Stay or Go

Chapter 51

Dustin and Erica burst into the toilet finding us all sitting on the floor. "Ok, what the hell?" My brother asks when the door slams shut and we all start laughing. Erica leans into Dustin and asks "was she drugged too?" The other two eventually get up and Steve offers me a hand. I take it and he pulls me up "thank you." I mutter and when I look up I notice how close we are. If I was to reach up on my toes slightly, our lips would join. Steve's eyes flick from my eyes to my lips, I swallow hard. Electricity coursing through me. My heart rate picks up and I can hear Steve's pick up too, it's like we are the only two in the room. Except we're not. "Ready to go?" Erica asks cutting through mine and Steve's moment.

I fall away, letting my eyes move to the floor "yeah, let's go." I say heading to the front of our group. As everyone starts leaving the movie theatre we slowly start leaving the bathroom. "Well shit, that worked." Erica says once we are in the crowd, "of course it worked." Dustin snaps back angrily, clearly fed up with everyone. I sigh and scan around us quickly "we just have to get on the bus with the rest of these plebes, and home sweet home, here we come." I hit Dustin up the back of the head.

He clutches it and gives me a glare "language." I warn and he rolls his eyes "ok mum." I hit him again and he tries to hit me back but I dodge it. "Ha! Missed." I say sticking my tongue out at him teasingly, Dustin rolls his eyes and continues walking. Someone knocks on me and I turn to say "I'm sorry." My voice trails off when I notice it's Steve. "It's ok." He says warmly, taking to walking beside me. We walk awkwardly for a few minutes "so, are you back now?" I shrug, still scanning the crowd for any possible threats. "Possibly, I mean I never ended up getting my target in the bunker. I'll need to go back."

Steve stops me by catching ahold of my hand and I look up at him. "What are you doing?" He asks seriously "what's the plan? I mean one day you just disappear, not a word. And now you come back talking about a target? Are you working for the Academy again?" My eye widen and I snatch my arm out of his grasp "are you insane?" I hiss angrily "someone might hear us." Steve looks unbothered by that and I guess he should be, he doesn't understand the danger of even mentioning the Academy's name. "We can't talk about this now." I continue "we need to go." We start walking again and Steve scoffs "just for you to disappear again." I roll my eyes, stop and turn to face him. Anger seeped through me.

"I don't owe you an explanation for anything I do Steve." I say my voice rising slightly with my anger "my whereabouts quite frankly is none of your business. We are barely friends, so for you to be angry about my leaving is out of order and unnecessary." I then storm off, not waiting to see is he follows.

When we finally catch up the others, Steve and I keeping a healthy distance from each other. He says "uh Dustin?" My brother looks behind him at Steve briefly "what?" He asks, and Steve answers almost instantly, "we might not wanna go to your house." I glance at the older boy confused and he explains "I might've told them your full name." I sigh and shake my head. Dustin looks like he might just combust "what us wrong with you?" He asks, Steve frowns "dude I was drugged." He argues.

"So?" Dustin says, Steve scoffs "So?" In shock. Dustin continues "so, you resist. You tough it out. You tough it out, man. " Steve looks in complete shock like he can't believe what he is hearing. "Oh yeah it's easy for you to say." Steve retorts as we turn a corner. Dustin replies with "Robin and Lori managed to it." Steve scoffs, throwing his hands in the air in disbelief. "Robin doesn't know you or where you live and Lori is used to it. She can handle it." That one sentence makes me feel weird and embarrassed so I look away.

Just then Robin stops all of us with "guys." And we all notice the Russian men questioning strangers on what could only be us. "Abort," Dustin says all of us frozen in place. One of them notices us and we start running in the opposite direction. We get to the escalators but they are closed "shit." Steve curses and I try to come up with another game plan. The Russian men are getting closer so we end up sliding down the metal bit in between the two escalators.

Once we are all done safely, we hide in the food court. Thankfully none of the soldiers knows where we have gone so we hide out behind the counter of one of the food places. Everyone is panting heavily and Dustin scotches closer to me for comfort. "It's going to be ok." I soothe quietly, praying no one hears us. It stays silent for a while and I am sure we are safe enough to come out however a bunch of car alarms start sounding off making us all jump. I take the opportunity to stand up, and as I do I notice Eleven and the others all standing on the level above us looking down on the food court.

I smile as Eleven launches the car into the men making them crash into the chairs and tables behind them. The others stand up slowly to notice the men all dead or passed out on the floor. I tap Dustin and Robin's shoulders before pointing at the others, they turn to look. Dustin's face lights up.

We all rush to meet, but Steve and I still stay away from one another. "You flung that thing like a Hot Wheel!" Dustin says laughing and racing towards his friends. The rest of us take it slower. I catch sight of Jonathan and my chest loosens "Johnny!" I shout before launching myself at him, Jonathan holds me tightly with both arms and I sigh "you're a sight for sore eyes." He whispers and I smile. When I step back I hear chatter from the others and I ignore Steve's glare at the two of us. "Lucas?" Erica says rushing towards her brother who asks "what are you doing here?" Without any hesitation, Erica replies "ask them. It's their fault." When Lucas looks over at us I raise my hands in surrender "not me, I didn't even know they were down there." Lucas narrows his eyes but doesn't say anything.

"I don't understand what happened to that car." Robin says looking at everyone in confusion. "El has superpowers." Dustin explains pointing at their female friend. "I'm sorry?" Robin says as though she didn't quite hear it right and to be fair to her it is pretty outlandish to hear. We are all just used to it by now. "Superpowers." Dustin reiterates "she threw it with her mind." Erica's eyes widen and point to her "that's El?" I rub my forehead and frown gently. No one knows what the hell is going on right now.

This is re-established when Robin asks "who's El?" Nancy, who has been staring at Robin for the last five minutes cuts in before anyone can answer with "I'm sorry, who are you?" Robin, like the sweet puppy she seems to be replies "I'm Robin. I work with Steve." Steve leans closer to Nancy and thanks to my increased hearing ability I can hear as he says "she cracked the top secret code. Which is how we found out about the Russians." Jonathan looks at all of us confused, squeezing my arm which he still has a hand on "Russians?" He asks "what, what Russians?"

Steve, who is starting to get annoyed now shouts "the Russians!" Which is innocently contradicted with "those were Russians?" from Max. "Some of them." I admit and Lucas asks "what are you talking about?" I sigh because this is going to be a long catch-up. "Didn't you hear our code red?" My brother asks his friends and Mike answers "yeah and couldn't understand what you were saying." Dustin adjusts the hat on his head.

"God damn now battery." He mutters and I have to hide my smirk. These kids are so incredibly smart and so incredibly dumb at the same time and I admire them for it. "How many times do I have to tell you with the low battery?" Steve asks Dustin clearly having heard what he said as well. Dustin glares at the older boy as I retort "well, everything worked out, didn't it?" Steve gives me a matching look to the one I am wearing and hopes no one else catches it.

However, Erica does not agree with my assessment as she says "work out? We almost died." I raise my eyebrows as Dustin replies "yeah, but we didn't did we?" Everyone keeps arguing in circles and I start to tune them all out. Until Eleven collapses.

Everyone rushes to her and I kneel beside her swiftly. "El!" Mike shouts "El!" But she is just whimpering in pain. "What's wrong with her?" Erica asks as we roll Eleven onto her back. "My leg." She finally moans "my leg." We take off some bloody bandages on one of her legs and everyone starts making noises of disgust. I roll my eyes and continue to look at it, and then something inside it moves and she starts screaming in pain.