out of her nose.

After the creature had let out a shriek, Matthew tightened the grip he had on his crowbar, despite knowing that it wouldn't even do anything to it, while Mike yelled, "Jesus!"

Then Max said, "What the f—"

Then the creature let out yet another roar before it started to quickly make its way over towards El, who threw her arm towards the side, which got the creature to let out a wail when it was sent flying into one of the walls.

Then the creature was sent flying into yet another wall, then the ceiling and then onto the floor.

It was only when the creature had let out a snarl and went to go towards El one more time that El let out a yell as she thrusted both of her arms forward and sent the creature flying out of the window to the room and falling down towards the ground just outside of the entrance to the hospital.

While the others were quick to run away from the room, Matthew stayed behind and watched as Jonathan ran over towards Nancy and asked her, "Are you okay? Are you okay?"

While Nancy only nodded her head, she looked over at Matthew, who was still holding onto his crowbar and silently gulping to himself as he watched his sister be consoled by Jonathan Byers.

It wasn't long after that that the three teenagers quickly joined the five middle-schoolers just in time for them to all stop outside of the hospital and watch as the creature slithered itself towards a grate.

With his eyebrows furrowed, Matthew watched as the creature eventually disappeared.

And the only things that remained behind was a human leg and bits and pieces of the human meat that was left behind.

And as soon as it was gone, Matthew turned to look back over at Nancy before he sighed to himself.

Deep down, he knew very well that this crowbar of his was nothing compared to the Mind Flayer and those that it flayed.

But he also knew that he didn't care.

The only thing he cared about was the feeling of comfort that that crowbar brought him, and he would be damned if something like a Mind Flayer or the people it flayed would keep him from carrying that crowbar around with him.

He didn't care if it killed him.

He would be glad to die, so long as that damn crowbar was in his hand, if he ever did die from his encounters with the Upside Down and the monsters that came from it.

While choosing to ignore the argument that Mike and Max were having over El, Matthew kept his attention solely on Nancy.

After the encounter she had with the Mind Flayer, there was no way in hell that he was going to be anywhere far from his sister, so long as the Mind Flayer was still out and about.

But that was the problem with Matthew.

He was really protective of his two siblings and El, but there was no way in hell that he could possibly be with the three of them all at once if– for whatever reason– they got separated.

So, if it really came down to who he'd be with if they ever did get separated, he didn't know just who he would end up protecting in the end.

His little brother, his big sister or the girl he loved like a little sister that he would do anything to protect from harm, despite the fact that she had superpowers and could quite easily take care of herself, if it truly came down to it.

With a sigh, he shook his head at his own thoughts, while Nancy said on the phone, "Yes, from the Hawkins Post. I– I called a couple days ago about the– Y-Yes, yes, um... I was just... following up to see if anything else had gone missing, or if– Okay. Um, sorry to bother—" After hanging up the phone with a sigh, she walked over towards where her brother and the two Byers brothers were standing as she asked them, "Who's next?"

Jonathan told her, "There is no next. Unless you want to start calling random people's homes."

After putting her notepad down onto the counter, Nancy said with a raise of her hands, "It doesn't make sense."

With a shake of his head, Jonathan asked her, "What part of any of this makes sense?"

Nancy replied, "There's a pattern, okay? A consistency to their behavior. They've been feeding on these chemicals since this started, and– and, what, they just stop, out of the blue?"

Will said to her, "Maybe they have all the chemicals they need. Maybe they've all turned into those... things."

With a wave of her hand, Nancy asked him, "But what about the source? I mean, did the Mind Flayer just suddenly stop infecting people? And even if the flayed are monsters now, why can't El find them?"

It was then that Max, Lucas and Mike made their way over towards the four of them and Max asked them, "Okay, can you guys settle an argument for us? Who do you think should decide El's limits? Mike or Eleven?"

Mike said to Max, "The way that you frame that is such bullshit."

Max replied, "It's not bullshit, Mike. This is your whole problem. And it's also precisely the reason why she dumped your ass."

With a raise of her eyebrows, Nancy asked him, "El dumped you?"

While choosing to ignore the fact that Matthew was still amused by the fact that he'd gotten dumped by El, Mike said with a wave of his hand, "Yeah, because she is conspiring against me. She's corrupting her."

With a roll of her eyes, Max said, "No, enlightening her. The fact is, she's not yours. She's her own person, fully capable of making her own decisions."

Mike told her, "She's risking her life for no reason."

It was then that Nancy said to Mike, "For no reason? Mike, the flayed are out there doing God knows what."

With a wave of his hand, Lucas said, "Killing, flaying..."

With a tilt of his head, Matthew said, "Probably terrorizing someone."

Then Will said, "Transforming into monsters."

With a shake of her head, Nancy said, "And El's not stupid. She knows her abilities better than any of us."

Max replied, "Exactly, thank you."

Then Nancy said, "And she is her own person. With her own free will."

Then Max said, "Exactly. El has saved the world twice, and Mike still doesn't trust her."

It was then that Mike turned to Max and asked her, "You wanna talk about trust, really? After you made Eleven spy on us?"

In turn, Lucas said, "Wait, what?"

Then Mike turned to Lucas and asked him, "Oh, she didn't tell you this?"

With a shake of his head, Lucas said, "No."

Mike told him, "Your girlfriend used El's powers to spy on us."

It was then that Max said, "No, no, no, I did not make her. It was her idea. And why are we even talking about this, seriously?"

With a shrug of his shoulders, Will asked them, "Yeah, who cares?"

As he turned to look over at Will, Lucas said, "I care."

Then Mike said, "Yeah. I guess girlfriends don't lie, they spy."

With a sigh, Matthew muttered under his breath, "And this is exactly why I don't let Mike and Lucas into my car."

While both Jonathan and Nancy took a quick glance over at Matthew, Max said, "We were just joking around."

In turn, Mike asked her, "Wouldn't it've been so funny if I was taking a massive shit or something?"

Max replied, "You weren't."

Mike asked her, "But what if I was?"

With a shake of her head, Max said, "Then gross!"

With a raise of her hand, Nancy said, "Seriously, Mike?"

Mike told her, "I'm just trying to demonstrate how careless Max is with Eleven's powers. In fact, how careless all of you are." While Matthew started to tilt his head and narrow his eyes at his brother, Mike said, "You're treating her like some kind of machine when she's not a machine, and I don't want her to die looking for the flayed when they've obviously vanished off the face of the Earth. So can we please just come up with a new plan because I love her and I can't lose her again."

After several seconds of silence between the seven of them, Matthew asked Mike, "Um, I'm sorry, can we go back to the part where you think that I'm using Eleven like she's some kind of a fucking machine?"

Just when Mike was about to respond, he suddenly stopped when the sound of a door opening was heard, which got them all to turn their heads and look over at El, who asked them, "What's going on?"

Mike replied, "Nothing. Nothing."

Then Lucas told her, "Just a family discussion."

In response to Lucas's words, Matthew simply slapped the back of his head at the same time that El said, "Oh." While Lucas slowly turned his head to look over at Matthew with his eyebrows furrowed, El told them, "I found him."

With a nod of her head, Nancy asked her, "Found who?"

While El drank a glass of water in the next room, Nancy asked Max, "And that's not normal, right?"

With her eyebrows raised, Max replied, "Billy staying in his room on the Fourth of July? No, that's not normal."

Then Will said to them, "He wants us to find him."

In turn, Nancy said, "Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of. If we go to Billy, then the rest of the flayed know where we are."

With a shrug of his shoulders, Mike said, "It's a trap, I agree. We'll be ambushed."

With a raise of his arms, Lucas said, "We won't be surprised. We'll know that they're coming, and we will kick their flayed butts."

With a nod of her head, Max replied, "You mean El will kick their butts." As she gestured over towards the bruises that were still on Matthew's neck, she said, "I mean, Matt's one of the strongest guys we know, and he almost got killed by Billy outside of that sauna room. If he can't even win in a fight against Billy in that state or even get away from Billy if it ever happened again, then what sort of chance do we even have?"

While the others only nodded their heads in response to Max's words, Max looked over at Matthew and said to him, "No offense, Matt."

Matthew replied, "Yeah, uh, none taken. You're right. Back at the pool, Billy was a lot stronger than I remember him being when he cornered me after school a couple years ago. If it wasn't for him being one of the flayed, I would've found some way to get away from him, but now? He's strong. Like, a lot stronger than a person should be. If any of us try to go against any of the flayed that come our way, we won't stand a chance."

Then, with a nod of his head, Mike said, "Yeah, Matt's right. It's too risky."

With a nod of her own head, Nancy said, "Yeah, and unnecessary. Killing the flayed won't stop the Mind Flayer. We have to find out where it's spreading from. We have to find the source."

It was then that El told them, "Billy knows it." While the others turned their heads to look over at El, El said, "Billy's been there. To the source."

Mike started to say to her, "Yeah, but—"

El replied, "It's a trap. I know. We can't go to Billy, but I think there's another way. A way for me to see where he's been."

After El had sat down on the floor, Mike sat down beside her and said to her, "El, I know you think you have to do this, but you don't. It's just, you've only done this before once. And your mom, she loved you, and wanted you to know what happened. And Billy's mind is– is sick, diseased. The Mind Flayer is in him."

After turning her head to look over at Mike, El said with a shake of her head, "He can't hurt me. Not in there."

With a shake of his own head, Mike replied, "We don't know that."

After fully turning herself to face Mike and grabbing a couple of his fingers, El said to him, "Mike. I need you to trust me."

In response to her words, Mike turned his head to look over at Max and Matthew, who were both staring at him.

While Max was simply raising her eyebrows at Mike, Matthew was staring at his brother with his eyes narrowed and his head tilted to the side.

It didn't take much of a genius to know that Matthew was still pissed off with Mike for assuming that Matthew was just going to use El like she was some sort of a machine.

And it was that reason alone that Mike quickly looked back at El and said to her, "Yeah. Just... be careful."

It wasn't long after that that El tied her makeshift blindfold behind her head, while the others in the group started to make their way into the room.

While leaning forward in his chair, Mike asked, "El, are you okay? Are you okay?"

After letting out a sigh, El said, "I'm okay."

With a shake of his head, Mike asked her, "What's going on?"

El told him, "I'm... on a beach."

It was then that Lucas said to them, "Okay, I may be dense, but the last I checked, there weren't any beaches in Hawkins."

While Matthew took a quick glance over at Lucas, Max asked El, "What else do you see?"

After shaking her head to herself, El said, "A woman. She's... pretty. I... I think she's looking at me. There's... a boy. It's Billy."

In turn, Max told them, "It's California. It's a memory."

In response to Max's words, the two Wheeler brothers simply shared a look with each other before they brought their attention back over to El, who eventually told the group, "I think I see it. The source."

While gasping to herself, El said, "I think I found it. The source."

In turn, Max asked her, "Where, El? Where are you?"

It was then that El said, "Brimborn... Steelworks."

Not long after she said that, Jonathan quickly ran out of the room and into another one before he grabbed a book and then ran back into the room that they were all sitting in and started to flip through the book as he said, "Here. Okay, uh, steelworks, steelworks... Uh..." Then he stopped on a single page and said, "Here, steel. Uh... Found it. 6522 Cherry Oak Drive."

Nancy said to him, "That's close."

Then Mike said to El, "El, El, we found it. Get out of there. Get out."

With a gasp, El quickly pulled the blindfold off of her head and screamed, "No!"

While Matthew simply gulped to himself and felt like his eyes were starting to burn because of just how distressed and upset El seemed to be from going into Billy's mind, Mike quickly pulled El into his arms and said to her, "El, you're okay. It's– It's okay. El."

Even while being held by Mike, the most El could do was sob to herself as she tightly grabbed onto one of Mike's arms.

Then, eventually, she turned to look over at Matthew, who had a single tear rolling down the side of his face.

And just seeing how worried and upset he was after her time in Billy's head made El sob that much harder, which made Matthew only sigh to himself, while Nancy and Jonathan each put one of their hands onto his shoulders in their own way of trying to both calm down the violent member of the Wheeler family and to keep him from doing something that could put himself in some sort of danger because of just how overprotective he was of El.

Then there was the bit where they knew that if it came down to it, he would gladly lay down his life, if it meant that El was safe and he didn't have to worry about any other monsters from the Upside Down going directly after the girl he loved like a sister.