Dotson and Harrington |Steve Harrington|

Scotch |chapter 27|

Once she dropped off Lucas and went home, she parked in the driveway as usual and went inside. Saran Wrap, still covered her arms as she placed keys near the door. Seeing that her father wasn't on the floor, she sat on the couch and settled in. It had been a few days.

People kept on reporting on the Will Byers case as they stayed outside the hospital most days, waiting for one of the kids, teens, or parents to give them any answers. When Jackylen came to visit him, she always tried to avoid the cameras when she entered but never could escape them as she left.

She always had to have either Steve, Jonathan, or Hopper to escort her back to her car. Which she didn't mind. She began to flip through the channels, tired of them reporting the same thing over and over again. She landed on the afternoon cartoons like she always did when she was bored.

Things were forced to go back to the way things were. There was no room for anything or even reminiscing about that night. The government had threatened to take Jonathan's, now Steve's, nail bat, Nancy's gun, and Jackylen katana.

But that didn't happen in the end. Jackylen snapped herself out of the reality of which was her head and started to pay attention more to the t.v. But as the spring of events played out, the front door had slammed closed, signaling someone had come in.

"Where were you?" Jackylen asked, not looking into her fathers direction.

"I could ask you the same thing," he quickly spat back, slamming something on the table. "You took the car."

"Yeah I took the car, what about it?" Jackylen had grown to be less afraid of her father. Nothing was as or more scarier than what she was at Jonathan's Byers house. She had realized that now. She fought back every chance she'd got winning two so far.

"You realized I had to walk to the store right!?" His voice started to raise even higher in anger. Of course this still bothered young Jackylen but at this point in her life, she didn't care all that much.

"To buy liquor no dought," she scoffed, finally turning down the t.v to speak. "You know what..." she stood up from the couch to face her father. His eyes were blood shot as usual, red bags underneath his as he reeked of Jin. Of course he went to the bar before coming home.

"I'm sick and tired of your bullshit. You say your going to throw me out, kill me so, why haven't you've done it yet, huh?"

"You have know idea what I do to keep you-" Jacylen moved closer to him.

"What? To keep me alive? Sometimes I want to come home or live around you because of how treat me! Broken ribs every weekend! Black eyes and busted lip every single day! You have no idea what pain you cause me every single day! You don't get to argue with me about how I made your life hard!"

"JACKYLEN-"

"No! Don't Jackylen me you asshole-"

Without even a blink of an eye, she knew what happened before his fist met her face. As she looked up at him, she held her jaw as she smirked. She was waiting for the moment for the past few days. With all her strength she could, she grabbed onto his shoulders and dug her nails into his skin.

"Oh you little bitch," he screamed, throwing her to the ground. He tried to get on top of her, trying to beat her down in some sort but she quickly rolled out of the way. She sprung up with the new found energy she now had as she put her fist up.

He was so infuriated that he knew there was only one way to take her down now. He got down low and started to tackle her into the wall, causing a glass ceramic to fall upon her head.

Crimson blood dripped from her forehead as she tried to push her father off. After a few minutes of relentless pushing, he started to stubble back. She watched as he whipped the minimal blood from his nose as he slightly scoffed.

"You're tougher than you look, kid," he said, standing ready to pounce at any moment.

"I get that from you, huh? Can't get that from mom because, you know, she left you," she scoffed. With a scream like a war cry, he lunged himself to words to her. Her eyes widened as she leaped out of the way, causing him to ram his hand into the unstable wall.

The wood chipped away, blood dripped down his wrist. He looked back at Jackylen as she stood there a little stunned. She knew what her father was capable of but she was too unconscious to see it all. She knew he could break her ribs but so much adrenaline was flowing through her veins that she couldn't feel a thing before she woke up.

Her mind was so clouded by her thoughts, that she didn't think about what would happen if she did or even talked about the unspeakable. Her mother.

Her mother was always a touchy topic. Jackylen and her father never talked about her, even after she left. The last conversation they ever had about her was when Jackylen cried about her, for not even a day. But all he said in return was that she was gone and that she was never coming back.

"You don't get to talk about your mother," he said, prying his fist from the wall. The red liquid dripped onto the floor, causing a future stain.

"And what, you do? She left you-"

"And she left you! Don't like you're not a victim too. She left the both of us!"

"But she didn't love you anymore! She left you with me! You were supposed to take care of me! You don't teach your kid how to shoot a gun eight or beat me half to death because I didn't clean or do the damn dishes!" He sighs as he looks at her arm, trying to ignore what she said.

"Is that a tattoo?" He points out.

"Yeah," she said silently, confused as to why he changed the subject. "What about it?"

"Are you going to get anymore?"

"Probably... why do you ask?"

He started to walk towards the bottle of scotch he had placed down only a few moments before. He unscrewed the bottle and took a long sip. Drips of liquor missed his mouth and dripped onto his chin. Once he was done, he looked down at the bottle he presented to Jackylen. She politely declined.

"It should be meaningful," he blurted out, whipping the liquor off his chin.

"The tattoo?" He nodded.

"It shouldn't be some crap picture you get on your skin for the rest of your life."

"So what should I get? 'Alcoholic dads beat real ones' or 'Get a mom there who walks out in you'?"

"Anything but that, kid."