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WALKING THE RAILROAD TO THE JUNKYARD earlier that morning was not as exhausting as it felt later on in the night. Valentina's feet were killing her, but her ruptured leg was especially screaming for a break or a relief that comes in the form of a white ovoid. Unfortunately, neither were in sight.
It'd been over 24 hours since Valentina's last fix, and the effects of said involuntary sobriety were taking nearly full effect. She didn't realize it at first due to the exterior stress of demogorgons raiding the area, but her itchy skin, feverish sweating, and aching bones were all a result of her lack of drugs. And they'd only gotten worse since they left the bus.
"Where are we going?" Max asked, her voice a little more whiny than it sounded the last time she asked.
"This is where the dems went," Dustin responded, giving the monsters a nickname as if they went way back. D'artagnon was enough, he didn't need to make more friends with the inter-dimensional.
Max groaned, throwing her head back. She picked up her feet to walk alongside Lucas, who had been grumbling to himself something incoherent. None of the remaining members of the group cared enough to decipher his mumbles.
Dustin was busy on the radio, though no one was answering, like they had been all day. The only thing he was achieving was a drained battery.
Steve was at the front of the group, hands on the straps of his backpack where the nailed bat was tucked away. He'd barely said a word since they left the bus. Just stared straight ahead without looking back, except for the occasional glance to make sure everyone was still following.
Valentina straggled along on his right, trying to be a leader as well because technically she was one of the oldest. Though, she was hardly in shape to take care of herself, much less the group.
"How do we even know we're going the right way?" Dustin brought up.
Steve groaned before he answered, though he only got a word out before Valentina cut him off. It was the first time either of them had spoken since the attack at the junkyard.
"We don't. Steve thinks he's Christopher Columbus," she sniffed. Her nose started dripping about five minutes into the walk and hadn't let up. The roll of her eyes that followed caused her headache to worsen.
"Is that the guy who made Columbia University?" Steve asked. A series of groans followed. Everyone was a bit on edge since the attack at the junkyard and the extraneous physical labor that followed.
"Christopher Columbus was dead over two centuries before the University was established. He's the dude who crossed the Atlantic Ocean," Lucas informed the man who was five years older than him. "A century is a hundred-"
"Yeah, I know how long a century is."
The group returned to silence after the kids snorted in response to Steve's callback. He mumbled something under his breath, most likely an insult to the tweens who were constantly mocking his intelligence. After his nearly silent rant, Steve noticed that Valentina hadn't said anything during the jump on his intellect. That was highly out of character for her.
