Chapter Thirty-Five: Death By A Thousand Cuts

They arrived at the mall in record time and hurried through the front doors. Lucky for them, they were still unlocked. When they got to the balcony, they saw four men in all black holding guns up to a spot.

"That's gotta be where Dustin is!" Annie pointed at where the men were.

They all gathered up a few feet behind El, who was at the edge with her hand out. The car on display was suddenly alive, the lights on and the horn honking. All the men turned towards it, guns still drawn, but just stood in confusion.

The men started to look up, seeing El there with a most determined look on her face. She pushed her hand forward and the car tumbled towards them, taking them all out in one swoop. It ended up across the food court, them scattered on the floor between where the car started and where it ended up.

The others ran up behind El to lean against the railing and look down at where Dustin was hiding. Surprisingly, he wasn't alone. Steve, his coworker Robin, and Lucas's sister Erica were all with him.

With a smile on her face, Annie led the group over to the escalators and moved the stanchions out of the way so they could run down. When they got to the lower level, the others were coming around a corner.

"Steve!" Annie cried, pushing her legs even faster to meet her brother in a bone-crushing hug. He held her off the ground for a second, glad to see his sister alive in front of him.

When he set her down and pulled away, he went right past the tears on her face and to the bruise on her neck. Annie, on the other hand, couldn't stop looking at his face.

"What the hell happened?" Annie asked, gently touching the swollen eye and busted lip.

Steve shook his head. "Who cares about me, who in the hell did this to you?" His own hand went up to barely touch the bruise on Annie's neck. "The person who hurt my baby sister is about to wish they were never born."

Painful memories were drudged to the surface and Annie shook her head. "It's too long of a story right now, we have some catching up to do," she said.

"Lucas?" Annie turned to see Erica coming up to him. Steve turned, too, but kept a protective arm around Annie's shoulders.

He was very lost, and to be honest, so was Annie. "What are you doing here?" he asked.

"Ask them, it's their fault," she answered, pointing at Dustin, Steve, and Robin.

Steve immediately nodded. "True, yeah. Totally true. It's absolutely our fault."

"I don't understand what happened to that car," came Robin's comment. Annie felt bad, she was in for a hell of a story.

Dustin explained. "El has superpowers," he said, pointing to the girl in question.

"I'm sorry?"

"Superpowers, she threw it with her mind. C'mon, catch up," Steve said, earning a nudge in the ribs from Annie.

"That's El?" Erica asked, having heard of her somehow.

"Who's El?" Robin asked, still very confused.

Nancy jumped in. "I'm sorry, who are you?" She had a hand gesturing at Robin and Annie realized she and Johnathan hadn't come to the mall, let alone Scoops Ahoy, yet.

"I'm Robin. I work with Steve," she explained. Annie figured the matching uniforms should've given it away.

"She cracked the top secret code," Dustin explained. But that didn't explain jack shit.

"Yeah, which is how we found out about the Russians," Steve added. Still, didn't do anything.

"Russians? Wait, what Russians?" Johnathan asked.

"The Russians!" Steve used his other arm to gesture to where the four men now laid.

"Those were Russians?" Annie's eyes landed on Max for a second, then moved away before she got too lost.

Erica nodded. "Some of them."

"What are you talking about?" Lucas asked.

Dustin looked confused himself. "Didn't you hear our code red?"

"Yeah, but I couldn't understand half of what you were saying," Mike said.

"Goddamn low battery!"

Steve sighed. "How many times do I have to tell you with the low battery!" Such a mother.

"Okay, well, everything worked out, didn't it, Steve?"

"Worked out? We almost died!" Erica yelled.

"Yeah but we didn't, did we?" Dustin said and Annie rolled her eyes.

"It was pretty damn close," Steve muttered.

"Okay, Russians?" Lucas asked. "As in, they're working for the Russian government?"

"What is it that you're not comprehending?" Dustin snapped.

"Okay, well, to be fair you guys have clearly been dealing with the Russians for a bit. We just met them. We've been dealing with our own problems," Annie said, exhausted by all the back and forth.

"Well, we have a full-blown Red Dawn situation," Dustin said.

"So this has nothing to do with the gate?" Max asked, because they thought he said 'gate' in his code red. The only word they really picked up other than his location.

His head fell back and he answered in an exasperated tone. "It has everything to do with the gate. They're trying to reopen-"

Off to the side, El let out a grunt and landed on the ground. "El!" Mike yelled, getting to her first. Everyone else surrounded them and tried to see what was happening. Annie landed by El's head with Steve behind her.

"What's wrong with her?" Erica asked, panic lacing her voice.

Annie saw the blood leaking from her nose and knew it was bad. "My leg... my leg..." The attention was shifted down to her leg.

Johnathan and Nancy carefully started to remove the bandages that were wrapped around her wound. When they were gone, it revealed a strange, pulsing growth. Annie gagged and had to look away, putting a hand on El's shoulder to try and still show support.

When is started moving, El starting letting out noises of pain. No one knew what to do, Annie holding her head up off the cold tile so she wouldn't bang it. The scream of pain she let out made tears cloud Annie's vision. By the looks of it, she wasn't the only one who was terrified.

"What is that?" Erica exclaimed as the thing kept moving around in El's leg.

"There's something in there," Mike said.

"No shit, Sherlock," Annie retorted, El's cries and screams making her impatient. "We need to get it out!"

"No shit, Sherlock."

"Mike I swear to god."

Johnathan started to stand. "Keep her talking. Keep her awake!" He ran off somewhere, hopefully to get tools to get the thing out of El's leg.

Her cries slowed down, so Annie looked at the girl's face and saw her eyes starting to shut. "Hey, hey, hey that's not gonna work! Keep your eyes open, El, we're gonna find a way to get it out of you. I swear on my life we're gonna make you feel better."

"Let's get her on this side," Mike said. "On this side." Everyone adjusted so El was sat up in Mike's lap. Everyone sat around her, not knowing what to do while Johnathan was doing whatever.

Robin decided to give it a try, though. "You know, it's not actually that bad. There was a... The goalie on my soccer team, Beth Wildfire, this other girl slid into her leg, and the bone came out of her knee, six inches or something, it was insane."

Annie's stomach did not enjoy that story.

"Robin?"

"Yeah?"

"You're not helping," Steve said with an added shake of his head. He had a hand on Annie's shoulder now, rubbing it in hopes she wouldn't throw up. If Steve knew anyone, he knew his sister. She didn't do well in these sorts of situations.

"I'm sorry," Robin said just as Johnathan came running back over.

He kneeled down right by her leg. "Okay. All right, El?" She looked scared. "This is gonna hurt like hell, okay?"

"Okay," she sobbed, her hands holding one of Dustin's and one of Max's. Annie was right by her leg and looked paler than ever.

"Need you to stay real still." He put plastic gloves on then held a wooden spoon out to El. "Here, you're gonna want to bite down on this, okay?" This wasn't going to be pretty.

Annie took in a sharp breath at the sight of a knife coming close to El's leg. Nobody seemed pretty thrilled that this was happening. But Johnathan hesitated, scared to keep going.

He looked around the group, everyone's eyes on him. They all waited for him to do something. Annie just hoped she wouldn't pass out.

Mike was the one to push him. "Do it."

When the knife started to dig in, El's screams started coming through the wooden spoon. Those next to her held her, doing their best to try and help her out. Annie's fear was no longer passing out from the sight, but crying at the sound of her friend's screams of pain.

Steve's hand was still on her shoulder, so she moved her hand to rest on top of his.

After he was done cutting, Johnathan took a deep breath and started to reach his fingers into her leg. El screamed even loud and some had to close their eyes or look away.

"Johnathan!"

"Stop talking!" He kept digging around but couldn't grab the thing inside her. Annie's free hand went to her mouth and she covered the sob trying to escape. "Goddamnit!"

El shook her head and released the spoon from her mouth. "Stop it!" she cried. "Stop! Stop!" Nancy pushed Johnathan back lightly and he went with it.

Everyone breathed heavily in the sudden silence and waited to see what El would do. "I can do it," she whimpered, sitting up a bit more. Mike rubbed her back and her hand went out, grabbing hold of the thing.

Annie wanted to look away, she really did, but it was one of those things that was so gross she couldn't stop looking. Yep, she'd have nightmares about this later.

El's cries were a mix of pain and determination as she worked on getting the thing out. The closer to the opening it got, the louder El's screams were. When it was just about out, the store window they were seated in front of shattered. Everyone ducked away, Steve moving to be in between the glass and Annie.

They all looked back over to see a strange slug-like creature get ripped from El's leg. "Oh my god!" Annie cried as the thing floated in the air. After another half-second, El hurled the thing across the floor and it landed with a splat.

It started to crawl on the floor, but was squished by a boot no one knew was there. They all looked up and saw their trusted adults (and a new friend). Hopper and Joyce.

A/n: just realized that I'm posting around and on 4th of July and the events of these chapters are happening on the 4th of July. Funky.