Chapter 13

009

• 𝐅𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐡 𝐅𝐚𝐰𝐜𝐞𝐭𝐭 𝐒𝐩𝐫𝐚𝐲 •

─────✧･ﾟ: *✧･

☄. *. ⋆ Dustin, Steve and Stella sat in the car, not saying a thing as the radio played softly. Steve spoke up, breaking the silence between them. “Wait a sec. How big?” He asked, talking about Dart. Dustin leant on the center console and held two fingers a few inches apart from each other. “First he was like that,” he back up to move his hands about two feet apart, “now he’s like this.”

“I swear to God, man, it’s just some little lizard, okay?” Steve said, but Dustin and Stella both shook their heads. “It’s not a lizard,” Dustin told him.

“How do you know?”

“How do I know it’s not a lizard?”

“It’s not a lizard, Steve.” Stella shook her head.

“Yeah, how do you know if it’s not just a lizard!?”

“Because his face opened up and he ate my cat!”

“What!?” Stella turned to face Dustin almost completely. “Dart ate Mews!? He ate your fucking cat!?”

Dustin paused. “Yeah,” he eventually said, quietly, aware of Stella’s fondness for animals.

“Fuck! Damnit, no! No! Son of a bitch! No, no, no,” Stella cursed. “You shouldn’t have kept him, Henderson! Why would you keep him!? Shit!”

“I’m sorry!”

“Shit.”

It was silent until they arrived at the Harrington household and Stella got out of the car. “I’ll be fast,” she told them before shutting the door behind her, stuffing her hands in her jacket pockets and jogging over to the garage, hoping her parents weren’t there.

Fortunately, they weren’t. She went inside and started to make her way up the stairs, but halfway up, her chest tightened again. The bite was itching in the car a bit earlier, but that was it. Now it was bad. Worse than it was in the school bathroom.

Stella fell to the carpeted floor of the stairs mid-step, clutching her chest and groaning in pain. The groans of pain turned into screams of agony as Stella began to feel warmer and warmer until it felt like she was about to pass out. Vertigo overcame her again, beads of sweat forming on her face, the bite on her hand throbbing yet again, the heat producing from her palm, and her head aching like never before. She didn’t know it could get worse than it was at school, but it did. It was hard to breathe. She felt suffocated as she gasped for air.

It lasted for around three minutes before finally going away, but for Stella it felt like three hours.

She sobbed as she sat on the stairs, propping herself up with her good arm as she panted. Once she stopped feeling like she was dying, she stood back up – using the banister to brace herself – and continued up the stairs.

She made it to her room and before looking for her knife, she went to her bathroom and threw cold water on her face, then drying off with a rag. She left the bathroom and made her way over to her closet. She reached out to the top shelf, feeling around for the knife. When she felt the handle beneath her fingers, she grinned and lifted it up, coming down from the balls of her feet.

She brought the knife down and pulled it from the sheath before turning it around in her hand, the smile still on her face as she observed the name “Zoey” written in white paint on the right side of the black blade, done with Dustin.

She put it back in the sheath and her eye caught sight of the bow in her closet, arrows beside it in a quiver. The bow had a strap attached to it, that being Stella’s doing so she could wear it. She had picked up archery over the summer, but hadn’t used it very recently. Smirking, she grabbed the quiver and swung it around her waist before she attached the knife sheath to her belt. The brunette grabbed the bow and tried to aim it to see if she’d be able to with her arm in a cast, holding the bow with her left hand and pulling back with her right.

She could.

She smiled and moved to leave her room, but turned and grabbed a marker sitting on her desk. After obtaining the marker, she left her room, making her way back to the car. Dustin grinned at the sight of the extra weapon, watching as the girl walked around the car to open the trunk. She put the bow and the arrows in the trunk before heading back to the front passenger seat.

“All right,” Stella breathed, buckling her seatbelt. “Let’s go.”

She passed the marker to the boy behind her, then reached her broken arm back. “Don’t take up the whole thing.”

Dustin grinned when he realized she was asking him to sign her cast, and he wrote ‘Dustin’ below Steve’s name, which had a heart beside it.

–

☄. *. ⋆ Steve opened the trunk to his car and while he grabbed his bat, Stella grabbed the bow and the arrows, swinging the bow over her shoulder and the quiver around her waist.

Dustin led them around his house to a storm cellar, claiming that Dart was inside. Stella kept a hand on her knife’s handle while Steve shined the flashlight he got from Dustin on the doors to the cellar. They were all silent for a moment as they tried to listen for a sound from inside, hearing nothing.

“I don’t hear shit,” Steve told them.

“Yeah, me neither,” Stella looked to Dustin.

“He’s in there,” was all Dustin said.

Steve tapped the metal doors with his bat, making Stella tighten her grip on Zoey’s handle. There was no sound, so Steve hit the doors with his weapon. Still nothing.

Steve turned to shine his flashlight directly in Dustin’s face. “All right, listen, kid. I swear, if this is some sort of Halloween prank… you’re dead.”

“It’s not,” Dustin said with his eyes closed. Steve then turned to shine the light in Stella’s face. “You too.”

“Steve James Harrington, get that light out of my face,” Stella ordered sternly. Steve pointed the light back at Dustin. “You got a key for this thing?”

–

☄. *. ⋆ Steve swung open one door at a time, Dustin pointing the flashlight down the stairs while Stella stood, aiming the now-loaded bow and arrow at the cellar, ready to shoot whatever she saw come out.

“Let me see that,” Steve muttered, taking the flashlight from Dustin’s hand. They still didn’t see anything when Steve shone the light around the cellar.

“He must be further down there,” Dustin said. “I’ll stay up here in case he tries to… escape.”

“And what? Close the doors to lock my brother in?” Stella asked, the bow now aimed at the ground. No one replied and Steve sighed before standing and starting to head down the stairs.

After a moment, the two younger teenagers could see the light being turned on, and Dustin called Steve’s name. “Steve?”

Silence.

“Steve, what’s going on down there?” Dustin called again.

There was no response, and suddenly Steve’s flashlight appeared, shining in their faces. Stella reacted quite quickly, flinching to raise her bow and arrow and pull the arrow back the moment she saw anything, aiming it at who she then realized was her brother. She lowered the weapon. “Steve, what is wrong with you!? I almost shot you, dumbass!”

“Get down here,” was how Steve responded. Dustin and Stella glanced at each other before starting down the stairs. Upon arrival, they saw a weird, slimy, fleshy substance dangling from Steve’s bat. “Oh, shit,” Dustin cursed. Steve then pointed his bat at a hole in the wall.

“Oh, shit!”

They got closer to it, seeing that there was now a tunnel dug in the dirt.

“No way. No way,” Dustin said as he observed.

–

☄. *. ⋆ Somehow, Estelle Harrington found herself spending her Saturday afternoon taking buckets of raw meat from her brother’s car.

“Well, well, well, look who it is,” Stella heard Dustin say, looking over to see that the curly-haired boy was pressing down a button on his walkie, meaning he was talking to someone on it. She glanced back at the trunk to grab a bucket and put it on the ground before looking back to Dustin, who spoke again after a moment.

“Well, when you were having sister problems,” Stella gave a quick look back at the trunk while she listened, grabbing her bow and arrow then switching her gaze right back to Dustin as she swung the bow over her shoulder and the quiver around her waist. “Dart grew again, he escaped, and I’m pretty sure he’s a baby Demogorgon.”

Will didn’t have a sister, so the moment Dustin mentioned a sister, Stella knew he was either talking to Mike or Lucas. There was a brief silence before Dustin spoke again. “I’ll explain later, just meet me, Steve and Stella at the old junkyard.” Another pause, this one the shortest. “And bring your binoculars and wrist rocket.”

Okay, so it was Lucas.

Stella looked back to the trunk to make sure there was nothing left. There wasn’t, and both Harringtons reached up to close the door, bringing it down together as Steve spoke. “All right,” the trunk latched shut and Stella picked a bucket up, “let’s go,” the older boy told them. Stella and Dustin followed the older teenager as Dustin ended the conversation with who had to be Lucas. “Just be there, stat. Over and out.”

–

☄. *. ⋆ While the Harringtons listened to Dustin’s thought process during the choice he made to keep Dart, all three of them tossed chunks of meat on the old train tracks, Stella having cringed when she first felt the meat between her fingers, despite having gloves.

Stella started to feel the bite on her palm itch again, making her stop in her tracks. She was behind the boys, so neither of them noticed.

The bite started to throb, then burn, then when the feeling started to travel to her chest, Stella squeezed her eyes shut, preparing herself for the pain. But it stopped, fizzling away. Stella opened her eyes, letting out a shaky breath she didn’t even realize she was holding as she furrowed her eyebrows.

She looked ahead, realizing she was lagging a bit far behind before she tightened her grip on the bucket’s handle and kept walking.

“All right, so let me get this straight,” Stella heard Steve say once she caught up.

“You kept something you knew was probably dangerous in order to… impress… a girl, who… who you just met?” Steve asked, Stella rolling her eyes. The girl was Max, it was obvious. It was also stupid.

The stupid thing wasn’t only Dustin’s theory that Dart would impress Max.

It was any chance that Max could like Stella back.

That’s what Stella thought was stupid.

Along with Dustin’s thought that it would impress the redhead, that was stupid, too.

“All right, that’s grossly oversimplifying things,” Dustin told him.

“I mean, why would a girl like some nasty slug anyway?” Steve wondered.

“An interdimensional slug? Because it’s awesome,” Dustin said as if it were obvious.

Stella rolled her eyes while Steve started talking again. “Well, even if she thought it was cool, which she didn’t, I- I just… I don’t know. I just feel like you’re trying way too hard, man.”

“Yeah, well, not everyone can have you and Stella’s perfect hair, all right?” Dustin told the older boy, Stella perking her head up from looking down at the tracks when she heard her name, but saying nothing and looking back down after a quick moment. Steve, however, did reply. “It’s not about the hair, man. The key with girls is just… just acting like you don’t care.”

Stella scoffed when she heard her brother’s words. “No it’s not,” she said, shaking her head.

Steve ignored his sister, only turning his head to spare her a glance.

“Even if you do?” Dustin asked. Steve proceeded to give Dustin what was terrible advice in Stella’s opinion. “Yeah, exactly. It drives them nuts.”

Dustin looked back at Steve. “Then what?”

“You just wait until, uh…” Steve gave a long pause, “’til you feel it.”

Those words caught Stella’s attention and she looked forward at her brother, not lifting her head, just her eyes. She looked back down soon, still listening.

“Feel what?” Dustin questioned again.

“It’s like before it’s gonna storm, you know?” Steve explained, not knowing exactly what to call the feeling. “You can’t see it’s but you can feel it, like this, uh…” he furrowed his eyebrows, “electricity, you know?” The boy tried. Dustin didn’t get his point very correctly. “Oh, like in the electromagnetic field when the clouds in the atmosphere-” Steve cut him off, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,” he trailed off. “Like a- Like a- Like a sexual electricity.”

Stella was shooting her head up as her face twisted in confusion before Steve even finished his sentence.

“Oh,” was all Dustin said.

“You feel that,” Steve pointed at nothing in particular to emphasize his point, “and then you make your move.”

“So that’s when you kiss her?” Dustin asked.

“No, woah, woah, woah. Slow down, Romeo,” Steve told him, Dustin muttering a quiet “sorry” in response before Steve spoke again. “Sure, okay, some girls, yeah, they want you to be aggressive. You know, strong, hot and heavy,” Stella cringed as Steve continued, “like a… I don’t know, a lion,” he said and Dustin hummed in understanding. “But others, you gotta be slow, you gotta be stealthy, like a… like a ninja,” Steve finished and Stella rolled her eyes again.

“What type is Nancy?” Dustin asked, and Steve took a moment to reply. “Nancy’s different. She’s different than the other girls,” he told the smaller boy.

“Yeah, she seems pretty special, I guess,” Dustin said. “But… this girl’s special, too, you know? It’s just, like, something about her.”

Stella pursed her lips. He was right.

“Woah, woah, woah. Hey, hey, hey,” Steve stopped walking, turning to Dustin, who looked up at him. “What?”

“You’re not falling in love with this girl, are you?” Steve asked, and Stella’s breathing hitched. Was she?

I mean, how would I even know? Am I? No, I’ve only known her for a few days. You can’t fall in love with someone that quickly. I think. Right?

“Essie!”

Stella’s head snapped up.

“Come on.”

For the second time, she realized how far behind she was, and kept walking.

“Fabergé,” Steve suddenly said, making Stella and Dustin look up at him. Dustin, because he was just confused in general, and Stella because she was confused due to the fact that Steve randomly blurted out their hair product brand. “What?” Dustin asked, puzzled. Steve pointed to his hair and Stella just nodded and looked back down, remembering Dustin’s previous comment about their hair.

“It’s Fabergé Organics,” Steve told him. “Use the shampoo and the conditioner, and when your hair’s damp… it’s not wet, okay? When it’s damp.”

“Damp,” Dustin sounded like he was taking notes.

“You do four puffs of the Farah Fawcett spray,” Steve instructed.

“Farah Fawcett spray?” Dustin repeated, Stella knowing he was smiling simply by the tone in his voice, snickering herself.

“Yeah, Farrah Fawcett,” Steve stopped walking again. “You tell anyone I just told you that and your ass is grass. You’re dead, Henderson. Do you understand?”

Dustin nodded. “Yup.”

Steve sighed, said “okay,” then kept walking.

“Farrah Fawcett, really?” Dustin asked.

“I don’t use it, that’s just him,” Stella spoke up. Steve looked back at her with a deadpan before speaking again. “I mean, she’s hot.”

Stella tilted her head, cocking her eyebrow in a way that said, “he’s not wrong,” while Dustin just muttered “yeah.”

─────✧･ﾟ: *✧･

hey!!!

things i almost did part 6: originally, there was no bow and arrow but when i thought of it i felt like stella needed it so there it is 🤭

okay, so for anyone wondering, stella is now able to move her fingers on her left hand, and despite her left arm being broken, now that it’s in the cast she can move her shoulder. also, the cast is only for her forearm, so it doesn’t stop her from moving her elbow or fingers or shoulder. that’s why she’s able to use the bow and arrow and carry the bucket and that kind of stuff.

hopefully that helped if anyone was confused or like “THAT’S A FLAW” it’s not dw

oh, the plans i have for this story…

big stuff happening next chapter

thanks for reading ur awesome 🙂