❝ you walk hand in hand with the
omen of death, don't you, harrington?
but, somehow, you're the only one
i can't run away from. ❞
→ 𝐢𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 she claims to hate him, but fate decided to prove her wrong.
or two teens who think they're nothi...
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THE GROUND BENEATH HER WAS UNSTABLE. She heard shrill screams tearing at her eardrums. Trembling like jelly, she crawled to the edge and looked down.The boy, held only by his own grip, was crying out for help. The red mist brushed against his dangling legs, as if inviting him into the endless abyss below. If he fell, it would be the end of him.
STEVE!
She screamed, but her voice didn't stop him from continuing to fall. In fact, no matter how much she screamed, no sound came out of her throat. The pain and sensation of falling were so intense. Because they were one and the same, if one fell, it was as if the other fell too.
With a violent jolt of her body, Aurora woke up with her heart hammering hard against her chest, her lungs aching for air. Her eyes flew open, but her vision was blurred at the edges, still adjusting to the day. The smell of disinfectant immediately filled her nostrils.
Lying in the hospital bed, she looked down at her stomach, which throbbed with the movement. Beneath the hospital gown, she felt her torso wrapped in gauze.
She quickly lifted her gaze because two people had hurried to her side, helping her sit up and asking how she was and what had happened. Then the scents of two different men's colognes reached her nose.
"Don't worry, you're safe here." The subtle dark circles under Steve Harrington's kind brown eyes showed that he had been there all night. After adjusting the pillow behind her back and head, he tightened his grip on her hand.
Meanwhile, her father's strong hand on her shoulder warmed it. "Tell us how you're feeling." His voice was low and smooth. He looked equally tired, but a subtle smile of relief curved his lips at the sight of his daughter awake, her pale face not much different from theirs.
The memory of recent events began to return to her sleepy, numbed mind. She remembered the cold of the Upside Down against her skin, the sandy wind of the abyss in her hair, the fear in Henry's eyes, and the macabre relief of seeing Vecna's head roll across the floor. The traumatised children... Her eyes widened as if struck by an epiphany.
"I—I hate that damn lab and everything they've done so far. Because of all the lives they've destroyed." She stammered, the words tripping over each other in her throat. "When I read those newspapers in the library for the first time when I got here, I felt that for them, science was above human life and any kind of dignity." She placed her hand, tangled with IV wires, against her chest. "They deserve to pay for all of it, and for it to end once and for all."
The girl's chin trembled and tears threatened to spill forth as a wave of compassion overwhelmed her. Her father pulled her close, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and cradling her face against his chest.
