"You're so slow! C'mon!"
Mike leaned further over his handlebars, thighs and legs burning with each lunging pedal forward. Lucas and Dustin rode ahead of him, both glancing back and letting their bikes coast along as Mike fell behind.
He could feel El shifting behind him, probably looking around with that distantly quizzical expression she always seemed to have. The city looked very different at night, compared to their earlier ride. Storefronts cast green and red lights across their path from neon signs, windows dark and reflective.
"I'm going to ride ahead!" Lucas called back to him, wobbling a little as he stomped on his bike pedals, sweeping smoothly around a corner and hurrying toward yellow streetlights and Hawkin's General Hospital. Dustin hesitated, glancing again over his shoulder, before agreeing.
"I'll meet you there - help you find somewhere for El to hide if we need it."
Mike nodded, the grip on his handlebars nearly painful as he sat back onto his seat, sucking in breaths and trying pretend he wasn't. Dustin raced off into the gloom, tires bouncing over a grassy median as he jumped the curb to take a shortcut into the hospital parking lot.
"Gotta follow the road." He explained breathlessly to his passenger, weaving wide around a stubbornly persistent curb, his own legs straining under the extra person's weight and resistance when turning. He'd forgotten how many hills Hawkins had between the school and downtown. Still, he was glad El was cognizant enough to ride behind him. She'd seemed exhausted and dizzy after her display of psychic power, and for a brief, terrifying moment, he thought he might have to choose between her and Will.
They'd all heard his voice, through the supernaturally tuned radio. They had heard the chorus of monstrous shrieks through static, and Mrs. Byers' frantic shouts.
With the raw emotion of their voices still ringing in his ears, their group had headed first toward Will's house, but a roaring siren splitting the night air had turned their path toward the hospital instead.
Mike's bike tires crunched through dry leaves as he made the last turn, up onto a smoother sidewalk and quick down toward the hospital's main entrance. He could see Lucas' and Dustin's bikes propped haphazardly in the bushes, and Dustin's distinctive hair and ballcap combo under yellow floodlights.
His shoes scuffed the ground as he stopped, and El hopped off the back of his bike as Dustin jogged up with a worried alertness.
"Johnathan just ran in - Lucas and me were turned away, 'cause we're not family."
Mike nodded, chewing on his lip reflexively. It WAS pretty late, after all. Visiting hours had long ended. Plus, they didn't know if Will was in surgery, or even if he was… No, he was definitely alive. They'd listened to a struggle, but nothing sounded like their friend had been mortally wounded. He would have made a sound, right?
Just imagining that kind of scream made the hair on his arms and neck raise in prickles.
"Alright?"
Mike startled a little and turned, not expecting the soft voice at his shoulder. The girl stared steadily back, waiting patiently until he processed the question and gave an uncomfortable shrug.
"I dunno, El. Hopefully."
Dustin frowned harder, jerking his head toward the sliding doors.
"Let's get outta the cold, anyway. They can't stop us from hanging out in the waiting room."
Mike nodded, walking his bike over to the bushes where his friends' rides lay, carefully kicking the leg down to stand it up. El and Dustin headed into the warm glow inside, but he felt… lost.
The sweat on his back and face was cold now, chilled by the autumn wind. He couldn't hear any cars this late at night, trees and leaves whispering in distant oceans of sound. Heavy moonlight reflected off single cars left far back in the parking lot, off roofs and white bits of trash gathered in leafpile corners. Bats flung themselves in dizzying circles to chase likewise dizzy moths, and the world just seemed too big. The sky yawned overhead, empty space around him just too open and weirdly surreal.
Will had been gone for several days, and they'd seen a body that looked just like his pulled out of the lake. Had heard the announcement of his death, but... he was alive!
Mike exhaled a slow breath, rubbing cold hands together and half-trotted in to join his friends.
Warm air enveloped him, everything washed with yellow light and the sterile dust smell that hospital waiting rooms often had. Like the couches hadn't been vacuumed frequently enough, but every hard surface had been sanitized to death.
Lucas was talking quietly to the lady at the front desk, his elbows propped up on the countertop, expression somewhere between cajoling and innocent. He gestured in quick little movements, always folding his fingers back together in hopeful expectation, trying to squeeze out every drop of charm even with the set of his shoulders and careful smile.
Still, she shook her head 'no, ' but at least seemed sympathetic instead of angry at him.
Mike joined Dustin and El on one of the rough couches, careful not to set his palms on the weird-patterned fabric. El's pink dress stood out brightly against it, the blonde wig tilted just slightly off-kilter. He reached up, gently tugging it back into place, avoiding her dark eyes with a muttered "Careful."
She hummed a small sound, returning to the magazine she was flipping through, though he wasn't sure if she was actually reading or just looking at the pictures.
"D'you think they'll even let us know how he's doing?" Dustin wondered aloud, kicking his feet up in a brief swing.
"Nope!" Lucas answered from across the room, strolling back to plop down on the magazine table instead of a chair. "Apparently that's confidential information. Did see Will's brother run in here as we arrived, so if we stick around, someone might pop out and tell us what's up." His eyes brightened when he saw El's magazine, expression forced into a cheerful smile. "You like cars, huh?"
She glanced up at him, then looked back down at the magazine, not really giving any notable response. A stranger would have said Lucas was unbothered by it, but Mike and Dustin both noticed the tensing of his shoulders, frustrated clench of his jaw.
"So hey, wanna try sneaking into his room?" Dustin was quick to interrupt, faking a small laugh and an exaggerated cupping of his hand to hide his mouth from the receptionist.
Mike's smile felt strained, but the idea…. had merit.
Lucas turned around to give her an assessing once-over, turning back to them and leaning back casually, irritation seemingly forgotten.
"She's got novel up there behind her files 'n stuff. I bet if we waited long enough, she'll start to read again and we can try to sneak past."
All of them nodded, except El, who continued to flip idly through glossy car magazine pages with a focused intensity. Dustin grinned winningly.
"So… Act natural-?" His suggestion was interrupted by the sliding door whooshing open, two anxious voices speaking over each other and over the sharp clicks of sensible shoes. They rushed through a greeting with the receptionist, fumbling IDs out of their pockets and nodding frantically when she directed them up the hall.
The three boys watched them hurry down the hall, eyebrows raised.
Mike spoke up, "I think that was Barb's parents."
"Was she missing?" Lucas asked, quickly answered by Dustin's "Weird timing if she wasn't."
El didn't look up from her magazine. If one looked closely, one could have noticed her stiff spine, unfocused eyes. No hint of that telltale blood that announced her psychic powers, but pure discomfort still radiating quietly off her hunched form.
The boys didn't see it, preoccupied by plans and questions they had no answers to.
While Barbara slept, she dreamt of smoke.
Black, billowing fogs that twisted elegantly into the sky and curved together in a sluggish tornado of mass. Smoky eyes endlessly open, darkness in ephemeral folds, limbs unfolding spiderlike from its bulk.
In her dream, the darkness was a comfort. The cold, relaxing.
From high in the skyline she and the smoke gazed out over the town of Hawkins. Watched smoke-dust fingers extend endlessly to fence in a single broken building. She dreamt of vines ensnaring it completely, crushing it, and the delighted flicker of hunger when something small and bright escaped the crush of rotted boards and heavy roots.
Barbara dreamt of an intrigued chase, her storm roiling with lightning as it slithered to follow the bright thing.
The light stopped, and her smoke reared up to meet its gaze with power .
Something purred in the smoke as the light froze, and she felt herself in the roots that reared up to grasp the light, pinning it down. Felt her hands like a splitting river just flowing around to pluck the little light and its binding up into the sky.
My light….
Barbara felt the storm stir back toward town, felt the shift of trees under her, wind and electric potentials snapping through black mist.
Why was the light even important?
She turned curiously, for the first time pulling her gaze away from the smoke's intent.
Within a tight mass of thorns and withered flowers, the little light hung limp. All gangly limbs and white hair, green eyes half-open and glazed.
Green.
She knew that green.
The smoke paused, and Barbara squirmed, trying to get a closer look. She knew those green eyes. Knew that fear, so sharp in contrast with this numbing, blanketing cold.
Her chest hurt, confusion rattling in her skull.
How did she know that gree-
Sharp white jolted through her, choked gasp pulled into ragged lungs despite her own will. Brown eyes snapped open under the intense shine of a circle of lights, black bleeding from the whites of her eyes to hide in the corners.
A rush of movement bustled around her, loud beeps and shrill machines overwhelming under the loud shout of people handing tools over her body. Something was in her mouth, throat, pressed to her face.
"Is she awake?"
Barb turned her eyes to focus on the new person, that Cold, Dark feeling never quite leaving her thoughts.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she noted she was in surgery. Probably split open somewhere. The smell of blood was recognizable, sharp.
She couldn't feel a thing.
Well, no.
She felt one thing.
A surgeon's thin needle pierced the blood bag snaking thin and hot into her arm. It blazed through her veins - not the drug, but the sheer heat of red fluid draining into her.
Even as her eyes fogged over, the heat never became easier to bear. Her arm ached.
The next sleepy darkness was quiet.
Not as cold.