Stay or Go

Chapter 27

"Henderson, wait up!" Steve says after school, I stop, waiting for him. He runs over to me, panting slightly "wanna go grab something to eat?" I bite my lip nervously, grabbing the car keys from my pocket. "I'm not sure that's a good idea Steve." I say gently and he looks slightly offended by it before he scoffs and steps back a few paces. "Of course." He says shoving his hands in his pockets "I mean, you have Hargrove now right? I guess you don't really need me."

I frown "what are you on about?" He scoffs again and this time shakes his head, his hair moves slightly with the effort "he told me what happened last night." He says "between the two of you." My frown deepens and I scratch the back of my arm "Steve nothing happened last night." He rolls his eyes so I snap "why do you even care if it did anyway?"

Steve looks down at me, his big brown eyes reminding me of a deer. He moves closer "because you are my friend Lori." He says "and Hargrove is an ass." I cross my arms and stare up at him, not afraid to keep eye contact "you were an ass once too, and I gave you a chance." I bite back and this makes him lost for words for a moment. I sigh and raise my arm to run my hand through my hair when my sleeve slips down slightly and Steve catches the sight of one of my bruises.

"Jesus, Lori." He says snatching my arm and pulling it towards him "did he do this to you?" He asks. I pull my arm from his grip and roll my sleeve down "no, its nothing." I say trying to brush it off. Steve doesn't take that though and he starts to move past me "he did that to you and that asshole is going to pay."

Quickly, before he can move out of my reach I grab his wrist and yank him back with some force. I spin him around so he is facing me and I say "he didn't do anything Harrington, I wasn't even with him last night. He cancelled on me." Steve's eyes widen more than I thought possible and he relaxes slightly.

"So what happened?" He asks gently, his eyes moving down to the bruises hidden beneath my t-shirt. I pull it down as though he can see through it before looking around us to make sue no one is too close to us. "I will tell you." I say after a few moments of deliberation "but you have to promise not to tell anyone."

The older boy salutes and lets a smile creep onto his face "scouts honour."

-

We pull up a diner and both get out of our respective cars. "This better be good Henderson." Steve says as we make our way inside. A friendly looking waitress appears in front of us with a bright smile on her face "table for two?" She asks and we both nod awkwardly. She leads us to a booth in the corner and we both slide into it.

The waitress leaves us to look over the menu, I scan the diner as casually as I can. Still no sign of her. "I think I'm gonna get the hamburger." Steve says absently and I hum in agreement. I start tapping my fingers on the table and Steve sets down his menu. "Spill it Henderson." He says and I drag my eyes over to him, he is looking at me with both concern and curiosity.

I suck in a breath and start to explain "I applied for Heaven Academy and got accepted as you know, I applied believing it was a school for those more academically gifted." I swallow hard "but it wasn't. Much like the Hawkins Lab they used us as experiments. Each of us were injected with a different substance every night before bed and in the morning when we woke up."

Suddenly I am cut off by the waitress coming back over to take our orders. I order small fries and a coke while Steve orders a hamburger meal and a strawberry milkshake. Once the waitress is gone I start up again. "We didn't know what the liquid was, we just knew that we all got something different. About 4 months into the routine some us started showing signs of different abilities, much like El. Turns out I have the ability to heal quickly and am basically indestructible. That made me valuable to the school and I was trained, along with others who showed signs of gifts. I learnt how to kill someone 40 different ways with a hair clip."

The woman comes back over with our drinks, we thank her and I take a big gulp. "I was top of my class and they trusted us enough to start sending us on assassination missions across the country." Steve's eyes widen and I feel as though I have told him too much, that he will want nothing to do with me. Except he just asks "how did you get out?" I drink a little more before swallowing hard and answering "my last mission, I was sent to assassinate a little girl. She was 9 years old, her father was part of a drug ring exploiting other young children. Their logic was that if his child died he would stop what he was doing. Of course that crossed several lines for me so when I was on my way to... dispose of her." I cringe at the poor choice of words. "When I went on my way to complete my mission I changed my course and came back here instead."

"The man you met at Christmas, Richard. We arrived at the Academy together, we picked him up on the way so you could say we have a complicated relationship." I can't stand looking at Steve so I turn my head away so that I can continue. "When they realised I was gone they sent him to hunt me, convince me to come home. They sent Richard because they thought he would be able to convince me or at the very least get into my head. I sent him running home and they didn't like that so they sent someone else after me, second best in our class. Rosemary."

I scratch the back of my neck nervously "she made herself known last night, made me total my car. I would have died if I didn't have the gifts I do and she isn't here to bring me home. She is here to kill me." Steve whistles gently as I finish and our food appears in front of us. He sits back in his side of the booth. I start on my fries suddenly ravenous as Steve asks me "so what's their gifts? Richard and Rosemary?" I swallow my mouthful of food before having some of my coke.

"Richard has more of a mental gift, make you feel pain that's not there. We used to go head to head a lot in training because our gifts contradicted each other. Rosemary." I sigh heavily and plat with the straw in my drink "she can make you feel and say things you don't feel or want to say. I guess it's sort of like mind control." Steve takes a huge bite out of his burger before reaching over and taking a few of my fries.

In response to this theft I kick him under the table. Steve Harrington winces and rubs his shin "ow!" I smile innocently and shove a few fries in my mouth. I continue giving him an innocent look while he narrows his eyes at me. Once I have finished my bite I say "don't steal my food then." He throws his hands up in surrender and I smile kindly at him.

When our food is finished I move to pay for my food but Steve swats me hand away and pays it for me. My chest tightens at the simple gesture and Steve smiles down at mw. I roll my eyes "let's go Harrington, I have other stuff to do." He chuckles and follows me out to the parking lot.

-

"Mew Mew where are you?" Mum calls her cat as she pours food into its bowl. I round the corner "not in my room mum." I say just as Dustin comes running through the door and mum straightens up. "Hey Dusty!" She greets and Dustin, while panting from a lot of running replies "hi, het. Hi mum. Hey Lori." I narrow my eyes at him because he is acting weird. "Everything ok?" Mum asks sounding concerned, although she has sounded this way since she realised the cat had gone missing.

Dustin brushes past her and then me "yeah, everything's fine. Yeah." I follow him to his bedroom where he shuts the door once I am inside. "Ok Dustin." I say once the door is closed "cut the crap, what's going on?" I am greeted with silence however and he goes over to his turtle tank where the strange creature is. "Dart, I've gotta talk to you, buddy." He says taking his cap off "it's about my friend Will." I stay silent and sit on the arm of the chair in the corner where he just threw his school bag.

He takes the cover off of the tank and cuts his sentence short. My stomach drops when I take in the sight of the smashed glass at the front of the cage, strange goo leaking from certain parts. "Fucking hell." I say standing up and my brother picks up something that looks like shedded snake skin. "What the hell?" He mutters more to himself then to me and then we hear Dart screech.

I jump and twist around to face the sound "Dart?" I ask hesitantly before we both start walking forward. There is blood on the carpet and I start to feel sick. We peer over the chair to see Dart eating something. I notice scratches on the wall, whatever it was put up one hell of a fight.

My little brother let a monster into the house. And it killed our cat.