Jeopardy- Stranger Things

Chapter Fifty Nine

November 12th, 1983

"El?" Mike called out desperately, his voice breaking as he wiped his eyes on his jacket sleeve, "El?" he called again, louder and more desperate, "El!" he said suddenly, hopefully, as he heard footsteps coming down the corridor.

"George?" a voice called, Nick's voice. She came charging in, brandishing a baseball bat hammered full of nails as she vaulted over the table blocking the door.

"Nick!" George shouted, his face momentarily lighting up. Nick ran over to him, dropped the baseball bat to the floor and wrapped both her arms around him.

"What happened?" Jonathan asked the other three boys as he stood in the doorway.

"El saved us," Lucas said gravely, looking down at the floor.

"Yeah," Dustin said, "She did it. It's gone, the demogorgon's gone."

"That's great!" Nick said, letting go of George and looking around at the defeated looks on the boys' faces, "Well where is she? Let's get out of here."

"She's gone," Mike said, staring at the dent in the wall where the demogoron had been held up by El, "She's gone."

*

Nick and Jonathan lead the boys outside, still holding their makeshift weapons just in case but there was no sign of the monster and all the bad men were lying dead and bleeding on the floor.

There was a whole army of ambulances and police cars outside the school when the boys, Nick and Jonathan made it out. They were immediately ushered away by paramedics, checked over and given shock blankets. Mike, Dustin and Lucas were sat huddled together inside an ambulance and Dustin was given a final once over and deemed to be okay. George sat by Nick on the hood of her car, shivering against the cold.

"Here," she said, unwrapping the shock blanket from around her shoulders and draping it over George. She reached for the front corners and tied them together, tucking them under George's chin. He sniffled and smiled up at her, trying to clear his throat to thank her but Nick beat him to it, "No problem, champ," she said and smoothed his hair, brushing it from out of his eyes.

Nick leant back on the hood of her car, resting her back on the windscreen. As she lent back and looked out across the parking lot at all the cars arriving, she saw Mike's mother pushing through the crowd to find her son. When she caught sight of him, she hugged him tight and wouldn't let go, despite her son's protests. They were quickly joined by Lucass's parents and Dustin's mother as well. She stopped looking out at the crowd at that point. She knew full well that her and George's mum wasn't going to show up. As she turned her head away from the crowd of kids, mums and paramedics she caught sight of Jonathan leaning against his mum's car door, scanning the crowd with his arms folded.

"Wait here," she said to George and slid off the hood of her car and walked across the parking lot over to Jonathan, "Any news?" she said softly so as to not startle him. He looked over as she approached and shook his head.

"Hey," they heard a voice approaching them and they both looked up as a police officer came to stand in front of them, "You Jonathan Byers?"

Jonathan briefly looked to Nick and nodded.

"Got a call from your mum," he said and both Nick and Jonathan straightened up, looking to each other and then fiercely at the officer, "She's at the hospital-" he began but didn't get to finish.

"Go," Nick said as Jonathan scrambled to open the car door, "I'll meet you there," she said and Jonathan nodded at her. Nick ran back to her car, hearing Jonathan start his car and drive off as she went.