chapter seventeen
betrayal

        Lucas lets out a heavy sigh and asks, for what seems to be the five-hundredth time, "How much further?"

"God, you sound like Steve on our last road trip," Alex groans.  "Are we there yet?  Are we there yet?  Are we there yet?  Dad, can you change the music?"

Hours have passed since they first set foot along the train tracks.  They're deep in the woods now, miles away from the rest of Hawkins.  She's fallen into step with the two boys along the train tracks.  Her steps are lighter.  She's less tired.  The anger feels lighter now that she's talked to El.  She feels less angry when she's with them.  There seems to be less room for anger when she's in the company of the boys.  Maybe it's because her anger has to make room for the boys because she's not so alone anymore.

"Not everyone has walking immunity, Alex," Lucas retorts.

"'Walking immunity'?" Alex repeats with raised eyebrows.

"Shut up," Lucas retorts, "my legs feel like they're about to fall off.  Cut me some slack."

"Why didn't you just say it like that, then?"

"I don't know!"

"We're looking for a gate to another dimension, and you're complaining about your legs?" Dustin questions incredulously. 

"Well, I'm not going to be much help saving Will if I don't have any legs," Lucas quips.  "That's all I'm saying."

Alex shrugs.  "He's got a point."

"I don't think your legs will fall off from walking too much," Dustin points out. 

"I know that, Dustin," Lucas replies through gritted teeth, but Alex can see the grin that's working his way onto his face. "I'm just saying, we've been walking for hours, we haven't found the gate, and I'm tired of walking."

"Want me to carry you on my back?" Alex teases, nudging Lucas in the ribs with a grin on her face despite their situation. 

Alex wishes that she knew these boys when she was younger.  She thinks she would have been happier that way.  Maybe she would have been less angry.  Alex has changed in these past four days—they've changed her in these past four days, in ways that Alex thought weren't possible.  They've changed her for the better.   And even if they go their separate ways after they find Will, they will always be a part of her.  She knows this now.  Friendship is like a stain; they'll stay with her, even if they're not in her life anymore.   

"I'll let you know when I'm that desperate, Al," Lucas replies with a grin. 

Al.  Al.  Al.  It resonates in her head like a heartbeat.  It's something that slips out of Lucas's mouth so effortlessly, that he probably does it without thinking about it, but it seems to close whatever gap is still between them, solidifying their friendship.  Their friendship before was still uncharted waters, stumbling through the dark, not knowing how to act, but the intimacy of a nickname draws their friendship closer together.  He's no longer holding her at arm's length.  She thinks that it's a way of showing Alex that he's let her close to her heart. 

He nudges Dustin who resumes staring down at the compass in his hand.  "How do we know when we get to the gate?"

Dustin looks up.  "Uh, I think a portal to another dimension is gonna be pretty obvious."

"Wouldn't we have noticed it before, then?" Alex wonders. 

"I don't know!" Dustin exclaims.  "I'm not an expert!"

The three fall into silence and Alex finds herself pulling her jacket tighter around herself to block out the cold November air.  She wonders what it's like for Will in the Upside Down.  She thinks it's the kind of place that lets its victims fester and rot in the darkness before consuming them.  She shudders to think about it bleeding into their world.  It only takes one rip, before the darkness spills out and everyone and everything is consumed.  There's already so much that they do not know about the world that they live in.  They know nothing about the world that lies beyond their conception.  But she knows one thing for sure: Will is not going to make it through the Winter.  This is the thought that fuels her along the seemingly endless train tracks.

She thinks about Will's voice again.  So small and lonesome.  He's alone in a big world filled with monsters and rot, hiding in a decomposed house all alone in their vast universe.  She can't but think he's like a tiny creature swallowed whole by a monster.  He does everything he can to escape, but all that he does feels like tiny, minuscule movements to the monster.  Will can't keep hiding forever.  Whatever is chasing him will catch up eventually as all the things that you run from inevitably do.  Hawkins is only so big.  He'll run out of places to hide and he will be digested by the monster that he is trapped within, becoming nothing more than the rot that makes up the Upside Down.

Lucas lets out another long sigh and turns his head to look over his shoulder.  Alex follows his gaze and watches El, who trails behind them, still shoulder-to-shoulder with Mike.  They're hunched over, seemingly in deep conversation, smiling to themselves and hoping the other doesn't notice.  A small smile tugs at the edges of her lips as she watches them.  As Alex continues to watch, El reaches up and wipes her nose with the sleeve of her jacket.

"Do you think she's acting weird?" Lucas questions as he turns back to them.

Dustin glances over his shoulder at El.  "You're asking if the weirdo is acting weird?"

Lucas lets out a sigh.  "I mean, weirder than normal."

"I thought it was just me," Alex replies, thinking back to El's behavior earlier in the basement.  "I think she's hiding something.  But she's been showing signs of trauma.  Maybe it has something to do with wherever she came from."

"Maybe..." Lucas agrees, but he doesn't seem convinced.  Alex doesn't blame him.  He went out into the woods to look for his friend and came back with another problem.  A bigger problem.  A strange girl with a tattoo on her wrist and buzzed hair who seems to know more about this mystery than she lets on. 

The sun is setting behind them and their shadows are growing long when they finally break out of the forest.  They find themselves in the remains of a junkyard, surrounded by heaps of scrap metal, turned red with rust and abandoned cars, sitting like lone islands in the sea of dead grass that spread all around them. 

Dustin, who leads their small line pulls to a stop in the center of the junkyard and squints at their surroundings.  "Oh, no."

"'Oh, no'?" Lucas repeats.  "What's, 'oh, no'?"

"We're headed back home," Dustin answers faintly.

"What?!" Lucas demands.  "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure," Dustin replies.  He points toward the setting sun and the group turns to look in that direction.  "Setting sun, right there.  We looped right back around."

Lucas turns back to Dustin, throwing his arms in the air in exasperation.  "And you're just realizing this now?"

"Why is this all on me?!" Dustin exclaims.

"Because you're the compass genius!"

"What do yours say?" Dustin asks.

Alex pulls her compass from the depths of her jacket pocket and stares down at the surface.  She looks back up at her companions as they all confirm in unison, "North."

"Makes no damn sense," Dustin mutters.

"Maybe the gate moved," Mike suggests.

"No, I don't think it's the gate," Dustin replies, "I think it's something else screwing with the compasses."

Alex nods, turning in a slow circle, taking in their surroundings.  "Maybe there's something magnetic here that's drawing our compasses toward it."

"No, it has to be like a super magnet," Dustin answers. 

"It's not a magnet," says Lucas through a clenched jaw.  He points a finger toward El, jabbing the air in front of him with each word.  Dustin, Mike, and Alex turn to follow where his finger is pointing.  There stands El, a few yards away from them.  She wears her emotions on her sleeve, and today it has come to betray her.  She looks clearly distressed, eyes brimming with tears, fists clenched nervously at her sides.  "She's been acting weirder than normal.  If she can slam doors with her mind, she can definitely screw up a compass."

"Why would she do that?" Mike attempts to reason.

"Because she's trying to sabotage our mission," Lucas spits.  "Because she's a traitor!"

El flinches as Lucas stalks toward her, anger brimming just beneath the surface of his skin.  El doesn't move, she just stares at Lucas with fear written across her face.  Mike and Dustin hurry after Lucas while Alex steps between Lucas and El.  She understands where Lucas's anger stems from; betrayal cuts like a knife.  But there's still a chance that El had nothing to do with the divergence of the compasses.  Perhaps something had triggered her trauma responses while she was alone in the Wheeler's basement.  She should at least get a chance to explain herself. 

"Lucas, what are you doing?" Mike shouts.

"Out of the way, Al," Lucas orders. 

"I get it," Alex tells him gently, using the same tone that Steve would use to coax her out of her fits of rage when she was younger.  "I'm mad, and I'm tired, and I want answers too, but she should at least get to explain before we explode on her."

Lucas pushes past Alex and stands only inches away from Eleven.  In a low voice, tremoring with anger, he says, "You did it, didn't you?  You don't want us to reach the gate.  You don't want us to find Will."

"Lucas, come on, seriously, just leave her alone," Mike calls helplessly.

"Admit it," Lucas demands, ignoring Mike's plea.

"No," El murmurs.  Her voice is almost lost in the wind.

"ADMIT IT!" He screams.  His voice is nothing but visceral anger.  El flinches as he grabs her by the elbow and yanks her jacket sleeve up so that the rest can see the blood that stains the navy blue fabric.  With a twinge in the pits of her chest, Alex can see that the blood still shines in the sunlight.  The blood is still fresh.  "Fresh blood!  I knew it!"

"Lucas, come on!" Mike cries.

Lucas whirls around to face him.  "I saw her wiping her nose on the tracks!  She was using her powers!"

"Bull!" Mike exclaims.  "That's old blood.  Right, El?"

El lets out a whimper.

"Right, El?" Mike prompts. 

Alex can hear the desperation in his voice.  But there's also betrayal and pain.  Betrayal implies that you have given someone your trust first.  Giving someone your trust is like giving somebody your heart and telling them, hey, be careful with it.  El dropped his heart.  It shattered.

El's lip quivers as tears stream down her face and she lets out a choked sob.  "It's...not..." She manages to choke out, "it's not safe."

"What did I tell you?" Lucas snaps, turning to Mike.  "She's been playing us from the beginning!"

El's betrayal burns like a knife to the chest, but Alex isn't as angry as she thought she would be.  Yes, El was wrong to lie to them.  She was wrong to mislead them.  But she still helped them to get to this point, she showed them where Will was, she contacted him through the Heathkit.  She had only ever wanted to protect them.  There is a line between kindness and maliciousness, El's heart seems to be in the right place, but her feet are on the wrong side of the line.

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

"Find Will?  Find Will?" Lucas repeats.  He turns around to survey the empty junkyard.  "Where is he, then?  Huh?  I don't see him."

"Yeah, you know what I mean!"

"No, I actually don't!"  Lucas whirls back around to face Mike.  His face is still contorted into anger and Alex steps forward to put a stop to their fighting before somebody's fists are stained with blood, but Dustin puts an arm out to stop her.  The message is clear.  Don't make things worse.  "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."

This seems to be Dustin's breaking point and the arm holding Alex back drops as he attempts to step into the space between Mike and Lucas.  "All right, calm down!"

"No!" Lucas exclaims, pushing Dustin's arm away.  "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."

"Screw you, Lucas!" Mike seethes.

"No, screw you, Mike!" Lucas rebukes.  "You're blind...blind because you like that a girl's not grossed out by you.  But wake up, man!  Wake the hell up!"  His voice wavers and Alex realizes that he's scared too.  Scared and angry and tired.  "She knows where Will is, and now she's just letting him die in the Upside Down!"

"Shut up!"

"For all we know, it's her fault," Lucas spits, thrusting a finger toward El.

"Shut up!"

"We're looking for some stupid monster..." Lucas exclaims, throwing his arms in the air.  Then, he jabs Mike in the chest with his finger.  The boy stumbles back.  "...but did you ever stop to think that maybe she's the monster?"

"I said, shut up!"

Mike leaps forward, blinded by a fit of rage, and hooks his arm around Lucas's neck, dragging the boy to the ground with him.  They tussle in the dirt, a mess of flailing limbs as they aim punches and kicks at each other that never actually land.  They're both angry, but they're still reluctant to hurt each other.  This is what sets Alex apart from the rest of the boys.  Her anger is volatile.  Her anger is dangerous.  In the end, it doesn't matter who she hurts, as long as she wins.

"Stop!" El pleads quietly, tears in her eyes.

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

"Guys, stop it!" Alex yells.

Their shouts go unnoticed.  And then the first punch finally lands.  And the second.  And the third.  Alex can only stay rooted to the spot and watch in wide-eyed horror.  She wants to help, she wants to pull Lucas and Mike apart, but the flailing limbs are too much for her to weave around. 

"Stop it!" El screams again, desperately.  Stop it.  Stop it.  Stop it!  The ringing in Alex's ears has returned, growing stronger and stronger with each passing second as the fighting escalates.

El lets out a blood-curdling scream, and suddenly, as if a cosmic force has grabbed Lucas by the back of the collar, and yanked him off of Mike, he's soaring through the air.  Alex watches in pure horror as his body hits the ground and continues to slide backward until he hits a sheet of metal with a loud bang.  His body falls limply to the ground.

The world falls silent.  For a few moments, everything is still.  It's as if, for those few moments, time stops.  And then suddenly, time resumes again as the calamity of what just happened sinks in.  Mike scrambles up from the ground, anger long forgotten as he runs over to Lucas's limp body, followed quickly but Dustin and Alex, leaving El behind where she stands.  Alex stumbles toward Luca's limp body, knees buckling and stomach churning as she falls to her knees in front of him.

For a few heart-stopping moments, Alex thinks that Lucas is dead.  A cold calamity squeezes her heart and she thinks that she might throw up.  What are they supposed to tell them?  How are they supposed to rationalize this?  And then she sees the slow, but steady rising and falling of Lucas's chest, and whatever has grabbed ahold of her heart relinquishes its grip.

"Lucas!  Lucas!" Mike pleads as hands reach out to shake Lucas's limp body out of unconsciousness.  "Lucas, are you alright?"

"Lucas, come on," Dustin begs.

"Wake up," Alex whispers.  Wake up.  Wake up.  Wake up.

"Lucas, wake up."

"Come on, Lucas."

Mike turns back toward El, who remains stationary.  There's a train of blood that trickles steadily from her nose.  Her lip quivers as tears brim her eyes and spill onto her pale cheeks.  She looks terrified.  "Why would you do that?  What's wrong with you?  What is wrong with you?"

After a few agonizing moments, Lucas stirs.

"Oh thank God," Alex murmurs with a small laugh.

"Lucas, are you okay?" Mike asks softly.  Lucas doesn't answer as he pushes himself off the ground, still thoroughly disoriented. 

"Lucas...Lucas, how many fingers am I holding up?" Dustin questions, holding three fingers in front of Lucas's face.  "Lucas, how many fingers?"

"Give him some space," Alex tells him softly.

"Let me see your head," says Mike, reaching forward, probably in an attempt to mend what had been broken between them. 

Lucas smacks Mike's hand away.  "Get off of me!"

"Just...Lucas," Mike pleads, reaching out again, "Lucas, let me see."

"Get off of me!" Lucas repeats, voice strained and thick with tears.  He pushes himself off the ground and his knees buckle for a moment.  Alex stands, ready to steady him, but Lucas keeps his footing as he strides away from them.

"Lucas, come on," Mike begs, starting to run after him.

"Let him go," says Dustin as he throws up a protective arm, holding Mike back.  They watch as Lucas disappears into the distance.  "Man, let him go."

Mike lets out a defeated sigh.  The world falls quiet again as he stares at the ground in defeat before looking back up and around at the junkyard, eyes wide with panic.  "Where's El?"  Alex swallows thickly and whirls around, scanning the junkyard for any signs of El.

But El is long gone.

author's note: this was a long one!  i think that lucas was justified in his anger toward el and he has every right to be mad.  el did lie to them, and at the end of the day lucas just wants to find his friend.