You take the man out of the city, not the city out the man

chapter twenty

  "We're going down! We're going down!" Steve yells.
"No fucking shit, Harrington!" I yell as Dustin goes to the buttons.

  "Why don't these buttons work?" Dustin yells.
"Press the damn button!" I yell.
"What do you think I'm doing?"
"Come on! Press something!" I yell as we the room stops, making us all fall down.

"Dustin!" Steve yells.
"What?"
"Get this off of me!" Steve yells as Dustin and I get the box of Steve.

"Is everyone okay?" Robin asks.
"I'm great, now that I know that Russians can't design elevators!" Steve yells as he goes towards the buttons.

"Harrington, those buttons don't work!" I yell at Steve as he continues to hit the buttons.

"They're buttons. They have to do something."
"Yeah, if we had a keycard." Robin says.
"A what?"
"It's an electronic lock. Same as loading dock door. If we don't have a keycard, it won't operate."

"So, basically, we're stuck here." I say.
"Yeah." Great.

"I should've just stayed with Mike." I mumble as I lean my head back.

"Hey. What if we climbed out?" Dustin asks, pointing at the ceiling.

We clinb through the hole as a look up.
"What were you saying about climbing?" Steve asks as we look up, seeing that we're multiple floors down.

"We're dead in here." I say, my voice echoing. Dustin goes back down the room and comes up with the walkie talkie.

"Code red. Does anyone copy? Code red. I repeat, a code red. We are innocent children and we are trapped under Starcourt Mall. The Red Army has infiltrated Hawkins, and if we are found, they will torture us and kill us." Dustin say as I sit down.

"Hey! You gotta take it easy on that thing. You're gonna drain the battery." Steve says.

"The mall just opened."
"So?"
"So someone could be in range." Dustin says and I lay down. We're so screwed.

"What? You think Petey the Mall Cop is gonna rappel down here and save the day?" Steve asks.
"All right, why are you such a cranky pants after getting to spend the night with Robin?" Dustin asks, whispering the last part.

"Shh! Jesus Christ. Will you just give up on your creepy dream already?"

"I heard you guys talking all night, right Addy?" Dustin asks me.

"Yeah, you guys were talking a lot." I say as I close my eyes.

"Yeah, we were trying to figure out a way to open the door while you children were sleeping. After eight hours, we're still exactly nowhere, which is, you know, probably just a little bit of the reason why I'm feeling just... a tad cranky." Steve says as I think about what I could've been doing.

"Can you redirect your stream?" Robin asks Steve and I cringe. I hate guys.

Just as I was about to fully sleep, Robin comes up.

"We've got company." Robin says and we look at her as I sit up.

We're all silent as the door opens. Someone speaks in Russian as we all listen to what they're saying.

Steve looks through the ceiling to see what's happening and Steve tells us to be quiet as I take deep breaths. I'm not gonna die. I've survived worse.

  Once they left, the door's about to close as Steve grabs one of the green tubes and puts it between the ground and the door.

"Let's go." Steve says, once it's sturdy. I climb down and go under the door.

"Go, go, go, go." Steve says.
"I'm going!" I say as I look at the tube. That's not gonna hold the door forever.