one in the face, yelling a bunch of profanities at it as his hair went flew into his face. the sound of max screaming is what made arlo snap out of her exhausted state, the girl looking up to see that a demogorgan had made it's way onto the roof and was looking down at max through the hole in the ceiling. without a second thought, arlo threw herself into the shadows before she reappeared on the roof. the inter-dimensional creature looked at her before it screeched. she jumped at it, putting her hands on it's head as shadows surrounded them. her honey brown eyes became darker as she glared at the creature, ignoring the screeches that was coming from it's flower-shaped mouth. slowly but surely the baby demogorgan started to change into shadows before disappearing completely. as she did this, she felt the dull ache that had been there all day start to grow stronger, but she ignored it. she stood up, getting ready to fight anymore of the slimy creatures if she needed to. but as she stood up, she saw all of them running away from the junkyard.

"arlo!" max's voice called, quickly climbing up the ladder to make sure that the harrington girl was okay. "are you okay? are you hurt?" she quizzed, seeing that the girl was covered in slime from the demogorgan.

arlo turned to look at her, revealing the blood that was seeping from her nose and how dark her eyes were. "yeah, i'm okay. just. . . really tired, now." she huffed. max held her hand out, arlo grabbing it. the mayfield girl guided arlo down the ladder before she followed her, wanting to make sure that she got down carefully. dustin had seen the way max was treating arlo, a small frown appearing on his lips.

the group slowly walked out of the bus, max having arlo's arm around her shoulders while she had her arm around arlo's waist, holding the shorter girl close. they looked around the junk yard, seeing that they were now completely alone.

"what happened?" lucas questioned.

"i don't know." percy answered.

"steve scared 'em off?" dustin suggested.

"there's no way in hell the hair scared those little shits off." apollo shot down, earning a glare from the senior boy in front of him.

"they're going somewhere." arlo mumbled, resting her head onto max's shoulder as she felt a that ache inside of her start to tug at her, almost like it wanted her to follow them.

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daij speaks!
heyyyy :). how we feeling? this is a long ass chapter but only because of all the action and marlo scenes. i love it regardless tho. percy and apollo are back :)

but i hope u guys enjoyed🫶🏼