Chapter Twenty-Three

Everyone was screaming but Stiles and I. Instead of being in Stiles' arms I had pushed myself away from him and walked over to the wall, thinking.

"How are you guys so calm right now?!" Dustin yelled and continued to scream.

I looked over at him. "Because I've seen a lot worse than this and this isn't something I need to scream about." It's a waste of energy, too.

I looked back at Stiles, who nods his head, the only one in this room that understands exactly what we've gone through.

But, the others continue to scream and I don't say anything else. Even though it was going at fall speed.

"Shit! Shit!" Dustin screams out. I chew on my lower lip.

"We're going down! We're going down!" Steve screams.

"Yeah, no shit, Harrington," I snap, looking over at him quickly.

Dustin was banging on the buttons. "Why don't these buttons work?!"

Erica quickly walked over to Dustin and stands by his side. "Press the button!"

"What do you think I'm doing?!" Dustin practically screams at her.

"Come on, press something!" Steve yelled. "Just press the button!" That's when I felt my legs give up on me and I collapsed the ground, the elevator slamming to a stop, throwing not only myself, but everyone to the floor. "My groin," Steve complains. I looked over, a box had fallen on his groin. "It fell on my groin. Stiles! Get this off me!"

I watched as Stiles had helped Steve get the box that pinned down on him off of him. "Is everyone okay?" Robin asked from the ground.

Stiles had walked over to me and offered me a hand, I take it and pull myself up, placing a hand on my head as it hurts from being slammed to the ground.

Stiles pulls me into him carefully. "Are you okay?" He whispered, looking over at me with worried eyes.

I smiled at him softly. "Yeah, I hit my head a little, but I should be okay." He kissed my head.

"Yeah, I'm great, now that I know that Russians can't design elevators!" Steve yells, standing up, shoving Dustin aside and going towards the panels of buttons.

I looked over at him. "I think we've clearly established that those buttons don't work."

Steve turns to me. "They're buttons. They have to do something."

"Yeah, if we had a keycard." I gestured towards the electric lock, remembering the guards had keycards when the unlocked this room.

Steve stopped pressing buttons and looked at me. "A what?"

"It's an electronic lock," I explained. "Same as the loading dock door. If we don't have a keycard," I walked over to the electronic lock. "It won't operate, meaning-"

"We're stuck in here," Stiles finishes my sentence.

I glanced over at my boyfriend. "Yeah."

"Just so you nerds are aware," Erica begins. "I'm supposed to be spending the night at Tina's, and Tina always covers for me. But if I'm not home for Uncle Jack's party tomorrow and my Mum finds out you five were responsible, she's gonna hunt you down, one by one, and slit your throat."

"I don't care about Tina!" Steve bursts. "Or Uncle Jack's party! Your Mum's not gonna be able to find us if we're dead in a Russian elevator!"

"Hey," Dustin softly said. "What if we climbed out?" Dustin gestured towards a hatch on the ceiling. We had gotten something so Dustin can reach the hatch and unlock it, Dustin climbs on the roof with Steve, Stiles, and I follow.

I looked up in the elevator shaft. "What were you saying about climbing?" Stiles asked and his voice echos.

-

"Code red, I repeat, code red," Dustin repeats over and over on the walkie talkie as Dustin stands, Stiles and I sit on the roof of the elevator. It's been God knows how long - it felt like hours, but I could be exaggerating - and I want to get out of here. "Does anyone copy? This is code red, I repeat, a code red. Does anyone copy? We are innocent children and we are trapped under Starcourt Mall the red Army has infiltrated Hawkins, and if we are found, they will torture and kill us."

"Hey," Steve had popped up from the hatch and I looked over at him. "You gotta take it easy on that thing. Gonna drain the battery."

"The mall just opens," Dustin informs us.

"So?" Steve raises and eyebrow.

"So someone could be in range," Dustin states.

"What do you think, Petey the Mall Cop is gonna rappel down here and save the day?" Steve retorts. He gets up onto the roof.

"All right, why are you such a cranky pants after getting to spend some time with Robin?" Dustin whispered the last past.

"Shh!" Steve hisses. "Jesus Christ. Will you just give up on your creepy dream already?" I let out a laugh making Steve jump. "Oh, my God, I forgot you were here." I let out another giggle. "Get up, will you? The elevator roof dirty,"

"I heard you guys talking all night," Dustin smirks.

"Yeah, we were trying to figure out a way to open the door while you children were sleeping," Steve explains. I lean on Stiles some more.

I looked up at Stiles. "I miss your bed,"

"Me too," he mutters. We had sleep on the elevator roof the entire night. Well, I didn't really sleep. Everyone else was down in the elevator. I gave him a kiss on the corner of his mouth.

"After eight hours, we're still exactly nowhere, which is, you know probably just a little bit of the reason why I'm feeling just..." He walked over to the edge of the elevator. "A tad cranky,"

"What are you doing?" Dustin asks, complete disgust covering his face. My eyes widen. Goddamnit Steve, he's gonna take a piss down the side of the elevator.

Steve turns his head. "What does it look like I'm doing? I'm taking a leak. Look away. Look away!"

I rolled my eyes and the three of us looking away, though I kind of just looked up at Stiles and he looked down at me. We connected lips for a short second.

"I love you," I murmur to him.

He kissed my head. "I love you more," I bite my lip, making him roll his eyes as he knew I was teasing him. I let out a small giggle. "I hate you."

"You love me," I tapped his nose before looking away from him.

"Can you redirect your stream, please?" Robin calls from under us. That's when I decided I'd go down into the elevator and spend some time with the girls.

I jumped up. "Hey, where are you going?" Stiles almost whines.

I looked down at him. "I'm going down," with that, I walked to the hatch and jumped down, noticing Robin at the buttons.

"Hey," Robin greets. "How'd you sleep?"

"Terrible," I replied. "I miss my bed."

Robin lets out a tiny laugh, nodding her head in agreement. That's when there was banging and we turned around, watching Erica for a split second who was banging the cylinder onto the table.

"Hey, hey, hey! Be careful, careful, careful!" Robin rushed over to her and I was soon to follow. She takes it away from her. "We don't even know what that is."

"Exactly," Erica sasses. "It could be useful."

"Userful how?" I crossed my arms at the little girl.

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

"I hate to break it to you, but this is not water." Robin gestures towards the cylinder with the green substance in it.

"No, but its a liquid," Erica points out. "And if it comes down to me drinking that shit or dying of thirst, I drink."

"Language," I warned with a scowl on my face.

She looked at me up and down. "You're not my Mum."

Robin scoffs. I heard a distant electronic whirring sound behind us and I glanced back at the door. I stepped towards the wall and pressed my ear against it.

I then popped up through the hatch to warn the boys. "We've got company,"

They looked down at me. I jumped up, Erica and Robin following me. We stayed here until we knew it was coast clear. I watched the two Russians take boxes from the grated ceiling panel. We all sat around it because that's the place where we can't be seen.

Steve reaches out a warning hand then holds his finger in front of his mouth, indicating for us to be quiet.

Steve locks eyes with Erica who holds the cylinder. Steve and I jumped down with the children in Steve's hand and before the door could close, Steve placed the cylinder under the door to stop it from closing.

"Let's go," Steve informs us and with that, one by one, we all go through the gap, Steve hurrying everyone along.

I watched as the cylinder begins to crack. "Come on, Steve lets go!" I hurried him as he shimmied through the gap and before the door could close on him, the cylinder breaks and the green fluids splatters.

The green fluid was practically burning on the ground.

"Jesus Christ," Steve speaks as Stiles helps me up from the ground.

Robin looks at Erica. "You still wanna drink that?"

"Holy mother of God," Dustin had turned around and I turned around after him. My eyes widen.

Oh My God. We were faced with a long tunnel, it seems to be never-ending. "Well..." Stiles begins. "Hope you guys are in good shape." He pats Dustin shirt before grabbing my hand. "Looking at you, roast beef."

I turned around to them. "Let's go, come on."

-

"I mean, you have to admit, as a feat of engineering alone, this is impressive," Stiles informs us as we continue to walk the long tunnels.

"What are you talking about?" Steve looked at him. "It's a total fire hazard. There's no stairs, no exits, there's just an elevator that drops you to halfway to hell."

I had to giggle at that one.

"They're Commies." Erica looked up at Steve. "You don't pay people, they cut corners."

"To be fair to our Russian comrades," I begin. "I don't think this tunnel was designed for walking. Think about it, they developed the perfect system for transporting that cargo."

"It all comes into the mall like any old delivery," Dustin continues on for me.

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

"You think they built this whole mall just so they could transport that green poison?" Steve asks from beside me.

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

"What the hell is promethium?" Steve questions.

"It's what Victor Stone's Dad used to make Cyborg's bionic and cybernetic components," Robin explains.

"You're all so nerdy, it makes me physically ill." Erica informs us.

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

"Why so sensitive, Harrington?" I tease. "Afaird of losing cool points to a ten-year-old child?"

"No," Steve denied. "I'm just saying I don't know jack shit about Prometheus."

"Promethium," Dustin corrects. "Prometheus is a Greek mythological figure, but whatever."

Stiles cuts them off. "All I'm saying is it's probably being used to make something."

"Or power something," Robin adds.

"Like a nuclear weapon?" I looked over at my two friends.

"Totally," Robin made eye contact with me and smiled.

"Walking towards a nuclear weapon," Steve responses sarcastically. "That's great. That'd be great."

"Oh, you sound so much like Stiles," I tell Steve, groaning slightly.

"No, he sounds like you," Dustin tells me.

"You're right, I've been spending too much time with him," I pressed my lips together.

"But if they're building something," Robin continues on. "Why here? I mean, Hawkins. Seriously. Of all places. At the very best, we're a toilet stop on your way to Disneyland,"

I drowned Robin's voice out and stopped completely, Stiles, Steve, and Dustin stopping as well. Steve looks at us. "You think the Russians know?"

"About..."

"They could," Stiles quietly said.

I looked at them. "So it's connected?"

"Maybe," Dustin murmured.

"How?" Steve asks.

"I don't know, but its..."

"Possible," we all say at the same time.

Robin noticed that we stopped and turns around with Erica. "I'm sorry, is there something you'd like to share with the class?"

We all share a quick look, before man's Russian voice came along on the walkie. "Walkie," Dustin, Steve, and I all said before rushing towards Erica's bag.

Erica had dropped the bag on the floor and pulled out the walkie, we all kneel to the ground. Robin takes the walkie pulls up the integer.

Robin looks at us. "It's the code."

"Wherever that broadway cast is coming from-"

"It's close," I finished. "And if there's one thing we know about that signal..."

Dustin sent me a smile, making eye contact with me. "It can reach the surface."

"Let's go,"

A/N

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