chapter twenty-seven
the final nail in the coffin

        Don't look back.  Don't look back.  Don't look back.

Alex is a runner.  Always has been.  Always will be.  She runs from her problems.  She runs from her family (maybe that's why it seems like they're worlds apart.  Is this her fault?).  She runs from the bad men.  They're stumbling blindly through the dark hallways, twisting and turning through the labyrinth.  She can hear the bad men in the distance with the shouts and pounding footsteps, and somehow that is worse than them being directly on their tails.  At least then, they knew exactly where the bad men were.  Now, they're running blindly and hoping beyond all hope that fortune is on their side today and they escape the school without running into the bad men.

Don't look back.  Don't look back.  Don't look back.

"How did they find us?" Lucas asks in a hushed whisper as they scramble down a set of stairs, two at a time.

"I don't know, but they knew we were in the gym," Mike responds.

"Lando," is all Dustin says.

And this time, Alex knows that he is right.  They should have never trusted Hopper.  But they had been scared and fear is the relinquishment of logic.  He had saved them and bought them a few hours of safety, but time has never been on their side.  And now he's sold them out.  And for what?  What does he get out of it?  Had he been apprehended?  Was that what this boiled down to?  The lives of five children for his own?  Five lives snuffed out so that one single life would continue to burn brightly. 

Traitor.

Lucas pulls to a jarring halt and Alex barely manages to pull to a stop behind him.  She watches as flashlights pierce through the glass on the double doors, just yards before them.  A few moments later, the doors burst open to reveal a swarm of bad men armed with flashlights and guns.  They shout something, but Alex doesn't hear it, the pounding in her ears drowns out all the other sounds as they turn on their heels and scramble back up the stairs.  Alex's foot catches the top of one stair and she stumbles.  For a heart-stopping moment, she thinks that she's going to fall, but Lucas reaches out and steadies her before she can fall behind.

They burst through a doorway and into another hallway, only for the other end to fill with more bad men.  They shout for them to freeze as if they expected the children to listen.  Instead, they only whirl around and run back through the way that they came only for both ends of the hallway to be filled with bad men. 

A blonde woman in a khaki trench coat steps forward from the swarm.  Her voice is void of emotions as she aims the gun right at them.  Alex's blood runs cold as she hears the clicking of a bullet in the chamber of her gun followed by a sea of clicks from the bad men that surround them on all sides.  They're an island surrounded by a deadly ocean of weapons and there's no way to send out an SOS signal.  This is it.  This is really truly the end. 

Barely aware of her own movements, she pushes her way to the front of the group, shielding her friends with her arms.  She'll take the bullets for them.  She'll always take the bullets for them.  Her heart pounds in her chest as she stares up at the barrel of the woman's gun, but she doesn't waver.  Neither does the woman.  It's a deadly staring contest, seeing who will crack first.  The woman's finger twitches and Alex screws her eyes shut.  She hopes that it'll be quick.  But the woman never pulls the trigger.

The telltale high-pitched ringing fills the air and Alex cracks her eyes open.  The woman has frozen, Alex can hear her breaths, loud and heaving, fighting for the oxygen to enter her lungs.  Alex watches with wide eyes as the flashlights begin to flicker.  El stands beside her, fists clenched in her side, lunged forward, and staring down at the woman.  Blood trickles from the woman's nostrils and drips out of her ear.  Alex hears Mike let out a small gasp and she turns back to stare at the woman frozen in place.  With a queasy mixture of horror and curiosity, she watches as blood seeps from the woman's eyes and nose, and ears like candle wax melting off of a candle stick. 

This is a scene taken straight out of a horror movie.  Alex doesn't know if she wants to cry or scream.  The flickering of the lights intensifies as the trails of blood continue to drip.  The woman takes another shuddering breath as the gun tremors violently in her hand.  And then suddenly, the entire sea of bad men drops, almost as if they were all being held up by the same cord.  Dead.  They're all dead.

This is the final nail in the coffin.

El falls limply to the ground.

"El!" Alex cries sinking to her knees.  Her eyes are closed, she can see the veins bulging through her skin.  She's pushed herself too far, burnt both ends of the candle, and now she's left with nothing but a stub of wax. 

"El, are you okay?" Mike pants, crouching down beside Alex.  He reaches out a trembling hand to shake El's limp body.  The girl doesn't stir.  "El?" He looks up at his companions.  "Something's wrong."

"She's just drained," says Dustin.

"No, no, no, she won't wake up," Mike replies.  "El!  El!  El!"

Alex takes a deep breath and tries to calm her racing heart.  They're not out of the woods just yet.  More bad men will come.  They'll never not be hunted.  Not when Hopper has sold them out.  Not when they've caught onto their scent.  But they can't just leave El here.  Protecting El has always been their first priority.  Keep her a secret, keep her safe.  They can't leave her.  Maybe she can carry her.  She's strong enough for that.  Alex nods to herself.  She can pick her up and carry her and they can escape.

"She's barely breathing," Mike says, close to hysterics.

"It's okay," Alex tells him.  She doesn't quite believe herself.  "It's okay.  I-I can carry her.  It's okay.  We can—I can—It'll be okay—"

"Leave her."

Alex freezes.  This voice does not come from any of her friends, but rather from somewhere behind them.  She jumps to her feet, wide-eyed, and takes an involuntary step backward as the chilling man with white hair strides toward them.  She remains stubbornly in front of her friends, not that she can do much.  She is but a mouse among these men.  She hates feeling so helpless because who is she if not the girl who doesn't lose fights?  They needed her for this exact reason, and now she can't even bring herself to swing a punch. 

"Step away from the child," the man instructs.  His voice is cold and harsh and commanding, but none of them waver.  They do not stop away from El because she is their friend and she has protected them so many times, and it's finally their turn to protect her.  She takes care of them, and they take care of her and that's how it works in their world. 

"No!" Mike spits, from beside Alex balling his fists at his sides.  Dustin and Lucas scramble to join them, forming a blockade of bodies between the man and El's limp body.  And this is what friendship should be like.  "You want her, you have to kill us first!"

"That's right!" Dustin agrees.

"Eat shit!" Lucas hollers.

"Yeah, you mother—" Alex starts, but she's cut off as a pair of strong arms wraps around her and pulls her close.  Strong hands clamp around her wrists and pull them to her upper chest as she thrashes wildly in her captor's grip.  She tastes blood in her mouth.  Her tongue throbs.  She's bitten it.  Suddenly, she's back at the Quarry, and James's forearm is digging into her windpipe.  She can't breathe.  She thrashes violently.  She is acutely aware that she stands no chance against the man who holds her, but she continues to resist anyway.  Alex is just blood and bone.  She is not gifted with abilities like El.  She cannot part oceans, only crowds, and even then it's because they fear her.  These men do not fear her.  In their eyes, she is just a tiny dot on the horizon.  Another body added to the sea that surrounds them.  Another tally mark on their kill list.  They probably do not even know her name (it makes it easier to get the job done).  "Don't touch me!  Stop!  No!  Get off of me!  Let me go!"

"No!" Alex hears Dustin shout.  "Get off me!"

"You idiot!" Lucas screams, trying to pry his captor's arm off of his chest.  "Let me go!"

Alex can only watch helplessly as the man kneels to the ground in front of El's limp body.  He cradles the girl in his arms.  El's eyes still remain peacefully shut, accented by the dark circles that have formed under her eyes.  She almost looks peaceful in the man's arms.  If Alex didn't know any better, she would think that they are father and daughter.  All tenderness and love and affection.  But Alex knows better, and that is what makes her angry.  How dare he act as though he hadn't put El through years and years of trauma and abuse.  How dare he act as though El does not freeze at the sight of him.  Maybe his form of abuse did not come in the form of slaps, maybe he did not personally subject El to that kind of abuse, but the abuse that he put her through still left El with invisible scars.  Scars that do not fade away.  He is the reason that she still tenses at their touch from time to time as if they might lash out at her.  He had stripped El of her humanity, raised her as though she were made to be viewed through a window—a display in a museum.  He doesn't deserve to look at El in the way that he does—the way a father looks at a daughter.  He is not a father.  He is not El's father.  He does not love her, no matter what he claims. 

Her anger spills over, and there it is again, that raw, red hot rage that boils in the pits of her stomach.  She hasn't felt it this raw and real in some time.  The boys have helped her.  The boys have tamed that flame, but now it's back and blazing brighter than ever.  This is the kind of rage that clouds her judgment.  That makes her think that she stands a chance.  This is the rage that parts crowds.  Alex thrashes again, more violently, this time, trying to throw her weight.  She doesn't care if she hurts herself in the process.  She swings her head back.  Hard.  Miraculously, she makes contact with something.  There's a crack and the man that restrains her cries out in pain.  His grip loosens just enough for Alex to wriggle out of his grip and scramble toward El and the man.

A hand reaches out desperately and clamps around her hair, yanking her back with a harsh tug.  Alex lets out a whimper of pain as she falls backward and collapses onto the ground.  She doesn't see the foot that swings toward her until it's too late.  Steel-toed boot makes contact with her ribs and pain explodes in her side.  She's been her fair of fights before but she's always managed to hold her own.  It's the rage that makes her deadly.  It's the morality that stops her opponents from seriously harming her.  Nothing can prepare her for this.  She barely hears the shouts of distress and protests from her friends, screaming for the man to stop.  She thinks she sees stars in the corner of her eyes—she had always thought that it was an experience exclusive to cartoon characters.  She's having a hard time breathing now.  Her ribs ache with each breath and her arms tremble from the pain as hot tears spring into her eyes.  She doesn't resist as the man grabs her by the shoulder and yanks her to her feet when its clear that she will not resist.  The fight within her left almost as quickly as it came.  Beat out of her by the man who grips her so tight she thinks that he might leave a bruise.

The man who holds El in his arms only watches her struggle indifferently.  What kind of a monster turns a blind eye to abuse?  And then she remembers why she's so angry in the first place.  He is the kind of monster who inflicts abuse.  How can a person be so conditioned to inflicting abuse that they no longer are affected by it?

"Eleven?" The man asks gently, cupping the sides of her head in his hands.  Eleven.  This only angers Alex more.  El is a human, not just another number.  This is a method of depersonalization.  It makes it easier for the man to hurt El when she is not as humanized in his eyes.  It makes it easier to kill her.  And it teaches her that she is not important because she is not human. "Eleven, can you hear me?  Eleven?"

From her place in the man's arms, El lets out a small whimper as she stirs, cracking her eyes open.  "Papa?"

"Yes, yes, it's your papa," he replies with a smile.  "I'm here now."

"Let her go!" Mike screams.  "Let her go!  You bastard!"

El looks around wildly at the array of states that her friends are in—from Lucas who is fighting tooth and nail to escape from his captor; to Mike who glares at the man with venom in his eyes, to Dustin who tries desperately to pry the arm of his captor off of his chest; to Alex who sags in the arms of her captor, clearly in pain and clearly trying to give her captor the satisfaction.  She lets out another whimper, too weak for words.  But the message is clear.  She is scared.  The man cups her face in his hands again and turns her away from her friends.

"Shh, shh," the man consoles in a whisper.  "You're sick.  You're sick, but I'm going to make you better.  I'm going to take you back home, where I can make you well again.  Where we can make all of this better, so no one else gets hurt."

"Bad...bad..." El recoils from the man's touch and shakes her head.  She turns to her friends.  Mike begins to thrash in his captor's grip once more and El reaches out a weak, shaking arm toward him.  "Mike...Mike..."  Her gaze drifts to Alex, who does not have the energy to fight anymore.  "Alex..."

And then, the lights from above begin to flicker.  Alex's breath catches in her throat.  She knows that it is not El who causes the sudden surge of electricity this time.  She is far too weak to use her powers this soon. 

"Blood," Mike realizes with a gasp.

Lucas snaps his head toward Mike.  "What?"

"Blood," Mike repeats, eyes wide and face pale. 

The blood drains from Alex's face as she looks out into the sea of dead bodies.  Puddles of bright, crimson blood have pooled around the bodies and smeared across the floors.  Loud thumps fill the hallway as something on the other side of the wall fights to break through.  The cracks in the plaster only grow larger as the violent thumping continues.  Small chunks of the wall rain down on them as the infrastructure becomes weaker and weaker with each thud.  Finally, the wall crumbles away completely and a head breaks through. 

An inhuman screech fills the hall as the monster opens its flower-like face to reveal rows upon rows of sharp teeth. 

Dustin's eyes widen.  "Demogorgon."

author's note: alex is an avid brenner hater.  i'm posting my will fic sometime tomorrow most likely, so if you're interested and would like to be tagged just lmk!!