Apocalypse, Steve Harrington

Chapter Fifty-Six. It's Never Over

      "Guards!" Erica cries, her voice cracking.

      They're sprinting, now, sneakers cracking against the ground. Her palms move to slap at one of the soldiers, and she pushes him firm against the stairwell, saving enough time for Robin and Erica to move past. Her chest heaves, "run, come on!" Lucy shouts, throat straining.

In a blur, she and Steve are pressing their bodies to a metal-door. The guards slam their fists against it, and she can feel it bumping against her spine, but she holds firm. Sneakers planted onto the floor, knees bent ninety-degrees, her entire body-weight forcing against the Russians. She feels Steve beside her, and she hears Steve beside her. He's panting, and he's grunting, and his Adams-apple bobs in his throat with each worried, "fuck," that leaves his lips.

The back of her head whips against the metal, and she grunts. Her eyes dart forward, and she can read the hesitance on Robin's freckled-face, "go, Robin, run!" her voice is strained, like a forced cry. The dirty-blonde groans, loudly, and moves in a sprint towards the two-other teenagers. She pushes her back against the wall, like they did, and assists in holding the Russians back.

"What— come on!" Dustin screeches, "go, come on, now! I won't leave you guys."

She's sandwiched between Steve and Robin, and the mix of their body-heat is sickening. Her body bounces off each of their shoulders, with the push of the soldiers, and she forces the words from her dry-throat, "just go, Henderson. Leave!"

"Go, get help!" Steve shouts, "what are you doing? Go!"

Erica darts away in a blur, and Dustin ducks-down with hesitance. His eyes move between the three, and his eyebrows narrow, before he cries, "I won't forget you!"

"Go!" they say, in harmony, each dragging the O with stressed-forcefulness.

Her muscles ache. She's forcing her entire body against this door, and the veins in her neck are popping, and she feels her sneakers start to slip against the ground. It's over in a moment, and the door snaps open, and she's thrown forward with force. The air is whipped from her lungs, when her shoulders knock between Steve and the ground, and an she can feel the pit in her stomach grow. Through pants and gasps, she turns to face the guards— guns are pointed in their frightened-faces.

Change in cause-of-death— it wasn't a heart attack. She's pretty sure this would end with murder.

Her head is throbbing against her skull in eleven-second intervals. She's exhausted— her throat raw from screaming and crying, and her wrists aching from the grip the guards had had on her an hour previous. They dragged her down the corridor, her Converse-sneakers squeaking against the floor with each desperate kick and thrash away from them. Fingers tightened around her forearm, they tossed her into the furthest room, a white-light beaming down on her tired, tear-stained face. The moment her head hit the ground, temple thumping harshly against the tile, her chest tightened with a foreign feeling— it become a possibility, suddenly, that she'll never see Steve again.

It was different, than in May. In the spring, when she told Steve it was over, she knew it wasn't really their end. She'd see him again, and he'd look at her, with those puppy-like, chocolate-brown eyes that struck a feeling deep in her chest with every-single-glance. She told him, in May, they'd find each other by the end. . . what if this was the end? They had found each other, in a way, and now their lives were quite literally at the fingertips of a handful of Russian generals and security-guards. The fantasy in her head, that it would never really be over for the two of them, had shattered. She wants to cry, and kiss him, and let her tired-body press to his stronger one.