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CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR GLORY & GORE
El continues to wail in pain. Hot tears spring to her eyes as she thrashes around. Abby can only stand and watch petrified. Isla stands rigid beside Abby, her breath is hitched in her throat as she stares down at El with wide, terrified eyes. Alex is kneeling next to El, there's a look of pain on her face as with a loud scream, El squeezes her hand tightly, but Alex raises no complaints. There's a squelching sound as the thing just beneath El's skin continues to move around inside.
"What is that thing?" Erica questions.
"There's something in there," Mike answers.
"Yeah, no shit," Isla remarks.
"Jesus Christ," Dustin murmurs.
The blood darkens. The screaming grows louder. Isla's hand jumps to Abby's wrist and squeezes hard. Jonathan, surprisingly calm, despite the screaming and wailing, despite the blood that continues to soak the ground, despite the awful squelching takes charge. "Keep her talking. Keep her awake, okay?"
"Jesus Christ," Dustin repeats.
El's pained screams start to fade away as her eyelids droop, but Mike is quick to shake her softly, "Hey, hey, hey. Stay awake, stay awake. Let's get her on this side, on this side."
"Easy, easy, easy," Steve warns as they begin to pull Eleven up. She lets out another whimper as she leans back against Mike, almost upright. Her bloody leg is stretched out in front of her, and she only seems to whimper more as she takes in the atrocious sight before her.
"You know, it's not actually that bad," Robin says. Her voice is several octaves higher than normal and it wavers as she continues, her chest heaving and eyes wide. "There was a ... the goalie on my soccer team, Beth Wildfire, this other girl slide into her leg, and like the bone came out of her knee, six inches or something, it was insane."
"Robin," Steve interrupts.
"Yeah?"
"You're not helping."
"I'm sorry."
Abby grimaces. The human body is fragile. She knows this. The integrity of one's bone structure, the density, the way it's aligned is unreliable. It only takes one wrong step, one punch aimed a little too high or thrown a little too hard and suddenly you can hear a snap. It only takes one cut, one bite for something worse than you could have imagined happening. Abby knows all of this, but she hopes that she never has to see anybody in this state of pain again; pained screams that echo and bounce off of the walls, blood dripping, and falling, pale skin, the sickly feeling of nausea.
