Black Ink (A stranger Things Spin-off)

Book 1/ Chapter 2 The crossing of the paths; Continued

The four of them stood there wide-eyed and dumbfounded.

"What, so are we just gonna stare at him for the rest of the night?" Bradley spoke up to break away the silence. However, the layer of boldness that usually coated his words seemed to have dissolved.

The rest of the group stayed silent as they all exchanged worried glances amongst one another.

Eric took a step forward to speak but it startled the small boy as he took three steps back.

"Sorry." Eric cleared his throat. "I erh didn't mean to scare you. We just want to make sure you're okay."

The boy looked at the group of children standing before him. They were much older than him but they were still quite young. He remembered the girl from this morning who had been so kind to him, she looked quite young too. Maybe they would be just as kind.

"Are you nineteen?" He asked, remembering how old Donna was.

Eric looked confused. "What? No. I'm thirteen, and these are my friends, Bradley, Maya and Michelle." He pointed from left to right. "They're all thirteen too."

"How old are you?" Bradley asked.

"Nine." The boy replied, looking at the ground.

Michelle looked incredibly somber, feeling sympathetic towards the small boy.

"Guys I'm not being funny but we found a kid in the Forest who only speaks two syllables at a time, he's wearing a hospital gown and you're telling me that the first thing you want to do is play twenty-one questions with him?" Maya looked at them all as if she was the only one with a working brain.

"Yeah guys maybe Maya's right." Bradley added.

"I don't mean to sound heartless but this is not our problem! In fact it's beyond us, we should take him to the doctors or the police and leave him with them!" She continued.

"The boy's head shot up at the word police. The Cab driver had dropped him off at the police station and he remembered that all too well.

"No." The boy's voice broke as his bottom lip trembled.

"Why not? Maya asked although it came across more harsh than she had intended.

"Please. Bad place." He started to panic.

"Everything's gonna be fine, we're going to do everything we can to get you to the right people." Michelle reassured, trying to calm him down.

"Michelle what are you doing?" Maya whispered.

"I don't know, encounters with missing children are kind of new to me or have you not noticed!" Michelle whispered back through gritted teeth, as she turned away from the boy in an attempt to shield him from the conversation.

"What if he's run away from a kidnapper, maybe we shouldn't be here." Bradley placed his hands behind his head in panic.

"Bradley, he's wearing a hospital gown." Maya said very bluntly.

"The kidnapper could've taken him from a hospital." Bradley got defensive.

"You know I'm almost convinced you were dropped on your head as a baby." Maya looked at him in awe.

"Since when did you become such a know-it-all on the situation?" Bradley snapped. If a kidnapper jumps out of a bush what are you gonna do, you're 4 ft 9!" Bradley shouted. He was becoming increasingly irritated by Maya's constant shutting down of everyone's ideas.

"You wanna know what I'd do? I'd kick him in the nuts and call the police, want me to show you?" She fired back.

Immediately after, an argument broke out between the two. Michelle pinched the bridge of her nose as she tried to diffuse the situation to no avail of course.