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chapter twenty-eight how to let go
Alex is angry, not fearless. There is a distinction between the two. Anger makes her brave, but anger does not take away her fear. And nobody is truly fearless. Fear is a primal condition, something we all resort to in times of danger. Fear is what keeps us alive. Alex is angry, not fearless, so when the Demogorgon roars for the first time, she screams in terror and thrashes wildly.
Alex's legs almost give out underneath her at the sudden absence of her captor's restraining arms. He's fallen back and drawn his gun out of its holder, bullets ricochet off of the walls as their former captors spring into action, fighting tooth and nail against the monster that has emerged from the other side of the wall. Lucas is quick to lunge for Alex and sling her arm around his shoulders before she can hit the ground. She smiles at him gratefully. And that is enough because there is no time for words. Mike screams for them to move as Dustin scoops up El's limp body from the ground. The man had dropped her in his haste to back away from the emerging monster.
The lights continue to flicker violently as they make their escape. In her haste, Alex's foot slips in a puddle of blood and she almost finds herself meeting the corpse that it belongs to, but Lucas manages to haul her back up in time. She lets out a whimper. The blood was sticky and warm. Her stomach flips in her chest. But she has to keep going. Death is only a few feet behind them.
They leave behind the chaos—the death and destruction and decay and ricocheting bullets (it's a miracle that none of them had found a home in any of the five children)—and turn their backs on the men who had been their captors only moments before. The shouts and gunshots fade away slightly as they keep running. They do not look back. Alex knows that there's a part of her that will always remind her that she left humans behind to die, but if they had stayed, they would only join them in graves of their own, six feet below the surface of the Earth. And this time there will be no miraculous returns to the land of the living.
Alex had never been one to run from danger. She had always faced it with two fists and a set jaw. She punched until her knuckles were bloody and raw and they had to be wrapped in bandages for weeks. But this week, it seems that all she can do is run—run from Troy and James, run from the bad men, run from the Demogorgon—does this make her a coward? Does this make her weak? She had always counted on her anger to give her the strength to face her fears. But now her gut instinct is to run and she listens to it.
Her ribs still ache and each breath reminds her of the blow she had suffered only five minutes before. There's still the metallic taste of blood in her mouth that she desperately tries to swallow back. She clings to Lucas tighter and wills her feet to move across the floor that's slick with blood. She tries to look away from the sea of bodies that they weave through. Alex finds herself staring down at the blood that stains her shoe. Who's blood is it? It's not hers. It's never her blood. It's always somebody else's blood. She causes more harm than good. Her head spins. Her stomach twinges. She thinks that she's going to vomit.
