Broken & Pretty..Steve Harrington

043.

"That's definitely not Chinese food." Steve reached for the cylinder, but froze. "Uh, maybe you guys should, you know, stand back."

Erica, Robin and Tiffany did the smart thing. The two teenage girls took a few steps back as Erica got off the box she was standing on and stood next to Tiffany. Dustin and Cory stayed beside Steve. "No."

"Just...Just step back, okay?" Steve tried to mom arm Dustin, but Dustin wasn't having Steve's mom energy right now. "No."

"Step back, seriously."

"No!" Cory then spoke up. "If you die, we die."

Steve looked between Dustin and Cory. He just shrugged his shoulders, not really seeing the sentiment. "...Okay."

Steve grabbed the handle of one of the circular boxes and lifted it out of the box. It revealed itself to be a toxic looking green liquid. "What the hell?"

"What is that?" The room jolted suddenly and there was a rumbling sound. Everyone stood their ground carefully and looked around. Tiffany's babysitter instincts kicked in and she held her arm in front of Erica. Steve and Tiffany really had a whole parent dynamic going on. "Was it just me, or did the room move?"

Erica then whispered, "Booby traps."

The room jolted again and they could hear mechanical wiring moving. Tiffany wasn't in the mood to get into a whole new adventure like the past two years. "Alright, this doesn't seem like a safe place to be, so let's just grab that...thing and go."

Steve handed the green liquid to Robin and Steve put the lid back on the box. Dustin walked over to the button panel and hit the open door button, but nothing happened. "Which one do I press, Erica?"

He continued pressing the button and it continued not working. "Just press the damn button, nerd."

"Which one?! I'm pressing the button, okay?!"

"Press open door!"

"I'm pressing open door!" Cory then walked over to Dustin and started pressing the button like it would do something different. "Dude, just press the button!"

Cory and Dustin started having a small battle over who got to press the button and Tiffany rolled her eyes. They kept arguing and Robin even got involved, telling them to just open the door. Out of nowhere, there was a loud clang sound. A metal panel slammed down in front of the doors and they were now trapped inside. Turns out, the room was an elevator. The doors slammed shut and everyone looked around at each other cautiously.

The room dropped. Everyone was screaming and they were freaking out. It was descending extremely fast. Tiffany pulled Erica towards her and kept one of her arms wrapped around her so she was safe. Erica clung onto her arm and was screaming. Steve held Tiffany's free hand.

Everyone was screaming, but Dustin sounded more like a little girl than Erica. He was screeching, "SHIT! SHIT!"

Dustin started aggressively hitting the buttons again and Steve decided to yell out the obvious. " WE'RE GOING DOWN! WE'RE GOING DOWN!"

Tiffany whipped out the old Tiffany and used her sarcasm. "NO SHIT, HARRINGTON!" She hadn't called Steve, Harrington since she hated him.

"WHY DON'T THESE BUTTONS WORK?!" Erica then went over to Dustin and her and Dustin started pushing the buttons. Suddenly, the elevator crashed to a stop. Everyone was launched to the ground and a box fell on top of Steve. Tiffany's babysitter instincts kicked in again.

"Is everyone okay?" Steve spoke up. "My groin. It fell on my groin. Dustin! Get this off of me!" Dustin helped Steve get the box off of him. Steve stood up and he was clearly pissed.

"Babe, you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm great, now that I know that Russians can't design elevators!" Steve pushed passed Erica and Dustin and started pushing the buttons. Robin rolled her eyes. Men are so stupid. The buttons clearly don't work. "I think we've clearly established that those buttons don't work."

"They're buttons they have to do something." They kept bickering back and forth, but Tiffany noticed something. The veins on her arms started to go black and she was hearing yelling in her head. It wasn't super loud, but it was confusing her. Cory was being decently quiet and he noticed Tiffany's arms. He walked over to her and held her arms. "What the hell?"

Tiffany could hear Billy screaming and some other random lady screaming. They were like the echo she'd hear before and it kept getting louder. She put her hands over her ears. Cory didn't know what was happening to her, but he figured that if something supernatural was happening to Tiffany, it probably wasn't good. Cory put his hands over hers to block out more sound and Steve noticed Tiffany. "Tiff, what's wrong?"

Cory shrugged responding for her. Erica figured she was just being over dramatic. "Look, I don't know what's wrong with Freaky McGee over here, but just so you nerds are aware, 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 mom finds out you five are responsible, she's gonna hunt you down, one by one, and slit your throats."

Steve hit the boxes in front of him to emphasize his point. "I don't care about Tina! Or Uncle Jack's party! Your mom's not gonna be able to find us if we're dead in a Russian elevator!"

Erica was about to snap back because...you know...it's Erica, but she got cut off by Tiffany. Tiffany screamed and Cory took his hands away from her and backed up. The lights started flickering and her black veins were reaching all the way to her neck. Steve ran over to her and took Tiffany's hands off her ears. Tiffany immediately turned around and punched the wall, leaving an indent. It was like an anger outburst, but not her anger. The Mind Flayer's.

She turned back around and looked at Steve. Tiffany had blood running down her face from her eyes and Steve wiped it away.

"Tiff...What the hell was that?" Tiffany whispered in his ear. "The Mind Flayer."

Steve was shocked. Steve turned around and pointed at Cory and Dustin. He motioned for them to walk over.

"You two, give us a minute." He was referring to Erica and Robin. Robin knew about her powers, but not the whole story. Tiffany explained what she was hearing and what was happening to Dustin, Steve and Cory. They came to the conclusion that because she had been bottling up her powers so much, she sort of exploded and the Mind Flayer didn't like that she wasn't using them. That wasn't it. Billy and Mrs. Driscol, both who happened to be taken over by the Mind Flayer, were being controlled by him.

That explains why Billy was at that abandoned warehouse, that explains why he was acting weird. And that explains why Tiffany felt like the Mind Flayer was a part of her. The Mind Flayer had left her body and was making its own body, but that doesn't mean it's still not scared of her. If Tiffany tried hard enough, she could kill the Mind Flayer in a few seconds. She just has to realize her power.

A/N

I started watching this new show called the After Party, I think I've mentioned it before. I hate that it's still coming out so I have to wait until every Friday for an episode to come out. IT'S KILLING ME