••••• "Don't don't you want me? / You know I can't believe it when you say that you don't need me" •••••
"This might be the stupidest thing I've ever gotten myself involved in, but I'm in."
In which Steve Harrington and Kimberly Henderson go from be...
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Steve tapped his fingers on the side of the car, anxiously watching Max. He wanted to respect what she needed – he couldn't imagine knowing you would die gruesomely at any second – but he still thought that sitting in a cemetery, talking to your dead brother's grave, wasn't the best idea. She was just sitting there, not even moving. Steve checked his watch, wondering how much time had passed. "Alright, it's been long enough," he decided, getting out of the car.
"Steve, just give her some time," Lucas warned.
"I have, alright, Sinclair," Steve said over his shoulder. "I'm calling it. She wants to get a lawyer, she can. If anything happens to her, Kimmy will hate me even more than she already does." He jogged up the hill to where Max was sitting. "Max, time to giddy up, yeah? Max?" He crouched down next to her and started to shake her.
He could only see the whites of her eyes, her eyelids occasionally twitching. Her body was paralized and unresponsive.
Hearing Steve's panicked shouts, Dustin and Lucas raced up the hill to see if they could help. The three of them shouted incoherently, just trying to bring their friend back to reality and out of whatever hell was going on in her head.
Steve grabbed Dustin by the jacket. "Call Nancy, Kim, and Robin! Go get 'em! Call Nancy, Kim, and Robin! Go!"
Dustin scrambled back towards Steve's car. He rummaged through his backpack, finally pulling out his walky talky with shaking hands. "Kimmy? Nancy? Robin? Do you copy? This is a code red! Do you copy? Shit. Kim!"
•••••
The three girls that Dustin was trying so desperately to reach were nowhere near their walky talky in Nancy's car.
"You're not listening. Our friend is in danger," Nancy pleaded.
"Do you really expect me to believe anything you have to say at this point?" Dr. Hatch spat as he led them back through the asylum.
"It's the truth!" Kim cried.
"You are free to tell your sob story to the police," he said as he slammed through the doors to the outside lawn.
"Victor said the night of the attack, everything went on in the house, but he made specific mention of music," Robin whispered to her two friends. "He said music was playing. And then, when we asked him about the angel, he started to hum. 'Say nighty-night and kiss me hold me tight–'"
"Dream a Little Dream of Me," Nancy said.
"Ella Fitzgerald," Kim nodded, trying to follow where Robin was going with this.
"The voice of an angel," Nancy realized.
Robin nodded. "Hatch said that music can reach parts of the brain that words can't. So maybe that's the key, a lifeline."
"A lifeline back to reality," Nancy agreed.
"It's worth a shot," Kim said quietly. She looked over her shoulder at the three guards behind them, her brain formulating an escape plan. "I think we can beat him."
"What?" Nancy whispered
"To the car," Kim clarified.
Robin's eyes grew wide. "Okay, I'm warning you right now, I have terrible coordination. Like it took me six months longer to walk than all the other babies."
"Just follow my lead," Kim encouraged, taking both girls hands before breaking out into a sprint.
"Oh my god!" Robin yelled.
"Hey!" one of the guards shouted, taking off after them. "Get back here. Stop right there!"
"Go! Go!" Kim called back to her friends as she ran into the parking lot.
Nancy quickly unlocked her car, quickly locking it again and taking off once Robin and Kim were safely in the car.
"Holy shit! Holy shit! Holy shit!" Robin hyperventilated.
"You really are a weird runner," Nancy laughed as she sped down the road.
The walky talky in the back crackled. "Where the hell are you? This is a code red. I repeat, a code red!"
Robin quickly picked it up to respond. "Dustin, it's Robin. We copy."
"Holy shit. Finally!" Dustin yelled. "Please, please tell me you guys have this figured out."
•••••
Even though Dustin was very confused about how this was going to work, he didn't have time to ask questions. He grabbed Max's walkman and all of the cassettes in her bag before running back to where Steve and Lucas were trying to wake her up.
"What is this?" Lucas asked incredulously as Dustin dumped the cassettes out in front of them.
"What's her favorite song?" Dustin asked.
"Why?"
"Robin said if she listens," Dustin started to say. "You know what, it's too much to explain now. What's her favorite song?"
Panicked, Lucas dug through the pile, trying to find the right one. It had to be here; she wouldn't have left the house without it. "This one!" he exclaimed, putting the Kate Bush cassette into the walkman and pressing play while frantically putting the headphones over Max's ears.
The boys scrambled back as Max started to float into the air. They continued to scream at her to wake up. Steve had seen hundreds of terrifying, bone chilling things at this point, but watching Max, who was always so strong, look so helpless was one of the worst.
The ginger gasped in the air before collapsing to the ground, bones still intact. Lucas pulled her into his arms, afraid that if he let her go she would slip away from him again. "We thought we lost you," he said quietly, a tear trailing down his cheek.
Max panted, trying to catch her breath. "I'm st-still here. I'm still here."
A.N. i know it was kinda short but i hope you guys liked this chapter! also i wanted to let those of you who were interested know that i published the first few parts of my new eddie munson fic. if you guys are interested please read it and leave fun comments like you do here! this fic will still be my top priority, but i'll definitely try and add chapters to the eddie fic as much as possible. it's called beauty queen!
