fast car | STEVE HARRINGTON [2]

15. how's my driving?

RINGO SQUEEZED ELEVEN'S HAND as hard as she could - out of sheer comfort to the wailing girl and the fact that if she didn't her knuckles would have been cracked in her ferocious grip. The blonde was knelt by the younger girl's head, her free hand by her cheek as she tried desperately to comfort her from whatever was crawling inside of her leg. The sight of something pulsating along made the woman want to run a mile away, or at least projectile vomit, but she felt a duty to stay by Eleven's side.

Jessica had dashed inside the cosmetics store, hoping to find some antibacterial solutions and other tools, but even if she did no one would know what to do with them. Meanwhile, Jonathan had dashed towards the catering counter of the food court to find objects of a similar nature. They were all completely out of their depth - and the bare basics of first aid training they had learned in health class didn't exactly cover extracting a parasite from a teenagers leg. They could only hope that Jonathan and Jessica upon their return would have some idea - if anyone would have the life skills to get them through the next five minutes it would be them.

"Ringo!" Eleven cried out, looking up at the woman above her with tears dripping from her eyes.

"I'm right here, sweetie," she soothed, petting at her hair and hoping it was of some comfort.

"You're h-hurting my hand!" the girl roared, causing Mike to step in and practically push his cousin aside in order to take her place. Ringo scampered away, expression twisted with guilt at her failed attempt at helping.

Her eyes dragged away from the absolute monstrosity that was curling inside of Jane Hopper's skin to look at what Jessica had returned with, which sadly wasn't much at all.

"I couldn't find anything other than disinfectant, I'm sorry!" she gushed, laying down about twenty-five bottles of disinfectant and enough alcoholic swabs to clean the Statue of Liberty. It was excessive, to be sure, but Jessica had panicked. She was still coming to terms with the fact the little girl that had been attending Wheeler Family Friday was even more strange than she could have thought. Like, Jedi-mind-trick level strange.

"You know this isn't that bad!" Robin blurted out, looking as if she were about to hyperventilate from the shock of it all. "The goalie on my soccer team, Beth Wilder, this other girl slid into her leg and the whole bone came out of her knee, the whole bone it was like six inches or something- it was insane!"

If it hadn't have been totally inappropriate, Ringo would have marveled over the fact she managed to speak so many words in a single breath.

"Robin," Steve interrupted as she took another deep inhale, likely ready to ramble again, "you're like- not helping."

"I'm sorry!"

The sound of feet hitting the ground was heard next; and Jonathan had finally returned to the scene with a particularly sharp looking knife in tow. Ringo's jaw dropped in horror - surely he hadn't expected to actually perform some level of surgery on the girl, had he? Jonathan was fairly capable, but he was only entering senior year in high school and this was a kitchen knife from a mall food court.