Together Again

Chapter 4 - The In-between (part 4)

The adults didn't even question why they were in the tunnels, at least not at that moment. Everyone's focus turned to Dustin. They figured out that he was sprayed shortly after Hopper, which meant that the effects would kick in shortly for Dustin. They had to find him, quick, before he fell unconscious.

  Hopper got off the bed and almost fell, he felt weak on his feet. His vision went black as the blood drained from his head. He had gotten up too quickly. Joyce put an arm around him to steady him. He paused for a second, blinking fast to get the blood flowing again. It took a couple seconds, but once he could see again he continued walking, although he was a little unbalanced, he was able to walk.

  As they exited the door, a nurse rushed up to them. "Chief Hopper, where do you think you're going?" She lectured. "You shouldn't even be out of bed, much less leaving."

  Hopper tried to make her let him go. After all, he was the chief police. But she wouldn't budge. Joyce eventually decided that the best thing for Hopper was to stay at the hospital. So she instructed him to listen to the nurse, then he listened.

  Mike turned to Eleven. "Im going. Dustin is one of my best friends and I can't let him get sick like this, you can stay with your Dad or you can come, but either way I'm going."

  "Mike, I won't be able to drive you. The Doctors might need an adult to talk to so I have to stay." Joyce cut in.

  Mike looked back at Eleven for an answer. She was torn, she wanted to go with Mike, and help Dustin, he had always been a good friend to her. But daddy needed her. She looked from Mike to Hopper. She was about to say that she was going to stay with daddy when Hoper spoke up. "You should go, I'll be just fine." Eleven gave in. But she didn't like leaving him and Joyce alone together.

  Mike and Eleven made their way out of the hospital. Mike was walking quickly, trying to get Eleven to pick up the pace. But Eleven was nervous leaving her dad and was walking slower.

  They walked in silence for a while, wishing they had brought their bikes.
At one point El stopped at a telephone pole. It had a poster on it. She read the  headline of the poster.

Missing Cat

  She felt horrible for those people. She didn't have a pet, but was in the middle of trying to convince Hopper to get a dog. She loved animals, dogs were always so happy and excited.

  Mikes voice took her out of her thought. "El! Let's go!"  He shouted.

  She shook her head clear of the thought of that cat and continued walking. But Mike didn't stop complaining.

  "We don't have time to look at posters, we have to get to Dustin." He continued.

  "Okay, I'm sorry!" She shot back angrily.

  "We could be another two minutes up the road if you hadn't have dragged your feet for forever."

  That stung like bug spray on a cut. She began to yell back at him. "So your blaming this on me?! You never even told me you went to the upside down! As far as I know you weren't even supposed to be there at all!!" She accused.

  "I cleared a way to the gate for you! But if you hadn't have hidden for so long we could have dealt with all that sooner and I would never had to go there!" Mike knew he didn't mean what he was saying, but he just couldn't bring himself to stop, he didn't know why.

  El blinked back tears as she yelled. "If you hadn't have taken me to that stupid tree house then we would have gotten back to my house sooner. Maybe we could have saved Daddy from almost dying!" That hit Mike like a knife in the heart. He thought she liked the tree house, and especially what had happened there. "And how dare you blame me for all that stuff. I have saved your life like 4 times!" She spat.

  "Well if you had never opened the gate in the first place then none of that would have happened!!" He screamed back.

  Tears pooled to the surface of El's eyes. If she hadn't have opened the gate she may have never escaped the lab. And she would still be there, locked in a closet. With Papa on the other side. "I can't believe you. I can't even look at you right now." She spun on her heal and began running to the hospital. She heard Mike call after her. But she couldn't stand him. She just kept running without glancing back. She didn't want to go back to the hospital though, she just wanted to be alone. she ran into the woods and found a leafy tree with a large trunk. She sat against it and pulled her feet up to her chest. She leaned her head into her knees and began to cry. She sobbed as she thought about Mikes words. They were all true. If she had never opened the gate, none of this would ever have happened. This was their first real argument, and it hurt like hell. She couldn't believe what he thought of her. At least now the truth was out. She was just a useless girl, who had caused more harm than good. She cried to herself as the reality set in.

  Mike was in an even bigger hurry to get to Dustin now. They had wasted like 2 minutes fighting. He felt terrible. The look on El's face before she left made him want to scream at himself. He had hurt her so bad. How could he do a thing like that? As he hustled to find Dustin, he wished that he could take everything back, just to hold her in his arms again. What he didn't realize, was that he wasn't alone, and that all that yelling had brought attention to them. Something was following him, and he was all alone, with no one to even see what was about to happen.