chapter sixteen
the billy problem
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"I STILL DON'T UNDERSTAND," SAYS STEVE, his eyes fixed on Eleven. Her hair, grown out a little more, has been slicked back, black eyeliner circling her eyes. She looks cool, Ruby thinks. Not Ruby's style, that's for sure, but she can appreciate it. She supposes Eleven's got a lot of personal development to go through, so a weird metal phase is OK. (At least, until she hits high school. A sister of hers is not going anywhere near those freaks.)
"She used to live in the lab," says Ruby. "They did all the tests on her, but she escaped last year, when Will went missing."
Mike's hugging Eleven, the biggest smile on his face, and Ruby wonders if she's ever seen him smile before. Or, at least, not once the last day. Ruby glances back at Steve, clearly confused.
"I never gave up on you," Mike tells Eleven. "I called you every night. Every night for—"
"Three hundred and fifty-three days," says Eleven. "I heard."
"Why didn't you tell me you were there?" asks Mike. "That you were OK?"
"Because I wouldn't let her." Ruby's eyes move to her dad, who steps towards Eleven. Her brows furrow, watching the two. Hopper looks at Eleven, and Ruby feels a pang of jealousy run through her. "The hell is this? Where have you been?"
"Where have you been?" says Eleven.
Hopper pulls Eleven into a hug. Ruby steps forwards, next to Mike.
"What the hell?" she says.
"You've been hiding her," says Mike. "You've been hiding her this whole time!"
Mike shoves Hopper, and of course it makes no difference, considering the size he is, but it makes Hopper turn around. "Hey!" he goes, but Mike shoves him again. Hopper takes hold of Mike, stopping him. Ruby wants to step in, but she sees the look on Eleven's face.
Ruby cannot believe this. Her dad was looking after Eleven all of this time? Why didn't he tell her? Granted, they never speak, but could he not at least have extended the courtesy when Ruby was obviously and considerably upset when she thought Eleven was dead? Ruby tried to find Eleven in the other dimension, she was wishing she could figure out what to do — and all of this time, her dad was taking care of her?
"Let's talk!" Hopper points towards the nearest room. "Alone."
Ruby doesn't know if she's supposed to follow, but she hesitates. She looks across at Eleven, who looks as if she's been told off by Mike. Suddenly, Ruby realises what it actually means to have a younger sibling. Sometimes, her feelings need to be put to the side, so she can help them out instead.
Mike starts shouting at Hopper in the next room. Ruby doesn't know what exactly Eleven is feeling, but she looks hurt. So, for the first time in her life, Ruby swallows her own anger, and moves forwards, to comfort Eleven instead.
"So, uh, who did this... makeover...?"
"A friend," says Eleven, with a smile. A friend of mine would not make me wear that.
"You know," says Ruby, and grins. "When this is all over with, I'm taking you straight to Indianapolis, and we'll get you loads more clothes."
Eleven seems into it.
Ruby steps backwards, to let Eleven's friends greet her. She's trying to contain herself, to stop herself from showing her anger. Tears of anger gather in her eyes, and she tries to blink them away before anyone notices, but Steve catches her gaze. "I'm fine," she mouths at him, so Eleven doesn't notice. He pulls her into a hug.
Steve holds her, tightly. Ruby squeezes her eyes shut to stop herself from crying. She won't show that she's pissed off. This is what being a big sister is. If she wants to actually be there for Eleven, she has to pretend things are OK sometimes, when they are not. But Steve hugging her helps massively; he rests his head on top of hers. She feels safe.
After a while, Ruby hears Joyce talking to Eleven in the kitchen. Ruby and Steve were sat down, on the sofa, next to Jonathan and Nancy. The four sat in silence. Steve's knee was bouncing up and down, like it always does when he's nervous, and Ruby, without a thought, puts her hand on top of his.
"You opened this gate before, right?"
"Yes."
"Do you think if we got you back there, that you could close it?"
Ruby gets to her feet, slowly making her way to the kitchen. Her dad reappears at the same time, and she gestures for him to come with her.
"The lab," Hopper tells Eleven. He stands next to Ruby, as if keeping an eye on her. "It's not like it was before. It's grown. A lot. And, I mean, that's considering we can get in there. The place is crawling with those dogs."
Dustin chirps, "Demodogs."
Hopper sighs. "I'm sorry, what?"
"Demodogs," Ruby says, rolling her eyes. "Like, demogorgon and dogs. He made it up."
Dustin grins. "Because it sounds pretty badass!"
Hopper frowns. "How is this important right now?"
"It's not," Dustin says, his smile fading.
Eleven looks up at Hopper. "I can do it."
"El, there's too many—"
But Eleven interrupts. "I can do it."
"Even if El can, there's still another problem," says Mike. "If the brain dies, the body dies."
Max frowns. "I thought that was the whole point."
"It is, but if we're really right about this..." Mike trails off, looking away. Ruby realises that he's looking in the direction of Will's bedroom. "I mean, if El closes the gate and kills the mind flayer's army..."
"Will's a part of that army."
"Closing the gate will kill him."
Joyce looks up. "He likes it cold."
Ruby's eyes light up, and she moves forwards. "The thing possessing Will?"
Joyce nods. "It's what Will kept saying to me," she says, and she starts to walk towards Will's bedroom. Ruby follows her, her brows furrowed, an idea brewing. "He likes it cold. We keep giving it what it wants."
"My powers," says Ruby. "Fire kills those things best. So we need to use heat."
The rest have followed them into Will's room. He's asleep in his bed, painfully still. Ruby wonders what it must be like, having that thing possessing you. She remembers the voice from before, and thinks, What if I find out, one day?
Enough, she thinks, and ignores that thought.
"If this is a virus, and Will's the host, then..."
"Then we need to make the host uninhabitable."
"So if he likes it cold... "
"We need to burn it out of him."
🖤
"What do you mean, I can't go?"
Ruby's staring ahead at her dad, her hands on her hips. He's got Will's unconscious body over his shoulders, wrapped up in a blanket. Eleven's by his side, and Jonathan's trailing along. Whilst Eleven and Hopper are going to the lab, to close the gate, Jonathan is taking his mother and brother to Hopper's cabin, to burn the Mind Flayer out of him. Ruby, apparently, is staying here. Babysitting.
"If those dogs sense you, we won't have the chance to close the gate," her dad explains. He looks as though he wishes she'd sit still and agree. But his daughter's Ruby Brenner. "And you need to look after those kids, in case those... things come here."
She likes that he's refusing still to call them demodogs.
"But I can protect—"
Hopper nods towards the house, where the kids are standing on the porch, Steve next to them. "They need protecting," he tells her. Ruby grimaces. "Come on. I'll do you a deal." He pauses for a second, placing Will in the back of Jonathan's car. As he returns, he hands Ruby the spare walkie-talkie. "You stay here, keep them safe — but if I need you, I'll call you."
"I don't have a car," says Ruby.
"Well, you'll have to run fast," says Hopper, and he starts giving Jonathan directions.
"Dad!" She follows him to the sheriff's car, glaring at the back of his head. "This is so unfair!"
"I don't care what's fair, I'm your father and I say stay put!"
He gets into the car. Ruby stands there as he drives off, and throws her middle finger in his direction. As she turns around, annoyed, she sees Nancy getting in the car with Jonathan.
Ruby raises her eyebrows. "Seriously?"
"Steve said it was fine," says Nancy. "I trust you to look after Mike."
Ruby, look after Mike? Ruby? Ruby Brenner, Subject X, babysit toddlers? Like she's been doing all day, against her will? This is absurd. Ruby was designed, constructed, developed to kill monsters from the Upside Down! She was her grandfather's golden child! Have you seen her ass? That kind of perfection only comes from millions of dollars worth of genetic manufacturing to make her perfect, which it did, and then she got powers! She is not babysitting!
Ruby trudges back up the porch, into the house. She needs a game plan. She isn't sitting around, whilst the demodogs could be killing Eleven or Hopper. Or both. This is her world, she's not babysitting.
She grabs a notepad and paper from the Byers' kitchen, and starts looking around the house. Joyce — or maybe someone else, Ruby never cared to ask — had drawn out the tunnels, from what Will could intercept. So Ruby has a map of the tunnels. She could force her way in, but if only there was a quicker way...
Her dad!
She thinks back to that night, when her and Steve found her dad in the tunnels. Her dad must've dug his way in that time, so surely, that entrance is still somewhere?
Ruby starts walking around, in search for wherever that is. She has no clue what the tunnels all mean, but thankfully, she notices the annotations, lightly added in pencil. There's one for Lover's Lake, another for the one her auntie's old boyfriend used to fish on. Finally, her gaze falls upon an X, labelled Hopper.
Simple enough.
OK. This is Ruby's plan, the one she's written down on her notepad:
— Demodogs will be drawn to me. ♡
— If I go here, I can attract them away from the lab, distract them from trying to find Will, and!! I can kill them!! With fire!!
— Maybe the kids can come. (They can use petrol and matches?)
— End of plan (this is a perfect plan)
"Listen, dude, a coach calls a play in a game, bottom line, you execute it." She overhears Steve's voice from the other room, trying to tell off the kids. She doubts it's working... Especially when she's going to say the exact opposite the next minute. "All right?"
Clearly, Mike isn't having it. "Okay, first of all, this isn't some stupid sports game. And second, we're not even in the game. We're on the bench."
"So my point is..." Even Steve is unsure. "Right, yeah, we're on the bench, so, uh, there's nothing we can do."
"That's not entirely true."
"I mean, these demodogs, they have a hive mind."
"When they ran away from the bus, they were called away."
"If we get their attention..."
"Maybe we can draw them from the lab."
"Clear a path to the gate!"
Ruby walks into the room, waving her notepad. She smiles.
"OK, guys. New plan," she announces. "We're going to the tunnels. To kill the demodogs."
Dustin grins. "That's what we were saying!"
"No," says Steve, shaking his head. "No, this is all a no!"
"So my dad got in here," says Ruby, and she walks them back to the X on the map. She's since placed the pencil behind her ear, but uses it now to point. "I found him there the other night, so I know where it is. So if we go in here, my sheer presence will draw them there. We'll get some gasoline, we'll set the whole thing on fire, and kill all of the demodogs. And, we won't kill Will, because we'll hear when he's fine."
She points to the walkie-talkie her dad gave her.
Ruby beams. "I'm a genius, no?"
"No, no, no!" says Steve. "This is not happening!"
"Uh, yeah," says Ruby. "I'm not sitting around here."
"What about them?" He points towards the children.
Ruby shrugs. "They probably won't die."
Steve looks at Max, Dustin, Lucas, and Mike, who all raise an enthusiastic thumbs-up.
"No, no, no, no, no." Steve starts shaking his head. "I, at least—" He glares at Ruby, "—promised I'd keep you shitheads safe, and that's exactly what I plan on. We're staying here. On the bench. And we're waiting for the starting team to do their job. Does everybody understand?"
"This isn't a stupid sports game," says Mike.
Ruby nods, crossing her arms. "Yeah, Harrington. Lighten up."
Steve keeps his eyes on Ruby. "We're staying here."
She looks around. He could probably overpower these kids, but he can't stop her.
"OK," says Ruby. "You can babysit, then."
Ruby starts walking away, feeling confident in her plan. She knows he's following her, though, but his arguments won't stop her from going. She's got to do something. If her dad or sister die when she didn't help, she won't know what to do. Still, she feels bad about actively going against Steve and leaving him with the kids, so she avoids his gaze.
"So you're just gonna leave?"
"You said it yourself. Someone needs to look after the kids—"
"Someone needs to look after you," says Steve.
Ruby turns to him. She's just taken her hair down, her hair tie resting between her fingers. He looks worried, the sort of tenderness that she pushed away from him all this year.
"Steve..." she says, softly.
"Your arms are all bandaged up, you're injured — and, you were acting weird earlier! You shouldn't go there on your own—"
"OK, so come with me! But that means that we leave the kids alone, so they'll leave this house, so it's better if they just come with us! If not, they'll go after Will, or do whatever they think will make a difference—"
"Like what you're trying to do?" he says.
"OK, woah." Ruby crosses her arms. "I can move shit with my mind. I'm not like them."
"I thought we were a team now?" he says.
Ruby thinks, fucking hell.
She gives him a look, and turns around the put her hair back up. "Uh, yeah, Daddy, I go after the monster and you stay with the kids—"
"That is not what we meant earlier—"
"That's part of being involved in this, Steve! I was born to kill those things, I can't just stand around here in the off-chance the monsters come near this house. They won't. But, those things could kill Eleven and I'm not letting that happen. I already thought she died last year! She's—She's the closest thing to a sister I have, and I'm not sitting here doing fuck-all when I could help her!"
"OK, and what about you?" he says.
Ruby narrows her eyes. "What about me?"
"Who's going to look after you?" he says.
"Uh, myself?" she says. "I've done a pretty good job so far."
"No, you haven't!" He takes hold of her hands, to show the bandages snaking up her arms. "You almost got yourself killed! Why do you think I'm here, Ruby?"
Ruby glares at him. "For the joy of it."
"Don't be an ass," says Steve, and despite her annoyance, she thinks her usual chirp, best ass in class. It means both in this situation. She is the most annoying. "I only signed up for this because you were gonna be there, and you don't let anyone look after you. You—You threw yourself out there, outside, knowing you could be killing yourself! You could've died! You could've died earlier, you could've died last year, and you never let me know! If you died—If you..."
She turns back around. He's struggling to find his words — or, he knows exactly what he wants to say, he just doesn't want to say it. "What are you saying, Steve?" she says, trying to get them out. She thinks she knows where this is going, but she wants to deny it, feeling delusional even thinking he'd say something stupid like that. "Steve...?"
"I'm not saying it," he grumbles, turning away from her. "I'm not telling you like this—"
"Steve, for the love of God—"
"I'm still in love with you!"
Ruby knows he was going to say that, but she's still stunned. He speaks as though it's an outburst, like he's been keeping that thought locked away all year. She supposes he has, and she thinks about every time this year she's seen him school, seen him kiss Nancy, her own blood boiling. Did he think about her every time?
Meanwhile, in the other room, the group of kids — having eavesdropped this entire argument — sit in silence, their eyes wide at what Steve's just said.
"You know, he isn't following his own advice," says Dustin, unimpressed. Lucas throws a cushion at his head.
Steve looks away from Ruby, uncomfortable. "And... And if you die, I'll die, too."
"You still...?" she says, softly. She looks up at him, and he nods. Ruby glances at the door, her mind closing it shut. "Steve..."
"Don't look at me like you feel sorry for me."
Ruby frowns. "I'm not."
"Yeah, you—"
Ruby reaches up, cupping his face with her hands, before kissing him, as hard as she can. Quickly his shock disappears, kissing her back. His hands grab onto her waist and he pulls her tighter. Ruby kisses Steve, and it feels like the entire world — this entire shitty year — fades away.
"You're the best thing in my life," she tells him, and she truly means it.
"What about being popular? Carol and Tommy hate me, they—"
"I'll cross that bridge when I come to it," says Ruby. All she knows is that she wants to be with Steve. She doesn't want to be a loser, but having had the popularity without him... It wasn't as special.
Steve smiles softly. "You're so beautiful," he tells her, like he truly means it. He kisses her again, this time with less force, and she feels herself melting away. She forgets about the monsters, her powers, everything. All Ruby thinks about is Steve, and how this feels so right, like everything has finally fallen into place.
But then she hears a car engine outside.
"Oh, shit," she says.
"What?" he says.
"That's Billy's car."
She takes his hand, and walks back out into the living room. She sees the kids ducking underneath the sofa, so they can't be seen from outside. Her brows furrow.
"OK, he's probably looking for Max," says Ruby. She looks at Steve. "I'll talk to him on my own... He'll beat the shit out of you if he sees you."
"I always win fights," says Steve.
Yeah, because I make you! she thinks.
Dustin raises an eyebrow. "Uh, Jonathan last year?"
"That was a minor blip—"
Ruby turns to him. "Just stay here, please!"
See, she rarely says please, especially in these situations. So the use of that word must've made Steve realise her desperation. He reluctantly nods, as Ruby throws her hair back into her ponytail. She can get him to leave, easy. She can do this.
Ruby would rather avoid Billy for the rest of her life, though. She feels strange, almost, at the fact that this time last week, they were in the back of his car, with none of this on her mind. She was thinking about her Halloween party, how hot of a couple they made, how she'd definitely win Snowflake Queen if she keeps this up a little longer. She was pushing away every thought she ever had about Steve, unless it was about how much she 'hated' him. Now, though... everything's changed.
"Ruby, Ruby..." Billy looks at her like a plate of food. He twists his toothpick around with his fingers, before dropping it on the floor. Eugh. The charm has gone completely."What do I owe the pleasure?"
"What are you doing here?" she says.
"Well, I was trying to find my sister Maxine, but now that I've found my favourite girl..." He moves closer to her, and Ruby knows she's being watched by everyone in the house. "What are you doing here?"
"Babysitting," she says, which is — much to her dismay — not a lie.
"I thought this family had a kid our age?" says Billy. He looks across at the house as he thinks, and as it comes to, his eyes light up. "That one everyone thought you were screwing?"
Ruby feels embarrassed now. "We weren't—"
"But why would they need you to babysit—?"
"Can you just leave?" says Ruby, frustrated.
"Why, so you can get back to your freak of a—"
The door opens. Ruby's stomach drops, as she watches Billy's face, as Steve steps out onto the porch. Billy's face is drained of all colour for a second, before it returns in full force. Whatever image Billy has of Ruby and Steve has made him furious.
"Am I dreaming, or is that you, Harrington?" he says through his teeth.
"Yeah, it's me, don't cream your pants." Steve walks down the porch steps, standing next to Ruby. She can feel the anxiety rising through her body. Billy is going to kill Steve, she knows it.
"What are you doing here with my girlfriend?" says Billy, his eyes on Steve. He doesn't look at Ruby, and Ruby knows why — he might have liked her, sure, but this was always about his rivalry with Steve. He only dated Ruby because of Steve. He might've developed feelings, but the relationship started as a way to dangle the one thing Steve couldn't have.
Ruby says, "I'm not your girlfriend."
"Oh, yeah?" says Billy, finally looking at her. Next to the two guys, Ruby suddenly felt very short. She had her powers, and yet, she knew that with physical strength alone, she was in trouble here.
"Yeah," says Steve. "She's mine."
Billy lets out a laugh. "Your girlfriend?"
Ruby's thinking the same thing. She would like to be Steve's girlfriend, sure, but that was unexpected. A little hot, of course, but unexpected.
"So if you can excuse us, Hargrove—"
Billy sighs. "You know, I don't know." Ruby knows for a damned fact that Billy won't leave this. She knows he's going to kick up a fight, angry he's lost, she can see it on his face. "This whole situation... I don't know. It's giving me the heebie-jeebies."
"Oh, yeah?" says Steve. "Why's that?"
"My thirteen-year-old sister goes missing all day... And then I find her with you in a stranger's house. And you lie to me about it."
"Man, were you dropped too much as a child, or what?" says Steve. Steve must know he's riling Billy up. Ruby can't stand this. Both of these guys hate each other; Billy, because Steve was the king, and Steve, because Billy had been fucking her until recently. "I don't know what you don't understand about what I just said. She's not here."
"Then who is that?"
Ruby turns around, and sees the kids peering out of the window. "Fuck," she says.
Before either of them can stop him, Billy starts toward the house. Ruby prays she can use her mind to lock the door in time, but he's already opening it, his wild frenzy focused on his sister.
"Well, well, well," says Billy. "Lucas Sinclair. What a surprise."
Ruby and Steve stop behind Billy, unsure of what he's going to do. Max's eyes are wide in panic.
"I thought I told you to stay away from him, Max..."
"Billy, go away," Max tells him.
"You disobeyed me. And you know what happens when you disobey me. I break things."
Billy shoves Lucas, hard.
"Since Maxine won't listen to me, maybe you will." Billy has his hands around Lucas' throat. Ruby looks at Steve, because she doesn't know what to do. Or, at least, she does, she's just scared of Billy hitting her back. "You stay away from her. Stay away from her! You hear me?
"I said get off me!" Lucas cries out.
"So dead, Sinclair! You're dead—"
"No," says Steve, and he grabs the back of Billy's shirt. "You are."
And that's when, for the second time that week, Steve Harrington punches Billy Hargrove.
Billy stumbles backwards. Ruby's eyes are wide. She doesn't think she had anything to do with how that punch landed. Billy's fingers touch his eye, in pain, and Ruby realises that was all Steve.
"Looks like you got some fire in you after all, huh?" Billy starts laughing maniacally. Ruby watches him, resting against the countertop still, and her sixth sense knows he's waiting for the best time to pounce. "I've been waiting to meet this King Steve everybody's been telling me so much about." He turns his direction to Ruby. "There must be a reason that bitch chose you over me."
It all happens in a flurry. One minute, Steve is sending another punch across Billy's face, blood flying out of his nose. The next, the two are fighting; Billy throws Steve onto the living room ground, and starts hitting him. Ruby hears the kids shouting out encouragements for Steve, but she's frozen. She doesn't want to watch. She can't watch. She can't see Steve getting hurt like this, but she's too panicked to help him. She can't use her powers like normal, it's too late. Billy's going to kill him.
"How's your boyfriend now, Ruby? Still pretty?"
Billy sends another blow to Steve's face, and Ruby staggers backwards as she watches blood, almost in slow motion, leave Steve's mouth and spit across the carpet. She sees Max, her mouth wide open in horror, and Ruby watches the kids slowly realise that Steve isn't going to win this. Ruby feels herself getting overwhelmed, the lights around the house flickering. She has to do something. She has to, but she can't move. She can't think.
I thought you were this big, bad fighter, little Ruby? The voice from before echoes in her ears, and suddenly, the world feels frozen around her. She doesn't know if it actually is, or if it's her powers allowing her a moment to think, but she's grateful. She tries to comprehend all of this. Ruby's ex-boyfriend — the thing that granted her popularity again — attacking the boy she always wanted to be with. Her past fighting her future, a future where she doesn't worry herself sick over being liked, over being popular. A future where she can be herself, where she can accept herself, powers included... But she doesn't even know who she is. She's spent so long creating the perfect mould that she isn't sure. She's the pinnacle of the bitchy mean girl, she spent the past four years orchestrating that. But... is that really her?
And this voice, this stupid voice that she knows she recognises but she can't pin point it. She can't stand it. Why does it think she's going to kill all of her friends? Where does that impression come from? She's kill for her friends, to keep them safe from these monsters...
Eleven. Eleven! And her dad! They're out there, making their way into the lab — she knows this because her sixth sense is keeping a close eye on them — trying to stop all of this. And Ruby is watching Billy fucking Hargrove, beating up Steve Harrington. Because Billy's jealous of Steve, because Steve's essentially told him Ruby left Billy for him. (Which is, like, kinda true... But also, she didn't realise that at the time.) Her little sister and her dad are saving the world, and she's letting Steve get bloodier by the second.
"Get the tranquilliser," she says, under her breath, to Max.
Max's eyes move towards the syringe leftover from earlier, that they had been using on Will. Her eyes widen, but she nods. Ruby puts her hand out to her side, to signal to Max, on my cue.
So Ruby steps past the kids. She feels sorry for Billy; he's just like her and she recognises that, but that isn't her battle to fight. She's working through hers, and he used her just as much as he used her. You know what? She never called him the things he called her. She was never a sexist, slut-shaming pig to him. And now, he's choosing to fight her boyfriend? No fucking way.
Her fingers barely touch Billy's shoulder, but her mind does the rest. He's thrown onto the floor, his back slamming into the floor. He looks up at Ruby, a nasty grin spreading across his face.
"I didn't think you had it in you," he says.
Ruby's eyes narrow. "There's a lot of things you don't know about me."
Ruby grabs Steve's bat. Billy's eyes go straight to the nails.
She smiles. "Have you ever heard of vasectomy by brute force?"
His eyes widen. "Ruby, baby, come on—"
At that, Max stabs the tranquilliser into Billy's neck.
"The hell is this?"
He raises his fingers to the syringe, but he already falls backwards, the tranquilliser quickly kicking in. He tries to move, but it's pointless.
"You little shit, what did you do?"
Ruby hands Max the bat. "You can do the honours."
And that's exactly what Max does.
"From here on out, you leave me and my friends alone," Max demands. "Do you understand?"
"Fuck you," Billy spits.
Max swings the bat, landing it just below Billy's crotch.
"Say you understand! Say it!
Billy's eyes widen, and he lets out a pathetic, "I understand!"
Max glares at him. "What?"
"I understand!"
"And that includes Ruby and Steve," says Max. Billy looks like he's about to protest, but he gives in, knocking his head back against the floor, defeated. Max glances back at Ruby, looking triumphant. "What do we do now?"
Ruby's gaze falls to Steve, and she kneels to the floor. "Steve," she says, but he doesn't respond. "Steve?" She moves his head, resting it on her lap, as she places her hand just above his mouth. Thankfully, she can feel his breath. He's OK, just badly beaten-up. "He's knocked out."
"We still need to kill those things," says Mike.
Ruby looks up, realising she's been left with a group of middle schoolers.
This is when it becomes the worst week of her life: when she realises that if she wants to kill those demodogs, the entire conscious living within the Upside Down, she's got to put her trust in twelve-year-olds. Is it even ethical for her to let them do this? What if they die?
But, she can see the determination on their faces. Their friend Will is involved in this, too. They want to help, too, and the best way to do that is with her.
"OK," says Ruby. "New plan."
this is SUPER long. i hope u enjoyed!!
ruby n steve are not gonna be that quick to like actually date date. you'll see. but i hope you're liking it so far!! <3