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There isn't much room for error in the Harrington family—at least that's what it seemed to be from the outside. If one were to peel past the layers of refinement and praise, they would find that each member of the clan had their own skeletons shoved away in cupboards. There was Laura Harrington, a well-respected woman who past the intimidating and calm, collected behavior, whose gray hairs had sprouted the moment her daughter had first exhibited her deadly rage, hid away a stash of cigarettes underneath floorboards and a keen eye on her husband. Next came Joseph Harrington, head of a business, but devious and unfaithful to his wife and children. Then Steve, the oldest child, who had everything—his father's business when he died, the entirety of Hawkins High kneeling at his feet, and his parent's praise—was about to crack under the pressure and had turned to throwing parties whenever his parents were out of town and the stash of alcohol in the cupboard. And then came Alexandra (or rather, Alex, as she had dubbed herself), who had always had more freedom than Steve, but had fallen low in the social hierarchy, found her eyes lingering a little too long on Jennifer Hayes to be considered normal, and was always just so angry.
Alex had always had this anger bubbling just beneath the surface, threatening to overspill in a tidal wave of fury. The anger bloomed until the breathing exercises her absent parents left her with (4...7...8...) were futile and ineffective; until she felt as if the Earth below her was crumbling under the weight of her wrath the longer her fists shook and the anger tore around at her insides. Scrapes and bruises had always been something of permanence for Alex; no matter how many times they healed over, leaving seemingly unblemished smooth skin, they would never truly be gone; they had been a part of her anatomy since she was brought into the world, kicking and screaming, already so angry. The scars that dotted her fists and decorated her elbows and knees would fester into something more rotten, fueling the chaos and mania that threatened to explode at every provocation. Fingers curled into tight fists in an effort to suppress the rage that threatened to implode, they dug into her skin and leaving crescent-shaped indents into the soft flesh in her palms until they bled.
She wouldn't call herself an outcast, but she wasn't at the top of the food chain either; she was left well enough alone, however, as there were other oddities and weaker prey in the jungle of Hawkins, Indiana to be feasted upon. Troy Walsh and James Dante, the school bullies made sure to stay out of her way ever since she had broken James' nose with a sickening crack. And she supposed that she could consider Mike Wheeler, the younger brother of Steve's girlfriend, and his rowdy gang of misfits as acquaintances—that was if she looked past the fact that they never spoke outside of when they were forced to socialize with one another. But, finally tiring of Kyra-the-Counselor's incessant nagging (because apparently, acquaintances weren't good enough), Alex begrudgingly allows Will Byers, whose locker neighbored hers and whose schedule matched hers (she knew well enough that this was no coincidence) into her life. But when Will suddenly disappears into oblivion, Alex finds the intricate web of Hawkins' secrets and lies unraveling around her.
