Through The Strangest Things || Steve Harrington x Reader

21. The Flayed

Steve screamed right into my ear as the room continued to fall. The arm that he had surrounding me tightened and I felt him turn us around. My back hit the wall of the room and his free hand was placed beside my head. I was trapped in between Steve's body and the wall, and if this situation was different I think I would have passed away.

I shoved my face further into Steve's neck to muffle my screams of terror. I could hear Erica and Robin screaming, too, along with Dustin yelling "Shit! Shit!"

"We're going down! We're going down!" Steve shouted.

"No shit, Sherlock!" I shouted back, tightening my arms around his neck. In response, he pressed himself up against me, pinning me to the wall even more so I wasn't able to fall over.

"Why don't these buttons work?!" I heard Dustin screech. 

"Press the button!" Erica yelled at him.

"What do you think I'm doing?!" Dustin screamed back at her. I would have started laughing if I wasn't terrified for my life.

"Come on, press something! Just press the button!" Steve started yelling.

I lifted my face from his neck and turned my head to face Dustin and Erica. "We've obviously established that the buttons don't work! Stop trying to push them!"

Suddenly, the room quit plummeting and we fell from the abrupt stop. Erica toppled over onto the floor on her side, Dustin falling right next to her. Robin hit her head on a shelf and sunk to the ground, clutching the back of her head.

The momentum that had built up caused Steve to stagger backwards. He landed on his back, and I fell right on top of him, my hips slotting in between his legs. I winced as my elbow hit the floor.

I heard Steve groan and I looked down at him, my hair falling forward and creating a curtain over mine and Steve's faces. I became aware of the situation we were in and quickly scrambled to get up, my face heating up.

I held out my hand and he took it, hoisting himself up. I noticed that there was a slight pink tint to his cheeks as he avoided my eyes.

"Is everyone okay?" Robin asked, breathless, after we all got up.

"Yeah I'm great now that I know that Russians can't design elevators!" Steve yelled, shoving Dustin out of the way and messing with the buttons again.

"As I said before, the buttons obviously don't work," I repeated myself.

"They're buttons. They have to do something," Steve grunted, frustrated beyond belief.

"Yeah, if we had a keycard," Robin spoke up.

"A what?" Steve asked.

"It's an electronic lock. Same as the loading dock door. If we don't have a keycard, it won't operate, meaning--"

"We're stuck in here," Dustin and I chorused, cutting Robin off.

"Yeah," Robin confirmed.

"Shit," I whispered, my heart rate picking up. Knowing that I was stuck in this small room made the air feel stuffy and constricting, almost like I couldn't breathe.

"Just so you nerds are aware, I'm supposed to be spending the night at Tina's, and Tina always covers for me. But if I'm not home for Uncle Jack's party tomorrow and my mom finds out you four are responsible, she's gonna hunt you down, one by one, and slit your throat," Erica said, sass dripping in her tone.

The air was becoming hotter, and I couldn't take deep breaths anymore. The feeling of not being able to breathe made me panic more, and I started to take shallow breaths, my shaky hand coming up to clutch my chest.