Angelica "Freak Two" Munson

Chapter 0

Angelica Munson was abandoned, along with her brother, not long after she was born. 

Their fathers were never really in the picture, and there was never enough money to go around.

According to their uncle Wayne, their mom had been a waitress—working double shifts at the diner on the edge of town just to keep the lights on. 

She could barely afford a babysitter, and the ones she found never lasted long. 

Turns out, looking after a five-year-old and a toddler was more work than most teenagers wanted.

Eventually, she gave up trying. 

One night, she loaded the kids into her car, drove them across town, and left them on Wayne's doorstep with a couple of threadbare blankets and the ring of a doorbell.

Wayne always said he didn't blame her—life could break people in quiet ways—but Angie never really thought about it much. 

She'd grown up in the trailer, knew every creak in the floorboards, every loose screw in the screen door. 

This was home. 

She didn't remember anything before Wayne, and honestly, she didn't need to.

Eddie, though—Eddie remembered. 

At least, that's what he claimed. 

He'd tell her stories about how their mom used to hum when she cooked, or how she'd sneak them milkshakes from the diner after closing. 

Angie used to listen wide-eyed, hanging on every word, until she got old enough to realize that Eddie didn't remember either. 

He just wanted her to believe their mom was something more than a woman who gave up.

If nothing else, Eddie had always been her protector. 

That instinct had been built into him from the start—by the chaos of their early childhood, by the revolving door of babysitters, by a mother who'd already half left before she actually did.

He never cared much about what people said about him. 

Freak. 

Trailer trash. 

Kid nobody wanted. 

It all bounced off him. 

But when people turned those words toward his little sister, that was different.

He still remembered the first time she came home from school crying because someone had called her "the freak's freak." 

She was maybe eight. 

He'd sat on the edge of her bed that night, his guitar across his knees, and said,

"Listen, kid. The world's gonna throw some real nasty shit at you. It's gonna try to convince you you're less than you are. You don't let it. When someone talks down to you because of where you come from, you look 'em in the eye, flip 'em the bird, and tell 'em to fuck off—because you're Angelica fucking Munson, and you don't apologize for that."

She never forgot those words. 

They became her armor.

"Hey, look—it's Freak Two," Tommy Hagan called from across the hallway, his smirk sharp and smug. "What'd you do last night? I can't imagine there's much to do in a trailer park. Unless you and your brother got creative."

Angie didn't even pause at her locker. 

"Actually, Tommy," she said, glancing at him over her shoulder, "your mom came over."