the problem with the junkyard

. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧

Gabriel Burton was currently sitting against a rusted car—the very same car, in fact, that Lucas Sinclair had been thrown into last year, but Gabe didn't know that—a newspaper in hand, reading the Chicago news. He didn't always read about Hawkins—the newspapers here were as bland as a piece of toast, mostly consisting of 'news' about things like how someone's cat had gone missing or how Hawkins was planning to build a new mall, which got boring real quick. Sometimes he liked reading about Chicago, his old city, and when he read about it, he could pretend he was living there again, that he could look out his window at night and see the glitter of a hundred buildings.

Hawkins was so quiet compared to Chicago. It made him uncomfortable, even now. He didn't like the only sounds in the morning to be the birds chirping. He didn't like how he would walk alone most of the time on sidewalks, instead of being shoved by a hundred others. He didn't like the smell of Hawkins, either—Max had told him her stepbrother, Billy had compared it to cow shit, although to him, it mostly just smelled like hay. As a contrast, Chicago had smelled like hot dogs and cigarettes and opportunities.

There were these things that Gabe had hated in Chicago that he found he actually missed now that he was in Hawkins. The public transportation—there weren't many buses here, and not a single subway car—the largely populated schools, the skate parks filled with screaming kids. But he'd been the one to make the choice to come here, to Hawkins. So Gabe figured he might as well learn to like it.

And indeed, the people in Hawkins were better than the ones in Chicago. Even if his so-called friends liked to exclude him and Max. Okay, so he was mostly thinking about Will as the better people, for the way he listened to Gabe's constant rambling, the way he'd gone as a Ghostbuster for Halloween and hadn't looked stupid, the way he sometimes chewed on the end of his pencil while thinking.

Gabe's note to him for Alina's proposed positivity project had been you're really cool, Will Byers. He wished he'd thought of the idea himself.

It had been quiet here for the past few hours, but suddenly it wasn't very quiet anymore. Gabe was just turning a page of his newspaper when a voice broke the silence.

"Oh, yeah. Yeah, this'll do."

It was a boy's voice, one Gabe didn't recognize, and he lifted his eyes away from the newspaper to locate the source of it. "This will do just fine," the voice said again. "Good call, dude."

By scanning the area, Gabe finally got a glimpse of three figures walking into the junkyard. One of them was a tall, older teenager with really great hair and sunglasses covering his eyes, and Gabe assumed that he was the one who had spoken. Because he recognized the other two.

Alina and Dustin followed the older boy further into the junkyard, rubber gloves snapped on their wrists for some reason, scattering meat behind them. Alina, who was slightly behind Dustin, looked up for a minute, and stopped when she locked eyes with Gabe. He raised his hand in a wave.

Alina dropped her bucket on the ground and headed over to greet him. Her face was flushed, and Gabe could see sweat on her forehead. "Uh, hey, Gabe," she said awkwardly. "What are you doing here?"

"...reading." For once, Gabe didn't ramble. "What's with the buckets?"

Alina took one of her gloves off and wiped the sweat off her forehead. "We're setting a trap for Dart," she explained. "Dustin... he kept it. And then it grew. Again."

"Oh." Gabe closed his newspaper. "So does that mean you know what he is, then?"

"Unfortunately." And then Alina just stood there for a couple seconds, squinting awkwardly against the bright sun. "Uh, you should go. You don't... you really don't want to be caught up in this. We can take it from here."

"No!" Gabe got to his feet. "No way. I've been looking for Dart all around the neighborhood, and I want to help you guys catch him. Please, I promise I can be helpful. Like, literally, you can give me anything to do and I'll do it, no matter how disgusting it is. Seriously. Please, Alina?"

Alina turned to Dustin, who had just arrived. "What's going on?" he asked. "Oh. Hi Gabe."

Gabe clasped his palms together. "Please?" he said again.

Alina let out a chuckle. "Sure, whatever. Come on, Gabe." And at Dustin's look of horror, she shrugged. "We don't have to tell him everything. And we've already left him out of enough. Come on, Dustin, please?"

Dustin sighed. "Fine. Gabe, you can help us."

Gabe beamed, getting to his feet. "Alright," he said, rolling up his newspaper. "Just tell me what I need to do."

Alina led Gabe and Dustin back to Steve, who was looking confused. "Who's the new kid?" he asked, dumping his bucket of meat into the middle.

"This is Gabe," said Dustin. "He knows about Dart already, he helped us look. He wanted to help, and Alina said it was okay."

"Sure, whatever," said Steve, and Alina smiled, dumping her own bucket into the pile Steve had begun. Dustin did the same, and just as the last of the congealing meat was poured out of the bucket, a new voice entered the equation.

"I said medium-well!"

And at that, Alina flinched.

Lucas Sinclair stood by his bike, waving at the impromptu group. He was wearing a beige jacket of his that Alina used to steal, and his camouflage bandanna was tied around his head. He looked so beautiful standing there in the sunlight, a cheesy grin lighting up his face, that Alina almost had to look away. But then she saw the girl standing beside him. A girl with one hand slung into her pocket, her fiery red hair tumbling down her body.

Max.

Alina knew what that meant, knew the significance of her arrival. It meant that Lucas had told her everything, which was breaking about a million rules in the party's handbook. And the fact that Max hadn't brought a bike of her own—and she didn't have her skateboard, either—meant that Max had ridden on the back of Lucas's bike to get here.

Really? Alina thought to herself. Detective Fairgrieves has to come out now?

Dustin and Alina turned to each other, sharing an equally disappointed look. Dustin kept his eye on Max as she walked over, and Alina stared at Lucas. He looked so perfect with her. A beautiful boy and a beautiful girl. A boy whose smile lit up rooms and a girl whose eyes did the same. Alina finally turned away, noting the clear disappointment in Dustin's face, and laced her hand into his. He squeezed it gratefully.

Alas, it was never meant to be. Alina remembered the arcade yesterday. Lucas had probably told Max everything yesterday, and then they'd made out or something. He wouldn't care if he was breaking the party rules, because he loved her that much.

Exactly. Lucas doesn't like you. He never did. He lied to you, Alina.

Why don't you do something about it?

"Who's that?" Steve asked, snapping Alina out of her funk. He was nodding at Max, who walked over cool as always. Neither Alina nor Dustin responded, which was the cue for Gabe to jump in with his usual motormouth. Alina didn't even mind it, really.

"That's Max," he said. "She was the new kid with me. She's really nice. We became friends after the first day, because we new kids have to stick together, right?" he furrowed his brow. "I don't know why she's with Lucas, though. They weren't on very good terms on Friday."

Dustin let out a sigh. And as soon as Lucas dropped his bike, walking up to them with a casual "so? What's the plan?" Dustin grabbed his arm and pulled him away, the two boys heading behind a car, presumably to talk about the whole 'Lucas-told-Max-what-we-swore-not-to-tell-anyone' thing. Alina was glad for it. She didn't want to talk to Lucas right now.

So instead, she, Gabe, Max and Steve all set up for their plan, grabbing spare pieces of scrap metal and lining them up against the bus. As they worked, Alina and Max moved slightly away from the others, and Alina tensed for the conversation she knew was coming.

"So," Max said awkwardly. "How's it going?"

Alina didn't respond, instead picking up another sheet of metal. She wouldn't forget what Max had said to her on Friday.

Max sighed. "Fair. Look, I'm really sorry about Friday and everything, but I just have to ask—the stalker's not totally insane, is he? Like, was he telling the truth?"

Alina raked a curl out from in front of her face. "Depends on what he told you."

"About telekinetic girls, and parallel universes, and bad men from the lab?"

"That's true." Alina stacked up another sheet of metal. At Max's dubious expression, she exhaled, shaking her head. "Look, Max, I don't care if you believe the story or not, but it's true, and Lucas shouldn't have told you. We made a rule that we weren't going to get anyone else involved in this."

"Did you tell Gabe?" Max asked.

Alina turned to look at the boy, who was lugging a giant piece of metal off the ground. "No. As much as I want to, I'm not breaking our rules. The only reason he's here is that he already was when we got here. All he knows is that we're trying to find Dart." She pursed her lips. "And for what it's worth, Max, I really am sorry for excluding you and Gabe. It's such a shitty thing to do, but there really wasn't any other way."

"I'm sorry, too. For what I said on Friday. You've probably been the nicest out of them all. With your whole plan with Will and everything? And hanging out with you at the arcade was pretty fun. After all of this, we should hang out again."

Alina smiled. "Yeah. I'd like that, Max."

Despite how angry (or perhaps just heartbroken) she might have been at Lucas, she never would take it out on Max. Max was hard to hate. It was probably why both Dustin and Lucas had a crush on her.

Max smiled, too. "Cool. Also, by the way, your hair is really pretty." She reached out a hand and flicked Alina's curls. "Seriously."

Holy shit.

Alina was still grinning to herself when she felt eyes on her back. She turned around to the car Lucas and Dustin were still behind to find them staring through the window at her and Max. As they met Alina's gaze, they quickly ducked behind it again.

Max snorted. "Sheesh. They're so weird."

"Tell me about it," Alina agreed, just as Steve thumped an old chair on the said rusted car.

"Hey! Dickheads! How come the only people helping me out are Alina and these random kids? We lose light in forty minutes, let's go. Let's go, I said!"

"All right, asshole!" Dustin yelled back. "God."

And so, they prepared. Alina avoided Lucas as much as possible, which turned out to be easy when you had something to do. She instead mostly worked with Gabe and Max, something that did not go unseen to the boy she was avoiding. She felt a grim satisfaction in that as she worked, piling metal down, rolling barrels, pouring gasoline over the pile of food they'd set up for Dart. Max and Alina found an old ladder, and stuck it through the roof of the bus, which they would be using as home base.

Just like last year.

And as Alina worked, she felt a sense of pride for herself in finally being able to accomplish something. Something that would perhaps help Will. She worked and she sweated—still a lot more than her friends for some reason—and she lived through the pain, relished in her burning lungs and her aching calves. And as the darkness began to roll in, Alina closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and prepared herself. It was almost time.

Breathe, Alina. Breathe in. Hold. Breathe out.

It didn't seem like a bad reminder anymore. Not a reminder that she was broken. But a reminder that she was still here.

But so was the creature dwelling inside.

. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧

a/n: oh? 👀👀 things are happening!! we're getting more information!! also, i planted a little foreshadowing to this all the way back in book one :)) it was at the very beginning and i feel like most of you forgot about it lmao. if you can find it, let me know!! 

'till next time!