꧁꧂

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴛᴡᴇɴᴛʏ-ᴛʜʀᴇᴇ: ɪ ʟᴏᴏᴋ ꜰᴏʀ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡʜᴇɴ ɪ'ᴍ ʟᴏꜱᴛ

Now, picture this: you're with four other people in a room, full of boxes with strange green chemicals that you know nothing about. One is a sassy ten-year-old girl who will beat your ass through telling your life story, another has great hair, the younger boy wants to have as great hair, and the last one has no idea what is to come as she has not gone through or been told what has occurred in the last two years.

"Why did that just close?" I asked, looking at the door that had just covered the other door. Then, before anything else could be said, we all began to fall. The two other girls screamed loudly while I found myself holding onto one of the shelves for absolute deer life.

The fall only continued to quicken as it went, with them all basically yelling and screaming for their lives, while Dustin repeatedly pressed the button he'd pressed earlier on.

"WE'RE GOING DOWN. WE'RE GOING DOWN." Steve shouted loudly for us to hear, and I rolled my eyes.

"YEAH, NO SHIT, HARRINGTON." Robin shouted back at him, holding onto the shelves of boxes.

"WHY DON'T THESE BUTTONS WORK?!"

The shouting continued on and on between us all, including Erica telling Dustin to just 'press the button' before it all suddenly stopped, with the boxes crashing around the place. When we fell, Robin nearly fell on top of me if it wasn't for the fact that I, too, had fallen and nearly broke my hip in the process. Rule number eighteen: do not go in evil Russian made elevators- you'll probably break something. 

"MY GROIN. IT FELL ON MY GROIN." As I hissed in pain, clutching my side, I looked over at Dustin taking off a box on top of Steve.

"Is everyone okay?" Robin asked as I slowly stood up. It was like a period cramp if I am being fair. The older girl held the back of her head in pain, and I gave her a nod, while also wondering if she'd hurt herself severely there at the crash.

"YEAH, I'M GREAT, NOW THAT I KNOW THAT RUSSIANS CAN'T DESIGN ELEVATORS." Steve shouted so loud that it wouldn't have surprised me if Mom could hear from our place. The boy pushed pass Dustin to get the button panel. Meanwhile, I was finding it a little difficult to stand, and Robin had picked up on that, holding out a helping hand to help me move.

"I think we've clearly established that those buttons don't work." She commented over at Steve.

"THEY'RE BUTTONS. THEY HAVE TO DO SOMETHING." Steve insisted over at us. He was going redder in the face as time went on, turning like a tomato.

"YEAH, IF WE HAD A KEYCARD." She shouted back at him, holding me close so I could stand up straight. There was something so comforting about her embrace while she shouted at Steve Harrington in a Russian elevator. 

The boy continued to press the buttons, looking over at her. "A WHAT?"

"She's right." I say, groaning a little. Maybe I had broken something... "It's an electronic lock."

"Same as the loading dock door." Robin says, moving us over to the panel slowly as she spoke. "If we don't have a keycard, it won't operate," She pointed over to a system panel that required said keycard. "meaning..."

"We're stuck in here..." Dustin finished her sentence, realising what kind of a situation we were in.

Steve whacked back the panel door as the two of us nodded. My stomach was hurting like a bitch. "Just so you nerds are aware," Erica spoke up. "I'M SUPPOSED to be spending the night at Tina's, and Tina always covers for me." I gave her a look, telling the ten-year-old right where to shove her current information. I really did not care. I needed a sleep, I needed a nice hot drink and a goddamn comic read in my bed for hours on end with no one talking or interrupting me unless it was her... "BUT, if I'm not home for Uncle Jack's party tomorrow and my mom finds out you four are responsible, she's gonna hunt you down, one by one, and slit your throat." Rule number nineteen: make sure Erica is home for Uncle Jack's party tomorrow. ASAP!

"Fun..." I muttered, letting out a slight heavy breath.

"I DON'T CARE ABOUT TINA." Steve shouted back at the girl, not even hearing my remark. "OR UNCLE JACK'S PARTY." The face Erica gave honestly made me wonder if his words hurt her. "Your mom's not gonna be able to find us, if we're dead in a Russian elevator."

"Hey..." Dustin spoke up, pointing above us. "What if we climbed out?" So, it went ahead, with Steve and Dustin checking out the top of the lift first.

Except, there was a slight issue. "What was that you were saying about climbing?" We were so low in the ground; it was impossible to even see where we'd come from. We had no chance of getting out of here alive.

⊹˚˖⁺

"This is a code red." Dustin's voice echoed loudly as he paced the roof of the elevator, speaking into the radio. "I repeat, a code red. Does anyone copy? We are innocent children trapped under Starcourt Mall. The Red Army has infiltrated Hawkins, and if we are found, they will torture and kill us." It was nice he wasn't looking at the worst parts of our chances and options, though.

Steve moved over and up to the roof, probably to shout at Dustin, while I leaned my head against the wall. It had been hours and I was practically ready to offer myself up as the first person that the group could eat if we couldn't find another source of food.

Robin was busy, trying her best to work anything on the un-workable electric panel. Every once and a while I would hear the girl mutter a curse or three about how dumb it was to listen to Steve and Dustin and that she should've just left it alone and pulled herself out of it and me too if she had the chance to.

"Can you redirect your stream, please?" I glanced up and over in the corner that Robin was look over at before grimacing at the urine that was flowing off the walls. She pulled a grimacing face which I nodded in agreement to, slowly standing up.

I definitely had broken a something now that I thought about it. But there wasn't a lot that I had left to do other than to deal with it. Robin had helped tie my jacket tightly around my stomach, but I really couldn't tell how much it was helping.

As I slowly moved around, I gave Erica a confused look as she slammed one of the green chemical flasks against the sides of a barrel.

"HEY! HEY! BE CAREFUL." Robin rushed over to her much faster than I ever could like the protective mother she could be. "CAREFUL, CAREFUL!" She took it off of the girl, and handed it over to me, causing me to give her a look. "We don't even know what that is."

"So you give it to me?" I asked, eyebrows furrowed, which she just replied to with a raised eyebrow.

"EXACTLY, it could be useful." Erica says, and I showed her the same listening face as I usually would show her.

"Useful... how?" Robin questioned, looking back at the chemical in my hand.

"We can survive down here a long time without food," Erica begins, stating facts, "but if the human body doesn't get water, it will die."

Looking back down at the flask, I held it up so she could see it as I spoke. "Erica, not gonna lie to you, I don't think this is water."

"No, but it's a liquid," Erica fired back at me. "and if it comes down to me drinking that shit, or dying of thirst, I drink." She said, ending it with an annoying smile.

I gave her a pissed off smile in return as she took it from my grasps before looking over at Robin. "It's official: I'm never having kids."

Before she could fire back at me a sarcastic remark, a noise came from the wall and I glanced over at it, confused. Robin moved over to it while I stood there and waited as she listened for it. Part of me was wondering if there was something going on with the outside contraptions of the elevator, but Robin had something else in mind.

When she looked over at me, it was a hard expression in her face and eyes to tell what was going through her mind. "We've got company."

The next minute was filled with Steve and Robin helping me up to the roof of the elevator, with multiple cardboard boxes included. Somehow, they did do it, though. Teamwork did seem to pay off in Russian elevators.

When the door opened up, two men walked through, with both speaking to each other in Russian before picking up boxes and taking them out of the elevator. And when they were gone? Steve quickly got to action.

The boy leapt down to the floor, holding the same flask that Erica was trying to open earlier and placing it underneath the slowly closing door. And when he did, we followed straight after him, with Robin still helping me around. Without that girl here, I don't know what I would've done, to be honest.

With Erica and Dustin already through, Robin helped me go through the small crack left for us while I cursed Henderson over and over again before rolling over for Robin to get through after me (the roll being a big mistake, of course).

As Steve went to go through, he took one look at the flask, seeing that it was beginning to crack all over its glass shell. The boy moved fast at the sight before him, moving centimetres away just in time before the door slammed shut, shattering the glass.

"Jesus Christ-" Steve staggered up to get a better look at the others got a better look at it. The green liquid, that was at one point in the flask, sizzled and bubbled like any other reacting acid would at the foot of the closed elevator, making Robin turn to look over at Erica beside her.

"You still wanna drink that?" The girl asked the other, of who pulled a face. Leaning my head back against the floor, I smiled momentarily and the joke before stopping when I saw the corridor in the corner of my eyes. It was huge.

"Holy shit..." I murmured, not looking away. Forget any of the running we'd do in Phys ED, this was much, much worse.

"Well, I hope you guys are in good shape..." When the words left Steve's mouth, I found myself turning my head back over at him and glaring. I would be if it weren't for the fact that Russian elevators suck ass. When he pushed pass Dustin, he patted his shoulder. "Look at you, Roast Beef."

Steve walked ahead of them all, beginning down the hall as I sat up, praying to whatever God there was in this world that this was all worth it. If it wasn't, I wasn't going to take it lightly.

Robin held out her hand for me to take as the other two kids followed after the boy with the big hair. When I took it, I watched over at the three others before back at her. "I'm regretting this already..."

⊹˚˖⁺

"I mean, you have to admit, as a feat of engineering alone," Dustin's voice echoed down the long, never-ending corridor when he spoke. "this is impressive."

"He's not seriously still talking, is he?" I asked Robin quietly, trying to put the least amount of weight on her as I walked.

"What are you talking about? It's a total fire hazard." Steve replied to him. Fire hazard? "There's not stairs, there's no exit, there's just an elevator that drops you halfway to hell."

"They're Commies." Erica says, staring up at the taller boy. "You don't pay people, they cut corners." As the conversations went on, I was remembered of how little Steve knew of history, so it wasn't a huge surprise of his replying face to the small girl's words.

"To be fair to our Russian comrades," Robin spoke up. "I don't think this tunnel was designed for walking or people with injured ribs and broken bones. I mean, think about it, they developed the perfect system for transporting that cargo."

"It's just coming to the mall like any other old delivery." I nod, understanding.

"And then they load it up onto those trucks, and nobody's the wiser." She continued.

"You think they built this whole mall just so they could transport that green poison?" Steve asked. I get the feeling he wasn't paying attention to what it looked like. That wasn't poison.

"I very seriously doubt it's something as boring as poison." Dustin tells the taller boy. "It's gotta be much more valuable, like promethium or something."

"What the hell is promethium?" Steve asked right back.

"It's what Victor Stone's dad used to make Cyborg's bionic and cybernetic components." Robin suddenly said, quickly. Oh, she knew what she was talking about.

"You're all so nerdy, it makes me physically ill." Erica suddenly spoke up, clutching her stomach lightly.

"No. No, no." Steve tells her. "No, don't lump me with them. I'm not a nerd, all right?"

"Why so sensitive, Harrington?" Robin teased, and I could hear her smirk without even looking beside me to her. "Afraid of losing cool points to a ten-year-old child?"

"No, I'm just saying I don't know jack shit about Prometheus." When the words left his mouth, I sighed.

"Promethium." I corrected, tiredly. "Prometheus was a Geek mythological Titan. What Dustin was saying is that, that green stuff that Erica was thinking of drinking? It's probably being used to make something."

"Or power something." Robin offered. Oh shit. She was right. It could be the fuel to something.

"Like a nuclear weapon?" Dustin says.

"Totally." Robin nods as we continued to talk.

"Walking towards a nuclear weapon." Steve muttered. "That's great... That'd be... great."

"But if they're building something," Robin says, turning to look at me and Dustin. "why here? I mean, Hawkins. Seriously. Of all places." Hawkins didn't have much to give, she wasn't wrong about that, but there was only a handful of reasons I could give to why the Russians were in town, the only one I can actually say out loud being that the July 4th carnival coming up. "At the very best, we're a toilet stop on your way to Disneyland, but maybe that's it-" As she continued to walk, Dustin suddenly pointed out that my shoelace was untied, offering to do it up as she walked and talked.

"Do you think the Russians know?" Suddenly both Steve and Dustin were crowded around me shoe to pretend to do my shoe's lace why they spoke.

"They could..." I murmured quietly, glancing at the back of Erica and Robin.

"So it's connected?" Steve asks, looking between us both. Rule number twenty: never rule out the idea of the Upside Down.

"Maybe." Dustin replied.

"How?"

"We don't know..." I murmured again, along with a sigh. "But it's..."

"Possible..." The other two said in unison. This did not look good for us, that was for sure.

"I'M SORRY." All of ours heads quickly turned to Robin and her sarcasm. "Is there something you'd like to share with the class?" No, because we're all in danger, otherwise...

"Steve and Dustin can't tie shoes as well as we thought." I lied trying to lower the tension. Turns out, it didn't work, but the next sound that was heard certainly did.

The sound of a familiar Russian voice came through on a radio and we all turned to look at each other in hope, eyes wide. "Walkie..." The two boys practically sprinted over to Erica while I did my best to walk over and listen as she took the walkie out of the small bag.

Robin held it and brought up the antenna, listening before repeating the same words in rhythm with the man's voice.

"It's the code..." I murmured, recognising it myself.

"Which means," Dustin began. "wherever that broadcast is coming from-"

"It's close." Robin held the walkie in her hand, close enough to her ear to hear it, "And if there's one thing we know about that signal..."

"It can reach the surface."