For a brief moment, Demona swore she saw a hint of jealousy in Eddie’s posture when she mentioned Steve, but she was quick to dismiss it as her own hope. For years now, she had wondered just what it would take to get him back, to apologize for what she had said that night, and for years she had been told by someone with a much more level head than her own that it would be a horrible idea. She had destroyed him, and now she was friends with someone who ran with the crew that tormented her old friends. If she could look forward from the past, she would barely recognize herself in the moment, simply because of those two facts. Still, people changing isn’t always a bad thing – Steve was proof of that, after all.

It wasn’t until Eddie was half-choking on his blunt that she finally looked back at him, mostly to make sure he didn’t die in her cabin. His confusion should’ve been expected, and pinching the bridge of her nose again, she sighed heavily, rubbing her eyes shortly after. She knew why he was suddenly freaking out (again), but that wasn’t going to help her explain it to him.

“I didn’t name it, don’t blame me. But yes, Steve and the others called it a demogorgon. Don’t ask me why, I thought they looked like monkeys and not demented flowers.” Moving out of the kitchen and back into the living room, Demona picked up her phone in hopes that Steve would be calling, or at least texting her back. There were still only notifications from Jessica, though, and the thought to block her number until this whole thing blew over crossed her mind again. If she knew that Demona had run off with Eddie to her family cabin, even if she believed the story of the monster that had attacked them, she would never let her live it down, and that was just not something she wanted to deal with at the moment. Instead, she kept pacing again, eyes locked on the screen, desperately hoping to hear from her ‘friend’.

“And before you ask, they’ve apparently been secretly attacking Hawkins for a few years now, and a group of like, 6 kids or something have been trying to keep it on the downlow with Steve. I only got dragged into it a couple of months ago, so I'm not much more up to date on this shit than you are.”