Legendary | s. harrington (18+)

chapter thirteen

"Ten o'clock! Ten o'clock!" Lucas's voice was loud and breaking and it snapped Evie out of her daze, hearing one of the boys in distress. After a minute she looked back through the grate and her breath hitched.

"Oh my god." Eve's eyes had found something in the mist settling on the Hawkins floor. Her lips pressed together in a thin line as she swallowed and exhaled audibly. There was a creature stepping through the clearing; it was larger than a wolf but it's body moved in a way she'd never seen before. It's head was like a flower bud and she could see it had a large tail swishing behind it. She realised something bigger than them was happening, something she'd never known before and it also hit her that something much worse could be happening to Will as they stood here, trapped.

"He's not taking the bait, why's he not taking the bait?" Steve voice was foreboding and alarmed and Evelyn held her breath.

"Steve." She said quickly, touching his arm and his eyes snapped to her. "You're stressing me out."

"He's not hungry." Dustin said and Evelyn moved her eyes back to the weirdest looking dog she'd ever seen.

"Maybe he's sick of cow." Steve moved from the window then and Dustin's panicked voice forced Evelyn to look at her friend now stood by the doors of the bus. He lifted the lighter in his hand and passed it to Evelyn. The girl laughed at him, of all things to do, and passed the lighter into Dustin's hands. Both Dustin and Steve looked at her with furrowed eyebrows but with her heart beating deafeningly loud in her ears and her chest painfully tight, Evelyn pushed past Steve and stole the bat from his hand before he could even react.

"To hell with that." Evelyn pushed the door open harshly, too scared to stop and shaking so badly she had to be quick before she may have seized up all together. Steve was telling her no, Dustin was shouting at her to not go anywhere. She knew the least of all of them, she'd never done this before, never seen it before, but Evelyn being more stubborn than they could have imagined, and more selfless than they thought humanly possible, would have only let one of her friends walk out into that clearing if it were over her dead body. She didn't care what they said. And so she ran into the fog before they could stop her. Steve had his hands ripping out his hair and Dustin had his hands covering his mouth in fear.

Evelyn clutched on to the bat with shaking hands, she breathed in and out more than she thought she'd ever done before and her eyes desperately scanned the misty fields searching for the grumbling concealed from her. It's squealing was louder, closer and unable to take it any longer, riddled with fear, Steve ran to her side. Evelyn snapped her attention to him with an anger he'd never seen on her face before but it came from a place of worry.

"What're you doing!" She hissed but then a snarl from the darkness turned them away from each other and Evelyn adjusted her grip on the bat.

"...come on buddy." Steve started saying and Evelyn tried to pretend she wasn't terrified. She began whistling for it. As they walked through the unknown, closer to their impending deaths, their breath was heavier and clouded the air around them. "...Dinner time." Steve was saying and Eve scoffed.

"Jesus." Through their nerves they breathed a laugh, not able to do anything else in their terror, but then they'd found it; they knew they had. They could hear it growling and snarling in front of them. Quickly they looked at each other, and nodded. But then Lucas's voice startled them as he shouted desperately, destroying their silent plan.

"3 o'clock!".

"Little busy here!" But Evelyn dared turn her head over shoulder, feeling the hairs stand on the back of her neck. She wished she'd never looked.