'tis the damn season

Eighteen: Out Of The Woods

"Are we out of the woods? Are we in the clear yet?" 

My breath caught in my throat when I realized El had just thrown that car with her mind; but tears welled in my eyes when I saw Will and Johnathan were with her. I thought I may never see them again. Mike, Lucas, Max and Nancy were all up there too. What were they all doing together? How the hell did they know we were here?

The group of them head down the stairs, while I hopped over the counter to meet them. It wasn't long before I had both of my brothers pulled into a tight group hug.

"What the hell are you guys doing here?" I ask, not letting go.

"We were going to ask you guys the same thing," Johnathan answers laughing.

"Who were those guys?" Max asks, as I release my brothers from my tight grip.

"The Russians," Steve answers nonchalantly.

"Russians?" Nancy echos, confused.

"It's a long story," I add.

I notice Lucas' eyes widen when he sees his little sister with us. "Erica?"

"Lucas?" She answers, just as confused.

Everyone was reuniting at once, I could hardly keep up with everyone.

"Sorry, but can someone explain what just happened," Robin asks, pointing to the car that was flipped over, now leaning against the wall.

"El has super powers," Dustin states, as if it were obvious.

Robin just shakes her head in disbelief. "Of course she does," she mutters. "How did you guys even find us?"

"I guess technically we weren't looking for you," Johnathan says.

My eyes widen hearing this. "What do you mean you weren't looking for us? I've been missing for the past twenty four hours, did you guys not worry at all?" I laugh, looking between Johnathan and Will.

"You said you were going to Robin's," Will reasons.

"Well I didn't exactly say I was staying all—," I stopped talking when Mike called out to El.

I turn around to see El laying on the floor, while Mike tried to help her sit up.

"What happened?" Max asks, kneeling next to El and Mike.

El doesn't answer with words, instead she just screams in pain, and all of our eyes flick to her leg that's bleeding out, and... moving? What the fuck.

"What is that?" I shout.

No one answers me, they all just move into fixing mode. Jonathan runs over to one of the restaurants in the food court. I can see him looking through all the drawers from here. I watch as Steve and Mike move El to sit up more comfortably while she continues to cry in pain.

"You know, when I played soccer when I was little, the goalie on my team ended up cutting her leg open and like, the whole bone came out of her knee, like six inches or something and they had to—,"

"Robin?" Steve interrupts.

"Yeah?"

"You're not helping," he says, gently.

"Sorry."

All I could do was stand and watch everything go down. Everyone's panicking, but yet they're still in control. I'd never seen a group of kids look so calm over something like this.