mercy ; peter ballard

17. satellite heart

"so much for avoiding angry hicks," robin spats, looking around at the bustling store.

"let's be...fast," beatrice responds, quickly.

"yep."

"definitely," erica says, a look of determination covers her face as they veered on different paths.

beatrice takes two pocket knifes off a display and two packs of skittles off a candy rack before heading to the clothes. steve searches through the rack. he holds up a jacket to his body.

"does this make me look badass?" he turns to bea.

"uh, sure," she gives him an awkward smile.

he takes it off the hanger. "great."

he runs over to robin who was stocking up on lighter fluid. beatrice looks through the racks. she grabs herself a pair of camouflage cargo pants and a jacket. she walks over to robin's cart to dump her finds in the car. robin found herself staring longingly at a red haired girl across the store. steve and bea look up to see where she was looking.

beatrice smiles. "so, what are you gonna do?"

"stand here and gawk at her?" steve teases.

"shut up," robin says, walking forward.

suddenly, a boy comes up behind the redhead. robin's face falls. steve and bea look at each other as the scene unfolded in front of robin. vickie and the boy share a kiss as robin stares, dejected.

as vickie's eyes meet robin's, robin runs away.

"robin. robin!" steve calls out to her.

bea looks over to nancy who was at the gun area. she spotted a certain blonde jock getting a bit tense with nancy.

"we gotta go."

steve looks at beatrice confused.

"now, steve," bea commands with a sense of urgency. she pushes him to get going.

the door swings open, causing dustin, lucas, and eddie to jump.

"what happened?" lucas says, turning to the door.

"we gotta go," steve says, packing into the car.

erica rushes in. "your old friends are here!"

"shit!" lucas exclaims as everyone gets into the rv. beatrice runs in and throws a pack of skittles at eddie.

"merry christmas," she says, urgently. "now, let's go, steve!"

"let's go! let's go! let's go!" dustin screeches.

steve starts the car. "i'm going! i'm going! sit down!"

everyone straps in as steve drives away quickly.

eleven walks into the room holding nina. she looks at it for a second. suddenly, the door slams behind her, locking.