3-27 (A Stranger Things AU)

Chapter 4

And then there was a real explosion. One that shook the very ground I laid upon. I could hear voices and gunfire outside. Pushing myself to my feet I staggered to the door, slamming against it as my knees gave out.

This was my only chance.

Pulling the air into my lungs, I closed my eyes and stepped out of myself for the last time. I was assaulted with a thousand heartbeats, a billion life lines tangling through each other. It smashed into me like hitting a brick wall at 150mph. I almost immediately snapped back into my body, the force of it, sending me rocketing back across the floor. I screamed. Frustrated. Scared. In bone melting agony. Covered in my own blood from head to toe, I leaked the thick hot fluid from my ears, my nose and my head. A fountain.

Suddenly someone pounded on my door. The sound thundered through the room.

"Is anyone in there?!" A loud male voice yelled from the other side.

"YES!" I screamed. "Oh my god please help me. Please help me!" I began sobbing, crawling on my hand and knees towards my saviour.

"Back up!" They commanded. A gun shot ricocheted off the steel in a flurry of golden sparks. I flinched, scooting along the tile on my ass, my hands slipping in little puddles of blood so that my elbows crashed into the floor, crushing the ulnar nerves and switching off any feedback from my fingers to my shoulders. I reached out and grabbed Ronnie, clutching her to me as the people on the other side of the door battered it down.

The door burst from its hinges, exploding into the room and then toppling over. I stared up in awe at the man who stood in the doorway. Wearing civilian clothes and bearing a military rifle he looked wholly out of place. I watched as his face crumpled in disgust at the state of me, his eyes skipping along the bloody trails.

He nodded to whoever was stood behind him and stepped back to let them into my room.

"Please." I begged, the younger male and female who ran towards me. They looked to be around my age. The boy, a mop of brown hair, small cuts etched into his jawline. The girl dressed in army fatigues. They knelt before me hands immediately working on my shackles.

"What the fuck?!" The girl cried out, finally noticing my collar.

"They... They won't let me leave." I sobbed hysterically. "I can't leave. Get it off me!"

"Robin move out of the way!" A woman with long dark hair instructed over the noise. They switched places and I watched as she unrolled a set of tools out on the floor in front of her.
"Steve!" She prompted, handing the boy on my left a set of tiny bolt cutters. Steve worked at the shackles around my wrists, their shape bruised into my skin in shades of purple and yellow. "What is this?" She asked me, her hands locating the lock at the back of my neck. I looked up into her face and I knew. I knew if I told her, they'd leave me here. And I'd blow up into a million little pieces.

"A... A bomb collar..." My voice came out barely a whisper. They all jumped from me like I had burned them. An insidious flame. Tears rolled down my cheeks.
"Please." Was all I could come out with.

To my surprise they rejoined around my body, the man with the gun, kneeling behind the woman and instructing her. They told me to stay as still as possible but that only made me tremble more violently. I listened to the mechanical clicks and whirrs as they began deconstructing the device. One wrong move and we'd all be dead.

"Hey, what's your name?" Steve asked, suddenly taking my hands into his large warm ones and cupping them gently. And for once my body didn't feel like it had been set on fire. I stilled, his beautiful brown eyes meeting mine with such a tenderness I drowned in them.