Chapter Text
El watched tall metal structures build themselves up from the ground, creating a skyline beyond the van’s windows. Behind it, she could still hear the police officers shuffling around and shouting at each other.
“Go, go, go!” Axel yelled.
“Yeah, I know,” Mick growled back as she slammed her foot on the petal.
El turned away from the growing steel buildings and came face to face with her sister.
“If you wanted to show mercy, that was your choice. But don’t you ever take away mine. Ever,” Kali snarled, wiping the blood from her nose. El nodded, paying close attention to Kali’s pinched eyebrows and twisted mouth. Her sister was very, very mad. Mad at her.
El’s breaths started coming in short gasps.
She turned away from Kali, looking back out the window. Bright lights smeared across the gray backdrop of the city. Watching buildings fly by, however, didn’t calm her down like the sight of passing trees did in Hawkings. El looked down at her hands; sometimes that helped when she felt like this, felt as though the weight of the world was pressing down on her chest.
“Where we headed now, Boss-o?” Dottie asked from the back of the van.
“I have a place for us,” Kali responded. Her voice sounded softer now, more like a drizzle and less like a storm. That was good. El still didn’t risk looking up.
“Oh, a place. Great.”
“Seriously, Axel?” Mick asked from the front. “After all this, you’re gonna doubt her?”
Axel mumbled something like a “no”, but El couldn’t really hear him. She was focused on the sharp lines of her palms. She followed them with her eyes, tracing from her index finger to her pinkie to her thumb– where she saw a dark spot of blood.
She saw the man’s face in her mind again, his temple stained a deep red, his face purple from lack of air. She saw the two young faces in the picture next to him. They were smiling. They were smiling, and their father was dying. She was killing their father. Monster.
She blinked again, and then the blood was everywhere. It covered the white walls and the tiled floor and was dripping from her hands.
“No… no,” She whispered. “No, no, no, no–” She tried to scrub the blood off, but it didn’t move. Screams echoed against the walls. “Please– please, no–” She couldn’t breathe. Her lungs gasped and burned, but she couldn’t breathe.
“Jane?”
They were all screaming. Red was everywhere.
What have you done?
Monster.
The screams got louder and louder. Eleven sobbed, clawing desperately at the blood that refused to rub off.
“Jane.” Something touched her arm, and she shuddered, flinching away. “Jane.” The voice was gentle, and the words were shaped differently. Some sounds were rounder and softer, some sharper than usual.
The same hands from a moment ago, surprisingly gentle, took Eleven’s hands and cradled them away from her body. “Careful,” the voice said, in that lilting tone so different from the doctors’ commands. Eleven looked up, her eyes damp with unshed tears, and found warm eyes circled with eyeshadow. Kali.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” Eleven murmured between short breaths.
“Jane, look at me.”
Kali released one of Eleven’s hands. She held it in a fist, then opened her fingers slowly. A butterfly unfurled shimmering wings. The colors from it spilled across the van’s seats and refracted against the windows. Eleven’s eyes widened.
“Good,” Her sister said. “Now focus on your breaths.”
Eleven did as she was told, though it took some time. The butterfly would flap its wings as a signal of when to inhale and exhale. Both that and the steady pulse of Kali’s wrist against hers eventually slowed the girl’s breathing down.
“Are you back?”
El nodded. She turned and pulled away, hugging her knees to her chest. “Sorry,” she croaked. Then, “I should go.”
From the backseat, Funshine shifted. “No, kid,” he said, his voice low. “You shouldn’t.”
“If Jane wishes to leave, she can,” Kali interjected calmly. “This is not a prison. Though you have no need to be sorry, Jane.”
They would let her leave. Good. But… where would she go? Hopper… Hopper wouldn’t want her once he figured out what a monster she was. Neither would Mike.
“No.” El shook her head. “Stay here.”
“You want to stay here?” Kali confirmed, tilting her head for confirmation.
“Yes.”
“Alright. If you change your mind, you can leave at any time. I promise you.”
El nodded.
“Yay!” Dottie exclaimed from the back. “You’re so much more fun than boring ol’ Kal.” El didn’t think that was true but smiled a little bit anyway. “Hey, Mickey, where are we going?”
“Shut up,” Mick called back.
“She knows where she’s going, Dot,” Kali replied.
El rested her head against the window again, watching the city pass by. They drove through so many winding roads that she couldn’t believe that anybody could keep them all straight. Eventually, the van turned into the corner of a dark alley. Mick shut off the engine and everyone scrambled out.
“What are we looking at, here?” Axel asked.
“Plan B,” Mick replied with a slight glare. “So no complaining.”
El watched in awe as they stepped over pieces of broken glass and cigarette butts. After more than a few minutes of walking, they went through a small, rusted door on the side of an abandoned building.
El immediately recognized it to be a diner. A heavy blanket of dust laid on every visible surface, and the tables and booths were covered with plastic tarps.
“Huh,” Axel said.
“Nice digs,” Dottie exclaimed, skipping around to inspect the degraded photos still hung on the fraying wallpaper.
“Not bad,” was all that Funshine had to offer.
Mick had already pulled a slat of wood from the boarded windows to keep watch, and Kali was headed toward the kitchen. El stood awkwardly for a moment, before following her sister behind the counter. Kali emerged from the pantry, handling cans of beans.
“Anyone hungry?”
El nodded and Dottie clapped exuberantly behind her.
“Well then,” Kali continued, “Let’s settle in.”
With a tilt of her head, El pulled the dusty tarp off of the kitchen counter, giving them all a place to sit. They pulled themselves onto the countertop, and Axel gave El an impressed whistle.
“Well done, Shirley,” he said, grinning. He raised an arm and tussled her hair.
Cold hands placed a mesh of wires on her shaved head.
“Remember, Eleven– it can’t hurt you in there.”
Soft, wet flesh that squelched when she poked it. A roar like she’d never heard as that creature had looked at her, had seen her. It wanted to hunt her.
Papa had lied.
Somebody groaned from the ground. Eleven looked down, breathing heavily. Axel was splayed on his back at the very opposite corner of the diner. Eleven’s hand was outstretched. She noticed Kali, Mick, Dottie, and Funshine all staring at her. They see that you’re a monster.
Suddenly, Dottie started giggling. Eleven looked up, confused. She’d just hurt their friend, just shown them how horrible she really was, and they were laughing? Funshine was smiling and Mick was wearing a large smirk.
“Hey, Ax,” Kali called out. “Watch the hair next time.” Eleven turned to her. Why were they all okay with this? Did they not see what she had just done? Kali noticed her sister’s expression. “It’s alright, Jane,” she said. “It was Axel’s fault, not yours.”
Axel himself came limping back to the table. “You’ve sure got some power on ya’, kid.”
Eleven shrunk into herself. “Sorry.”
“Nah, this one wasn’t on you,” he replied.
“Wasn’t… on me?” Eleven asked, confused.
“Yeah, uh… I should’ve asked before touching you. It was my bad.”
“Oh.” She thought she understood what he meant now. But she didn’t understand why he thought that. She had been the one who hurt him.
“That was great!” Dottie praised. “I wish I could do that to him every day!”
“Yeah,” Mick added, “That was real satisfying.”
Funshine offered El a can of beans, smiling at her. They all sat in silence for a little while, eating their meager meal. The beans were sweeter than El had anticipated, and had a strange sauce. But she ate them without complaint; she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had any food at all. It had probably a day or two ago, at Aunt Becky’s house.
“Will everybody be ready to head out again in the morning?” Kali finally asked once they had all finished. “I have another lead for us.”
After receiving nods from most of the group members and a jaunty “Mhmm!” from Dottie, Kali turned to El. El stuttered for a moment, trying to think of the words she wanted to say.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to go,” Kali reassured.
El swallowed, then finally asked, “More Bad Men?”
“Yes,” Kali said. “But we only give the Bad Men what they deserve.”
El looked down at the ground, thinking. “Family?” She asked, meeting Kali’s eyes.
“Yes,” Kali sighed. “He has a wife and a son.”
“Then I will not go. Only hurt Bad Men with no family.” El stated.
Funshine nodded. “Sounds good, kid.”
“We won’t make you do anything that you don’t want to,” Kali repeated.
El bobbed her head. The others talked about the plans for tomorrow, but she just stared at the corner of the floor where Axel had fallen. She memorized the patterns of swirled dust that his impact had created on the old tile.