Whispers of a Ghost

Chapter 8-

You woke up the following morning to Steve frantically rushing around his bedroom trying to get ready for work which he was already 30 minutes late for.

He told you that you could stay in his house while he went to work, but you didn't want to be alone. So, after switching out of Steve's clothes and into your now dry jeans and jacket you climbed into his car.

You caught a glimpse of yourself in the side mirror, the entire left side of your face was a mixture of cuts and bruises.

"After I finish work, we can drive around again to try and find Billy, but I'm sure he will turn up before then." Steve said, breaking the silence as he drove.

"Thank you." You replied, glancing over at him. "For... for everything."

"Of course." He replied, smiling softly as he held his hand out towards you which you took, and he squeezed gently. "We'll figure everything out, I promise."

It didn't take long before Steve found a carpark by the mall and the two of you walked inside to find Robin behind the counter of Scoops with a line of about 10 teenagers waiting for their ice-creams.

"Hey, dingus! You're nearly an hour late and-" Robin stopped mid-sentence as the two of you walked around the counter, her eyes widening when she looked at you. "Oh my God, what happened?"

"Y/N is going to be sitting in the backroom until I finish my shift. I'm sorry I'm late." Steve apologised, opening the door to the back room and holding it open for you.

"I don't care about you being late anymore, what happened? Is she okay?" You heard Robin question as you walked into the room to find Dustin sitting at the table looking over some kind of blueprint map.

Crap. You didn't want him to see you like this. He'd have a thousand questions.

"She'll be okay. Can you just handle these customers while I get her settled?"

"Yeah, yeah, of course."

Steve walked into the room behind you but froze when he saw Dustin sitting there.

"Uh, what are you doing?"

"Robin bought the blueprints for the mall from the County Records Office. There's no way to get from here to that storage room we found last night, but if we use air ducts-" Dustin started to explain motioning to the blueprints before looking up and stopping when he saw you. "Holy shit, what happened?"

"Nothing." You replied, sitting down on the other chair and trying very hard not to wince at the pain in your ribs.

"Nothing. Nothing?" Dustin repeated in disbelief. "Steve, what the hell happened?"

You quickly looked over at Steve and gave him a look which he knew meant to shut up and he sighed.

"It's, uh, it's a long story. Look, Y/N is just going to sit back here while I work and- wait, did you say Robin bought blueprints of the mall?" He asked, smoothly changing the topic.

Dustin looked between you and Steve for a few seconds, not wanting to drop the topic before he nodded and looked back down at the blueprints in front of him.

"Yep, and the air ducts is our way into the storage room." He said, pointing to the pen line that was drawn on the paper.

"Wait, what storage room?" You asked, trying to be part of the conversation.

"The Russians storage room. We found it last night. It was being heavily guarded so something big must be inside and the air ducts are our way in."

Oh, right the Russians. How did you forget about that?