One

Chapter Six: The Spy

"Where am I," Phina groans as she slowly wakes up.
A woman in nurses clothes next to her turns to Phina, "you're awake?"
"Where am I," Phina asks again, her eyes traveling along the semi-familiar room, "where am I?"
"You're in Hawkin's lab, miss," the nurse says, "you hit your head pretty hard down there, Hopper said you've been out for almost an entire day."
Phina's heart stops dead in her chest, "what did you just say?"
"You've been out for a day," the woman says.
Phina shakes her head painfully, "before that, where did you say I was?"
"Hawkins Lab," the nurse says slowly.
Memories flash through Phina's mind, experiments, pain, doctors, "I need to get out of here."
She pushes herself up, throwing her legs off the bed. Pain washes through her, trying to keep her down, but the fear of this place keeps her going.
"Miss, please lay back down," the woman says, "I'll go get the doctor."
Phina doesn't listen to her, she just rips the catheter out of her arm and stumbles to her feet. The nurse rushes to keep her sitting but something trips her, a vine that retracts back into the ground as fast as it had come.
"I need to get out of here," Phina repeats.
She stumbles towards the doors, closing it behind her and shoves a waiting chair beneath it so the nurse couldn't stop her. Phina was vaguely aware that her clothes had been changed and that she had been washed of the slime that had covered her from the tunnels. She remembered what happened now. The vines had thrown her into the wall, her head, it had hit the wall hard.
She reaches up to touch her forehead to find it covered in a bandage. Her head pounds behind the wound. The nurse said she had been out for almost a day, how hard had she hit that wall?
Phina uses the wall to balance her as she walks through the building, fighting the painful memories away. In the distance, she hears yelling and movement, she goes the opposite direction. There had to be an exit somewhere nearby. Phina stumbles around a corner and laughs, an exit sign hung over a doorway down this hallway. She fastens her pace, yearning to get out of this place, to escape the memories. One memory surfaces, the last time she was in the place, hobbling to an exit as she tried to escape her tormentors, she was only five then.

Phina groans as she stumbles through the woods, she had no idea where she was, and with the injury to her head, she could barely even feel the trees around her. Not to mention, she was freezing, the clothes they had put her in was just a thin, black, cotton t-shirt and a pair of blue cotton shorts, and no shoes or socks.
Her arms were crossed over her chest, desperately trying to salvage any warmth she could. Her eyes were starting to close every so often, exhaustion setting in on her. If she was near anything, she didn't know.
"Who's there," a familiar voice shouts at her as she steps on a twig, snapping it in half.
She trips forward on a branch as they shine a light on her, "oh, my god, Phina?"
Two people rush towards her and warm hands grab her shoulders, helping her to her knees. Weakly, she opens her eyes.
"Steve," she whispers, her voice cracking.
He frantically searches her face, "oh, my god, Phina are you ok?"
Her eyes fall closed again and she fights to open them, "Dustin?"
Steve tries to help her stand but she falls into his chest, he wraps his arms around her, "oh! It's ok, I got you. I got you."
Dustin watches her worriedly, "Steve? Is she ok?"
"I'm fine, Dusty," Phina mumbles, her teeth chattering.
"We need to get you home," Steve says.
Phina frantically shakes her head, "no, no, no, my parents can't see me like this. There are way too many questions that I won't be able to answer."
"She can stay here," Dustin says.
Phina's head feels heavy on her shoulders as she shakes it, "your mom."
Steve sighs, "my parents are out of town, you can stay at my house, but I want answers."
"Ok," Phina mumbles, her head laying on Steve's chest.
The warmth radiating of Steve is so inviting to Phina who is shivering out of control. Steve looks down at her and sighs.
"Can you walk," he asks.
"Yeah," she says, trying to stand on her own, falling back into his arms in less than a second.
"Ok," Steve says, reaching down to put his arm under her knees.
He picks her up, cradling her to his chest, he looks at Dustin, "you go inside, we can deal with your problems tomorrow."
Dustin nods, watching Phina, "promise me she'll be ok."
Steve looks down at her, her face tucked into his shoulder as she tries to take in as much warmth from him as she possibly could, "I'll take care of her, I promise."

Again, Phina woke up and she wasn't quite sure where she was, or what had happened. She was in a bedroom, not her own, but definitely a guy's considering the amount of clothing strewn across the floor. This room was familiar, like the last one she woke up in.
Her memories were blurry, all hidden behind a haze that she couldn't shake off. She remembered being cold after she had left Hawkins Lab, walking through the forest. Then she remembers falling, being held by warm arms, and a low voice.
The door to the room opens and Steve Harrington steps through it. He looks like he's trying to sneak in, he probably thinks she's still asleep. When he quietly shuts the door behind him he looks at the bed, at Phina. His eyes widen in shock.
"I'm sorry," he says, "I, uh, didn't mean to wake you."
Phina shakes her head slowly, "no, no, you're fine, I was already awake."
He sighs, walking further into the room, "good, I was hoping that you would be so I didn't have to wake you."
Phina awkwardly rubs the back of her neck, "this may seem like a weird question but, how did I get here?"
Steve raises his brows, "you don't remember."
She shakes her head, wincing a little as she does, "my mind's a bit hazy, I remember waking up in Hawkins Lab and then escaping and being cold after that is a blur."
Steve chuckles, "yeah well, when Dustin and I found you, you were pretty gone. You mumbled some stuff about not wanting your parents to see you and that you couldn't answer their questions and stuff like that."
Phina sighs, "yeah, that seems familiar."
Steve moves away from the door to lean on his dresser, "I had some questions of my own last night but you fell asleep as soon as I put you in the car."
Phina remembers warm arms holding her, her face goes warm when she realizes that it was Steve who had held her, "sorry about that."
Steve shakes his head, "it's fine. What I care about is why there is a huge cut on your head and why you were stumbling around the forest in the middle of the night."
Phina tucks her knees to her chest and wraps her arms around them, "I was with Hopper, he found this tunnel underneath a pumpkin farm, it was like a version of the upside down. We went in to investigate. There was this thing on the ceiling and it released some sort of toxin, Hopper passed out but I wasn't affected by it. Whatever these vine things in the tunnel are, they attacked me, all I remember was getting thrown into the wall and everything going black."
Steve watched her closely, he hadn't ever been to the upside down but he remembered when she had been taken there. He remembered the feeling of pure panic when he realized she was gone. When she came back to school the next week her entire leg had been covered in thick bandages and Nancy had told him that thing they had fought had done that to her. Steve also remembers the anger he felt, at that thing, at the fact that he hadn't protected her. He could see the scars on her right leg, the four jagged lines of raised skin that came out from beneath her short and all the way down to her calf
"When I woke up," Phina continues on, "I was in Hawkins Lab and a nurse told me I had been out for almost a day. I... I couldn't stay there."
Steve hears the strain in her voice, "I had to get out."
She hugs her knees, her nails digging into her skin, Steve pushes off the dresser, "hey."
He sits down on the bed in front of her, gently prying her hands away. Her nails had left small red lines on her knees. They hadn't pierced the skin but it was close.
"You're alright, Phina," Steve whispers, "you're alright."
She nods slowly, "sorry I... I have a lot of bad memories of that place, a lot of them."
"It's ok," he says, "I understand."
She breathes through her nose, "after I got out, I got cold and tired, I remembering falling and then being held and that's it."
"That's when Dustin and I found you," he smiles, "you scared the crap out of us, shuffling through the woods like you were about to come and kill us."
She chuckles, "you and Dustin? Why were you two together?"
Steve shakes his head, "Dustin got himself into a bit of trouble. Apparently, he found this little lizard thing in his garbage and decided to keep it as a pet. Then it started to rapidly grow and it ate his cat."
"Mews?" Phina's lip sticks out in a pout. "I loved that cat."
"Yeah," Steve chuckles, glancing down at her pouting lips, "he locked it in the basement and found me as a last resort to help him. When I went into the basement, I found a bunch of gooey shed skin and a hole dug through the wall."
Phina sighs, "sounds like an upside-down thing."
Steve nods his head, "and the problem is, this thing escaped and is who the hell knows where eating cats and possibly toddlers."
Phina smacks his arm, "why would you say toddlers?"
He laughs, "that's not the point, the point is that this thing is out there and unfortunately, you, Dustin, and I are the ones that have to go look for it."
"Why do I have to," Phina asks.
Steve smiles, "well, unless you want to tell your parents what happened to your head now, Dustin and I are willing to let you help us."
"Let me," Phina scoffs, "like you two could do this on your own."

-1834 words-
To make up for Phina being unconscious for almost all of the last chapter here is some OC stuff, and some Steve and Phina stuff ;) Hope Y'all liked this chapter and are ready for the next one!
-Morgan