She was hidden now behind some sort of computer machine, as Mike would call it.
Ah, yes. Mike. With his chiseled face structure, cheeks and nose peppered in freckles, and his unruly matt of midnight back hair falling over his thick eyelashes. He was so perfect. The thought of him happy brought tears to her eyes.
El was doing this not only to retrieve her son from the claws of pure evil. But also to grab Mike back from the darkness that lingered above him.
He was screaming so loud he was sure he would make Hopper go deaf before they even had the chance to leave that utility room.
-'EL?! EL LET US OUT! PLEASE EL PLEASE! DONT DO THIS BABY, COME ON'
His hands clawed at the wood of the door, not caring splinters were digging into his fingers and under his nails.
Jesus. Hopper thought. He's trying to rip his way out of here.
-'Kid! CALM DOWN!' The big man took Mike's waist and pulled him away from the door,
-'ELEVEN' he yelled into his ear. He was desperate.
The two loves of his life were behind that door, fighting to live.
"Where is the motherfucking hospital door" she thought. Gosh this place was larger than it seemed. She couldn't hear Levi either. Surely the noise would've woken him up wherever he was. He wasn't a very very heavy sleeper, so if he was alert enough he would wake up.
With the power off, the heat also fried. And it was catching up on her. Wasn't summer-fall supposed to be a bit warm?
Her lip trembled but not in fear, she was just a bit cold.
Absolutely not afraid. She had just stopped a shower of bullets coming her direct way. If she had to do it a million times more to save her baby she would.
Despite the warm yellow light barely illuminating the frenetic hallways full of trapped people, she saw several men she had seen before.
-'come on, El. Let Smith and Allen make you feel good for being so obedient today'
Brenner took advantage of her temporary physical weakness to sell her out to child molestors and rapists. Only she didn't understood what was happening, really.
The worse feeling in the world HAD to be this.
Feeling the cold air of the lab seep in between her legs after Smith had taken off her underwear.
She knew was coming next.
Big soft hands caressed the inside of her thighs but she couldnt point out why she made it feel so uncomfortable if she washed herself down there every day. It was just weird when someone else did it.
Then she would feel a sort of stab. Yeah, like a feeling of being stuffed but with a knife.
Whenever she tried to scream at him fo stop, he would put his other hand on her mouth and also almost covering her nose so she was barely conscious through it.
He would talk. Be vocal.
Call her 'the tightest he's ever had' whatever the hell that meant at the time.
He would make her swallow some nasty white thing coming out of his -privates- as Papa would call the things between your legs.
So much of it, sometimes it even seeped through her nose-
El didn't hesitate when she saw him.
She had to kill him face to face.
Anger boiled inside of her like lava. Like she was a volcano ready to explode. At this point she didn't give a fuck about killing people who deserved to die.
The world froze around her.
Well not the world. Just the people beside her and Smith, who looked at her like he was a deer in headlights.
-'Remember me, Smith?' She said. Barely a whisper.
The gun he was holding unloaded its ammo on its own, and she swore he wet his pants.
-'...Eleven?'
-'The very same. You guys kidnapped my son, you know? Have him captive, like you had me for the first 11 years of my life. Raping me incessantly, touching me...I could assume you didn't do the same to him because he's a boy, or too small. But I choose to think you did, just so I can kill you even slower, so you can feel every single stab I felt every time you came into my room, how's tha-'
Smith tried to fight his way out of his cornered stance with no avail. With a flick of her PINKY FINGER. God she was powerful now. She kept him pinned against the wall, grabbed a shard of glass. Her hands bleeding because she was holding it so tight.
She approached the pinned man as he screamed for some God who wouldn't help him. Mike's God. Not hers.
-'God you're annoying' she undied his belt and cupped his genitals with excessive force, making him wince.
-'Oh this is nothing...I PROMISE you this is nothing'.
The shard of glass stabbed him THERE. His screams were deafening.
Blood leaked into it, and a bit into her hand. She wiped the blood off on his face and then stabbed his mouth. Just like he would do to her a few years back.
His limp body finally fell with a thud, El wiped her nose and unfroze the people around her before flinging them all against a wall.
She had to take a second to regain her breath, the migraine was making its way in and she had to save energy. And find the man that put her through hell and then some.
Then she snapped out of her revenge-fueled rampage. Suddenly remembering why she was here in the first place.
Levi.
The wooden door was smeared with blood. Mike's blood.
Hopper looked at him from a corner.
One of his nails had come off, his fingers were deeply cut by the thick splinters he had somehow managed to rip out.
If someone came in right now they might as well think Mike was dead.
He was breathing faintly but Hopper was not worried about him.
If he started dying, THEN he would think of what to do.
He was more worried about his daughter but the way the people outside the door screamed, told him she was doing fine.
Mike didn't know if he was awake or dreaming. All he could do was hear the deafening screams for help of the people outside the door. His fingers and hands hurt, and he could see the blood coming out of them, against the large splinters he had gotten into himself in his vain attempt to rip the door open in desperation.
He thought about El, how he wanted to ask her to marry him eventually. Would she survive?
He thought about his son. Would HE survive to go to school? Have friends of his own?
Shit.
Friends.
Rhey were outside, luckily. Not to be traumatized by the carnage ensuing outside the door.
The migraine was pounding against her eyes, but God dammit if she had to whistand a head splitting headache in order to save her child she would, for a thousand years.
The yellow emergency light was enough for her to see forward.
Then she heard it. A whimper. Not an adult sound. No...a child's.
Her pulse quickened even more and her heart wanted to squeeze out of her throat. Her eyes watered as she ran around quietly following the sounds. Pieces of glass incrusted onto her sneakers. Probably gonna be ruined.
Her clothes were smeared with blood.
Blood stains in the shape of fingers, from all the people who had tried to grab her and beg her for mercy.
Her sense of mercy was lost when they locked her up for twelve years. When they made her mamma catatonic. When they stabbed Kali with a cattle prod. When they raped her so hard she would be unable to walk afterwards. When they pointed a gun at her friends...at Mike. When they took her baby out of a car wreck. When they tattooed 012 on his wrist. What even is mercy at this point?
She found me, he thought.
The man in the wheelchair held a gun tight against his hands while also eyeing the child beside him, the wheezing of the respiratory aid stabbing his ears.
The door handle shot out of the door.
The hinges squealed in protest.
There she was. So grown up. So powerful. He was amazed. His Eleven, capable of things he couldn't even imagine.
-'Hello, Eleven'
With a tip of her head, the gun flew off his hands and unloaded the bullets.
-'Let him go'
Straight to the point.
-'Now why should I-'
-'The monster should've finished the job'
Brenner smirked.
-'Oh no, my girl. That's you. A monster. Look at what you've done'
Her watering eyes moved towards the small cot. Ther he was. Head shaved, skin even paler, a bit thinner if that was even possible. Sickly. In need.
-'What did you do to him' she whispered, trying to sound strong.
-'Find his potential. It's curious how he hasn't shown abilities even when we push him to. You could make a wooden cube float by 8 months old—how old is he now? One and a half?...what a waste of your youth I must say-'
El flicked a finger and he and the wheelchair got pinned against a wall.
-'I'm gonna kill you tonight' she muttered
-'Now what for? I raised you for twelve years of your life and as soon as you get out of my protection you go rolling around some dirty kid and get pregnant' his voice was steady. If he was scared, he didnt show it.
-'You raped me...you killed me inside...you took away—my childhoo-'
-'I never touched you, Eleven'
El closed her eyes.
-'You did nothing when you heard me screaming, when they gagged me...when they made me bleed and hurt' she picked up a hazardous -looking shard of sharp glass...a knife in potency.
She had to get this over with as fast as she could to finally retrieve her son.
-'You really wanna stab your Papa? You really wanna kill the man who gave you everything?'
-'You stole my life. It's only fair'
The shard of glass sank into his throat.
Imagine drowning in your own blood.
El remembers how painful it was when Max pushed her into the pool and water got into her nose. Imagine blood.
Papa's wheezing came with sprays of blood everywhere, his nose dripped red liquid. His arms were going limp. And she jumped into action.
When Levi was born, and put in an incubator with lights, tiny needles and oxygen masks, El thought there wasn't anything as helpless and beautiful in the world.
All three and a half pounds of him.
"Sweet, tiny baby peanut", "Little monster", "my most beautiful dream", "Teeny tiny little man", "the best gift I've ever had"
A few of the slew of things her and Mike called him all the time. Even one and a half year later.
But now? If Levi was underweight before, he definitely broke the record.
His skin was pale, almost transparent. Eyelids heavy. Head Completely bald.
El felt her knees give in, as she fell while still holding on the tiny cot.
Blood flowed beside her.
Her tormentor was dead. But her worries were just beginning.
How the hell was she supposed to take off all these aids and still have him survive all the way to Owens (who was waiting for them agter Hopper and Joyce informed him of the situation)
El grabbed him in an embrace. It's been too long. Too long since she had felt his tiny hands grasping her shirt. Too long since his little head had scooted to find its way against her warm, safe chest. Too long since she had heard his faint cooing against her ear when she rocked him to sleep every night.
The door managed a creak.
Mike and Hopper looked at it with hopefull eyes. The lock unlatched. Freedom.
Mike was the first to jump up and try to push it open.
It collided with a solid, fairly small thing. A head.
Mike pushed the door further and found several people, dead, their brains bashed in, blood rushing from their eyes, ears, noses and mouths.
He couldn't help the bile coming up his throat and his eyes watering.
Hop held him up by the shoulders. All one hundred pounds of him.
-'T-They're all dead' he gasped for air like someone had punctured his lungs.
Hop couldn't argue with that. Everyone looked quite dead.
-'I'm a monster, daddy'
-'You're not even remotely close to a monster Jane. Hey? Look at me...my sweet girl...if anything, you're an angel sent to take care of me, okay? No monster'
They heard someone's breathing. It sounded like the last breath a wounded person made before dying. Like a deer's last groan before succumbing to its injuries.
Hop knew exactly who it was.
She looked like hell.
Her nose had bled so much the whole front of her shirt was soaked, her arms trembled and her hands had suffered a long, deep injury that was staining the small chil she held in her arms.
-'H-Hold me, please'
El didn't trust her feet anymore but she knew that if she let her knees give in, she could injure Levi.
Mike was in no position to help them right now. Hell, he ciuld barely hold himself together.
El heard his desperate cries, all his worries and stress washing off with thick tears now coating his pale freckled cheeks.
A sad Michael didn't have to be the last thing she saw before she died. Not today.
In the moments she thought about the sweet relief of death, Hop had taken off his thick jacket and wrapped it to create a sling around El's dainty body. He didn't have time to examine injuries so he moved as quickly as he could.
A tear in the deadly silent forest came in the shape of a desperate cry for help.
It sounded as if someone had just encountered their greatest nightmare and was now fighting for their life.
-'WILL'.
That was enough to make Will Byers jolt to his feet and start one of the cars.
-'MAX GET IN THE CAR' Lucas pushed his girlfriend in the backseat while he waited anxiously for El, Mike, Hop and (please dear God) Levi to arrive.
Will's hands trembled and his lips went cold all of the sudden when he realised Mike was the source of the screaming.
It was like someone was ripping his friends' guts out of him and choking him with them. That's how it sounded like.
Instead, Mike a few steps in front of Hopper, his knees were bleeding (he fainted briefly into shards of glass), his hands had bits of flesh missing; and he looked like he had tried to claw his way out of hell. Not too far from reality.
-'I CAN'T WALK DAD', Will heard. That made him shoot out running to help her sister, no matter what anyone around him said.
-'EL! EL I'M HERE'
Will didn't realize he was crying. He bumped into Hop's 6ft3 frame and examined his beloved sister.
She was bleeding from way too many places and dhe looked like she was on the verge of dying.
The deafening sound of a wheeze reached his ears. A bulk inside Hop's jacket that was tied around El's torso moved around faintly.
Will's terrified eyes reached hers.
By the time the trio reached the car, Mike had set up a whole little hospital in the backseat of Lucas' car.
He saw flashlights approaching, his best friend (nearly brother) was making sure his girlfriend didn't faint and Hop was carrying the sling now.
Mike ran out and grabbed the tiny little thing in a warm blanket,
-'We have to stimulate his breathing' he tried hard not to stutter or demonstrate how absolutely terrified he was.
Hop tried to give the baby some kind of CPR but Mike pushed him away, -'DO YOU WANNA KILL HIM?! DO YOU WANNA CRUSH HIS RIBS?!'
-'I'LL BE GENTLE GET OFF'
Mike pushed him away even further, and started yelling frantically -'LUCAS START THE DAMN CAR AND LETS GO'
Max hopped in the backseat. Mike had never seen her so disraught and nervous before.
-'What do I do' she whispered,
-'Stimulate his breathing, rub him with this' he handed her a towel and she did as instructed.
Hopper's blood ran cold. He couldn't lose another daughter.
-'Not today'.
Will dragged his sister onto the backseat and started cleaning her wounds while also trying to keep her awake,
-'El, El come on, stop crying'
How could she? Worry and stress still invaded her mind, eating her thoughts, consuming her brain.
Hopper paced around Owens' office.
-'She's been out cold for fourteen hours. What the fuck is going on'
Owens shook his head, -'Do you know how drained she is right now? Do you really wanna wake your daughter up just because you think she's slept enough?'
Hopper laid back into the wall and looked out the window.
-'I thought I was gonna lose three members of my family a few hours ago...'
owens nodded, -'You almost did. Luckily you could get the baby here in time, he was running out of oxygen'
Hop hid his face in his hands,
-'...I know he almost died'
The doctor stared at an empty spot in the opposite wall.
-'Mike's been dehydrated for weeks...he's lost muscle mass, he's at least thirty pounds underweight...I know you thought you didn't have to worry a lot about him'
-'Who—?'
-'Boy was burning with fever when he came in, started having subtle seizures. I honestly feared brain damage'.
Hopper felt like shit for underestimating his son-in-laws bravery. He hadn't asked for him in the eighteen hours they've been under Owens' supervision and now he felt like shit about it.
-'Any other doctor would've told you he had one foot in the casket already...you should appreciate him more'.
'You're like my brother, Lucas. There's nobody I would trust more with him than you. I know you'll protect him if-if it comes to it'
A year and a half ago Mike had said those words to him and he couldn't be more terrified and proud.
He'd have to share duties with Nancy.
-'She'll be the voice of reason' Mike had joked.
Now it was happening. He had seen his best friend have five seizures in one hour.
He had seen him be showered with ice water in a desperate attempt to lower his fever.
He had seen him go limp on a bed.
That was eighteen hours ago. And Mike still hadn't even shifted.