Trust - Lucas Sinclair

The Battle of Starcourt (Part 2)

To say that Nikki was happy that Hopper was there was an understatement. She was so relieved to see him after the past few days she had that she stayed near him and El as the groups explained all their sides to their stories.

"The Mind Flayer," Mike continued to tell everyone about the monster as Nikki finish helping El clean the blood from under her nose, "it built this monster in Hawkins, to stop El and Nikki, to kill them both and pave a way into our world."

"And it almost did," Nancy added from beside her brother. "That was just one tiny piece of it."

"How big is this thing?" Hopper asked as El moved to lean on him.

"It's big," Jonathon said, trying to come up with a good way to describe it. "Thirty feet, at least."

"Yeah," Lucas agreed from beside Nikki, who was holding his hand. "It sorts destroyed your cabin. Sorry."

Nikki caught the annoyed look Hopper was giving off and mouthed an apology.

"Okay, so just to be clear," Steve spoke up, gaining the groups attention. "This big fleshy spider thing that hurt El, it's some kind of gigantic weapon?"

"Yes," Nancy confirmed.

"But instead of, like, screws and metal, the Mind Flayer made its weapon with melted people."

"That is correct," Nikki nodded.

"Yeah, okay. Yeah, I'm just making sure."

"Are we sure this things is still out there, still alive?" Joyce asked.

"El beat the shit out of it but, yeah, it's still alive," Max answered.

"And I tried to kill it," Nikki's small voice got everyone's attention. "I couldn't do it though. I tried but I couldn't kill it."

A brief silence took over as her words hung in the air.

"But, if we can close the gate again, maybe you won't have to kill it," Will suggested, earning a nod from Max.

"We could cut the brain off from the body," Max added.

"And kill it that way," Lucas concluded, starting to feel better than he did before at the idea. "Theoretically."

"Yoo-hoo!" A new voice yelled at them from across the mall. The man Nikki was introduced to as Murray waved his arms frantically, trying to gain their attention. He motioned for them to gather around a table to which the group quickly did.

"Okay," Murray sighed, slamming some papers had he on the table and pointing to something on a map. "This is what Alexei called 'the hub'. Now, the hub takes us to the vault room."

"Okay, where's the gate?" Hopper asked, looking over Murray's shoulder as he pointed all it out.

"Right here," Murray pointed to another place on the map. "I don't the scale on this, but I think it's fairly close to the vault room, maybe fifty feet or so."

Nikki took a step back from the table as she felt her heart start to race. She was getting too many bad feeling at one time and she didn't know what to do.

Nikki felt Lucas place a hand on her arm, getting her attention. "You okay?" he asked with worrying, evident in his features.

Nikki couldn't find her voice so she just nodded her head, though it didn't seem to convince Lucas. He looked at the girl as her face paled and she broke off the eye contact between them.

He wrapped his arm protectively around her shoulder and started to walk her away from the group. "Let's just go for a little walk, yeah? Maybe that will help."

Nikki nodded again as she let Lucas lead her to the other side of the mall so they could be alone to talk. They sat down on a bench and Nikki rested her head in her hands as Lucas soothingly rubbed her back, waiting for her to say something when she was ready.

After a minute or two Nikki looked back up at him with reddened eyes from the tears she kept trying to blink back.

"I'm sorry," she sighed trying to get rid of the evidence that she was close to crying.

"No," Lucas took her hands away from her face and gave them a gentle squeeze. "Don't apologize, you have no reason to be sorry. What going on?"

Nikki sniffled as she looked back to Lucas, seeing that he was genuinely concerned for her.

She gulped as she felt more tears coming to her eyes. "It's just overwhelming right now. I'm getting so many warning at once, that they're all getting messed up. I don't know what to listen to or what they're trying to tell me. It's just-"

Nikki was on the verge of hysterics by the time Lucas tried to calm her down. He cupped her face in his hands and pressed her forehead into his. The action seemed to calm her down a little as she grabbed his arms for more comfort.

"We don't expect you to have all the answers for this," Lucas told her the thing she need to hear most. "If you can't understand it right now, that's fine. We're going to be okay. Take your time, and if you figure out any of them, let us know. Until then, don't worry about it."

Nikki closed her eyes, letting a few tears slip, nodding her head before lightly pressing her lips to his as a thank you.

"I love you," she whispered as she looked at Lucas for his reaction.

He had his eyes closed but a smile appeared on his face. "I love you, too."

They moved back so they could see each other clearly. Out of all the horrible things that have happen within these past few days, this was probably the happiest moment they had in a while.

"You ready to go back over there," Lucas nodded to the group starting to go in separate directions, grabbing things they needed for whatever plan they had.

"Yeah," Nikki nodded, "we should see what they're up to."

Authors note

I love this chapter so much! It's so cute! I was fangirling over my own writing with this, but honestly, how could I not?

Guys, remember to vote for the ending and what you want to happen. You have a few more days to make up your mind and I want you all to have a say in it.

Until next time!

Love ya!!❤️❤️❤️