❝ in the seventeen years i've been on this earth, i've never met anyone as f#@!%^g stupid as you. ❞
in which two kids on the opposite sides of the social spectrum find solace in one another during a strange period of time.
ESTELLA COLLINS STAND ALON...
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CHAPTER FORTY-TWO; ALEXEI AND THE EXPLOSION also known as; ( the flayed; part two)
★☆
"SON OF A BITCH!" STEAM HISSED FROM THE INNER WORKINGS OF HOPPER'S TRUCK, CAUSING THE CHIEF OF POLICE TO CURSE IN ANGER. Stella watched on with a fretful expression as the man anxiously tried to fix whatever was wrong. They were in the middle of the forest, miles out of Hawkins considering how long they'd been driving. Stella was no mechanic, but she was pretty sure cars that had been shot at two dozen times weren't super reliable.
Joyce, however, was testing a theory of her own, smashing two rocks together in front of the clueless Russian, who had ended up being quite a nice person, bearing in mind he'd been handcuffed to Stella for over four hours now. His name was Alexei, and from what Stella could tell he liked to watch cartoons, or as he said, mul'tfil'm (мультфильм). Other than that, he hadn't bothered to say much, only bobbing up and down when Bruce Springsteen played on the radio and watching curiously as Hopper got angry at inanimate objects or the teenage girl to his right complained about wanting to sleep.
"Magnet?" Joyce continued to hit the rocks against each other, her eyes filled with hope. "Do you know magnet? Magnet?"
Stella sighed softly. She'd been doing this for a while now.
"Magnit?" Alexei repeated in his foreign accent, furrowing his brows together as he repeated after the woman.
"Yes, magnit," Joyce clicked her fingers together in triumph, as if she'd just solved the most important thing. Stella had to give it to her, though, she wasn't a quitter. "Okay, so, uh, magnit...on my--my fridge, my icebox, and then they...they fell. They demagnetised, stopped working. Uh, do you understand?"
"Da," Alexei nodded, and Stella sent him an incredulous look. She hardly understood it.
"Okay, and this is this because of the machines that you're working on?" Joyce inquired, though she wasn't accusatory, instead very curious.
"Machina?"
"Machina, machina, yes," Joyce nodded a few times, a smile growing on her face. She put her hands out and made revving sounds with her mouth, imitating a motorbike...or something of the sort. Stella chuckled softly, glad the mother was finding light in the chaotic situation.
"Da, da, machina," Alexei too got quite excited, bouncing up and down from where he sat on a fallen tree beside Stella. He lifted his arms (also pulling Stella's left wrist with his right) and turned them to the sides. "Vroom vroom."
"Oh, no, not that car," Joyce shook her head, realising she'd confused the scientist a little. "The machines at Hess farm where we kidnapped you..."
