The Disappearances ➙ Steve Harrington [01]( complete )

The Disappearances

o. The Disappearances

o. prologue

Her eyes had stopped producing tears well over an hour ago, but they still burned as if the tears were hiding behind the white of her eyes making them red and seemingly swollen. Her lungs were physically hurting from trying to keep the sobs quiet and paced while shoving her back as far into the side of her bed as it could go, unable to get up on her legs until she was calm enough to.

Seven-year-old Jackie Byers sat on the floor of her bedroom listening to the shouting of her mother Joyce and father Lonnie just feet down the hall in the living room, and the echoing of Lonnie launching things into the walls making her flinch.

The argument was over something silly; Lonnie had forgotten to pick Jackie and Jonathan from school, forcing them to walk the almost four mile trip home alone through the woods and past 'Hawkins National Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy', the kids coming to a conclusion that it's just a fancy word for a spy agency.

Lonnie forgetting to pick the twins up, was unfortunately a common occurrence. Joyce had to work nine-to-five at the department store, so it was Lonnie's job to watch their youngest son, one-year-old Will and pick the twins up from school. But at least three time a week, the drunken father would pass out on the sofa, leaving Will to watch tv in his crib and have the twins to wait until four, and start walking home.

The argument was excelling now, and Jackie's eyes blurred over with hot tears when the fight was traveling from the living room, towards the hallway where the bedrooms were.

"Lonnie no, please, I'm sorry." She heard her mother sigh from right outside her door, "I won't ask again, I'll try to get off early and I'll pick them up from school from now on-"

She got up from her spot on the floor, gravitating towards the door reasonably slow, afraid she would be punished for listening to her parent's loud 'conversation', or so they would call it when apologizing the next morning. "No Joyce, I'm done!"