꧁꧂

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴛᴡᴇɴᴛʏ-ꜰᴏᴜʀ: ꜱᴏ ɪ ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ɢᴏ ɪɴꜱᴀɴᴇ

When we reached the end of the corridor, it was a race against time for our lives to find somewhere secretive where we wouldn't be found. Easier said than done, but you know, I guess we've been in worse situations, if you think about it. Part of me wondered that if I made it out alive, Max was going to have a great time hearing the story from me. Holy shit, she'd probably murder one of them. Rule number twenty-one: don't let Max murder them all? 

"Okay, clear." Steve moved quickly from behind the small little container. "Clear, come on, let's go." We followed right behind the boy, with no interests of, well, dying.

"Okay, that was close." Robin pointed out.

"Too close." Dustin corrected.

"Relax." A not relaxed Steve says. "All right? Relax, nobody saw-" When he turned a corner, it was a completely different story. A hub, huge with different rooms and places to be, was swarmed with people I could only assume to be Russian. Men and women walked pass, some holding guns and some holding lab results, maybe some even holding boxes.

But, after getting one look at one of the Russians coming close to us, holding a gun, we ducked beside to a crate, out of sight.

"Jesus Christ." I muttered, curling beside Robin. Why is this what I'm doing today?

"Red Dawn." Dustin says.

"I saw it." Erica added on. "First floor, northwest." I nodded, understanding the girl and taking a little glance.

"Saw what?" Steve-the-uneducated asked.

"The comms room." Erica might've shouted it over at him with the way she was looking at him. She must've thought he was an idiot.

"You saw the comms room?!" Steve glanced back as he asked the question before back at us.

"Correct." Erica was not here to listen to any bullshit.

"Are you certain?" I asked, eyebrows furrowed.

"Positive. The door was open for a second, and I saw a bunch of lights and machines and shit in there." As Erica spoke, I sat up straight slightly, trying to take in the words.

"That could be a hundred different things." Dustin tells her, looking over every once and a while.

Robin looked back at Steve, ignoring us and our dumbassery. "I'll take those odds." The boy looked at her for a moment and sighed, shaking his head as he looked over at the hub again. "All right," He looked back after all of our little snoop at the hub. "we're gonna move fast, we're gonna stay low." Says the boy in a sailor outfit... "Okay?"

"Okay." Robin nodded, holding her hand out to help me along, which I gladly took. When we moved, I followed the two as fast as I could, ducking behind another set of larger crates as we stayed out of the eyes of any Russians.

When we finally got out of the way of the hub, Steve had found us in a room, of which could be locked. It all looked good, except for one small... tiny issue. There, a Russian guy sat at a desk, staring at us as he took his headphones off. A female voice could be heard from his headphones as he left the on the side, staring at us.

Before he could go for any weapon or walkie talkie on his belt, Robin stepped forward, speaking to him in his own language. He pulled a face in return and assumingly replied to her, but there was no chance for us now. It wasn't as though any of us had actually picked up the language as the last few days had gone on.

The girl repeated herself, imitating a cat slightly with a tail, causing him to shake his head and reply. Robin looked back at us, and I gave her a raise of an eyebrow. I think it would be important for this girl to know that any second could be her, and our, last. She stepped forward, towards the Russian and spoke again, causing him to let out a sound that sounded like a scoff.

His hand went towards his gun and my eyes went wide, of course, that was before Steve got involved. The boy yelled as he ran towards the Russian man, tackling him into the control panel behind him.

The man threw Steve off of him, placing the gun back in its holster before he looked back over at the slightly winded Steven. It wasn't looking good for Steve. Maybe he should've taken notes from my older brother when he'd fought him last time... The Russian through a punch at the boy in the sailor's outfit, with him narrowly dodging it before the man grabbed him and threw him onto another table.

Steve elbowed the Russian, causing the man to stagger back. And right when I felt as though we'd all need to step in, Steve did it. He won a fight.

The man moved closer and there and then, Steve turned quickly over to him, holding the little speaker, and smashing it around his face. The Russian lost consciousness the moment his head hit the side counter of another desk, collapsing over the floor.

Steve let out multiple heavy breaths, brushing his long hair with his hand as he stared down at the body in front of us all. "DUDE!" Dustin pointed, proudly, over at him. "YOU DID IT!" Steve didn't get it, looking over at the younger boy. "YOU WON A FIGHT!"

Steve let out a proud sigh of relief as he looked back down at the body. "Little dramatic..." I murmured over to Robin. The girl chuckled quietly as Dustin moved towards the body, leaning over it.

"What are you doing?!" Erica asked the boy in the hat.

"Getting us our ticket out of here." Dustin tells her, trying to get the keycard off of the belt.

"You want to walk all the way back?!" Erica asked him, obviously not have enjoyed the walk.

"Well, we can hang out for a little bit..." Dustin mocked, walking back over to her. "relax, have a picnic maybe-"

Robin nudged me and I pulled my eyes away from the two arguing children. A staircase up to our left showed a distant flashing blue light, which, with my history of flashing lights, could not mean too much good.

The two of us began to walk away from the others, taking the walk slowly as we did so. The flashing from the top of the stairs continued to go on as we stepped closer and closer. When she got to the door, Robin peered through the window. It quickly became a stare, too.

"Robin?" I asked, quietly, worried. Once she did tear her eyes away from the window, they were wide, as though she'd finally worked out how to complete parts of a math test. "Robin, what's in there?"

⊹˚˖⁺

When we did get to see, let's just say it wasn't a good look. A gate, underneath the mall, was being opened as we stared.

"Holy shit..." The technology was advanced. Probably more than our little lab ever had. Watching it as it continued, a sickening feeling began to grow in my stomach. We needed to warn the others. We needed to warn everyone.

When I looked over at Dustin, his eyes only said one thing: we need to go.

"I don't understand." Robin questioned us as we found ourselves quickly walking down the staircase. Fuck the pain in my stomach, this was more important, I won't lie. "You've seen this before?"

"Not exactly." Steve tells her.

"Then what, exactly?" Now would've been a great time to know how to tell a kid as intelligent and exciting as Robin what the Upside Down was, without frightening the shit out of her.

"Robin?" I called over to her. "Just know, it's really, REALLY bad." I tell her as we hurried down the staircase still.

"It's really bad..." Steve emphasised.

"Like, end-of-the-human-race-as-we-know-it kind of bad..." Dustin added on. Well done, you guys, we've done really well...

"And you know about this how?!" We looked back at her, deciding how to say it.

"Um, Steve?" We then diverted our attention over to Erica. "Where's your Russian friend?" At the girl's words, the four of us glanced to the floor where the Russian man once was laying. He was now gone. Fuck. Rule number twenty-two: don't loose track of your evil Russian friends that you previously knocked out.

An alarm blared from speakers, along with bright red and blue lights all over the place. "Oh shit..." Steve rushed over to the door, opening it up before moments later, slamming it shut again. Well, this seemed... great. "SHIT." He looked over at us before shouting. "GO, GO, GO, GO GO!" The group of us did our best to run back up the stairs, with Robin helping me up with a pull of the arm.

Following behind Dustin, we walked into the larger control room in front of the drill. All heads turned towards us as I cursed the boy and continued to run right after him and Robin. Running across the room, we went outside and towards the drill, like the dumbasses we were, before nearly getting blazed by the end of the drill.

"HOLY SHIT, HOLY SHIT, HOLY SHIT-" As Dustin shouted, screamed and yelled, I looked around hopefully and cut him off.

"THIS WAY." I pointed towards it for Steve to see and he nodded as he sped off, with us all following after him. The taller boy pushed pass one guard before pushing over a stack of barrels, covering another two evil Russians with guns.

Now practically sprinting, with as much pain in my stomach as I would if I'd done two marathons in one, we found ourselves in a small cellar, with Steve again, slamming the door shut. Yelling came from the other side, causing Steve to call to Ronin for help.

She gave me an unknowing look, which I wasn't expecting from someone like her. She was one of the most intelligent people I knew. "Go." I say, gesturing over to a panicking, shouting and yelling Steve Harrington.

"HERE! COME ON, LET'S GO!" Just as Robin had got to the door, my head turned back to Erica. The girl opened up the bottom of the floor, which was seemingly apart of a ventilation system. When I looked back, Robin and Steve were doing much worse than moments ago.

Yelling went on between the group as I walked closer to the door, even though the two older teens in sailor outfits were better off without me, it was as though they were second away from the door collapsing on them.

"NO, COME ON, NOW!" Dustin shouted again, causing Steve to loose it.

"NO. JUST GO GET SOME HELP, OKAY?" The mother shouted at his son. Crouched down, I pushed my body weight against the door, taking one glance back at Dustin. He didn't like this idea, that was for sure. "WHAT'RE YOU DOING?!"

The boy stared over at us, hoping it wouldn't be the last time he saw us three, while we all yelled at him to leave. "GO." The Russian guards shouted from the other side in their own language, and I found myself glaring at the curly haired boy across the room. He had to leave, now.

"DUSTIN, I WON'T SURVIVE UNDER THERE." I shouted over at him, knowing his thought process. "GO."

"I- I WON'T FORGET YOU-"

"GO." The two taller teens shouted over ta him with the most annoyed voice humanly possible. We were tired, already, and the sleepless night didn't really help that much, either.

The moment the floor was closed back up by the boy, the door was flung open by Russians on the other side. They all filed in as I laid on my back, clutching my stomach as they aimed guns over at me and the other two, yelling in their own language at us.

We were screwed. We were so screwed.