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Robin closed her eyes as she listened to the screams echoing down the hall, clenching them tight as she covered her ears and wished that someone would rescue them. They’d been missing for a week now; surely someone would find them soon.
She sobbed as the screams got louder, too loud to block out. They’d taken Steve for the fifth time that week. Every time they took him, he came back with more bruises. Every time he came back, he tried so hard, so hard , to assure her that he was fine, that he could take a few beatings as if his brain wasn’t being rattled around and bruised six times from Sunday.
Every night he’d keep up the facade until he thought she was asleep, and then she would hear the quiet sobs Steve couldn’t keep down any longer, as if she couldn’t hear him screaming when he was in the other room. But she could. They both knew she heard him pleading with the Russians to stop, please stop, please, I don’t know anything!
But it felt like the mask he kept on for her was the only thing keeping Steve going, and she couldn’t just tear it away from him like that. So she joked and teased and pretended like her heart wasn’t breaking every time he smiled at her and blood glistened on his teeth.
Someone would find them soon. They had to.
Кричащая тишина
Three weeks. They’d been held captive for three weeks, and Robin felt like she would go insane if she had to keep listening to Steve scream. The intensity of his screams had increased tenfold, and now when their captors tossed him back into their cell, blood stained his skin. They’d ‘improved’ their methods, going from fists and heavy boots to knives and whips.
His shirt had long since been torn to shreds, and there was no asking their captors for a new one. So now Steve shivered through the nights, insisting that Robin keep her shirt on, even though he needed it more. (She was secretly grateful for that.)
He still kept that smile on his face, insisting that he was fine. He insisted he could hold out just a little longer until someone found them. He said it with so much belief in his voice that Robin couldn’t argue. They were imprisoned, and she honestly didn’t even know if they were still in the states or trapped in Russia thousands of miles from Hawkins. But that hope was the only thing keeping Steve’s smile on his face, and his smile was the only thing keeping her from having a full-blown mental breakdown.
He had to be right. Someone would find them soon.
Кричащая тишина
It was quiet. Too quiet. They had come to take Steve away over an hour ago, but after only a couple of panicked cries, Steve had fallen silent. It should have been a relief. It should have been a welcomed respite after months of being forced to listen to his screams. But where the silence would have once been appreciated and wanted, now she hated and despised it to her very core.
His screams had always been horrifying to hear. They were enough to drive Robin to tears most days and make her wish they had taken her instead. But the silence… The silence was chilling, welcoming terror to drip coldly down her spine. Because the screams may have been bloodcurdling, but they had become a landline for her to hang onto when they were separated. As long as she could hear Steve screaming, she knew he was still alive.
And now… Now Robin had no way of knowing whether he was dead or alive.
Кричащая тишина
They didn’t bring him back until the next day, and this time when he came in, Steve wasn’t smiling. His face looked ghostly white, his eyes wide and startled as he stared into the distance past her. She could see no new wounds, no new blood staining his shorts. He fell to the ground when the guards shoved him in, and even that didn’t earn a sound from him.
She knelt down next to him, saying his name repeatedly, but there was no response. That night she held him close as he shivered from the cold and let her own sobs fill their cell as he stayed quiet.
It started a new pattern. They would take Steve, and hours or even days’ worth of eerie silence would pass before they brought him back, pale and staring blankly at nothing. Then while tears ran down her cheeks, Robin would hold him close and try to repeat all the same words that Steve used to tell her.
Someone would find them soon. He just had to hang on a little longer.