death and disappearances

. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧

When Eleven was scared, she ran. Alina knew it. It had happened in the treehouse back on the night Eleven escaped. She'd known that Alina's dad was dangerous, even when Alina didn't know it herself. So she'd run, somehow disappearing without a trace. Was that a part of her abilities, too?

Either way, seeing this fight now made Alina a little worried. Scratch that, a lot. Sure, Eleven had been wrong to lie to them, to mess with their compasses so they were unable to find the gate, but if she ran away... there were a million ways things could go wrong. She could be spotted by a civilian, who would then call social services and have her taken away. She could freak out at the sight of all those people and wander into the woods, getting taken by the Demogorgon into the Upside Down, like Will had.

There were a million ways that things could go wrong in this junkyard, with the setting sun reflecting off the rusted cars, but only Alina and Dustin seemed to realize it. Eleven had shrunk to the bus, curled in on herself but her wide eyes still watching Lucas and Mike, occasionally flickering to the two bystanders, who were trapped in their own bodies, wanting to say something but afraid of what might happen if their voices were heard.

"What did I tell you?!" Lucas was snapping to Mike in a shout, his face contorted into anger. Alina hadn't ever seen him so mad. "She's been playing us from the beginning!"

"That's not true!" Mike argued back. "She helped us find Will!"

"Find Will?" Lucas echoed incredulously, turning to survey the junkyard. "Find Will?! Where is he then, huh? I don't see him!"

"Yeah, you know what I mean!"

"No, I actually don't!" Lucas whirled back to Mike, his voice getting louder and louder with each word. "Just think about it, Mike. She could've just told us where the Upside Down was right away, but she didn't. She just made us run around like headless chickens!"

"All right." Dustin seemed to have had enough, pushing through the two boys with an apologetic look back at Alina, who he had stopped when she'd tried to do this herself. "Calm down!"

"No!" Lucas threw Dustin's arm off him. "She used us, all of us! She helped just enough so she could get what she wants. Food and a bed. She's like a stray dog."

"Enough!" Alina's voice rang across the junkyard as she stepped forward, eyes blazing. "Both of you, seriously, stop it. You're being incredibly immature and there are more important things to deal with. Seriously."

But instead of stopping like Alina had hoped they would, Lucas just narrowed his eyes, glancing at her with disdain. "No, Al!" Lucas shouted. "You can never pick a side! This time, you're going to have to make your choice, and if you are seriously going to defend the weirdo, then you're not allowed in the party anymore."

Alina made to move forward—perhaps to give Lucas a good-old-fashioned piece of her mind, but Eleven locked eyes with her and shook her head, and Alina halted in her tracks. Somehow, she knew Eleven was warning her not to make it any worse.

"Screw you, Lucas!" Mike spat.

"No! Screw you, Mike! You're blind... blind that you like that a girl's not grossed out by you! And even though Al's been doing everything she can to be your friend, you latched onto the weirdo, because she was the first girl who didn't find you disgusting at first sight. But wake up, man! Wake the hell up!" his bottom lip trembled as he pointed to Eleven, and Alina knew he wasn't so much angry as he was scared. "She knows where Will is, and now she's just letting him die in the Upside Down."

"Shut up!" Mike yelled. Alina wanted to move forward, but she wasn't exactly sure who's side she was on anymore. They both needed to stop, but Lucas had made it very clear what would happen if she tried to step in. So she just watched, shaking a little, hoping it wouldn't escalate any further.

"For all we know," Lucas continued, "it's her fault."

"Shut up!"

"We're looking for some stupid monster..." Lucas said, pushing on Mike's chest, "but did you ever stop to think that maybe she's the monster?"

Alina felt like she'd been punched, her own thoughts echoing back to her in her mind. She jerked back like she had. I'm a monster. I'm a monster. I'm a monster.

"I said shut up!"

Mike suddenly sprung forward, latching his arm around Lucas's throat and hauling him down to the ground. The two rolled around in the dirt, aiming punches at each other, and that finally snapped Alina out of her reverie.

"Stop!" Eleven pleaded, tears filling her eyes.

"Knock it off, you idiots!" Dustin called.

"Guys, stop!" Alina yelled. The two boys were now exchanging punches, grunting in frustration and spewing swears at each other, sending dirt flying into the air. Lucas groaned in pain as Mike hit him across the face, before retaliating with newfound fury, letting out his feelings fully for the first time since Will disappeared.

"Stop it!" Eleven yelled again, seeming frozen, like the others, as she witnessed this conflict. Alina sprung forward, trying to pull the two brawling boys off of each other, but they were so lost in their anger they barely even noticed her. One of the boys' elbows sunk into her stomach, and Alina grunted in pain, falling back into the junkyard dirt, trying to regain her breath.

"Mike, get off!" Dustin shouted, running to help Alina stand up. She nodded her thanks at him before launching herself into the fray again, trying to grab hold of Lucas's arm, but the two boys rolled, and she was left empty-handed.

Eleven was still screaming desperately. "Stop it!" Alina was trying to grab hold of Mike now. Dustin was watching this whole thing with wide eyes, his cries falling on deaf ears. None of them could have predicted what happened next, not even the two perpetrators of this incident.

A loud scream lit up the sky, and suddenly Lucas flew off of Mike. Alina, who had had a fistful of his jacket, fell back, and Lucas's arms flailed in the air before he slammed into the ground, the momentum of the throw sending him skidding into an old car. His head slammed sickeningly into it before he stopped completely, his body limp. Alina saw that his eyes were closed.

For a moment, everyone was silent. Then Alina's world changed. One moment, she was kneeling in the junkyard, a scream on her lips, and the next the world dissolved away from her into a blackened, empty space, adrenaline rushing through her and causing her heart to pound so hard in her ears it was all she could hear. Her palms, which had been sweaty this entire fight, were now itching furiously, and the feeling of energy building up inside of her grew and grew, until she felt ready to burst. She finally let out a feral scream, letting it all out, the energy or whatever it was flying right out of her just as her world flickered back to the junkyard.

She could see a bolt of energy—which was red and somehow familiar—crash into a car, but that was all she saw before she was flying backwards into the air, Mike and Dustin's dumbstruck faces the only thing she could focus on. Alina was in the air for both forever and a millisecond, and then she slammed back onto the ground, exhaustion sweeping over her and fresh blood bursting from her nose.

Somehow, she managed to stay awake, the panic for Lucas outweighing her desperate need to recharge the energy—for that was what it was. Energy. That she somehow converted into bullets or bolts of beams of whatever it was. Before Mike and Dustin even had a chance to react to what had gone down—in a span of less than ten seconds—Alina was on her feet, running towards Lucas. Her feet crunched on the blackened dirt where she'd fired her missile, and, just like with the tree trunks and the doorknob, the reddish glow coming off of it disappeared when she stepped over it.

"Jesus!" Dustin finally managed to yell, following her towards Lucas's unconscious form. Mike followed, too, his anger dissipated in an instant. Alina hoped he was realizing how stupid he'd been.

The three of them shook Lucas desperately, trying to wake the boy up. "Lucas!" Alina's cries were shrill, and even though her head and back were throbbing, she barely felt the pain in her worry for him. "Lucas, please! Wake up! Please, Lucas!"

"Lucas!" Mike called. "Lucas, are you all right? Lucas."

"Lucas, come on," Dustin begged, but Lucas didn't even move, his eyelids seemingly glued shut. Alina was sobbing now, her tears intermingling with the blood from her nose, yelling at him to wake up.

"Lucas, wake up!"

"Come on, Lucas!"

Mike turned back to Eleven. "Why would you do that?!" he screamed at her. Alina looked back to see Eleven sobbing, too, a trickle of blood streaming from her own nose as she looked at what she'd just done. Alina wiped her own nose with her sleeve and continued shaking Lucas, too terrified to even be angry. But Mike wasn't finished with the telekinetic girl. "What's wrong with you?! What is wrong with you?!"

Alina was suddenly struck with a sick terror, a fear that Lucas Sinclair was dead, that he'd taken his last breaths fighting with Mike. Lucas Sinclair, who laughed at her jokes even when they weren't funny, who she could talk about comics with, who asked obvious questions with even more obvious answers, who wanted her in the party, who's smile was the brightest thing in the room. She shook him harder, and suddenly she was on the edge again, but this time with nothing to keep her from slipping off. No hand to hold.

Then Lucas Sinclair stirred.

"Oh, my God, Lucas." Alina's tears were falling so fast they blurred her vision. "Oh, my God. You're okay. You're alive. Oh, my God."

"Lucas," Mike gasped in relief, sounding like he'd run a marathon. Lucas slowly rose with Alina's help, managing to get into a seating position against the car, his face twisted. "Lucas," Mike said again, "you okay?"

"Lucas... Lucas," Dustin panted, holding up three fingers. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

Lucas blinked blearily at Dustin but didn't respond. "Lucas," said Dustin again, "how many fingers?!"

"Give him a second," said Alina quietly, her tears having since run dry. She wiped them on her sleeve, where they joined the blood. A mix of hurt and sadness.

Mike reached forward. "Let me see your head."

And that was when Lucas finally spoke, smacking away Mike's arm. "Get off of me!" he cried, shakily getting to his feet. Alina, Dustin and Mike rose with him, the overwhelming relief of Lucas's life pulling through them.

"Lucas... Lucas, just let me see," Mike pleaded, but again, Lucas smacked his hand away.

"Get off of me!" his voice was thick with tears. Lucas stumbled away from the others, a sob shaking through him, beginning to move away from them.

"Lucas, come on." Mike sprung forward, but Dustin grabbed his arm, pulling him back.

"Let him go."

But Alina didn't take Dustin's advice. Although it still felt as if a hammer was pounding at her skull, she ran forward, trying to catch up with her friend. "Lucas," she panted. "Wait. Please." Her voice was small, but to her relief Lucas turned, tears streaking his face.

"You're like her," he said quietly, eyeing the crusted blood on her nose and obviously remembering James. "Would you do that? Would you hurt me?"

"No." Alina's voice was firm. "Lucas, I-I... I thought... I thought you were dead. I was so scared... I... I promise I'll never hurt you. Ever."

"How do I know?" Lucas's voice was trembling. "What if you get out of control, like she did?"

"I won't." Alina stepped forward, tears on her own face. "Lucas, you have to trust me. Do you trust me?"

It was quiet for a moment before Lucas responded. "I do."

"And I've chosen my side," said Alina, slipping her hand in his. As usual, the flutter went through her as she made contact with his warm brown skin. Because Lucas Sinclair was alive. And he was holding her hand. "It's yours. And it'll always be yours."

"Will you come with me?" Lucas asked her. "Home, first, to get more supplies. But then to find Will. Alone. Just the two of us. Tomorrow. We'll follow the compasses, find the gate, and get Will. Together."

"Together," Alina echoed. She wasn't mad at him in the slightest. He, Eleven, and Mike had all been immature. Lucas hadn't said those things about Eleven. Eleven shouldn't have messed with their compasses. And Mike shouldn't have attacked Lucas like that. They all had done wrong things, but Alina forgave them. Most of them. Eleven she wasn't so sure about yet.

"We'll find him," she said confidentially. "We'll find Will. Together. There's no way I'd rather do it."

And it was with confidence that she walked away with Lucas, although perhaps she wouldn't have been so confident if she'd realized one the very things she'd been terrified of happening had happened in the junkyard that evening in Hawkins Lab.

. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧

a/n: wattpad i wasn't joking when i told you to stop putting my chapters in italics

anyway, hope you enjoyed this chapter! i honestly think lucas was pretty justified in this scene (although he did definitely go overboard) because eleven did lie to him! he has every right to get mad! i honestly love alina and lucas so much, they own my life now.

'till next time!