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chapter twenty-three lando calrissian
Dustin paces back and forth across the length of the bus, muttering fervently to himself, all the while as he rattles the foundations of the bus. It's been like this for the last twenty minutes as they wait for Hopper to collect them, Alex has effectively tuned the boy out. Hours have passed since they made contact with Hopper and Nancy. The sun is setting over the horizon, but the chief has not yet revealed himself. The chief's instructions were clear, though: Stay where you are. Do not move. (The same instructs that you give a small child, should they be lost—but they're not lost, they're hiding). Lucas has seemed to take those instructions literally—Alex has not seen him move an inch in the past twenty minutes, he sits on the bus seat with his chin resting on his balled fist, lost in his own head. Alex doesn't blame him. It's easier to become numb to reality rather than face it. The only indication that he is awake is the incessant bouncing of his knee. Mike sits dejectedly on a discarded chair that had made its way onto the bus sometime before they had arrived in the junkyard, his face rests in the palm of his hand propped on his knee and he watches as Dustin continues to pace back and forth.
The bus is sweltering hot, almost uncharacteristically hot for a late November day in Hawkins. It seems that this day is nothing but painstaking torture (but at least, for now, they can catch their breath). Alex wishes that she hadn't worn long sleeves that day. They're pushed up to her elbows and she has the sudden urge to rip the sleeves off altogether. But she doesn't. The leather that covers the padding of the seats is warm. Sweat clings to Alex's forehead and condenses into droplets that she wipes away before they can drip down her face. The putrid air that has been trapped in the bus along with them is about to suffocate her and makes the wait on the bus even more torturous. Alex itches to step outside. But she resists the temptation. She's not that stupid. She will not become the reason that they are found. She would not be able to live with that guilt (if they even made it out alive).
Currently, Alex sits on the bench opposite Lucas, beside El. The girls sit shoulder to shoulder and El leans into Alex's touch as she watched Alex rifle through the card deck they had found in the bottom of Dustin's backpack. Alex has shown El magic tricks in a halfhearted attempt to calm the girl's nerves. It seems to have worked. Her eyes grow wide with each trick and Alex shows, and she can't help but let a soft smile fight its way onto her face. Alex holds up she hopes is the card that El had selected—she'll admit that she's never been particularly good at card tricks, and if she does get the cards wrong, El doesn't have the heart to tell her—the Ace of Spades and holds it up for El to see.
"This your card?" She asks softly for what seems to be the hundredth time.
El begs her to repeat the tricks because she is still filled with so much wonder. Alex obliges. She likes seeing El like this. She can't wait to teach El more about how the world works so that the girl may still have a small chance at normalcy. It's what she deserves. She deserves a normal life after years of being treated like an experiment (fundamentally, that's what she is—that's what she was born to be, but that doesn't have to be the case. Alex will be damned if El does not live through this to have a semi-normal life).
