STARCROSSED ▷ steve harrington

08. the flayed - part two

CHAPTER EIGHT - THE FLAYED
PART TWO

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"WELL, I HOPE you're all in good shape," Steve muttered, gesturing forwards the endless hallway that laid before them. He patted Dustin's chest. "Looking at you, roast beef."

Dustin rolled his eyes as Steve took Jackie's hand into his own, and the couple began to move. They only got about three steps before they realized the others weren't following. Steve huffed. "Let's go!"

They walked for what it felt like hours, and Jackie had to admit that she was in fact, out of shape as well. Her legs were beginning to hurt. Gym class was never her best subject, she'd rather lay on the couch all day watching stupid cartoons with Max and eat an entire bag of potato chips in one sitting.

At the thought of Max, her stomach clenched. She wondered what her little sister was up to right about then, she wondered if any of her family had noticed she was missing. Her mother would, maybe. If she detangled herself from Neil, she would. Max? Max would've noticed in an hour if something was wrong—but from what Jackie could remember, Max hadn't been home when all of this started.

"I mean, you have to admit it," Dustin said. "As a feat of engineering alone, this is impressive."

"There's nothing impressive about this," Jackie argued, rolling her eyes. "My legs hurt like hell and I'm hungry."

"Yeah," Cynthia agreed. "And I have to pee Sadly, I can't just whip out my wong like some people."

"What're you talking about? It's a total fire hazard, Dustin," Steve said, annoyed. "There's no stairs, no exits. There's just an elevator that drops you halfway to hell."

"They're Commies," Erica stated. "You don't pay people, they cut corners."

"To be fair," Robin cut in, "I don't think these tunnels were designed for walking. I mean, think about it. They developed the perfect system for transporting that cargo."

"And it all comes into the mall like any old delivery," Dustin added.

"Well maybe next time they should leave an extra car thingy lying around," Jackie mumbled. "I'm not an athlete."

"And then they load it onto those trucks, and nobody's the wiser."

"You think they built this whole mall just so they could transport that green poison?" Steve asked, abruptly stopping their interlocked hands from swinging back and forth.

"I very seriously doubt it's something as boring as poison."

"We should call it the forbidden Mountain Dew. I think it has a ring to it."

"You think everything you say has a ring to it," Dustin shot at her.

"Uh, yeah. Because it does, dipshit."

"All I'm saying is," Dustin continued, rolling his eyes, and staring straight ahead now. "It's probably being used to power something."

"Like a nuclear weapon?" Cynthia asked. "Or a very large radio tower? I'll take the latter."

"Walking towards a nuclear weapon. That's great," Steve chimed in, his voice wavering a little, telling Jackie that his big-brave-boy exterior was only an act.

"But if they're building something, why here?" Robin wondered. "I mean, Hawkins, seriously? Of all places."

"For real," Cynthia said. "This town is as boring as they come, this is so crazy to me that we're even here."

"At the very best, we're a toilet stop on the way to Disney land."

Jackie almost laughed out loud—it was funny that she used to think the exact same thing. A year prior, almost, in fact. She'd been bummed moving to Indiana, leaving California, where all the things to do were. Her world quite literally flipped on its axis, and she was proven wrong very quickly.