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Chapter Six - part three

   Steve, Dustin, and Phina stand at the edge of the old junkyard, finally arriving after about a few miles of walking. They were planning to trap Dart, luring it here with the meat that they had trailed over the railroad. 
   "Oh, yeah," Steve nods, "yeah, this will do. This will do just fine. Good call dude."
   He walks forward leaving a grinning Dustin behind him. Phina shakes her head, following Steve as he throws more meat on the ground. The kid was already starting to look up to Steve and Phina could see that Steve was warming up to Dustin as well.
   The boys lead the trail of meat into the center of junkyard and Phina tests her perimeter, sensing two people quickly moving towards the yard. The boys pour the rest of their buckets as soon as Phina realizes who was coming towards them.
   "I said medium-well," Lucas yells from the edge of the junkyard, Max standing next to him.
   The boys jump looking towards the two of them and Steve points at Max, "who's that?"
   When Dustin doesn't answer him, Steve looks over at the boy who is staring at Max. Phina sighs at the boy and Steve looks up at her with a questioning look. She nods her head, answering the unspoken question.
   "Let's get to work," Phina says.

   Steve and Phina move the larger stuff, making the old, broken bus into their hideout. Max started to help by moving sheets of metal by the bus for Steve and to make into a barricade. Whatever Dart was, they were assuming he wasn't going to be friendly and they needed to make the bus strong enough to hold him out. 
   "Does this feel surreal to you," Phina suddenly asks Steve as they lift a heavy piece of metal.
   "Hm?" He grunts as they turn it to stand it up against a car. "What do you mean?"
   She gestures around them and then between them, "last year before everything went down... we hated each other, a lot. You were king Steve, the player of the school and now here you are, helping a bunch of tweens and the freak of Hawkins trap a supernatural creature in a junkyard."
   Steve chuckles, "yeah, I guess it is really weird. Speaking of the tweens, where are the other two."
   Phina turns around only seeing Max until she sees them behind a rust red car, "looks like they're having a conference."
   Steve rolls his eyes, "well, we don't have time for a conference."
   He picks up a chair off the ground and walks over to the kids, hitting the car with the chair, "Hey! Dickheads! How come the only ones helping me out is this random girl and a girl with a head injury? We lose light in forty minutes, Let's go... Let's go!"
   "Alright, asshole," Dustin yells, "god!"
   "Okay, stupid," Lucas grumbles.
   Steve walks back over to a grinning Phina, "well at least some things don't change, Harrington."
   "And what would that be," he asks.
   She smirks, "you're still an ass."
   He laughs, "you love me for it."
   She tilts her head, her lips twitching into a full smile, "unfortunately."
   
   With all hands helping now, the group was quickly making progress. They gathered all the metal they could, piling it in front of the bus for them to use. Inside, Lucas and Dustin were using the metal Max brought them to cover the glass windows. They were setting up the trap for Dart as well, where they would corner him to kill the thing.
   Steve made a trail of gasoline while Phina and Max picked up a ladder. They bring it into the bus and put it through the emergency exit on top of the bus so they could get on top. Then, Phina stood on top while the boys passed up tires for her to stack up to hide behind.
    When they were finally done with the bus, it looked like something from an apocalypse movie. One by one they go inside, the light fading outside. Phina is the last one in, nodding to Steve as she steps up the stairs, he closes the door behind her.

   All they had to do now, was wait. For how long? They weren't sure. It was already dark out, the sun having disappeared almost half an hour ago. The cold was setting in and the old bus was not good at keeping it out. With her mind not hazed over by the injury to her head, Phina was able to use her powers to keep her warm, heat radiated off of her and Steve subconsciously moved closer to her.
   His mind was still on the conversation they had about an hour earlier as he fiddles with his lighter. He had jokingly said she loved him, the thing was, she hadn't denied it. It shouldn't mean anything to him, but it did, it did and he didn't know why. She drove him crazy and he couldn't help it, couldn't help but think about her even in situations like this where they were all in danger. 
   "So you really fought one of these things before," Max suddenly says, looking at Steve and Phina.
   "Yeah," Phina says while Steve nods, "and I have the scars to prove it."
   Max continues, "and you're, like, totally, 100% sure it wasn't a bear?"
   "Shit, don't be an idiot," Dustin interrupts, "okay? It wasn't a bear. Why are you even here if you don't believe us? Just go home."
   Max stands up with her arms crossed, "geesh. Someone's cranky. Past your bedtime?"
   She climbs up the ladder and Steve smirks, "that's good. Just show her you don't care."
   Dustin stops pacing for a second to look at him, "I don't."
   Steve turns to look at the kid and winks, "why are you winking, Steve? Stop."
   Dustin walks to the other side of the bus, to get as far from Steve as possible. 
   Phina snorts, "that is the worst advice I have ever heard."
   Steve looks at her, "what do you mean?"
   "Act like you don't care?" Phina turns to face him. "That's so stupid."
   "No it's not," Steve chuckles.
   "Yes it is," she smirks.
   "It's one of the best pieces of advice that I've got," he argues.
   She glances down at his lips, "and how well has it been working for you, Harrington?"
   He returns the favor, glancing at her lips as well. How well had it been working? Had it worked at all with who he wanted it to?
   "Not that well," he sighs, looking back into her gorgeous eyes, "not at all."
   A loud shrieking howl makes them jump apart. They quickly scramble up from their seats and turn to look through the small space of the window. Phina hadn't been focusing and she hadn't felt when the thing was closing in on them.
   "You see him," Dustin asks, running to look through the window next to them.
   "No," Steve answers
   "Lucas," Dustin yells, "what's going on?"
   "Hold on!"
   Phina frantically searches the area with her affinities, even using the fog to try and find it.
   "I've got eyes," Lucas yells down to them, "ten o'clock! Ten o'clock!"
   Phina hones in on the area, pushing away some of the fog so that they could see the creature a bit better. When she does, Steve points him out to Dustin.
   "What's he doing," Dustin asks.
   "I don't know," Steve whispers.
   They watch it as it creeps closer to their trap, but it doesn't enter it. 
   "He's not taking the bait," Steve says, "why is he not taking the bait?"
   "Maybe he's not hungry," Dustin says.
   "Maybe he's sick of cow," Steve whispers, leaning away from the window.
   Phina watches the thing closely, waiting for it to pounce, not noticing the movement behind her.
   "Steve? Steve, what are you doing?"
   Phina pushes away from the window to find Steve with his bat slung over his shoulder. She instantly knew what he was about to do and she did not like it one bit.
   She points a threatening finger at him, "you are not going out there."
   He shakes his head, "I'll just draw him in, you need to stay here and protect the kids."
   "What about you," she snaps, "who's going to protect you?"
   He sighs, "just watch my back, I know you'll get me before it can."
   Everything in her screamed not to let him go, but she knew better than anyone that she worked better if she could see everything.
   "Fine," she groans, "but if you get hurt, I'll kill you."
   He smiles, "I know you will."
   Steve turns away from her as quickly as he can. He knows if he looks into her eyes a second longer he'll change his mind. 
   He steps down the stairs, slowly opening the loud, rusty door. Phina closes it behind him and rushes to the window to watch. She presses her face against the glass, ready to bolt out the door as soon as something goes wrong.
   Steve slowly creeps out, his bat raised and ready to swing. Dart growls off into the distance and Steve starts to whistle as if he were a dog.
   "Come on, buddy," Steve says, whistling again, swinging his bat back and forth.
   Max climbs down the ladder and looks through the window by Dustin, "what's he doing?"
   "Expanding the menu," Dustin explains.
   "Why'd you have to say it like that," Phina groans, anxiously watching Steve.
   "Come on, buddy," he says again, standing next to the pile of meat now, "come on, buddy. Come on, dinner time. Human tasted better than cat, I promise."
   "He's insane," Max shakes her head.
   "He's awesome," Dustin grins.

   Phina shakes her head, "he's an idiot."

   Dart slowly stalks towards Steve and Phina's heart starts to race in her chest. This is bad, she shouldn't have let him go out there. 
   "Steve, watch out," Lucas suddenly yells.

   "I'm a little busy here," Steve yells back, not taking his eyes off Dart.
   "Three o'clock!" Phina feels them then. "Three o'clock!"
   "Oh, my god," Phina screams.
   She's running before she can even think about what she's doing. There are so many of them, so many and they're all circling Steve. She runs towards the door, throwing them open in time to see Steve dive across a car as a creature lunges towards him. He swings his bat, hitting one in the face, hard. Phina runs out of the bus, throwing out a thick green vine to grab one of the creatures as it lunges at Steve's exposed back. The vine shoots from her hand, wrapping around the thing and throwing it across the yard and into a car.
   She picks up Steve off the ground as she gets to him, hearing the kids screaming at them to run. More creatures run at them as they sprint back to the bus. Phina throws a wave a fire back at them, trying to at least push them back until she could get Steve inside. She pushes Steve into the bus first, throwing another hand out to shoot vines out to throw away the nearest creatures. Arms wrap around her and she's pulled into the bus as the door shuts, one of the creatures slamming into it. The creatures attack the door, trying to get in.
   "Are they rabid or something," Max yells.
   Steve grabs a piece of metal and puts it in front of the door. He and Phina push on it with their legs.

   "They can't get in," Lucas screams, "They can't!"
   The entire bus shifts and they all scream. One of the creatures arms shoots through the metal and everyone screams, running away. Steve grabs his bat and starts to beat at it. Phina lights her hands, ready to burn the creature if Steve couldn't fight it off. The arm retracts and then a loud bang hits the roof, hitting again and again, closer to the ladder. 
   Phina and Steve bolt towards the kids when Max screams, the creature roaring above her. 
   "Out of the way," Steve yells, "out of the way! You want some? Come get this!"
   Phina grabs the girls and shoves her behind her and Steve, a protective arm holding back the kids as they watch the creature. It screeches at Steve, readying itself to pounce on Steve. Phina grabs Steve's shoulder, ready to throw him back to protect him.
   Just when she thinks it's about to happen, it goes silent, closing its hellish mouth and turning away from them. It pushes away from the ladder, letting a loud howl as if calling something. It leaps out of their view, shaking the bus as it goes. Steve lets go of the bat with one hand and grabs Phina's. She squeezes it in reassurance as if to tell him that she was still there, that she was alright. 
   All around them the creatures howl back and forth, growing fainter as they ran away. Steve slowly pulls Phina towards the front of the bus, the kids trailing behind them. Their hand's grip on the others, the adrenaline, and fear keeping them there. Steve nods at Dustin and the kid opens the doors slowly. Steve steps through first, holding out his bat in front of him. Phina calls to every plant around her and they shift, ready to protect them.
   "What happened," Lucas asks as he steps out after the two teenagers.
   "I don't know," Max answers for all of them.

   "Steve scared 'em off," Dustin asks.

   "No." Steve shakes his head. "No way. They're going somewhere."

   "Where," Dustin asks.

   Phina groans, squeezing Steve's hand, "that's what we gotta find out."

-2276 words-
   And we're getting to the good stuff, are Y'all ready for this?
-Morgan