Disclaimer: I don't own Stranger Things or any of its characters. I only own Lisa and her family. Don't steal! Read on and enjoy!
Chapter 3
Back at their hideout, the gang scattered to do their own thing.
Axel was counting out his share of the cash he'd stolen from the gas station and Ray. Funshine and Dottie were playing poker with their own share. The bigger man was smiling even though Dottie was kicking his ass. Out of all of them, she was the best at poker and she always won. The girl always had a screw loose about most things, but she an ace at poker. It was honestly bizarre. Mick was on watch, listening to a police scanner while keeping her gaze focused outside. Cops had found them before and they'd been forced to relocate to their current location. That was when they'd made their two most important rules: wait a month for the heat to die down and change cars after every job. Breaking those rules this time, even if it was for Jane's benefit, was a mistake in both Mick and Lisa's book. The blonde hovered in the doorway to hers and Kali's shared room. Her little sister was sitting in the chair at the foot of the bed, clutching the old flannel shirt she'd abandoned after her makeover.
"You okay?" she asked. Jane looked up to stare at her. She looked afraid, which made Lisa's stomach churn uncomfortably. Her sister shouldn't be afraid of her. She had no reason to, unlike their enemies.
"Are you mad?" The older girl rolled her eyes and chuckled.
"I'm always mad," she stated, rushing to throw herself onto her bed. Sitting up, she threw her hair dramatically over her shoulder and smiled at Jane. "But I'm not mad at you. I told Kali you weren't ready. But next time'll be different," the blonde assured happily, "we'll work up to it! You'll be ready, promise." The little girl took a breath and nodded. "So answer me, you okay?"
"...I don't know."
"She won't be pissed forever." It was clear as day that Kali's anger was what was really bothering Jane. "And don't worry about Ray," Lisa added, popping a piece of gum in her mouth. "I took care of him for you." Her sister fixed her brown eyes on her, brow furrowed in confusion.
"But he has kids."
"So because he has kids he shouldn't be punished for his crimes?" Lisa scoffed and popped a bubble loudly. Jane remained silent, staring at her uncertainly. Rolling her eyes, she decided to placate her sister. "We wouldn't have hurt them, Janey. Unlike Ray and the bad men, we don't hurt little kids." That wasn't an outright lie. They wouldn't have touched his kids, not unless they'd made the monumental mistake of attacking them first. "Besides, I'm sure they still have a mom left. Which is more than any of us can say. " A knock on the doorway drew their attention and they Kali.
"May I sit?" Jane shrugged, but Lisa immediately made room on the bed for her sister. "I was once just like you, you know that?" Their little sister looked very skeptical, but that didn't deter Kali one bit. "That's why I'm hard on you, because I see in you my past mistakes. Our mistakes," she amended, looking at Lisa who simply nodded. "I remember the day we came to the rainbow room and you were gone."
"Days went by," Lisa added, playing with the rings on her fingers, "but we never saw you again. Then Papa took Kali and I, isolated us from the others. The things he made us do to each other..."
Papa regularly made all the children use their gifts against each other. Lessons and games, he called them. Really he was testing their endurance and capabilities while weeding out the weakest every single time. Once the girls had been isolated from Jane and the others, these games continued but became more invasive. Lisa was made to force Kali to sleep and trap her inside her own mind for increasing periods of time. Kali was forced to invade Lisa's mind, destroy her mental shields. Each lesson was a test. Kali had to become resistant to Lisa's abilities or find creative ways to break free of them. When Lisa's shields were destroyed, she had to build them back up bit by bit and repeated the process every time until she could keep Kali out. But she'd never been able to keep Kali out, which displeased Papa greatly.
"So, when our gifts were strong enough," Kali explained, "we used them to escape."
When Jane's mother had come into the Lab some time before, a few of their siblings had used that as an opportunity to escape. The siblings they'd abandoned had all assumed they'd been killed, while the few that tried and failed recovered in the medial wing. Lisa remembered getting breaks from her lessons with Kali, when Papa would take her to help their hurt siblings. That's what he'd claimed at least. Kali told her the truth: he had her working illusions on one of the escapee's twin sister, Nine. But Nine had gone insane. She'd attacked Kali when the illusions faded one day, had to be pulled off her and dragged away screaming by the guards. It wasn't long after that incident, the last time Kali saw Nine, that the two girls began planning their careful escape. They couldn't be sloppy like Jane's mother and the others had been; they had to be smarter.
For as long as she lived, Lisa would never forget that moment they finally did it.
Kali had called out to an orderly for help while Lisa pretended to be ill. Papa couldn't abide his children being sick, not when he had such important work to do. Last time one of the kids had gotten sick, Three, the orderlies believed they'd been faking and ignored it. Three didn't return to the rainbow room for a month after recovering in medical and those orderlies were never seen again. Once the orderly entered their room, Lisa commanded him to lead them to the outside. It had been a surprise, her mind tricking him without even a touch. She'd been shaking, too scared to approach the man, and stutter out the command in a panic. By some miracle, it had worked. She'd never done that before or since, though it wasn't from lack of trying.
But they couldn't afford to waste time pondering their luck. The girls held hands as Kali placed an illusion to make them invisible, and the pair trailed cautiously after the man. She remembered trying to hold her breath until her chest hurt, terrified that one of Papa's employees, or even Papa himself, would see through the illusion. When they finally reached the parking lot, she recalled how sunny it was. It was cruel, a beautiful day just beyond their prison of windowless rooms, florescent lights and antiseptic. Never letting go of each others hands, the pair tried to shield their eyes as they ran from the Lab.
They hadn't stopped running since.
"We ran away as far as we could. And it was there, far away, that we found a place to hide. A family. A home. Just like you and your policeman. But they couldn't help us so, eventually, we lost them too," Kali confessed and tightened her grip on Lisa's hand.
Neither had spoken of the Quinn family since they'd left Michigan. The sisters had used their powers and conned their way as far as they could, ending up at the Capri Drive-In in Coldwater utterly exhausted. That was where they'd met Christopher Quinn, the projectionist. He'd caught them trying to steal food but, instead of calling the cops, he fed them, clothed them from the theaters lost and found bin and took them home to his wife and daughter. They'd slowly built trust with the Quinns, after Lisa had mind tricked them into never calling the authorities about them. The girls would never have left that to chance.
Kali had been fifteen at the time and bonded with Christopher's daughter, eight year old Emily, playing all sorts of games and spending every second she could with her. Perhaps she'd been pretending Emily was actually Jane the whole time, since they two were the same age, but Lisa really couldn't say. Lisa, however, bonded with Christopher and even learned how to use the projector under his careful tutelage. He didn't leave the then thirteen year old alone with it, but he taught her all about the fascinating machine. All its parts, how to take it apart and put it together, how it really worked.
It had been a few blissful months. They'd been lulled into a false sense of security, which was quickly shattered when Lisa's powers lashed out one night. A huge blast of psionic energy released from some place deep insider her. The drive-in had almost been destroyed, people had died. Papa would most assuredly come, he'd be drawn to the bizarre incident and the Quinns would be in danger. Left with no choice, Lisa mind tricked the family into forgetting them entirely before the girls went on the run once more.
"We knew that we couldn't live in fear anymore so we decided to stop hiding. To fight back," Kali explained.
"Everyone who hurt us, the people like Ray? They see us as monsters, but they're the real monsters," Lisa stressed. "It's why we hunt them down. They don't deserve to live, not after everything they've done."
"You're now faced with the same choice, Jane." The blonde nodded, popping her gum once again as her sister explained the proverbial fork in the road Jane was currently at. "Go back into hiding and hope they don't find you, or fight and face them again."
"Face who?"
"The man who calls himself our father."
Jane firmly stated, "Papa is dead."
"That man tonight disagreed." Jane whipped around at the familiar voice and Lisa's eyes widened. Papa was standing in the doorway.
"You're not real," Jane said, clutching her old shirt and rising to her feet. Her sisters did the same, Lisa's eyes whipping between her sisters in concern. While Kali was focused on keeping up the illusion, Jane was clearly as terrified as she was.
"All this time? And you haven't looked for me? Why? Because you thought I was dead? Or because you were afraid of what you might find?"
Jane shook her head and whimpered, "Go away."
"Quit it, Kal," Lisa muttered, nudging the other girl. But her sister didn't listen. She doubled down on her illusion and made Papa approached Jane, forcing their little sister to move away.
"You have to confront your pain. You have a wound, Eleven. A terrible wound. And it's festering." Jane backed way as much as she could, until she collapsed in the chair she'd abandoned. "Do you remember what that means, festering? It means a rot," he said, kneeling before her as she started to cry. "And it will grow. Spread."
"Get out of my head." Lisa put a hand on her little sister's shoulder. She was so terrified she was shaking.
"Kali, that's enough!" she warned.
"And eventually it will kill you."
"Get out of my head!" Jane screamed, crying as the illusion flickered away. Lisa immediately wrapped her arms around her sister, hugging her tight and whispering calming words in her ear.
"This isn't a prison, Jane," Kali said, unbothered by what she'd done. "You're always free to return to your policeman. Or stay, and avenge your mother. Let us heal our wounds together." She didn't spare her blonde sister a glance as she left the room. Lisa stayed, continuing to hold Jane and squeezing her comfortingly.
"I'm sorry she did that." Kali should really be the one apologizing, but she knew she was too stubborn to admit what she'd done was wrong. Jane moved from her sister's embrace and took a deep breath, shakily moving to the bed. Lisa watched as Jane closed her eyes, holding the old shirt to her chest. To anyone else, it would've looked like Jane was simply thinking back to happier times, but Lisa could tell she was reaching out as well. Her eyes suddenly snapped open and she gasped, eyes wide and scared. "You saw something. What was it?" Before she could answer, the pair heard banging and rushed to the window just in time to see a few cops rush in.
"Hate to say I told you so..." Lisa muttered as Kali ran into the room.
"You love to say that," she contradicted, grabbing her hand. "Let's go."
The second they were downstairs, they warned the others that they'd been found. Axel immediately grabbed one of his guns, ready to shoot whoever came through the door but Kali made him stop. She ordered everyone to remain still and quiet, using her gift to make them invisible. Lisa clutched Jane's hand and squeezed it tight, a silent command to stay with her. Kali might have gone too far with Jane, but she knew what was she was doing in this moment and they had to trust her. The cops burst in, quietly scattering around the room like roaches. The illusion would hold. All they had to do was move slowly out of the way if a cop got too close to touching them. Once the room was clear, the gang bolted. Unfortunately for them, there were more cops waiting outside. Axel started shooting, laying cover fire for everyone as they ran to hide behind the van.
"I fucking told you so!" Lisa shouted as the van was pelted with bullets. "Do something, Kal! Do something!" Her sister was already working on it, nose bleeding as she created an illusion of a wall springing up between them and the cops. The others wasted no time to pile into the van, Mick hopping in the driver seat. But Jane hesitated, even as Kali told her to get in and Lisa reached out to help her.
"I'm sorry," she said, shaking her head. "I'm sorry, but I have to go back. My friends...my friends are in danger." Axel shouted that this wasn't time for a talk, that they had to go. He wasn't wrong. Kali's illusion would only last for so long.
"Your mother sent you here for a reason, remember? We belong together," Kali said, desperate. "There's nothing for you back there. They cannot save you, Jane!"
"No. But I can save them." Kali called out to her, panicked, but Jane simply walked away. Lisa hopped out of the van and shouted for Jane to wait. Miraculously, the younger girl stopped and looked back at her. Lisa held up a hand, signaling for Jane to stay put, while she looked back at Kali.
"I'm going with her."
"You can't!"
"Our sister needs us! I'm not letting her go off to fight whatever alone. She's done that long enough." Kali immediately grabbed her arm, pulling her to a stop. It didn't matter that the illusion was starting to crumble, that the others were shouting at them to hurry up.
"We swore we'd never leave each other," Kali cried. Lisa threw her arms around her sister, holding her tight.
"I'll come back," she promised.
Kali pulled away and stated, "I won't be here." It didn't bother Lisa one bit. The gang would have to find a new hiding place, perhaps even leave Chicago entirely.
"Then we'll just have to find you," she replied with a smile. "Jane did it once, she can do it again." Jogging away from the van, she shouted back, "We'll find you Kali. We'll find you, I promise!" Mick was already pushing the pedal to the metal as Lisa and Jane ran through the alley, the cops firing on the van once again.
"We'd like two tickets to Hawkins, Indiana," Lisa requested politely.
It took time to reach the bus station but, by some miracle, they had arrived with no trouble. Lisa had kept a tight grip on her sister's hand, keeping a careful eye out for cops as she led them to the bus station. Jane had been forced to abandon the clothes she'd arrived in, which was really no big loss in Lisa's book since they'd been hideous. But Lisa, on the other hand, had lost Kali and her friends along with everything else she owned. All of her clothes, her collection of cassette tapes and favorite lighters, her stash of cigarettes, a very special bottle of perfume, the backpack the Quinns had bought her when they tried enrolling her and Kali at school. Her lucky pack. Fuck, all the money she had was in her wallet which was in her, apparently, not so lucky pack. At least she never had an ID, nothing for the cops raiding the place to trace to her. Her possessions weren't much, not in the grand scheme of things, but they'd been hers. The only things Lisa now owned was the clothes on her back, the last pack of cigarettes and gum in her pocket. Her Walkman was still attached to her waist, which was was grateful for but she only had one cassette tape now. A mixtape she'd made with Mr. Quinn. It was a great mix that reminded her of better days, but damn did she wish she had others just to mix it up a little.
"That'll be-"
"Our tickets are free," the punk interrupted, her hand wrapped around the tellers. "Your treat," she added with a sweet smile.
"Of course, my treat," the teller echoed dumbly. Her eyes returned to normal and she beamed at Lisa, quickly handing her the tickets. "Here you go, girls. Have a safe trip!" Lisa thanked her before grabbing Jane and walking away.
"Rule two of being a badass: don't pay when you don't have to." Jane nodded, clinging to her sister's hand. Lisa was moving fast, eyes scanning the crowd nervously. "Let's find the bus and get outta here."
"She'll be fine," Jane told her. Her sister looked down at her, confused. "Kali, she'll be fine." Lisa scoffed and shook her head.
"No, she won't be," she retorted. "We haven't been separated since we left the Lab. We swore we'd never leave each other but here I am, so you and me? We're gonna make a deal." Stopping a few feet from their appointed bus, she looked down at Jane. "I'll help you save your friends but you gotta do your thing to find Kali when we're done. You promise to find Kali or I'm gone, you can go back to Hawkins on your own."
"You said you'd help!" Jane snapped.
"And I will! But only if you help me when we're done." Her sister glared at her. "Don't give me that look. I invented that look," Lisa retorted, rolling her eyes. "I don't have to get on that bus. I could leave right now and find Kali on my own," she threatened, "but I don't want to do that. I don't wanna take off until I know you're safe, but I will if you force me. So I help you then you help me, or I walk. Deal?" Jane scowled but nodded with a quiet sigh. "I need to hear you say it."
With a huff, she finally agreed, "Deal." Appeased, Lisa took her sisters hand again and led her to the line for their bus. Jane got on first and chose their seats, sitting with a quiet sigh. She was completely relaxed. Her sister collapsed next to her, unhooking her Walkman from her waist. She tapped at it nervously, leg shaking as she mentally begged for the bus to start moving.
"You alright, girls?" The pair looked at the woman watching them in concern across the aisle from them. "You're awfully young to be traveling alone."
"My sister and I were visiting our grandmother," Lisa lied with a pretty smile. The woman was elderly, it was an easy bet that saying they were visiting their grandmother would take any suspicions off them. "But we're going home now."
"That's so nice! If you girls need anything, you just let me know," the lady told them with a smile before turning back to her book. Both of them thanked her politely and Lisa took a breath, finally relaxing into her seat at the bus started to move. They were finally underway. They'd be out of Chicago, far from the police. Of course, they'd also be far from Kali and that left a bitter taste in Lisa's mouth.
"Okay," she began with a sigh, fixing her eyes on the younger girl, "we have a little over three hours until we get there. Tell me exactly what I'm walking into."
