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| | Scrapbook (with sketches of the pack)<BR> | | Scrapbook (with sketches of the pack)<BR> |
| | Switchblade (from an ex-boyfriend)<BR><BR> | | Switchblade (from an ex-boyfriend)<BR><BR> |
| − | '''Background:'''<BR>
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| − | White trash.<BR><BR>
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| − | Tina hadn’t heard the expression before she went to her very first day of school. She knew precisely what it meant when she came home.<BR><BR>
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| − | Second-rate. Not good enough.<BR><BR>
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| − | Poor.<BR><BR><BR>
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| − | For years, Tina was the quiet girl, the one who took her lumps, who knew better than to raise her voice against her betters, and who saw and understood what happened to the bottom feeders who forgot their place.<BR><BR>
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| − | And then, Junior High. And Tina wasn’t the shy, quiet girl anymore. She still can’t say if it changed that night at the party, or if that night was just logical conclusion to spending the last two years stealing the small trinkets everyone was so proud of and she never could afford. Tina had quietly, when she could get away with it, stolen money, jewelry, CD’s… whatever people would flaunt to her face and she could never have.<BR><BR>
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| − | That night, during the first of Eric Wallon’s soon-to-be legendary parties, Tina stole Amy Ringwald’s boyfriend. The biggest jock in the class, the object of an entire year’s worth of schoolgirls’ fantasies, there for her taking because Amy valued her reputation too much to even pass beyond a cursory kiss on the lips. Tina had no reputation to loose.<BR><BR>
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| − | The true revelation, however, came when a furious Amy confronted her that same evening, and Tina, for once, drunk on alcohol and someone choosing her over the rich kid, didn’t back quietly down. And that’s when she realized something.<BR><BR>
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| − | Amy was afraid of her. The cheerleaders to be, the rich kids, all of them, afraid of her.<BR><BR>
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| − | Tina never looked back. From that day on, she was the terror of the school. She took what she wanted, she did what she liked, and when someone occasionally had the guts to report her… well, what trouble she got, she made sure to give tenfold back.<BR><BR><BR>
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| − | Tina lived with her father in the outskirts of Chicago, as a classmate put it, “one half-step up - or sideways, really - from the trailer park“. Though that particular wise-ass walked away with a rather nice black eye to go with her oh, so perfectly layered make-up, Tina’s always known that for more than just a half-truth. For years, ever since Tina’s mother left, ever since he lost his job, her father had spent the days quietly sinking into apathy.<BR><BR>
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| − | Tina’s sudden gift for trouble, at last, roused him somewhat. A final nail in the coffin of his total failure. He had no job, his wife left him… and his kid was a criminal. It was too much. For every visit from a teacher, every call (when the phone wasn’t cut), Tina would come to school the next day with some fresh bruises and blackened eyes.<BR><BR>
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| − | Perversely, Tina was happy. She had respect. She had friends. Everybody knew who she was and had to acknowledge her, one way or another.<BR><BR>
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| − | And her father finally cared.<BR><BR><BR>
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| − | Things changed again, somewhat, in high school. Mostly for two reasons. The teachers at her old school never knew what to do with her, deciding she was a lost cause and alternately hoping and dreading the day she would go too far and they could be rid of her.<BR><BR>
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| − | But Bill Helmsley, the school advisor, cared. It took Tina a long time to admit that she actually liked the man, the first teacher she could say that about with a straight face. He wasn’t condescending. He didn’t think he understood the world or everyone in it. And he refused to simply give up on her.<BR><BR>
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| − | Second, Tina met Aléc, and fell the way only 16-year olds can. The two had a stormy relationship, to say the least, but it was quite obvious to anyone, even those who tried their very best to avoid them both, that they had a steady thing going.<BR><BR>
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| − | Until, that is, Tina sent the head cheerleader off to hospital. And her father very nearly put her in the next bed over. Tina was sitting in Helmsey’s office, icing her quite impressive black eye and waiting for her nose to stop bleeding, when one of her hangers-on burst in screaming that Alec had gone to get her father back - and get him good.<BR><BR>
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| − | Tina knew Alec’s temper. She knew what he’d threatened to do the last time someone got her like this. And worst of all, she knew he wasn’t joking. Before Bill cold stop her, she was running for the door, forgetting that her ankle had twisted so bad she couldn’t really stand on it, never noticing that her nose stopped bleeding, or that her blackened and blue face hurt less and less, never questioning how she got to her home so fast, and utterly chanceless to stop the rage that filled her as she saw the broken front door, or keep her world from going as red as the blood she saw and smelled…<BR><BR><BR>
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| − | It’s been months. She knows what happened now, though she has managed to purge most of it from her memory and never speaks of it. Bill Helmsley, not just school advisor, but also Wolf-blooded and horribly aware of what was happening as Tina ran from his office, got the right kind of people there in time… almost.<BR><BR>
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| − | Her father is alive. Bill has said so. Tina has not seen him, and refused to even talk to him on the telephone. He has not mentioned Aléc, and Tina has not asked. Nor has she told Bill - or anyone, really - why she refuses to see or speak to her father. But once in a while, Tina still wakes bathed in sweat and the phantom taste of rich, red blood in her mouth… and the image in her head of a terrified, bleeding thing a part of her seems to know as kin, as family… but every sense tells her is ''prey''.<BR><BR>
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| | '''Merit Points (7)'''<BR> | | '''Merit Points (7)'''<BR> |
| | 7 - Totem 7<BR><BR> | | 7 - Totem 7<BR><BR> |
