After a quite short drive, the group arrived to the closest supermarket called Bradley's big guy.
Jonathan spots a rock on the ground in front of him and throws it, shattering the whole front door. They all then pile in and quickly make their way over to the medicine isle.
"Okay, get her down." Nancy instructs Mike. The boy nods and carefully sets Alex down by the shelfs while Nancy was getting some rubbing alcohol and gauze pads. "Lemme see." She turns to the girl, looking at her huge bloody wound.
"Oh, shit." Alex curses, knowing that cleaning it would cause much more pain than she already has.
Nancy then takes a deep breath and starts rubbing some alcohol on it which stung her a lot.
"Hey what are you doing?" Max interrupts her, helping a now conscious El sit right across Alex.
"I'm cleaning the wound." Nancy turns around.
"No, first, we need to stop the bleeding, then clean, then disinfect, then bandage." She explains. "I skateboard trust me. Mike, hold this." She then grabs his hand and presses it against Alex's wound, causing her to groan in pain. "Keep the pressure on it nice and firm, okay? We also need water and soap." She then turns to Nancy and Jonathan.
"All right." Jonathan nods and heads off to search for some soap and water with Nancy.
Lucas then rushes back to the four and dumps a sack full of stuff. Chocolate, a flashlight and a few buttons. "Does any of this help?"
"No." The redhead rolls her eyes. "Go get me a washcloth and a bowl."
"A bowl?" Lucas furrows his eyebrows.
"Lucas!" She then raises her voice.
"Okay, okay!" He then heads away, grabbing Will and El with him. It took them quite a while to find what Max asked for, so she decided to go check on them, leaving Alex and Mike alone.
"Does that hurt?" Mike decides to speak after a few awkward moments in silence.
"Not that much." Alex lies. She didn't really want to admit how painful that wound was.
"You're gonna have an awesome scar." He smiles. "You're gonna look even more badass."
The girl forms a small smile on her lips. That was definitely gonna leave a scar.
"Uh, Alex?" Mike speaks again.
"Yeah?" She stares into his eyes.
"I-I've been meaning to tell you something." He sighs. "It's just, being broken up, it's really hard."
The girl looks at him to continue. He was right, being broken up was pretty hard. She missed the times when they would spend almost every moment together.
Right then a crackling sound comes from Mike's walkie-talkie. Both of them notice, but Mike decides to ignore it.
"And..." He continues. " I like that you, El and Max are all friends now. It's just, I was and angry. And thats why I said all that stupid stuff. And it's like I wanted you all to myself. And now I realize how unfair that is. And selfish. And, like.
I'm sorry. I just, I've never felt like this, with anyone before. and you know, they do say
it makes you crazy."
"What makes you crazy?" Alex acts confused when she knew exactly what he meant.
"You never heard that term? You know, like 'blank makes you crazy', like the word?"
"Girlfriends?" She tries holding back her laugh.
"No, no, no, not girlfriend's."
"Oh, so boyfriends." She smiles.
"No! No, not boyfriends either." Mike stammers. "It's like a feeling, like, old people say it to each other sometimes."
"Old people?" Alex tilts her head. God he was really bad at admitting his love.
"Yeah." Mike says and then takes a deep breath. "What I wanna say is... that I just, you know I-"
Just as he was about to admit his feelings, another few crackles come from his intercom interrupting him once again. They take a moment to listen and realize it is Dustin. However, what he was saying was not clear at all. "I repeat, this is a code red!" Was the only thing they understood.
"Dustin?" Mike takes the intercom in his hands scooting over to Alex.
"Mike?" He speaks.
"Dustin!" Mike shouts in disbelief.
"Mike!" The boy says once again and starts talking but it was not clear enough for them to understand.
"Dustin, you're going way to fast." Mike interrupts.
"We can't hear you." Alex adds.
The boy speaks again. The only thing they understood was "they're using— to open— gate."
"Dustin, you're breaking up." Mike slowly speaks.
Dustin tries talking again and again, but nothing.
"Dustin you're cutting out." Alex stops him, annoyed by all those crackles. "Dustin!"
"Alex!"
"What is it?" Nancy then appears from the end of the isle.
"It's Dustin." Alex faces her. "We can't understand him."
They then stay quiet for a few moments as the rest now gather around Mike and Alex.
"He's been MIA all these days, there has to be something wrong." Mike explains.
El then looks at Alex and then the others. "I can spy on him."
—
After El's smart idea, they all gathered around specifically the eggo section, waiting for her to start spying.
Alex was besides Mike, sort of worried about what might be wrong with Dustin. Last time she could think of seeing Dustin was the first day he came back from summer camp. And plus when El saw him in her void.
"El, are you sure you can do this?" She asks, crawling over to her. El nods in response, a smile on her face.
"If you need any help or anything, I can do it-"
"Alex, I'm fine." The girl assures, grabbing the blindfold.
Alex then nods, smiling back at her. She quickly crawls back over to Mike so El could start with her 'spying'.
Mike was now arguing about coke with Lucas. "How do you even drink that?"
"Because it's delicious." Lucas looks at him, taking a sip of his new coke.
"What?" Mike and Alex both ask in unison.
"It's like Carpenter's 'The Thing'. The original, it's a classic, no question. But the remake..." He takes a louder sip of his coke and lets out a satisfied sigh. "Sweeter, bolder, better."
"You're insane." Mike shakes his head.
"So you prefer the original 'Thing'?" Lucas crosses his arms.
"What? No, I'm not talking about the 'Thing', I'm talking about New Coke."
"It's the same concept, dude." Lucas rolls his eyes.
"Actually, it's not the same concept." Mike argues.
"Yes, it is."
"Uh, no it's not." Alex joins.
"Yes it is!" Lucas now raises his voice by a lot, disturbing El.
"Hey!" The girl shouts, pulling off her blindfold.
"Sorry." Alex immediately apologizes.
"Sorry." Mike and Lucas then mutter.
"Did you find him?" Alex then asks.
"He's at the movies." El replies, standing up along with Max and the rest.
"At the movies?" Lucas then gets up furrowing his eyebrows.
Mike quickly wraps his arm around Alex and helps her get up too. Max and Lucas were now leading them out of the market, pushing a whole cart of supplies they would need.
"The movies?" Lucas repeats. "Dustin's so freaked out about the gate, he decides to go watch a movie? Yeah, makes total sense."
"Your positive he said gate and not great?" Max then turns to Mike and Alex.
"Yeah like, 'this movie I'm watching is great." Will adds.
"Sounded like gate to me." Alex replies.
"Which would explain how the Mind Flayer's still alive." Mike speaks.
"Yeah, we just have to shut it again." Nancy sighs.
"Then the monster dies." Will opens up the door.
"But if not, we always have Lucas' fireworks." Max mocks, helping Lucas carry the cart outside.
"Keep mocking my plan, Max. Keep mocking it" Lucas rolls his eyes. "I wanna hear you say it again, because you keep doubting me. You keep doubting me!"
"Ridiculous." Max scoffs.
"Will, we're gonna prove them wrong, right?"
"Right."
Little did they know, just as they exited, Billy had examined the whole store and had spotted all the cleaning materials and blood of Alex's wound, meaning he knew exactly where they were and where they would be going.
—
Once they arrived in Starcourt mall where they were going to look for Dustin, they first saw a few mean looking men, searching for something in the mall.
Since they were on the second floor, they took a few glances around to see Dustin, Steve, Robin and surprisingly Erica hiding behind the scoops ahoy counter, looking scared for their lives. One of them then accidentally makes a movement, catching one of the mens attention.
"Everyone, get here. I found them." He speaks with a strong Russian accent, causing Alex to quickly realize that those were the Russians Dustin and Steve were looking for when El spied at them.
As all of them slowly approached the counter with their huns pointed, Alex immediately came up with an idea to distract them.
She raises her hand up, focusing on the mew Chrysler set on display and causes its alarm to go off with her mind, distracting all the Russians.
They quickly turn around and look at the car with confusion. "What the hell?" One of the men says looking around. He then spotted the huge group on the second floor, Alex in the middle with blood dripping down her nose.
Once they spotted them, she quickly swung her arm, launching the car at them and crashing them all the way to the other side of the food court, meaning they're most likely dead.
Steve, Robin, Dustin and Erica then peak over the counter to see the rest of their friends on the second floor.
The huge group then quickly made their way down the escalator, Mike still helping out Alex a bit and once they got down Dustin quickly wrapped the two unto a hug. "You swung that thing like a hot wheel!" Dustin laughs once he pulled out of it.
Alex then turns around and sees her brother standing behind her. She makes his way over to him and wraps her arms around him. The older boy hugs her as tight as he can, really happy to see her.
"What are you doing here?" Lucas then turns to his sister.
"Ask them, it's their fault." She points to Steve and to Robin.
"True, yeah. Totally true." He then pulls out of the hug with his sister. "It's absolutely our fault."
"I still don't understand what happened to that car." Robin walks up to Alex, a confused expression on her face.
"Alex has superpowers." Dustin explains. "So does El."
"I'm sorry?" Robin looks even mire confused now.
"Superpowers. She threw it up with her mind." Steve turns to Robin, speaking in a 'duh' tone. "C'mon, catch up."
"And you never told me?" Robin then widens her eyes, wrapping her one arm around Alex.
"I'm sorry, who are you?" Nancy asks Robin.
"I'm Robin. I work with Steve." She introduces herself.
"She cracked the top secret code." Dustin smiles.
"Yeah, which is how we found out about the Russians." Steve adds.
"Russians?" Jonathan furrows his eyebrows.
"What Russians?" El asks.
"The Russians!" Steve shouts.
"Those were Russians?" Max asks.
"Some of them." Erica replies.
"What are you talking about?" Lucas raises his tone.
"Didn't you hear our code red?" Dustin turns to Mike and then Alex.
"Yeah, couldn't understand what you were saying." Mike speaks.
"Goddamn low battery!" Dustin curses.
"How many times do I have to tell you sith the low battery!" Steve turns to Dustin now.
"Well, everything worked out didn't it?"
"Worked out?" Erica crosses her arms. "We almost died."
"Yeah, but we didn't, didn't we?" Dustin faces Erica now.
"It was pretty damn close." Steve rolls his eyes.
Alex then breaks away from the group as she heard some weird high pitched noises, barely hearing anything the others said. The tone just gets louder and louder, as she got weaker and weaker.
She then plugs her ears in hope to stop the tone but nothing. She could still hear it and it just grew more painful.
Suddenly, she collapses on the ground, letting out a few winces of pain.
Mike was obviously the first one to notice. He quickly rushes over to her and kneels down besides her, rolling her onto her back.
"Alex! Alex!"
"What's wrong with her?" Erica asks.
"Whats wrong?" Mike grabs her hand.
"My leg. My leg!" She groans.
Jonathan then peels away the bloody gauze to reveal that her huge bloody wound has only gotten worse.