Here's chapter 18, hope you enjoy!
I do not own Stranger Things
Odette curled into her older brother's arms, her head resting on his shoulder as she recounted what she'd seen. "He...he's coming to destroy the world" She whispered shakily. Steve held her hand, running his thumb along her wrist as she spoke. She squeezed his fingers gently "He's...he's angry that I didn't take his offer" She mumbled, this had drawn the attention of the group, Jonathan had now sat up, no longer feeling the pain of what the demogorgon had done.
"What was the offer?" Max asked, hugging her knees closer to her chest as she rested her back against the couch behind her. Odette looked up at her with sparkling eyes "He...he asked me to help him...that we'd burn the world...and rebuild it to our liking." She felt Steve's grip on her fingers tighten slightly and her brother pressed a soft kiss to the top of her head. "And he changed how he looked...like a glamor..." She started to sit up a little "He was tall...blonde...a thin face with high cheek bones...and his voice wasn't as deep anymore..." She pulled at a lock of her curly hair anxiously "He was wearing...wearing white...like all white...like a male nurse would wear...and his eyes were blue"
"He won't get near you Detta." Eddie grunted, an arm still slung around his little sister. She bit her lip "He showed me how he got through...well a little." Robin looked up from the book she'd been idly playing with the pages of, her eyes laced with terrified interest. "What was it?"
Odette took a deep breath "There were soldiers...I think they were russians." She looked at her boyfriend, obviously hoping he'd believe this sudden swerve from the supernatural. "There were so many of them...he told me he used their souls to open the gates...I think...I think they were messing with the openings anyway...the ones left by the lab." Her eyes darted to El who'd only hugged her tightly since she'd come back to her body, she hadn't said a word. "But-" she took another deep breath, "I don't think Peter is our biggest worry"
"What do you mean? The guy who's broken the town in half isn't our biggest issue?" Eddie asked incredulously
"His pet got through already...the one made of melted people. He said it was big enough to have eaten me whole if it had come across me. We...I need my stones." She held out her hand, summoning the fallen stones to her fingers including the one El was still clutching. But they no longer zoomed into her hand, instead they moved sluggishly through the air...like a bumble bee gliding on a hot summer day. "I think you need to rest" Steve said quietly earning a scowl from his girlfriend "There's a monster out there...and I need to rest?"
"Yes Detta. There are four other witches in this town. They can handle a monster without you for the night." Eddie had stood up, pressing a hand down on her shoulder as though he expected her to get up after him. His voice was low and authoritative like none of them had ever heard. She scowled up at him, closing her fingers around the stones and bringing her fist up to her lips. Whispering into the stones despite the cold stare she was now receiving. She slid her fingers out of Steve's hold and allowed herself to be pulled into his lap. She leaned against his chest and opened her now free palm under her closed fist, slowly letting the pebbled fall into her palm as she continued to whisper. When the last pebble clattered into the pile in her hand her eyes shot open. "It's...it's at the mall."
Not a word could have been said because not one moment later Nancy came down the steps from the upper floors carrying a small pile of clothes along with an old looking blanket. She set the pile of cloth on the table and turned to the group at large. Her eyes landed on the girl sitting with Steve's hands practically all over her. "What the hell was that?"
"She was being possessed by Peter" Dustin supplied, he'd sat himself beside Mike and Will on the floor near Odette and Steve. Nancy's face sours slightly "I'm glad you're not dead then." She shifts her gaze to Steve who's wrapped his arms a little tighter around his girlfriend as Eddie had moved off to the table where he'd thrown his keys. Nancy let out a soft huff before crossing her arms "You can't all stay here. My mother will have a meltdown." Mike's head shot up and he stood up "You're letting Steve stay!"
"Mom knows about Steve. I could explain Dustin, Will and Jonathan in the morning. But I can't explain the rest" She gestures to Robin, Eddie, Odette, Max, and El. Mike's face darkened a little "They've got no where to go-"
Nancy scoffs "Max's house is still in one piece. I'm sure Billy wouldn't mind bunking with Robin and Odette." She rolled her eyes but the slightest hint of a smirk grazed her lips. She ignored the glare thrown at her from Steve's chocolate eyes and instead kept her eyes set on Odette, challenge evident in her gaze.
"I don't need a place to go right now. I know where I'm going." Odette started to get up, only to be pulled immediately back into Steve's lap "I was serious" His tone was soft, almost not caught by the rest of the room. "You're in no shape to go-"
She pulled herself up "I'm going Steve..." She meets Nancy's gaze "I'm not welcome anyway." She pauses then and turns to Steve with an apologetic smile on her lips "I appreciate you worrying Stevie." He stands up to and takes her hand with a cold look to Nancy, it was only when he intertwined their fingers that he could feel her shaking slightly. He turned to the boys that were sitting on the floor "Boys. You're staying the night here, Mike you can tell your mother in the morning that I left to make sure my girlfriend was alright. Max, we're dropping you, Robin, El, and Odette off at yours before Munson and I head to the mall."
Nancy's jaw clicks shut, clenching her teeth as Steve began to pull Odette towards the door amidst the sea of arguing coming from the rest of the group. "I am not hiding out when-" Dustin had begun when Steve had rounded on him
"I'm not letting you die on me tonight Henderson. None of you shitheads are coming with." He tosses his keys to the young redhead "Go start the car and wait for me, we'll be there in two minutes." Max nodded and grasped El's hand in her own, dragging her from the basement and out the door. Eddie chuckled slightly "Laying down the law huh big boy?"
Steve only shrugged and picked up his bat that had been leaning against the table "Jonathan" The other teen looks up at him reproachfully "Harrington?"
"How you feeling?" The room had quieted again but Steve kept his gaze steady. Jonathan swallowed before muttering "I'm good."
"Great. You're babysitting tonight. I've got my walkie in the car. Call me up on Mike's if things go south...Mall should be in range." He steered Odette past a still grumpy looking Nancy and towards the door. "Steve we haven't heard anything, how do you know there's actually something tearing up the mall?!" Nancy finally asks, Steve's foot halfway through the door. He freezes there for a second his hand resting on Odette's back. He gives her a soft nudge "I'll meet you at the car baby." He steps aside to let Eddie continue following them out the door. He shuts it behind Eddie and turns to Nancy. He hardly notices Robin hurriedly shoving spell components and books back into bags. "I'm not staying Nancy. Not when there's more shit happening in Hawkins...and not in a place where my girlfriend isn't welcome."
Nancy's face was bright red, her fists clenched at her sides "What am I supposed to tell my mother?!"
Steve scoffed slightly, placing his hand back on the doorknob with an incredulous look on his face "I've covered that already Nance. I think your issue here is that you're pissed that you're not the center of the world anymore. I think you liked having two guys moon over you." Steve couldn't control the flow of words anymore "Did you tell Jon over there that you kissed me today?!"
"Steve!" Robin's hushed voice sounded like a aghast bomb to the muted room. He swallows and looks at the man now sitting on the couch with his elbows resting on his knees. Jonathan was looking at the floor, but Steve could tell the look of heartbreak from a mile away. Nancy's eyes widen and she begins to splutter although no one pays her any mind. "I'm sorry Byers" Steve says quietly, hoping that maybe he wouldn't feel the guilt rise in his throat if he used the surname...it didn't help. Steve turned the knob of the door "We've gotta go Rob."
"I'm going too!" Will's voice rang out through the room, he scrambled up from the carpet and grabbed his own backpack he'd saved from the trailer. Steve balked, not expecting Will of all people to argue with him. "What?! No! It's not-"
"I need to be with my coven Steve. We're stronger together." Will shouldered the bag and grinned at him "Besides...I can't wait to see Billy's face when we crash there." He then moved past Steve and pulled his hand from the knob, as he pushed the door open the sound seemed to return to the Wheeler's basement. Dustin and Mike were each grabbing their things hurriedly all while Jonathan had gotten up to yell after Will. "I call shotgun in Munson's van!" Jonathan called after the young teen, he then clapped a hand on Steve's shoulder "He goes, I go." He too moves out of the door, no longer limping although he was still slower than he was normally. Steve went to talk to the other two when Dustin cut him off "Robin said we're all part of the coven...so we should stick together." Dustin smirked at him a little while he too shouldered his bag. "Fuck" Steve groans "You shitheads never listen do you?"
"Nope!" Mike smacked him on the shoulder as he too went out the door. Nancy found her voice again "Mike get your ass back here! You can't leave-"
"I can and am!" Mike smirked, walking backwards up the walkway to the street. Steve fought down the smirk that rose to his lips, in an even tone he spoke to Nancy who'd appeared behind his shoulder "You know if you're coming too...I'm sure Billy wouldn't mind bunking with you." He followed the rest of the party out the door and up the path to the road where Eddie was standing incredulously beside his van "I thought they were staying Harrington!"
"Not anymore!" Steve says tiredly, accepting the warm arm of Odette wrapping herself around his middle comfortingly. Eddie shook his head and got into the driver's side "I'll follow you to Hargrove's!...and you're a shit babysitter Harrington!"
Steve flipped him the bird and guided Odette to his car. She got into the passenger side and let out a sigh as she did. In the back Max and El sat whispering only to go silent as Steve got into the car. He put the car into gear and started off down the road, Odette's fingers found his comfortingly. The car was silent save for the sirens off in the distance, it was almost tranquil until Steve went to turn down Max's street. He'd almost made the turn when a blue 79 Camero barreled past, almost clipping the front of the dark BMW. Steve had slammed on the brakes throwing them all foreward sharply. The screeching of Eddie's brakes doing the same behind them sounded although there was thankfully no impact.
"That was Billy!" Max nearly shouted as Steve blinked almost blearily from shock. "Follow him!" Odette said in an awed tone, "He wouldn't go tearing off for nothing!"
Steve almost opened his mouth to argue when Odette sighed "I'm sorry Stevie." She touched the skin of his head and whispers "Follow Billy" Steve's dark eyes glazed over like he was daydreaming. He nodded slowly, pressing on the gas and following Billy down the road at a fast pace but with that dreamy expression still glued to his face. "What did you do?!" El asked, her voice squeaking in fear from the speeds they were going. Behind them Eddie had taken up the chase as well, following Steve's lead.
"It's charm speak!" Odette called out, gripping the handle above her head for dear life. "I'll take it off him once Billy's stopped!" Ahead of them the camero swerved wildly to the left, Steve doing his best to do the same. Once she'd peeled herself off of the window Odette touched Steve's cheek, his glazed eyes stayed on the camero ahead of them "Don't wreck the car!" She gasped, her ribs aching on her right side from being thrown against the door.
Steve's dazed face nodded, loosening his foothold on the gas and no longer turned on a dime. Finally Billy pulled into the parking lot of the mall and the car of lucid ladies plus a still dazed Steve went silent at the sight before them. Starcourt mall was no longer the fresh new jewel of Hawkins Indiana. The neon lights on the front of the building had mostly gone out, broken pieces sparking every few seconds. The front doors were smashed open, glass sparkling in the light of the sparks falling from the ruined lights. The camero ahead of them skidded to a halt in front of the doors and the lights went out. Billy stepped out of the car in his torn to hell jeans and white muscle shirt. He kicked the door of his ride shut and started to walk up to the doors until he heard the skidding of Steve's tires as he too pulled to a stop. Just before Steve could get out of the car to continue following the blonde Odette caught his jaw in her fingers "Your will is your own" Her hushed voice seemed to break him out of the daydream "Odette what the hell?!" Were the first words out of his mouth
Odette sniffed slightly "I'm so sorry Stevie...I needed you to follow him." She stepped out of the car, calling out to the male witch. Billy met her with stony silence "You shouldn't be here." He popped open the back of the car and revealed three boxes of molotov cocktails and two large containers of gas. Steve had run out of the car to follow Odette, still looking furious when he too saw the arsenal "Did...did you see this coming Hargrove?!"
Billy didn't look Steve's way, instead opting to grab one of the crates of molotovs and start heading toward the building. Odette grabbed the next box of molotovs only to have it ripped from her hands. Steve glared at her "Get in the car" Their eyes met and despite the dark she could see a glint in his eye. By now the van had pulled up and Eddie had tumbled out of it, his hair wild and a scowl marring his normally cheerful features. "What the fuck Harrington?!"
"Grab a damn molotov. Hargrove's got a plan. Odette here is going to drive the kids back to Hargroves." Steve turned to leave when Odette's hand caught the back of his shirt. He paused and looked back at her "I'm sorry Steve"
He looks back at her with those melted chocolate eyes and gives her the smallest half smile when a sudden booming sound of an unearthly animal. The sound of crashing hit their ears, a wall crumbling not too far off. Odette seized the last crate of molotovs and tore off to the BMW that wasn't too far away. "Max! Get in the car!"
"Detta what the fuck?!" Eddie's voice called through the din of a gargantuan tentacle slamming further through the wall of Starcourt. "You think we can outrun that thing?!" She shoves the box of molotovs into the back seat with El and turns to Max who'd frozen at one of the back doors. "You're driving red." Odette get's into the passenger side and pulls out a spare lighter from Steve's glove box. In the distance she sees Eddie grabbing the box of Molotovs from Steve and going to the van, shoving the crate into Jonathan's arms. Steve looked back at the building before running inside the doorway of the mall, coming back with Billy behind him. They were sprinting to the final car, Billy's camero. Billy dove into the front seat and Steve into the passenger with the molotovs in hand.
Another tentacle crashed through the wall of the starcourt mall, debris raining down on the parking lot in chunks of metal and concrete. Odette got the door shut to the passenger side of the BMW just as Max stepped on the gas harshly, the car took off before the Camero and van engines even turned over. "Get me close to the opening...but not withing range of the tentacles" Odette shouted, rolling her window down and holding the first molotov in her shaking fingers. The bottle was an old beer bottle, the label peeling a little...She could tell that the soaked cloth in the neck of the bottle was an old t-shirt of Billy's the corner of a Iron Maiden cover visible despite the rough tear in the middle of it. In the back El had rolled down her own window with a molotov at the ready. "What do I do with this?!"
"Light it and throw it at that thing!...Make sure it hits it!" Max's voice rings over the roar of the beast as it continued to crash its' way out of the mall. Odette closed her eyes and blew on the cloth peaking out of the bottle slowly, it sparked first but the flame appeared a moment later to her brief delight. Max swerved closer to the opening to avoid a chunk of concrete the size of the car. Odette leaned out of the window as they sped closer to the pink fleshy creature, with all the power she could muster the threw the flaming bottle, willing it to sail farther than she could ever throw it. It made contact with a shrieking sound from it, El's sailed after it, hitting a tentacle's edge and blistering the flesh there. Its wails of pain were so loud they thought their ears may break at the sounds but Odette simply lit another molotov. The three vehicles began to swerve around, hitting the beast over and over with the molotovs, their throws aided by Robin, Odette, Billy, and El. Odette grasped the final of their molotovs in her fingers, cursing as she gazed at the monster, now mostly out of the mall "I we're not killing it with just those!" Max was sweating and breathing heavily. The car jerked as she weaved through more debris that rained as the beast had finally gotten free of it's shopping prison enough to start swinging at the vehicles. The BMW had gotten swiped at twice, once that it had missed completely thanks to Max's driving, but then it had been scraped badly on the passenger side by the clawed end of a tentacle, gouging the metal cruelly.
"Steve's gonna kill me!" She'd hissed when the impact had hit. It was only seconds later that the walkie in the glove box crackled to life. "Detta! Come in!" Will's squeaking strained voice called into the other end. Odette yanked it open and pressed the button for the microphone. "What?!"
"Do you think you can open Billy's trunk from Steve's car?! I've got an idea!" Odette reached out to the camero weaving far in front of the BMW, concentrating on popping the lock as hard as she could until the little lock finally gave way to her and opened, swinging as Billy swerved again. "Done!" She called, pressing down on the button while clutching at the dash for support as Max pulled another u turn. "Can you and El get the gas cans on top of that thing?!"
Odette looked into the back where El sat back, clutching the handle above her head with an exhausted expression, her nose was bleeding lightly as she did. "You up for it?!"
El nodded and sat up, still holding the handle. The both of them reached out their hands to the bright red canisters in the Camero's trunk and they began to float, Odette pressed the button again "Will...I need you to help please" She whispered, her voice straining as she felt the blood begin to pour out of her own nose at the effort. The canisters began to move faster through the air, weaving whenever a tentacle swung past them to hit one of the vehicles. When one of the two cans were hovering over the beast's "head" Odette let out a gasp of pain, her stomach clenching as she tore the plastic apart. Gas dribbled down as it continued unbothered by it. El's can was still hovering, heading into the gaping maw of the can. Odette could see Steve leaning out of the passenger seat of the camero with what had to be the final molotov in his hand. He threw it with all his might, nearly losing his purchase on the window's edge as he did. Odette used the last of what energy she could muster to make his molotov sail true and light the canister in it's teeth aflame. The explosion blew heat so far Odette was sure her own skin had been harmed by the inferno that had now taken over the monster. It began to flail, shrieking shrilly as it burned in the remnants of Starcourt's front entrance. Odette grinned exhaustedly "Get to the edge of the lot and park" She whispered to the red head who was whooping and hollaring in joy at the sight of the monster in such pain. Surely it would die from such damage...but it didn't matter. Just as Max turned one final time to get away from the flailing limbs one of the tentacles hadcaught the back end of the camero, sending the car flipping over and over, the metal top and sides crunching like a beer can as it went. It scraped to a stop at the far end of the lot, a line of blue paint and scraps of metal following its destruction.
"Steve!" "Billy!" Max and Odette's voices cried out in horrified shock, Max stepped on the gas harder then, no longer paying the monster a second thought as the three women raced in the BMW to get to the car that was now smoking. Odette opened the door before Max had even brought the car to a full stop, tumbling and scraping her knees on the ground as she raced for the passenger door, the car was sitting upside down liquid leaking out from under the hood and no sounds escaping the front seat. She got down on her now bleeding knees, uncaring of the tears streaming down her cheeks. Inside Steve looked bad, he'd not been wearing his seatbelt when they'd gone tumbling. His dark hair was matted with blood, his right arm was definitely broken, and his face was bloodied badly. The only positive about his position was the slight rise and fall of his chest as he took breath. Odette tugged at the door hard, using any magic left in her as well as her own strength, just barely getting it open. She pulled under Steve's arms harshly, dragging him over the shattered glass and metal of the car, whispering apologies as she did. On the other side of the car Max and El were in a similar position with Billy, his nose certainly broken as well as at least one of his legs, In his abdomen he had a huge shard of shrapnel from his car stuck there, blood leaking steadily from the edges of the wound.
Behind them the van came to a sudden stop, Jonathan tumbling out with Eddie behind him "We've gotta move-" He started, leaning over Odette and grabbing one of Steves arms when the beast screamed again, this time...not just bothered by the flames that had overtaken it. It's tentacles drew close to it's body as it began to stagger around, as though it was being attacked by a swarm of invisible bees. It finally fell with a thud, the only sound was the crackling flame that still burned on the ruined skin of it.
Sirens sounded again, closer than they'd been all night. Odette looked through her tear covered eye lashes to see the lights of police approaching. She sniffled, falling to her knees to cradle Steve's dark haired head in her lap. She whispered in French, the world around her swimming slightly. She didn't register the sound of the police pulling up...nor did she notice when it was actually Hopper and Joyce that stepped out of the vehicle. She only continued to mumble in French, her heart breaking as it did nothing for Steve. He remained unconscious and bleeding onto her jeans.
