A beat of silence. Then a distant, choked sob—one of the bullies scrambling away. Leaves rustled. The group’s laughter faded into the rhythm of cicadas.

The girl in the pink dress, hair shorn and matted, had gone completely still. Her head turned, slow and deliberate, like a wolf catching a scent on the wind.

Mike and Dustin exchanged a glance. Lucas pulled his slingshot from his pocket. But Eleven wasn’t looking at them anymore. She was staring into the treeline, beyond the clearing, where the shadows pooled thick and deep.

She took a single step forward, her bare feet pressing into the moss. Then her eyes went wide. Her nose—trickled a thin stream of blood.

The underbrush rustled. A tiny figure emerged from between two gnarled oaks. Small. Pale as paper. A washed-out hospital gown hung off a frame that should have held a seven-year-old but looked more like a starved bird.