"Hey, you remember what I said last year, right? We're Zombie Boy and Ghost Boy. I'm not ever gonna leave you."
"Promise?"
"One hundred percent."
***
In which Alistair fights the monster that possessed his friend alongside his friends, while trying...
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Chapter Twenty-Eight: Emergency Store Robbery
(The Bite, Pt. 3)
***
"There, there! Right there, Nance!"
Nancy swerved into the parking lot of the general store Jonathan had pointed out. the minute she parked, the ten of them poured out, Alistair helping Mike and Max with El, his exhaustion fading as Hugin rested in his curls. El's face was twisted in pain, blood steadily pouring from her leg.
"Hold on a little longer, Jean Grey. We'll fix up your leg," Alistair assured softly.
El only grunted in response.
Snatching up a rock, Nancy threw it through the glass door, shattering it. She and Jonathan stepped through first, Mike, Max, El and Alistair right behind her, while Will, Lucas, and Cami walked in last.
They made a beeline for the medical supplies aisle, and when they found it, Nancy grabbed some rubbing alcohol and medical gauze and ordered, "Okay, get her down."
Mike, Max and Alistair did so, setting El down as gently as possible on the floor. Still, she grunted in pain, her face screwed up. Alistair held her hand, giving it a squeeze, hoping it provided her comfort.
The squeeze back told him it did.
"Okay. Lemme see," Nancy commanded.
At once, the trio moved away a bit as Nancy rolled up El's jean leg as gently as possible, revealing the wound.
Cami clapped a hand to her mouth, and Alistair swallowed, his normally strong stomach roiling at seeing El's wound—an angry red thing, pulsing blood, dark veins in the maroon area around the wound, spreading out.
"Oh, shit," Max cursed, summing up everyone's reactions as they stared at the wound, the damage the Mind Flayer had delivered.
Nancy immediately opened the rubbing alcohol to clean it, to which Max noticed and she demanded, "Oh whoa, hey. What are you doing?"
"I'm cleaning the wound," Nancy explained, making to do that, but Max stopped her.
"No, first, we need to stop the bleeding, then clean, then disinfect, then bandage," Max said firmly.
As everyone looked at her, she shrugged and explained, "I skateboard. Trust me."
"I would," Alistair said, mind flashing with the past couple of times Max had tried to teach him to skateboard, and it would dismally fail, sometimes with injury that Max deftly took care of.
Max flashed him a smile before her face grew serious again and she handed a wad of gauze to Mike, saying, "Mike, hold this."
When he did, she directed him to hold it over the wound, instructing, "Keep the pressure on it, nice and firm, okay?"
