𝐈'𝐋𝐋 𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐄 | ᴍᴀx ᴍᴀʏꜰɪᴇʟᴅ x ᴏᴄ

ʎʇɹıɥʇ

꧁꧂

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴛʜɪʀᴛʏ: ᴀɴᴅ ɪ'ʟʟ ᴄᴀʟʟ ʏᴏᴜ ᴍɪɴᴇ

"Scoops Troop, do you copy?" Mike paced back and forth with the radio in his hand, speaking into it so quickly that it surprised me that it was humanly possible to do such a thing. Then again, I had heard faster speaking from Joyce when she'd lost her keys for the millionth time in one morning. "Scoops Troop, I repeat, do you copy?"

I faked and exaggerated a yawn over to Max due to the boy and she smiled weakly at my actions. Mike carried on repeating our situation to the four of them, while the two of us stood there, leaning up against the side. "Max, hey..." I say, noticing the expression on her face again. It wasn't something I wanted to see. Her eyes were bloodshot each and every time they opened up after a long amount of blinking, and she kept glancing in all directions but where I was. "talk to me." Trying to keep my voice as low and quiet as possible, I reached up and over to her, fixing her chin to look over at me.

The girl didn't take her eyes away from me, looking and analysing each detail there was to offer on my face. Her eyes swelled up slightly at my last words, shaking her head as she leaned into my embrace. Max's arms wrapped around me tighter than ever before, squeezing my shoulders and leaning her head into the crook of my neck.

Muffled words came from the girl as I comforted her and held her close. The most coherent being the ones that stung me the most. "I'm scared." Doing my best to help her through it in the moment, the girl eventually did calm down, yet it scared me to the core that she was so suddenly coming out with the emotions. She's reached her limit of scary Upside Down shit, that was for sure.

She momentarily fell asleep in my arms, not moving any further away from my body as she did so, though. We sat there as I silently watched over at the others, of whom were all busy doing whatever could be deemed useful while stuck in Starcourt Mall.

Closest to us, Nancy rolled over an unconscious Russian's body, searching him over before stopping. The girl reached over to his belt and pulled out a gun, opening it up to see the contents before clicking it all back together again. "You're not... gonna kill him, are you?" I spoke quietly and as softly as I could to the girl, not wanting to wake Max in my arms in any way when I did speak.

Nancy looked up at me from the gun, eyes darting between me and Max. "It's- uh... just a precaution." I nodded ever so slightly when she spoke. "It's not just against Billy anyways." The only reason I cared about Billy dying is the long-term effect it would have on the girl in my arms. How would it be for her if the boy did die tonight? Would it be good? Unlikely. No one can take the death of a person lightly unless they were some kind of a physcopath. "If Billy knows that we're here, then so does the Mind Flayer."

"Right..." I let out a short and shaky breath to Nancy before Max moved around in my arms, waking from her two minute-or-so nap. "You okay there, sleepy head?" I asked her quietly, glancing down at her as I asked it. She nodded and looked up at me, eyes not as bad as they were, yet still slightly bloodshot. Eyeing her lips for a second, I looked back away at Nancy when she spoke up.

"Don't suppose we can get that to drive?" She asked the group of us, gesturing over to the smashed up, ruined show-room car that El had previously flung across the mall earlier on the same night.

Johnathan smiled a little when he came up with an idea. "We don't need it to drive." I gave my older brother an expression, hopefully telling him just how confused I currently was. We don't need it to drive, we just need it to get us all the way Murray's without, you know, getting us killed. "We just need the ignition cable." Oh.