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CHAPTER FOURTEEN
high-speed chase
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( the bathtub, pt. i )

• °:.☆ . ₊°• ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

LAURA STRUGGLES TO comprehend everything that Dustin has just thrown at her. He'd told the story of the past week at an impressive speed, complete with random details that she isn't sure she needs to know—like this random child making the school bully wet his pants in front of the school—along with wild hand motions and sound effects.

They're sitting on opposing bean bag chairs in the Wheeler's basement, and now it feels too quiet without Dustin's rambling. He fidgets while he waits for her to finish processing everything.

"So... she can move things... with her mind...?" Laura asks.

"Yes!" Dustin exclaims, pleased that she'd understood. "It's wicked. She always gets a nosebleed, though, but it's no big deal—she just wipes it away."

"And you think she can help us find Will and Barb?"

"We know so," he corrects her. "The place where Eleven is from—it has a door to the other world."

Her spine stiffens. "The other world?"

"Yeah, where Will is. And your friend. Where the monster is hunting them."

Laura remembers pulsing, warm walls and thick mucus dripping all over her. Flashes of that faceless thing appear in her mind. She can smell the ripe scent of blood and decaying flesh from the animals it had devoured, can remember the fear that had almost paralyzed her as she struggled to navigate that desolate place. Even now, that same terror begins to pump through her veins, increasing her heart rate.

"What if there's more than one gate?" she asks. "Is that possible?"

Dustin considers this. "Eleven only knows about the one." He squints, fully absorbing Laura's question. "Why?"

"I think I've gone through it."

Just as a wide-eyed Dustin opens his mouth, a crackling noise emits from a walkie-talkie placed on the table beside them. Both of their heads whip toward the sudden interruption. The crackles sound again, this time interspersed with the sound of a familiar voice shouting indistinctly.

"Is that Lucas?" Laura asks.

"Holy shit." Dustin catapults himself to his feet and runs toward the bathroom where Mike and Eleven are, flinging the door open. "Guys! It's Lucas. I think he's in trouble."

Laura stands as well, trying to make out the jumbled words. Lucas sounds frantic. Even if she can't understand what he's saying, it's clear that something is wrong.

"Do you remember how he said he was looking for the gate?" Dustin asks.

"Yeah?" Mike replies.

"What if he found it?"

Dustin picks up the walkie-talkie and extends the antenna as far as it can reach. Mike grabs it from him, pausing as another round of panicked shouts fills the air.

"What's he saying?" Mike asks.

Dustin shakes his head. "I don't know, he's way out of range."

"I'm sorry, you said Lucas went looking for a gate by himself?" Laura frowns, watching as Mike faces her, surprised, like he'd forgotten she was there. "You guys are twelve! There is a monster on the loose! He could've been — what if he got eaten?"

"We didn't make him go!" Mike argues back. "He's been so... so skeptical of El, and he just left before we could stop him. You know Lucas; he'll barrel his way through anything to do what he wants."

It takes Laura a moment to realize that "El" is short for "Eleven". The girl is sitting silently, her dark eyes flickering between each of them as they volley back and forth. She doesn't appear frightened. Rather, it's more like she's absorbing everything with caution. (Their introduction had been brief—a quick "Laura, this is Eleven. Eleven, this is my sister's friend, Laura. We can trust her,"—and then Mike had whisked her away into the bathroom.) Laura still doesn't know what to make of this child. But she does admire the fact that Eleven doesn't talk as much as the boys.

Lucas's voice continues to fire through the walkie-talkie. The first clear set of words is a vicious shout of, "...son of a bitch!"

Mike presses the button on the side and raises the radio to his mouth. "Lucas, if you can hear us, slow down. We can't understand you."

"Yes — copy! Do you? They — Eleven! — there! Eleven! The — are coming! All of them! — hear me? The bad men are coming!"

"'Mad hen'," Dustin repeats. "Does that mean anything to you? Like a code name or something?"

"The bad men are coming!"

"'Bad men'," Mike corrects, blinking. "Bad men!"

Laura is grateful she'd chosen this time to entice the children with bribery brownies. They can't possibly drag their parents into this mess, so asking Mrs. Wheeler for help is out of the question. This is entirely up to them to solve. If Nancy isn't here, she's going to step in and play the role of big sister—and nobody is allowed to mess with their little brother except for them.

Just as she turns toward the stairs, Mike tells Eleven, "Stay here!" and follows on her heels while they thunder up the wooden steps. Dustin trails after them; Laura can hear him huffing and puffing.

She sprints toward the door to their attached garage and flings it open, her wild eyes whirling around the interior. She locates her dad's hunting rifle in the same spot she'd hidden it. Relief causes her shoulders to deflate. Darting toward it, she grabs the weapon by the forestock and digs through her ruined backpack, also hidden in the corner, to retrieve the boxes of spare ammunition. There's no way she's putting that disgusting thing back on, so she shoves them into her jacket pockets for now. It's a good thing her dad's old coat has deep ones.

When she returns to the house, Mike turns the corner and shouts when he notices the huge gun in her hand. "Low, where did you get that from?"

"Do you have a spare backpack?"

"What?"

"A spare backpack, knucklehead. Do you have one?"

"Yeah, upstairs in my closet. Why—?"

Laura sets off for the second level before he can finish, her socks sliding on the brown carpet, almost causing her to faceplant before she catches herself with one hand. She bursts into his bedroom. Its typical boyish messiness doesn't register in her mind. It's like she has tunnel vision, his closet becoming clearer than the clutter in her peripheral vision.

Everything happens in snippets. In an instant, the closet is open. Next, her hands are rummaging through his clothes and shoes. She finally produces what he'd said would be there: a child-size Mickey Mouse backpack with bold primary colors and star patterns on each strap.

It will have to do.

Laura transfers the ammunition from her pockets to the bag. Her movements are so jerky she almost rips one of the zippers off as she yanks it shut, slinging the small straps over her shoulders. The rifle goes over it.

"Mike!" Dustin's voice calls from downstairs.

Laura runs to the first level to see Dustin yank the curtains that face the street closed. Her heart jumps. The fear on the kid's face confirms that Lucas's warning was too late— the "bad men" have already arrived.

Dustin sprints to the kitchen, where Mike and Mrs. Wheeler are arguing. Laura stays out of sight, knowing that if she's seen with a gun strapped to her back in their house, Mrs. Wheeler is probably going to call Laura's mom and ask questions. She does not have time for her father to scold her for taking his gun without permission.

"Mike!" Dustin repeats louder this time. "We need to leave. Right. Now."

Footsteps thump against the tile. He returns to the foyer, jamming his sneakers onto his feet. Laura copies his actions, wrestling the back of her shoe over her heel, one hand placed on the front door to keep her balance.

"Michael!" Mrs. Wheeler calls.

Mike exclaims in response, "If anyone asks where I am, I've left the country!"

He retrieves his denim jacket and Eleven, and the quartet flees through the back door. Two bicycles are lying on the dying grass. The boys seize them by the handlebars, wheeling them alongside as they run toward the street. Laura's longer legs enable her to move faster than them, so she reaches the street first, a chain-link fence blocking her path. Her heart pounds from both anxiety and exertion.

Mike hops onto his bicycle, allowing Eleven to sit on the back with her feet on the pegs. Dustin glances back at Laura meaningfully.

She hisses, "Hell no, I am not riding on your pegs."

"This is my bike!" Dustin whisper-yells.

"My legs are too long! You get on the back!"

"Both of you, shut up!" Mike chastises them.

He jerks his head toward the street. A series of Hawkins Power and Light vans has parked near the curb, each of their back doors wide open. Laura would bet anything that it's in anticipation of throwing children inside. And she is certain that the men in blue jumpsuits stalking toward them are not electricians. The white-haired guy in a suit leading them certainly isn't.

"Go, go, go, go, go!" Dustin shouts, slapping Laura's arm fervently. She snatches the handlebars from him and hops onto the bike. Recognizing the urgency of their situation, he climbs onto the back without complaint, looping his arms around her midsection.

Since the bike is meant for a child, her knees nearly slam into the handles with each pump of her legs that set them moving across the lawn, cutting through backyards to get ahead of the bad guys. The uneven terrain makes it shake so hard that her teeth rattle in her skull. She grits them in determination, her thighs screaming from the effort it takes to lug both of them forward.

It doesn't help that Dustin won't stop rambling. His voice is a constant sound, grating on her spiked nerves like the buzzing of a fly. "Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God—"

"Will you be quiet?" Laura asks through gritted teeth. Her stomach aches when they drop off the curb and land on an adjoining street from Maple. "You're not helping."

The asphalt makes for a much smoother ride. Laura pedals hard alongside Mike, the icy wind blowing her ponytail back into Dustin's face. He sputters and spits in response to her dark locks smacking him. She tries not to think about the fact that he's getting spit in her hair.

"Dustin!" Lucas's voice is barely audible through Dustin's headphones. Since they provide a buffer from the whistling breeze, he can hear much better than she can. "Dustin, do you copy?"

"Yeah, Lucas, they're on us," he replies.

"Where are you?"

"Cornwallis. Blegh — hair — it's in my mouth."

"Meet me at Elm and Cherry!"

"Copy. Elm and Cherry!"

"Okay," Mike replies, cutting the curb onto Elm.

Laura can't possibly replicate that movement without sending both her and Dustin sprawling onto the pavement, so she follows much more carefully, half-standing on the pedals to generate more power. Dustin clutches onto her for dear life. She hopes that the rifle isn't banging into him too much.

They speed down the street, houses passing by in a blur, the trees starting to grow denser this close to the Eastern Woods. Laura's mind juggles possible hiding spots. Could they blend into a crowd? Eleven's pink dress and blue coat make her too recognizable, not to mention her shaved head. This part of Hawkins has only houses—no public places for them to attempt to hide in.

"Shit!" Dustin releases a pitchy, pre-pubescent shriek into her ear.

Laura glances behind them to see three white vans turning onto Cherry from Gloucester. Their tires squeal, leaving skid marks on the street in their desperation to catch up.

The geography of Hawkins presents itself like a map in her head. There's no way they're going to reach Lucas before the vehicles catch up to them.

But Mike is already one step ahead of her fears. He cycles through these streets every day and knows each shortcut like the back of his hand. "This way, come on!"

He leads them up someone's driveway and onto their lawn. His bicycle bell rings, a warning sign for the children playing in the yard. The thin tires struggle over the carpet of dead pine needles on the grass, causing Laura to tighten her grip to maintain control. The last thing they need is to slip and eat shit on the ground.

"Out of the way! Out of the way!" Dustin yells.

Two girls playing patty-cake jump apart. They zoom right through them, ignoring their surprised shrieks, and curve around the adjacent house until they reach Cherry.

Lucas approaches from their left. Laura brakes, panting, her face numb from the cold, as he stops beside Mike. He's wearing a rust-colored jacket and a camouflage bandana tied across his forehead. Some sort of battle armor for his solo mission. Laura has to admire that he'd dressed for the part.

"Lucas!" Mike exclaims.

"Where are they?" he asks through heaving breaths. He does a double-take when he sees Laura, but decides that now is not the time to inquire about why she's there.

Mike replies, "I don't know!"

"I think we lost them," Dustin says.

The familiar sound of screeching tires from behind them proves that statement false. Laura feels the urge to smack him for even saying that.

"Go, go, go, go!" Mike shrieks.

Laura doesn't even feel the burn anymore, her body completely overtaken by adrenaline, as she starts pedaling again. It's a slow process due to her and Dustin's combined weight. Even with the aid of the incoming downhill slope, she knows that their attempts are futile—they're locked in by a small patch of woods on one side and houses on the other. Those vans are going to catch them.

Each of the boys' frantic voices shouts different things, from "Go, go!" and "Shit! Shit! Shit!" to "Faster!" Laura stays silent in comparison. Speaking is only going to make her lose her breath faster, and she can't afford that. She needs all the oxygen she can get.

Another van pulls onto Cherry ahead of them. They continue heading straight for it, the pull of gravity too powerful for them to brake now without flipping over the handlebars. All Laura can hear is Dustin screaming in her ears as the front of the van looms closer. She prepares to make a hard right at the last second.

Except she doesn't have to. One moment, the van rushes toward them. The next, it launches into the air by an invisible force, causing Laura to tilt her head back in awe as she watches it sail over their heads. Glass shatters and metal crunches on impact. The vehicle crashes perpendicular to the road, blocking the others from continuing after them, and probably killing whoever was inside.

They continue in stunned silence for a few seconds. Laura checks behind them several times to make sure she's not seeing things. But no, smoke is rising from the bottom of the van, the top has been crushed like an aluminum can, and the white-haired man is watching them go in resignation.

So that kid really can move things with her mind. It's not that Laura thought Dustin was lying—especially not after what she's been through this week—but it's the kind of thing that doesn't truly sink in until you see it happen. Especially on something as large as a moving van.

"Is everyone okay?" she asks, her voice trembling.

"Yeah!" Mike replies.

"Copy," Lucas says.

Silence from behind her. "Dustin?"

"Trying not to puke."

Laura sighs in relief. She looks at Eleven, who has blood trickling from her nose, and smiles. "That's one hell of a trick."

"That means she thinks you're cool," Mike informs her.

Surprised, Eleven blinks. Then her mouth turns upwards in the tiniest of grins.

—°• ☆ . °—

By the time they reach the junkyard, Laura can't feel her legs. She merely goes through the motions of pedaling without thinking. Her chest heaves with ragged breaths; there's been a painful stitch in her side for the past few miles, turning her stomach into knots. She didn't think she was out of shape, but she's slacking in comparison to the younger kids who cruise around Hawkins without breaking a sweat.

The grass peters out into large patches of packed dirt the further into the junkyard they travel. Abandoned vehicles surround them—broken-down pickup trucks that are completely rusted over, old buses gutted so nothing useful remains inside, and piles of scrap metal. The area is completely quiet, but not eerily so like the woods are. It's more peaceful on this side of town without the hustle and bustle of human activity.

Mike tosses his bike down beside a dilapidated city bus. Laura steers herself and Dustin in that direction, allowing the tires to coast over the dirt to conserve energy. Her legs wobble when she finally sets them on solid ground, setting the bike down more gently than Mike had.

"Holy... holy shit!" Dustin breathes. Why he's panting when Laura had done all the work, she doesn't know, but maybe he's still experiencing a minor heart attack from being pursued by men in scary vans. "Did... did you see what she did to that van?"

"No, Dustin, we missed it," Mike replies, his voice full of biting sarcasm.

"I mean that was..."

"Awesome," Lucas finishes.

Eleven turns around when she hears his voice, her brows furrowed. Blood is still trickling from one of her nostrils.

"It was awesome." He crouches in front of her, leaning forward in earnest as he speaks. "Everything I said about you being a traitor and stuff... I was wrong. I'm sorry."

"Friends..." Eleven begins. Laura is struck by just how high her voice is. (Of course it is, she's a little girl, but a part of her had been expecting something different.) "Friends don't lie. I'm sorry, too."

"Me, too," Mike adds. He holds out a hand.

Lucas pushes himself to his feet, eyeing the peace offering outstretched toward him. One corner of his mouth turns upward. Then he clasps Mike's hand with his own. And they shake on it.

Minutes later, they kneel on the ground with a makeshift map splayed out in the center of their circle, broken pieces of wood and sticks acting as markers for whatever Lucas had discovered. Laura focuses intently so she doesn't miss anything. She'd been a part of the planning for monster hunting, but this is a new aspect of a plight that is much bigger than she originally thought.

"This is Randolph Road, right here," Lucas says, drawing a line beside the thickest chunk of wood. He points to the wood. "The fence starts here and goes all the way around. And this is the lab right here." He places an empty beer can slightly off-center. "The gate's gotta be in there somewhere. It's gotta be."

"Nancy and I may have found another gate in the woods," Laura says. All attention snaps to her. She keeps her eyes on that empty can as she speaks. "But it's small—we had to crawl in, and it was" — an involuntary shiver wracks her body at the memory — "disgusting. Wet. Warm. Felt like the inside of a slug. And the monster has been using it to hunt between worlds, so it might not be safe to travel through without, you know, being monster lunch."

Lucas, Mike, and Dustin stare at her in shock like they've forgotten she has a life outside of theirs, and she doesn't just exist when she appears on their doorsteps with baked goods. Apparently it didn't occur to them that others might be involved in this mess.

"El?" Mike asks, turning to look at her. "Do you know about this other gate?"

Eleven thinks for a moment before shaking her head. She points to the aluminum can. "In there."

Mike turns back to Laura. "Looks like we have to stick with the one in the lab. If the monster is away from the main gate, that means we'll have a better chance of getting our friends back without it interfering."

"Well, who owns Hawkins Lab?" Dustin asks.

"The sign says 'Department of Energy'," Lucas answers.

Dustin is already trying to get to the bottom of it. "'Department of Energy'. What do you think that means?"

"It means government," Mike says. "Military."

"Then why does it say 'Energy'?"

"Just trust me, alright?"

"Because people would probably feel uneasy about a government base sitting in the middle of Hawkins, but they won't think twice about an energy plant." Laura shrugs. "I mean, when have we ever looked at that place twice?"

"Exactly," Mike says. "It's military. My dad's told me before."

"There's soldiers out front," Lucas says.

Dustin stares at him. "Do they make, like, lightbulbs or something?"

"No, weapons to fight the Russians and commies and stuff," Mike replies.

"It's not an actual energy plant," Laura explains. "They use the name as a cover, so, like I said, people don't get suspicious."

That makes a lightbulb go off in Dustin's head. "Ohhhhh."

A piece of Mike's words sticks in Lucas's mind. "Weapons," he says, looking meaningfully at Eleven.

"Oh, Jesus, this is bad," Dustin says.

"Really bad. The place is like a fortress."

"Well, what do we do?"

"I don't know, but we can't go home," Mike says. "We're fugitives now."

Laura sighs. "And I was just at the police station, too."

"What?" Mike asks. "Why?"

"Long story. Jonathan beat the shit out of Steve."

"Oh. Cool."

Any further discussion is interrupted by helicopter blades whirring overhead. Laura freezes.

"G—Guys?" Dustin stammers. "Do you hear that?"

They squint up at the clouds, searching for the source of the sound. Laura spots the machine heading toward them from the right.

"Shit," she curses, standing and hauling Lucas and Mike up by the collars of their jackets. She pushes them into motion since all they appear to be doing is staring at it with open mouths. "Hide! Now! Go!"

They grab their bicycles and shove them under the bus, fighting to make them fit. Laura uses her foot to jam them further underneath. None of them care about doing any damage when their lives are at stake.

"Good enough," she says. "It doesn't have to be perfect. Just go!"

They sprint into the bus, which reeks of sun-baked metal and old leather, clambering one after the other to get inside. The helicopter grows louder.

Mike shouts, "Get down!"

Laura flings herself onto the floor near the back, placing her hands on Mike and Eleven's shoulders reassuringly. The helicopter noise begins to fade as quickly as it had appeared.

Dustin stares up at the ceiling. "Mental."

The interior of the bus, with its grime-coated windows and cracked red seats, serves as the complete opposite of the cool autumnal weather outside. The metal has soaked up the day's sun. It turns the bus into an oven of sorts. Even though Laura had been freezing before, she's sweating, causing flyaway hairs from her ponytail to stick to the sides of her face.

"We can't leave," she says. "They're going to keep looking. We don't have time to get those bikes out and ride away without them seeing us—there's no cover over here."

She looks at each of the kids in turn. They're all breathing heavily, their eyes wide with apprehension, faces full of fear of something much bigger than them. A surge of protectiveness washes over her.

This is far from over. Laura had failed to protect Barb. When it comes to these kids, she's going to keep them safe no matter what it takes.

________

a/n:

laura is holding onto these children by the scruffs of their necks like kittens and i'm here for it. we stan one (1) exasperated lesbian babysitter wearing her dad's trucker jacket, a mickey mouse backpack, and a hunting rifle. i wish i could draw this.

ok for reference for the backpack i was thinking of something with a design like this:

but the size of this one:

laura only knows TRUE fashion and that is a fact.

i'm so glad i got to write more of laura's moments with the kids because they're hilarious. i hope you enjoyed this change from the rest of the book, which is more teen-drama-centered. i had a blast writing it!!

thank you for reading!

— kristyn

( word count: 4.2k )