CHAPTER SEVEN.
bloody eyes and cowardly cries.

hey guys <3
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nineteen, steve, and dustin walk over the hill, scanning the large area in front of them. the young girl doesn't seem impressed as she looks in front of her.

"oh, yeah." steve says. "yeah, this will do." he starts walking forwards. "this will do just fine."

dustin and nineteen share a look, dustin looking proud and happy. "good call, dude." steve then adds on, making dustin's smile widen, if possible. nineteen just shrugs, as she has watched dustin do multiple times the last few hours, and follows after the brunette.

they drop the hunks of meat everywhere, making sure not to miss any space at all. after they are done, steve walks nineteen over to the center of the land and helps her pour out the rest of her bucket into one small heap on the ground.

it makes a slimy sound that makes nineteen's face scrunch up again. meeting dustin has showed her a lot of things that she likes and doesn't like.

"i said medium-well!"

nineteen's head whips around quickly. there, at the top of the hill, stands a boy and a girl.

"who is that?" steve asks dustin. nineteen glances back at dustin and steve. dustin looks fed up, steve looks concerned.

when the two people reach them, lucas eyes her majorly before asking to speak to dustin in private. they walk over to an abandoned car.

steve tells them to get to work and they start to find scraps of metal.

"hey." the girl with red hair says. nineteen glances up and stops when she discovers that the girl is talking to her.

"i'm max, what's your name?" the girl, max, kindly asks. nineteen smiles and looks down as max's hand reaches out. nineteen stares at it for a second before reaching out her hand and clasping it in hers.

"i'm nineteen." she says. max squints. "nineteen? like a number?" she looks down, thinking.

"steve calls me blue." she then says. max nods and half-smiles. "yeah? i think blue is a pretty cool name." nineteen smiles at her.

"thank you." she says and they start working again. nineteen rolls over a bin and picks up a bottle that's laying in it. she stares at it confusedly before dropping it on the ground.

"hey! dickheads! how come the only one helping me out is blue and this random girl?" steve suddenly asks, interrupting the girls' conversation. "we lose light in 40 minutes. let's go." he starts walking away. "let's go, i said!"

"all right, asshole! god!" dustin says at the same time lucas says, "okay! stupid!"

"so, what can she do? is she like eleven?" she suddenly hears lucas ask. she glances up. dustin shakes his head.

"no. she's like charles xavier. and electro. combined. it's crazy." dustin says eagerly.

"oh, so she can read minds. figures." max scoffs, leaning down. nineteen frowns and stares at dustin as he throws his hand up.

"hey! she can prove it to you." dustin says. max stops. she turns around and stands up. "okay, then." she says, crossing her arms.

"blue?" dustin asks, setting his hand on her shoulder as she stops beside him. he reaches for her left arm and holds it up, pulling back her coat and sweater sleeve. the number '019' sat neatly in the middle of her arm.

"so what? she has a tattoo, okay?" max says. lucas' eyes boggle as he leans forward. dustin smirks. nineteen steps backward a little as lucas reaches for it. he raises his hands a little. "i won't hurt you." he gently tells her. nineteen nods slowly and drops her arm.

"read lucas' mind." dustin demands. "and lucas, think of something that only people in your life would know." he tells them. she looks at him before staring at lucas. lucas stares back at her, squinting his eyes.

"erica?" she asks. lucas stops in his tracks. he looks to max. "that's my little sister's name." he states.

max pulls her hands out of her pockets. "well.. how do i know this isn't just a ploy to get me to believe you, huh?"

"think of something, she'll tell you what you're thinking of." dustin argues. max looks dead at nineteen and holds her stare.

"you hate how it's always cold in your room when you go to sleep." nineteen blurts.

max steps backwards. "that's just crazy." she says. dustin nods. "isn't it? and get this, she can control electricity, well, manipulate electric fields." nineteen smiles at the words. that's what owens had said when he had explained it. "how cool is that?" max shakes her head, looking everywhere else. she still doesn't totally believe it.

-

the five of them put metal after metal on top of each other in a pile, rolling barrel after barrel to the bus, and spread out gasoline in a circle.

nineteen was unaware of what was actually coming. they had yet to describe what the 'baby demogorgon' looked like, but they made it sound terrifying when they did acknowledge it.

nineteen watches max as she picks up a ladder, before bringing it into the bus, and sticking it up a hole in the ceiling.

max shrugs at her, as if saying, 'maybe it'll come in handy' and walks back out of the bus. nineteen follows her, picking up one end of a metal square, with max picking up the other side. they lean it against the bottom of the front of the bus, situating so that it completely covers it.

they continued to cover the bus up with whatever they could find, until steve told him he deemed it worthy. they look around, checking if anything at all was around, and walk inside the covered bus, closing the door behind them.

about 5 minutes later, nineteen sits down on the small chair, looking around. she noticed the ripped up seats when first got on the bus. and the mud on the walls,
not really caring that her shoes that steve had gave her were now even dirtier.

the boy in question now sat in front of her, flicking his cigarette lighter on and off.

"so, you really fought one of these things before?" max asks, after watching his hand for a few minutes.

steve stops, glancing over at her before nodding and continuing what he was doing. max continues talking.

"and you're, like, totally 100% sure it wasn't a bear?"

"shit. don't be an idiot. okay? it wasn't a bear." nineteen's eyebrows furrow at dustin's words. she had picked up what the word idiot meant - it was an insult. she glares at him. "why are you even here if you don't believe us?" he asks her. max stares up at him in surprise.

"just go home."

she scoffs and looks away from him. "geesh, someone's cranky. past your bedtime?" she asks before getting up and walking over to the ladder that was sticking out of the small hole in the roof. she climbs up and disappears. nineteen leans back in her seat. steve chuckles lightly at her words as she climbs up.

"that's good. just show her you don't care." he says smoothly. dustin stops. "i don't."

steve turns to him, away from nineteen and winks. dustin makes a disgusted face. "why are you winking, steve? stop." steve just shrugs and leans back, continuing flipping the lighter open and closed.

nineteen watches the exchange confusedly before glancing up at the hole and then down at her lap.

she then turns to her right, and dangles her legs over the side of the bus seat, leaning her head against the back of the seat. she stares at the ground solemnly, wondering what was going to happen after this. she knows half of hawkins lab is after her. they wanted to take her back, but she couldn't. she couldn't go back to that horrible place. owens was always so kind to her, and was a genuinely good man, but his job usually came before anything else. and mean people didn't work there anymore, not really. it was rare when something bad did happen with one of the guards, scientists, or nurses. but if they left, they left for good. no one knowing about what happened to them.

every day, nineteen would wake up, run through lab tests and get her morning vitals, and then go down under. she visited russia more times than she ever did when papa was there. that's all they used her for. to do their own dirty bidding. she couldn't understand why they couldn't let her out. she just didn't get it. she had been out of there for a few days, and nothing bad had happened. no one knew about her, except for the four people she was with right now. but they already knew everything. nineteen sighed, closing her eyes as a sudden headache started to come. it seemed like everything had happened so quickly — her escaping, steve finding her, her staying with steve, eleven finding her mother, will contacting her, meeting dustin and his friends. she wasn't sure if she could handle much more.

nineteen was suddenly brought out of her thoughts as a sudden tingle ran down her spine. she sits up quickly and turns to steve, walking over to the other side of the bus.

"what? what?!" steve asks. dustin walks over to them. nineteen peers out the window. a sudden loud growl answers him.

"you see him?" dustin asks. steve shakes his head. "no."

"lucas, what's going on?" dustin yells up to the two kids on the roof.

"hold on!" he yells. nineteen shivers and sets her finger on the metal cage, pointing towards a certain spot in the tree line. dart was slinking forwards.

"we've got eyes! ten o'clock! ten o'clock!" lucas screams at the same time.

"there." steve points. he takes a deep breath in.

"what's he doing?" dustin asks. nineteen starts backing up, as the creature starts to chitter.

"i don't know."

wait. you're sure that's not a dog?

"not a dog." nineteen breathes out. "not a dog." she exhales sharply. maybe this is the monster will had been talking about. maybe this is what she has to get. to kill. nineteen glances up, through the roof, and then reaches for the bars and climbs up, poking her head out of the top.

max glances down at her as she comes up and steps back beside her. they lean forward together and watch dart. it was difficult to keep an eye on him with all of the fog. they impatiently wait as it stays right where it is. nineteen glances at lucas, confused. he keeps his binoculars on it steadily, not letting anything distract him. nineteen glances at max who gives her a worried look. what's it even doing?

nineteen furrows her eyebrows when she suddenly hears a squeaking sound. nineteen glances back, maneuvering around max and looking down at the other side of the bus.

steve steps out of the shadows, holding the baseball bat in his hands in a death grip.

"no!" nineteen cries out. max grabs at her, turning her away from steve. she stares into her eyes. "it's okay." she whispers. "he'll be fine." max smiles comfortingly. the aura around her was suffocating of friendliness.

nineteen relaxes with max's hands on her upper arms, only to tense up when they hear steve whistling as he walks into the fog, towards the monster. "come on, buddy." he calls. he swings it back and forth.

max then pushes nineteen gently down, letting go, and climbing back down the ladder. nineteen moves beside lucas, watching steve slowly walk through the fog.

"come on, buddy. come on. dinner time." he softly says, swinging the bat back and forth. he stops in front of the meat that they had dumped out earlier. he readies himself. "human tastes better than cat, i promise."

nineteen feels her heart drop at the sight of it slinking out of the shadows, and also at the thought of something bad happening to steve. steve stops momentarily, holding up his bat.

and then more of them come.

"steve, watch out!" lucas screams to the top of his lungs. nineteen starts breathing heavily.

"a little busy here!" he yells back.

"three o'clock! three o'clock!" lucas screams. nineteen backs away, before climbing back down the ladder quickly. she quickly runs to the door, prepared to go out there, but is stopped by dustin. he grabs her and shoves her behind him. "no, blue! steve!" dustin yells, running over to the bus door. he cranks it open. "abort! abort!"

nineteen watches as steve jumps away, narrowly missing dart snapping him. he then hits one with the bat, but it only delays it. he gets up quickly, the kids yelling at him. he starts to run, hitting at them. he barely makes it back into the bus, colliding with the kids. dustin slams the door closed.

"are they rabid or something?" max asks frantically as steve picks up a random scrap of metal and sets it in front of the door.

"they can't get in! they can't!" lucas cries as it keeps on scratching at the door.

they start screaming as the monsters all attack the bus, making it shake. one bursts through the door and steve repeatedly smacks at it with his bat. they run to the back of it as dustin whips out his walkie-talkie.

"is anyone there? mike? will? god! anyone?!" a sudden banging behind them makes them jump away.

"we're at the old junkyard, and we are going to die!" dustin yells again.

while steve dealed with the one at the door, max stops in her tracks and stares horrified towards the quietness that erupted. the four kids stare up, at the ceiling of the bus. there's a sudden clanging on the roof, advancing towards the open spot. the monster comes slowly and then looks down, letting out a chitter. max starts screaming as she comes face to face with it.

it growls and steve bolts up towards the kids, shoving the redhead back. "out of the way! out of the way! you want some?" he asks. it's face opens up, and it's roars. loud and shrill. "come get this!" steve says, holding up his bat. he yells in anger, or fear, and holds up the bat.

he's suddenly shoved backwards as nineteen stands in his way and holds her hands up, a beam of electric blue light coming out of her palms. it starts out slow, just radiating in her hands, and then it shoots out quickly in a beam. it makes a loud static noise, like a tv on an empty channel, and makes the rest of them cover their eyes.

it hits the monster in the center of its face, causing it to let out a scream, squeaking like a mouse and squirming in its place. nineteen then twists her hand and pushes it forwards, as if she was pushing something away in front of her. a bead of sweat drops down the side of her temple. she pants and then the beam gets brighter. steve and the kids watch in awe as the monster halts and then falls on its side, smoke emitting from its body. nineteen stumbles back into steve, blood beginning to ooze from her eyes.

the rest of the monsters let out howls and bolt, the banging on the walls stopping. the bus shakes as they jump off and leave and nineteen lets steve hold all her weight, suddenly tired from the day they had. a loud shriek erupts through the forest.

they all stand up, and max glances around. she looks up at the brunette who just saved their lives, but only stumbles backwards into lucas, letting out a small shriek at the sight of her. lucas moves to see what she was looking at, and he too let's out a girly shriek and stumbles back. they stare for a moment.

"yeah, sorry, she bleeds like that." steve says, unbothered. he turns and gently leans nineteen against dustin, who takes her weight easily. nineteen sighs and dustin grimaces, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a tissue. he wipes her face with it and then shoves it back in his pant pocket. max and lucas also grab her arms, helping her to the front.

steve is standing right at the door, slowly opening it, and pausing when he hears the smallest noise.

"what. happened." lucas asks firmly as the growling in the yard slowly fades away.

"i don't know." max breaths. "blue scared 'em off?" dustin asks.

"i don't think so." steve shakes his head, turning to the four kids. "they're going somewhere." he says matter-of-factly.

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jesus this was so long and it literally felt like it happens in .5 seconds???