Twenty Four. What's to it? A dead sister?
She watches him. Like he's a statue of great grace. Like he's the prince to a kingdom and all the other kingdoms want their daughters to be his one and only. Like he's the worlds favorite boy, on a more realistic note. Like he's so skilled of soft fingers and heart melting smiles. He could probably make you come apart with just his mouth. His lips. His words. His silence. Steve Harrington is beautiful and he wears his anger even better than kindness.
He's a fire cracker.
"Listen, she's got no reason to be mad at you. You didn't do anything wrong! She fucked up. I fucked up. It's that simple, alright?"
Well, I don't entirely think so. Seems a bit more than simple, Steve.
Jen sighs at Steve's words as she trails behind him through out the student parking lot. His strides are long and heavy. Jen could barely keep up with all his boyhood anger.
Well! Incase you all forgot: Jen was trying to make it through today alive.
She has. Barely.
Nancy Wheeler hates her stinkin' guts! (I mean, can we really blame her? No. Not really..) Steve seems to think we can. He's very angry at her, if you haven't noticed.
Even if he is angry, he's opening the passenger door for Jen. She smiles softly at him, she whispers a shy thanks. He hums and looks around the parking lot. As she slides in he gently squeezes her shoulder before shutting the door for her as well. He jogs around the front of his car to the drivers seat. He yanks his door open with too much aggression and slumps into his seat like he's been scowled all day by an angry parent. He's practically melting in distress. It makes Jen nervous.
"I'll drive to yours. Can hang there a bit, get V too, if that's okay?"
Jen's eyes flicker to Steve. She smiles soft. "Whatever you want." His eyes meet hers and she can see the boy lose his tension a little. He smiles small. "Sounds good, J."
The ride through town is a nice one. Steve has the windows down and one of his hands itch to hold something of Jen. The girl has her arms folded on the window and her head somewhat hangs out of the car. Her eyes are closed as she hums along to Bon Jovi. She looks really pretty, Steve realizes. She always looks really pretty, but now even more. The wind with her features, the calmness to her.
She's a great girl.
Steve seems to realize he can't drown himself in anger. He wants to be kind, for the girl to his right. He shouldn't let the whole Nancy thing drive him mad. He wants to be sweet. Kind. Soft. For Jen. For Violet.
He wants to be a good guy.
Their car doors close at the same time in the trailer park. Steve rounds the front to reach Jen. His hand gently touches her lower back. "I'll go get V?" Jen nods with a shining smile at the mention of the little girl. "Yeah, of course. I'll just head in." Steve hums, fingers gently tapping at her back as they pull away from each other.
Her bruise still lingers as she gets her door open.
She pauses once she's in the door. It seems too quiet and the trailer is horribly cold. Jen let's the door close slowly behind her. Why is it so cold? The girls skin gets icy, her eyes flickering around the part of the trailer she can see from the front door.
When she takes another step inside she grimaces. It doesn't smell good either. It smells like metal? Metallic? Jen pushes out a breath as her gaze turns towards the floor, there's a thin stream of blood coming from the living area. Her eyes follow the trail, and when she looks up the world goes still.
Alex Leadison is home.
Jen lets out the loudest scream she's ever been cable of. Her body goes cold. Her blood stream chunks up. She can't feel her legs. Is she still screaming? (Yes.) She can't stop screaming. Her eyes should be blurry. They don't blur.
She's staring at her sister.
There's a hole in the ceiling. The biggest hole Jen's every seen in a roof before. Alexandra Leadison hangs upside down from the hole. Her skin tore up and holding her onto the broken pieces of roof. Her face is the color of a beet yet pale all at once, from being dead and hung upside down. Her arms dangle loosely, blood dripping from them and onto the floor. That's the bread crumb trail.
Jen is still yelling.
She can't do anything else.
Her trailer door goes flying open with such an intensity. If Jen was conscious she would've been shocked by the power. Heavy arms goes tight around her. She's yanked from her standing and hauled out of the trailer. It's all such a blur.
She feels herself come to, she's been pushed into the passenger seat of Steve's car. He bends over her, his hands on her face. He looks like a frantic blurry mess. His lips are moving but she cannot hear him.
There's people around. They've come out of their trailers because such noise. Mandy stares terrified bouncing a crying Violet at her opened door, she tries to shush her gently. It's not working. It's like Violet knows something is wrong. Everything had been fine moments ago. She'd been talking to Steve calmly before Jen started wailing her life away.
Steve's blurry face moves away, he calls for someone to call the cops. His face comes back, is Jen still yelling? (No. She's crying now.)
Steve's eyes slam back to Jen's trailer, his heart pounds. Alex Leadison is dead in there. He saw that much. Her long dark hair matted red and hanging messily upside down by her horribly colored face. She looked like a rag dog just hanging.
It might be the scariest thing he's ever seen.
Jen and Violet are both sobbing in his ears.
They say she's been there for a few hours. They could tell by the color of her skin and the way her features looked. Jen feels like Alex has been hanging there for days.
She sits in silence on the bed of Hopper's truck. He's sitting next to her in silence. She wonders if he wants to tell her I told you so. Because this, her upside down dead sister, was not a suicide. It's not even possible. This was something else.
The sun is starting to set. It's been hours since the Hawkins police got here. It feels like the whole damn station. There's even contractors, ready to tell Jen she can no longer live in the place she's lived her whole life.
"I should have listened to you," Jen speaks softly. It's a little raspy and her head is burning. Jim frowns and squeezes the girls knee. "You couldn't have known."
Jen is staring at the door of her trailer. It's taken them awhile to get Alex down from the position she was in. They're rolling her out in a black body bag now. "I should've."
This feels like her mother all over again. The not knowing what to do after. The not knowing how tomorrow will go. But the difference from then to know, was Alex. Jen had her sister when Jennifer died. Now Alex is dead and Jen is just with Jen.
"Hopper," one of his cops call out. Jim nods and pats Jen's knee as he goes. They keep some distance between her and them. But she watches their faces. Doesn't look good.
Steve had to move his car to Mandy's. Violet's back inside with her and Steve waits outside by his car, blaring holes into Jen. Jim had told him awhile ago to give them a minute. It's been a long fucking minute.
Jim comes back to the girl, his hands ring out one another. Jen takes in a breath of stale air. "Now what?" She whispers. Jim sighs. "They found your sisters car in Lovers Lake. Looks like she drove it in." Jen's brows furrow, "Why would she do that? How long has she even been home?"
"They said the car hadn't been in there for more than a few hours. A few hours longer since she's been here." His eyes flicker to the trailer. There's yellow tape blocking the whole thing off.
Jim has more to say. "Contractors say it ain't livable anymore. Too much damage. And too much money to fix it. I'm sorry, kid."
Jen's eyes flicker back to her home. Anger blooms in her chest for the first time. "I thought this shit was fucking dead." The girl seethes out. "I thought Eleven got rid of this bullshit."
Jim frowns. "Jen.."
"You said we were safe."
"Jen, I knowâ" The girl pushes herself up from his car and turns away. She walks towards the end of Forest Hills towards Steve. When he sees that she's coming he pushes off his car. His breathing is funny.
Jen wipes tears from her eyes as she reaches the boy. He's quick to aid her, eyes wide, curious and worried. "Jen?"
The girl looks up to him. "Her cars in Lovers Lake and I'm homeless."
He wasn't aware there could be a heartbreak as bad at this one. Seeing this girl so down makes him wish he could hurt somebody bad.
Steve gently coax a hand onto her arm, careful. She leans into his touch and he brings her into a hug. His chin rest gently on her head. "Stay with me," he whispers for her ears. "Stay with me and we'll finger this all out."
She pushes herself deeper into his chest. Her eyes screwed shut.
Jen might've hated Alex, but she loved her. That was her sister. She wasn't supposed to be dead.
She wonders and she'll wonder for the rest of her life. Did Alex love me? Did she care? Why did she hate Eddie and her together? Did she ever see Lowen again? Why did she keep the secrets she did? Why was she always running away? Why couldn't she stay and hug Jen?
Why couldn't Alex stay and be with Jen?