Invisible- Stranger Things Fanfiction

Chapter Thirty Two: Girl Talk

*Nikki's POV*
Hopper told us the next morning that he'd call our parents and explain why we weren't at school. Turns out, he didn't have to. After our little standoff with O'Connell yesterday, school was closed, and would be until further notice. Apparently, the school couldn't (or rather, simply didn't want to) run without our dickheaded principal.
"How're you feeling, Nik?" Sarah asked as we all sat in the living room. Hopper was making breakfast, and kicked us all out after we tried to help and ended up having a food fight with various ingredients we found in the kitchen.
Looking at the bag of cold water on the couch next to me, I realized how much better my headache had gotten. "Pretty alright, actually. Hey, did anyone else hear screaming last night?"
Sarah and Will exchanged glances, then looked away. Sarah seemed to know how suspicious that seemed, so she spoke: "Nightmare. They've been increasingly more frightening. Teeth falling out and shit."
With that, she got up and walked swiftly to her room.
"What the hell was that about?" Mike asked.
"She's probably still adjusting to being home. It took me a while, and I was only gone a week." For some reason, I felt the need to defend Sarah. Steve had gotten his own place and didn't tell me (Hopper told me when we had all settled down last night), so he wasn't here. I was now perhaps the toughest person in the party, so I guess I felt my role was protecting my friends from everything, including each other.
   Will looked at me, smiling lightly and gesturing towards Sarah's room. "Do you want to, or should I?"
   Getting up, I nodded. "I'll go." Will said something to the rest of the group as I left, but I was too focused on how I would handle the Sarah situation. Obviously, she needs to know she can trust me, but I can't make it seem like she has to. Knocking on the door, I slowly inched it open until I saw Sarah on her bed, curled up like a blonde armadillo.
"Hey," I said softly. "Everything okay?"
Sarah shook her head. "Nikki, do you ever... do you ever just- just see stuff? Stuff that you don't remember, but you know it happened to you?"
"Can't say that I do," I replied. "Why? What have you been seeing?"
She took a deep breath before answering: "Everything when I was a kid. I didn't even realize that I remembered anything about the time before the Lab. But I've been seeing... seeing a lot of stuff."
"Like...?" I know. I know. I shouldn't be nosy, but this was all so fascinating.
Sarah's eyes darted away from me, staring blankly at the wall. "The day my mom abandoned me," she said, emotionless. How could she be so okay with that?
   There wasn't anything I could say to make this less uncomfortable, but I had to try. "You know, we all consider you family. I know we're not much, but... here we are."
   The blonde girl looked at me, a smile tugging at the corner of her lips. "Thank you, Nikki. I see why Dustin loves you so much."
   This caught me off-guard, causing me to choke on my own spit. "You- um, he- that's not-"
   "Come on, Nik. I see the way he looks at you. Even now, after whatever went down between you two that makes you so weird around him."
I laughed at this. "A lot can happen in one summer."
   Sarah started to respond, then just stared back at the wall, her face twisted pensively.
   "Something else on your mind?" I asked.
   Sarah sighed, trying to formulate a response. She closed her mouth and opened it again a few times, then finally spoke: "It's just- I don't know... what if- I mean, what if they come back? For me? For El? I can't let them take El, I know what they do to people who run away."
   I froze. "Sarah... didn't you tell us you ran away and stayed away up until now?"
   Her eyes again shifted from the wall to me. "Well, that was partly true. The first time I ran, I was small. A kid, El couldn't possibly remember me from then since I'm a bit older. When I ran that time, I got about a mile away, staying in the shadows for a while, but I didn't know that three of the Lab vans followed me.
   "Thinking it was safe, I walked in the sunlight, trying to warm myself up on what turned out to be a freezing day. That's when they got me. They cornered me from the three different sides, the fourth being a forest blocked by an electric fence. They beat me up until I was unconscious, then took me back."
   I wasn't sure I wanted to hear this, but Sarah seemed as if she hadn't told anyone this, so I let her get it out. "What did they do?"
   She shuddered just thinking about it. "Awful things. I woke up strapped to a table the next morning, weird plugs stuck on my temples. They-they electrocuted me. But that wasn't even the worst of it. When they tried to get me to lift a desk to show off my strength, my powers were so weakened from the shocks that I couldn't do it. So, they got a few of their best guys and pushed the desk onto me. I'm sure I cracked a rib and maybe broke my nose, but they never had me checked. Blood came from almost everywhere, and I couldn't stop crying, begging them to stop.
   "Finally, they put me back in a lower-security cell, thinking I was too weak to try to escape. I thought I was, too, for a while. But when I thought of what they did to me- of what they might do to the littler kids- I couldn't handle it. I had to get out, if not only to show El and Kali and all the others that I could. So a few nights later, when a guard came by to check on me I... I..." Sarah broke down crying, clinging to the blanket next to her as her hair turned damp from her tears.
   "Hey, hey." I ran to her, sitting on the bed to comfort her. I stroked her hair, shushing her softly. "It's okay. You aren't going to get hurt by them anymore."
   Sarah sniffled. "It's- it's not that, Nikki, I- I killed him."
Woah. "What?" I asked, not letting go of her.
   "When he came to check on me, I did... that. I don't even want to get into the details, but that's the real reason I hate using my powers. It reminds me of what I did. Of what those monsters did to me that made me do such an awful thing."
   I couldn't judge her, not for acting in self-defense. "You were a scared kid. One who hadn't learned to properly control your powers. Sarah, it was Brenner and his team that killed that guard- you were just their pawn-"
   "I ran for it after that." She continued her story, eyes straight ahead as she sat up taller. "The alarms blared, a woman screamed over the speaker system that someone had escaped. But I just kept running. I didn't stop for what felt like days. When I finally calmed down, I was in Gary, all alone. I was so scared, Nikki, I didn't know what to do. This nice old guy and his wife named Harold and Marion Hill took me in for awhile, thinking I was a homeless orphan- which I guess I was at the time. I remembered my dad, but I was too afraid that he'd leave me like my mom.
   "When Harold died, Marion couldn't afford to keep me anymore, so I moved on. I lived in homeless shelters and Macy's stores-"
   "Hold on," I cut in. "You lived at Macy's?"
   She nodded, laughing at me. "I tell you I killed a man- the second death at Hawkins Lab that was by my hand- and you're the most surprised when I tell you I lived in a department store?"
   "I mean, it's Macy's."
   Another laugh, then Sarah kept going: "I'm sure some of the owners knew I was living in the stores for a while, but I guess they just felt so bad that they let me. Then, I developed a system. In the summers and spring- sometimes fall, whenever it was warm enough- I lived in the woods, cleaning myself in deserted lakes or rivers and hunting animals with a Swiss Army knife I'd gotten from the Macy's in Indianapolis. When it got too cold, I'd go back to shelters and Macy's. Well, not the Macy's in Indianapolis, they were kind of pissed I took that knife."
   This time, I laughed. "Wow. You've certainly thought out your next moves more than most adults I know."
   "I did it because I had to," Sarah said. "It was that or going back to the Lab. And who knows what they'd do to me after I escaped again?" She had gotten slightly lighter-spirited as our conversation went on, but her almost-cheery mood went away after she said this.
   "Hey." I looked her in the eye. "We're not gonna let them get you, okay? I'm not gonna let them get you."
   At this, Sarah flung her arms around me, hugging me tightly. "Nikki, you're the best friend anyone could ask for."
   "I'm really not-"
   "You are."
   I smiled at this, patting her back gently. She was older, yeah. She'd experienced more, sure. But still, Sarah was like a little sister to me, and I couldn't imagine our little family without her. "Thanks, kid."