Apocalypse, Steve Harrington

Chapter Fifty-Seven. Fever Dreams

FIFTY-SEVEN
— fever dreams

tw: physical violence & mentions of drugs

      SHE WANTS TO GO HOME.

She wants to break from the restraints on her wrists, and hold Steve, and clean the blood from his face like she did that one night, last November. She wants to feel the summer-air on her face, and she wants to eat a real meal, and she so desperately wants the power to slam her forehead against the Russian guards nose. She can think of a-hundred, a-million things she'd rather have happening to her, than what is the harsh, painful, and traumatic reality. Instead, she's there, and her voice is absolutely shot from the screams, and the pleas, and the cries that left her throat. When she speaks, it's raspy, now, and her words break every few seconds. Dried blood crusts around her nose, and her lips are puffy, her cheek are bright-red from the guards calloused-palm.

      Her chest heaves. She looks away from Steve, and away from the blood that drips from his busted-lip and stains the white-collar of his Scoops Ahoy uniform. The lights stings her eyes, now, and her entire face feels raw from the sickening mixture of hot-tears and welted skin. The restraints sliced at her hands, with every tug and pull in an attempt to break free, and her wrist-bones ache and throb.

She closes her eyes. Through sporadic breaths, and withheld sobs, Lucy can hear the man drop him. Steve's body hits the floor, and he grunts, and a long curse is pulled from his bloodied-lips. The mans combat-boots clunk against the floor, and towards her, until he reaches her chair— again, the man grasps her face with a bruising grip. He digs his thumb into the flesh of her cheek, and forces her face upwards, "when will you tell us the truth?"

      Her bloody-nose twitches with a sniffle. She pulls from him, and whips her head, until her neck is aching from the mans resistance. She can hear Steve, and he's shouting, and he's screaming at them not to touch her. Her eyes are trained on the Russian, but still, she can see it through her peripheral— the others repeatedly bring Steve to his knees, and fight against his efforts to reach her.

      "I already told you," her voice is raw, and vulnerable. She sniffles, again, and lets her neck go limp in the generals hold, "we're just teenagers, moron! He scoops— he scoops fucking ice-cream for a living, man, we don't know anything else!"

      He clicks his tongue, in a way that makes her stomach twist. Tsk, tsk, tsk, he's shaking his head, and he's caressing the skin on her face. Swiftly, the man waves a hand behind him, and gestures for the guards to leave, with Steve in their grasp, "it's a shame. . ." the man starts.

Her ear-drums are throbbing. Steve shouts for her, and her curses at them, and her heart breaks a little-more each time he says her name, "Luc— fuck— Lucy!" he calls, and she closes her eyes, "don't. . . hurt her!"

". . . such a pretty face," the Russian man continues, and he drops her from his grasp.

She wants to be sick. She may be sick, the way her empty-stomach lurches to her dry throat when the words leave his wretched-mouth. The taste is in her mouth, the Orange Julius she drank seventeen-hours ago, and it mixes with the metal-like blood that hangs off her gums. Lucy gathers it around her tongue, and puckers her lips, and spits in his face, with a, "ptu," noise.