(      darkest before dawn      /      act three    )
episode four   |   stranger things

❛  CHILD ENDANGERMENT CLAUSE   ❜

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AURORAS STOMACH TWISTED AS she and Dustin silently walked out of her house, her aunt Flora's keys clutched tightly in Auroras palm. She felt guilty, she had never even borrowed something from her aunts, let alone taken their keys without permission.

      "Rory," Dustin whispered, waving his hand, "we'll get them back to her, remember we're saving our country! They won't mind."

      Aurora nodded, but the bite of her aunts keys told her a different story as she pocketed them in her jean shorts before climbing onto her bike. She knew the route by heart, having gone there on her off days with Flora to just hang out. Aurora also happened to know that on Tuesdays and Thursdays, the mayor and his entire team go to the Diner and eat for about an hour, meaning the two kids had an hour to sneak into Town Hall and steal the blueprints to Starcourt.

      A few times during the ride, Dustin would glance at Aurora as if he was ready to ask her a question, before he turned away and kept pedaling. Her mind was on the walkie-talkie in her backpack, Mike had called her on it this morning, and she had shut it off without a response. The two of them turned a street before Town Hall, and took a few shortcuts to get to the back parking lot that was gated. Aurora keyed in the code and the two scrambled to pull their bikes in before anyone saw.

      "Okay, so the cameras shouldn't catch us if we enter through the side door," Aurora nodded and lead Dustin up the steps, "and then just follow my lead."

      She didn't hear a response but assumed that Dustin had agreed as she unlocked the side door, officially committing her first felony.

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MIKE PACED AROUND HIS basement, he had called Auroras house four times, and then when her aunt ( he didn't know which one ) mentioned she was working that morning, he had phoned her work three more times. Only to find out she had called out of her shifts for the rest of the week. He was panicking.

For one, he felt extremely guilty for what he had said, the three boys had got it into his mind that he was becoming to girly and it needed to stop before he went too far — according to Lucas and Dustin at the beginning of the summer. For two, he didn't even mean what he had said, to be honest he didn't even remember what he had said which made it even worse.

"Oh my god!" Lucas groaned, "if you don't sit your ass down right now Mike, so help me!"

"Aurora hasn't answered any of our nine-one-one calls. What if something happened?" Mike tugged at his hair.

"Dustin hasn't either," Will pointed out.

"So try him again," Mike scoffed as he picked up his walkie to radio for Aurora again, Lucas doing the same. When Max and Eleven ( harshly ) knocked on the back door, and neither of the two had answered the others were forced to continue without them.

"I didn't think anything of it at first," Will started, "I mean, I think I just didn't want to believe it. The first time I felt it was at Day of the Dead." At the mention of the movie Aurora had been so excited to see, Mike felt a pinch in his gut before he made sure his walkie was on in case she called.

"And then I felt it again at the field near the Nelson farm the next day. Again yesterday at Castle Byers."

"What does it feel like?" Max asked, her voice shaking.

Will reached up to grab the back of his neck, a phantom feeling running down his spine as he spoke, "it's almost like...you know when you drop on a roller coaster? It's like everything inside your body is just sinking all at once, but...this feels worse. It's like your body goes cold — and you can't breathe anymore. I've felt it before," Will glanced around, "whenever he was close."

"Whenever who was close?" Max questioned again.

"The Mind Flayer," Wills hand was shaking, but only Mike noticed.

"I closed the gate," Eleven spoke, her eyebrows pinched together.

Wills voice shook at his next words, "I know but, what if he never left. What if we just closed the gate and locked him out here with us?"

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AURORA AND WILL RACED back to the mall, her backpack filled with the blueprints for Starcourt. They hadn't fully looked at them, but Aurora hadn't seen anything suspicious on them in the quick glance that they had seen. The two of them basically skipped into Scoops Ahoy, with wide grins on their faces as Aurora dumped the blueprints onto the back table.

"We didn't know which one," Aurora spoke as she spread the four sheets around, "so we grabbed all of them ones labeled Starcourt."

Robin jumped up and grabbed just the basic set of blueprints first, "that's us! That's Scoops," Robin pointed at one room, before dragging her finger to the elevator, "and that's where we want to get to."

"I mean I don't really see a way in," Steve shook his head.

"There isn't one?" Dustin concluded.

"Correct," Robin nodded before glancing at one of the other outlines and smiling. "At least, not on that one," she laid the next one of top, showcasing the air vents to the mall, "but this, this creates an entrance."

"Air ducts," Aurora nodded excitedly.

"Correct my favorite," Dustin and Steve both pulled a face as Aurora laughed, watching as Robin walked over to the whiteboard in the corner of their room, grabbing a marker. "Turns out, this secret room needs air just like any other room. And these air ducts," Robin began circling and outlining a direct path from the secret room to Scoops Ahoy, "lead all the way here. To us."

Steve rushed to grab a ladder as Aurora dug around in their 'junk box' as the two of them called it for a screwdriver. The three of them had Steve go onto the ladder to unscrew the vent, and Dustin was by his side to hand things up to him. Aurora and Robin stood a little father behind to watch them.

"Flashlight," Steve requested as he handed the vent cover to Dustin who swapped it for the flashlight. "Yeah, I don't know, man. I don't know how you're going to fit in here. It's like...super tight."

Aurora and Robin glanced at each other before bursting into a fit of laughter, as Steve and Dustin both whipped around to glare. Robin mumbled an apology, but as soon as Dustin replied the two girls started again.

"Are you guys children!" Steve asked, appalled at the two girls. The two of them couldn't respond as they continued to laugh uncontrollably. "Unbelievable, Dustin come on."

When they finally stopped laughing, Dustin had concluded that he in fact, could not fit into the vent. "Aurora, your turn."

Aurora glanced around confused, "oh sorry, I thought you just said my name."

"Um yeah," Dustin scoffed, "we did."

"Oh um, yeah no." Aurora shook her head.

"No? What do you mean no?" Steve asked, his hands on his hips.

"I mean, no. I have five other languages I can tell you it in if you need to hear it that way." Aurora scoffed, taking a step back before mirroring Steve's pose.

"We heard what you said, smart ass. We mean, why not?"

Aurora relaxed slightly, "oh yeah, I don't do dark, confined spaces. It feels like the perfect place for someone to come up and kill me, so no. I'm also claustrophobic."

"Clastra-what now?" Steve asked.

"Claustrophobic, dingus?" Robin scoffed, "fear of confined spaces?"

      Steve scoffed, but before he could respond, the bell at the counter began ringing as a familiar voice started yelling from the counter. Aurora smiled, and moved out from the back to great Erica Sinclair.

      "Aurora!" Erica squealed and rushed to the girl, "I haven't seen you in so long! Where have you been?"

      "Erica, you literally saw me two days ago. At work. And then you followed me here, and we got ice cream together." Aurora laughed.

      "Whatever."

      Aurora glanced into the back room for a second before turning back to the little girl that she loved, instantly regretting her question, "can you come to the back with me, like five minutes?"

      Erica nodded, and waved her friends away as she latched onto Auroras hand. When they got to the back, Robin and Steve launched into a jumbled mess of words explaining everything, before Robin eventually got Steve to quiet down for a second, "can you fit in the vent?"

      Erica sighed, before climbing the ladder to look inside, "yeah, I don't know." She handed Aurora the flashlight with a smile.

      "You don't know if you can fit?" Dustin asked, slightly dejected.

      "Oh, I can fit." Aurora rolled her eyes as Erica scoffed, "I just don't know if I want to."

      "Are you claustrophobic?" Robin pointed out.

      Erica laughed, "I don't have phobias."

      "Okay then," Steve pushed off the counter and bent closer to the girl, "what's the problem?"

      "The problem is," Erica matched his movements, leaning across the table to get in his face, "I still haven't heard what's in it for Erica?"

      Steve scoffed, before walking out of the back the other four following him as he lead them to a booth. After Dustin, Aurora and Erica had all sat down, Steve and Robin began to scoop some ice cream for her. Quick enough, their table was filled with two banana split sundaes, four cups of different ice creams, two waffle cones and two milkshakes  — but one of them was for Aurora. Erica smiled and pushed one of the banana splits back towards the two workers.

      "More fudge please." When neither of the two moved, Erica waved her hand, "go on."

      Silently, Steve stood up and took the banana split with him ti put more fudge on it, though Dustin stumbled to follow him to ensure that he didn't add a bit of poison to her ice cream.

      When it was just the three girls left, Robin grabbed the blueprints to the mall, "okay, you see this? This is where we need to go, the red line is the route you're going to take. We wait until the last delivery goes out for the night, then you knock out the grate, jump out and open the door for us."

      "And then you find out what's in those boxes?"

      "Yeah, pretty easy." Robin nodded, placing the blueprints back down.

      "But, you say this guard is armed?" Erica added.

      "Yeah, but he's not going to be there."

      "And booby traps?"

      "Booby traps?" Robin glanced at the girl in confusion.

      "Lasers, spikes in the wall?"

      Robin shook her head, "you'll be completely safe. As soon as we're in—"

      Erica held her hand up, cutting Robin off, "you know what the half-baked plan of yours sounds like to me? Child endangerment."

      "We'll be in radio contact with you the entire time, E." Aurora added softly, "and like Robin said, as soon as we're done, you don't have to worry about anything else we're doing. You can go home after."

      "I don't want to go home," Erica rolled her eyes, "Lucas's back up walkie has been going off all day with a stupid, 'code red, code red' I can't even watch cartoons with hearing it!"

      Aurora froze up, thinking back to the walkie she had shut off this morning after Mikes first call. She thought he was calling to apologize, but a code red? What happened?

      Just as Aurora was getting ready to scoot out of the booth to radio Mike, Dustin and arrived back at the table. The latter sliding a fudge covered Sundae towards Erica as both of them sat down.

      "Erica, hi. We uh, believe these Russians want to do great harm to our country. Don't you love our country?" Dustin spoke up.

      "You can't spell 'America' without 'Erica'," she smirked before sipping the final bits of her milkshake.

      Dustin nodded, thinking over her words for a moment, "oddly, that is...true. So, so, don't do this for us. Do it for your country! Do it for your fellow man. Do this for America...Erica."

      She finally finished slurping the ( nonexistent ) last bits of her milkshake, "oh! I just got the chills. Oh yeah, from the ice cream. Not from your lame ass speech. You know what I love most about this country? Capitalism. Do you know what capitalism is? It means this is a free market system. Which means people get paid for their services, depending on how valuable their contributions are. and it seems to me, my ability to fit into that little vent is very valuable to you all. So, you want my help? This USS butterscotch better be the first of many. And I'm talking free ice cream for life."

      "Deal!" Aurora agreed, "now can I scoot out, Dustin?"

      Dustin nodded and moved out of the booth, allowing Aurora to rush to the back where her walkie-talkie was and finally turning it on. Catching the tail end of one last radio call.

      "Rory, I doubt that you're listen, but if you are I'm sorry. Like so sorry, and I lied to you so much, and I feel really bad. I don't even care if you come and help, I just need to know that you're okay." Mike spoke through the poor connection, "please, just let me know you're okay."

      Aurora sighed, and almost felt bad. Before the flashbacks to what he said to her hit her in the gut, and her guilt turned to rage. "Mike, stop. You aren't sorry. Stop bothering me, I don't want to talk to you."

      "Aurora!" The relief in his voice was evident, even through the horrible connection. "Where are you? We have a code red, and do you know where Dustin is?"

      "Yes, I do. And we're not coming. You don't care, you didn't care about Dustin, and you clearly don't care about me, Mike. So right now, neither of us care about you or your stupid code red, now stop bothering us!" Aurora shouted into the walkie before angrily switching it off before slamming it into the table.

      As she turned around, she found the four others watching her with wide eyes.

      "Sorry." Aurora added, her cheeks turning red with embarrassment.

      Erica laughed, "badass. This is why she's my favorite!"

      "She doesn't even work here!" Steve complained.

      "So?" Erica turned to glare at him, causing Steve to take a step back with his hands raised.

      Robin filled Aurora in on the entire plan before the five of them had to pretend like nothing was happening and there isn't secret Russian Spy's underneath the mall. Soon enough, the Mall was closing, and after a quick message to her home where none of her aunts answered, they were ready.

      When the four of them were in position on the roof, it was almost gone time. Aurora used her walkie-talkie to radio to Dustin's, which Erica had on her.

      "Erica, do you copy?"

      She hummed over the walkie, "I copy. You nerds in position or what?" While the other three hadn't hung out with Erica for three consecutive summers in a row, Aurora had. And she could tell immediately that Erica was scared.

      "We're in position," Robin spoke as Aurora handed her the walkie-talkie, "it's all quiet here, so you've got the green light."

      "Green light, roger that." Erica spoke, "commence Operation Child Endangerment."

      Steve scoffed, grabbing the walkie-talkie, "we are not calling it that. Don't call it that!"

      Erica smiled to herself, "see you on the other side, nerds."

      Erica went dark, and for the other four it became just a waiting game. They would hear grunts a few times when she would accidentally press the call button, but other than that it was silent for about ten minutes though it felt more like ten hours.

      Finally, Erica radioed, "all right nerds, I'm here."

      Robin straightened, "do...do you see anything?"

      "Yeah," Erica scoffed, "I see those boring boxes you're so excited about."

      "Any guards?" It was Aurora who asked the question this time.

      "Negative."

      "Booby traps?"

      "If I could see them," the four could almost hear Erica rolling her eyes, "they'd be pretty shitty traps, wouldn't they?"

      "Thank you," Robin spoke up, "for that."

      "I'm going in," Erica said from her end, before the four of them could hear the grate get kicked in.

      "ERICA!" Steve had grabbed the walkie from Aurora and Robin as whisper shouted to her, "be quiet, there is a guard."

      "I thought you said there wouldn't be any guards?"

      Steve rolled his eyes, "keyword: thought!"

      The four of them began to panic as the guard started to walk closer to the elevator door. The large gun cradled in his hand as he approached slowly.

      "What the fuck do we do?" Steve whispered to the others, "she's gonna get caught and we're all gonna be charged."

      Aurora sat up, a plan forming in her mind. She grabbed some of the gravel from underneath her and tossed it to the side of them, watching the tiny rocks scattered onto the pavement. The guard jumped before shouting in Russian something along the lines of, "who's there?" Slowly stepping away from the door.

      "What are you doing?" Robin whispered, tugging at Auroras shirt.

      Aurora just shushed her, before whispering: "I've got this."

      Aurora locked her eyes on the guard before closing them and reaching through her mind to grab ahold of her tether, pulling it close to her before slowly pushing it out towards the guard. It was almost like a relief, she pressure that she had slowly built up inside her was finally being released. Aurora allowed the tether to grab ahold of him, before thrusting her power inside him. She opened her eyes just in time to watch the man drop to the ground with his eyes closed.

      "Done," she told the three before picking up the walkie, "coast is clear, E."

      "What the fuck was that?" Robin asked wide eyed. Aurora ignored her as she stood up. Watching as the doors to the room opened slowly before Erica popped out.

      "She did it!" Steve laughed as the four of them began to stand to head down to her.

      "Free ice cream," Erica yelled up to the four, "for life."

      Steve scoffed before the four of them rushed doing the stairs and to the room. Almost jumping with excitement. They made sure the doors were closed before the five of them began to open the boxes. Only to find a larger metal box inside, which Steve promptly opened, to find four tinier canisters inside them.

      "I don't think that's chinese." Aurora added, before her and Dustin laughed at her stupid joke.

      "Uh," Steve added as he reached into the box, "maybe you guys should stand back, just a little."

      The four stumbled back as Steve pulled one of the canisters free, revealing a bubbly green substance. The five of them stared at the canister, bewildered for a few seconds before the room shook.

      "What the fuck?" Dustin spoke out.

      "Okay, so everyone else felt the room move, right?" Aurora voiced as Erica whispered something to herself

      Robin scoffed, before grabbing the canister from Steve, "let's just grab this and go."

      Dustin moved to the control panel, pressing the open door button harshly, though nothing happened. Panicked, he shouted, "which one do I press?"

      "Just press the damn button," was Erica's response.

      "I'm trying!"

      The two of them began arguing, as Aurora began to analyze the room, trying to figure out what seemed off about it. Aurora glanced at the wall with the air vent, before looking at the one next to it, finally figuring out that they weren't connected.

      Just as she was getting ready to voice her discovery, the scratching sound came from her right as the other fours arguing ceased. All five of them stood in silence as they watched a metal gate extend from the ceiling.

      Then the room began falling.

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(      LET ME SPEAK    :      )

so i don't really know how to feel with this
chapter, but i wanted to add a little bit of
mike moments in here to show that he
was feeling guilty, but ultimately he was
mostly just thinking about himself/the
party and aurora is don't letting that
slide. so it's going to be a little bit more
of just aurora ( maybe some of the party's
parts bc i have some ideas ) but other than
that, enjoy!!!!

ALSO A THOUSAND READ???? THANK YOU
GUYS SO MUCH!!!!

credit goes to fivehxrgreeves