Come Together - Steve Harrington [1]

6: no face

Jennifer walked into her own house, her eyes puffy and her lip trembling. She tried to go straight for the stairs but, of course, she was stopped.

"Hey!" her fathers voice rang out. "How was the game?"

Jennifer stopped at the foot of the stairs, not daring to look at her dad.

"Uh- good," she lied, her voice breaking. "It was good,"

She kept her hand on the railing of the stairs, biting her lip to keep a sob from escaping her lips.

"You okay, honey?" Paul asked, moving towards the stairs.

Paul reached out for Jennifer and when he noticed her tear stained cheeks, his face fell.

"Jen, what happened?" he asked. "Did somebody hurt you?"

Jennifer shook her head, biting down on her lip. "No, not me," she trembled. "Barb. Something happened to Barb and it's all my fault!"

"Hey, hey, hey," Paul coaxed, his hands on his daughters shoulders. "Let's sit down, yeah?"

Paul guided his daughter to the living room where the pair sat down on the couch together.

"What happened, Jen?"

Jennifer's lip trembled and her eyes filled up with tears again. "I didn't go to Wills ceremony last night,"

After those words had left Jennifer's mouth, she couldn't stop speaking. She told her dad about Steve's party, the drinking, the fight with Barb, etc. She was expecting Paul to be mad, but, surprisingly, he wasn't.

"Barb didn't show up to school today and when me and Nancy went to look for her, we saw this... thing in the woods," Jennifer explained, a faraway look in her eyes. "It was tall. Like 9 feet. And it-,"

Jennifer stopped for a moment, shaking her head in denial.

"It didn't have a face,"

"It didn't have a face?" Paul repeated, phrasing it as a question.

Jennifer shook her head, looking up at her father, hoping that he would believe her.

"I know how it sounds," she muttered, shaking her head. "I know it sounds crazy,"

Paul shook his head immediately. "Hawkins has had two kids go missing in the past week, Jen," he confirmed. "I'm willing to believe anything,"

Later that night, Jennifer sat on the couch in between both of her parents. Both her mother and father knew about what she had seen and neither seemed to call bullshit. Jennifer had been zoned out for the past ten minutes, thinking about Barb and what had happened to her.

She was snapped out of her thoughts in an instant, however, when the door opened quickly and slammed just as quick. She looked up to see Matt standing in the entryway, tears running down his face.

"Matt?" she immediately asked, getting up from the couch.

Her parents followed immediately after, joining Jennifer as she inspected Matt for injuries.

"They found him," Matt mumbled numbly, causing Jennifer to look at him slowly. "Will. He's dead,"

Jennifer's eyes immediately filled with tears and she pulled Matt into her chest. Matt wrapped his arms around his sisters torso and sobbed into her chest. Jen let tears roll from her eyes as her parents joined into the hug, every member of the Marshall family mourning the death of Will Byers.

*

Jennifer reluctantly decided to go to school the next morning, forcing herself to do her usual hair and makeup before rushing out of the house without saying good morning to anybody in her family.