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If you had asked Artemis Gaile to explain her life up to this point, the night before her first day of sophomore year, she'd probably stutter on about cheerleading and her annoying little sister and over protective brother, or about her best friend Lydia Martin's distaste towards Artemis' lack of a love life, or even about the books and music she's currently obsessed with and how her tastes have changed over the years. She'd tell you all about her respect for the classics, Jane Austin and Led Zepplin, but crinkle her nose with a smile as she whispered that she prefers angry female pop singers and a cringey, fluffy YA romance novel over everything else, like it's her little secret.
That's what Artemis specializes in, avoiding the real stuff and over obsessing over the things that shouldn't matter, not after everything her and her family had gone through. She even hates the "realness" of her name, introducing herself as "Missy". To anyone who didn't know her, she was a shallow girl, a pompous blonde cheerleader, who lives in a big house in the same rich neighborhood as Lydia Martin.
Missy would never tell anyone that she and her two siblings were orphans, the big house and the money left in her older brothers name being the only things left of their parents. Even their bodies, burnt to ash in the same fire that took the lives of almost everyone in the Hale house that terrible night so many years ago.
After the fire her older brother did his best to adapt, throwing away the brief freedom he gained after he turned 18, and took care of his two younger sisters. It took a village and the previously rebellious Preston Gaile did his best to be a positive role model to his sisters, who were 10 and 8 when they lost their parents. But the trauma and stress left him an adrenaline junkie, a cigarette smoking, motorcycle riding mess of a man. Well, mess of a werewolf.
Missy and her siblings knew their father was a werewolf, their mother a normal human woman, so it was no surprise when Preston turned for the first time when he was 12. But it was a surprise when Missy never turned. And an even bigger surprise when the youngest girl, Locklyn Gaile, turned for the first time over the summer.
The turn affected Locklyn almost exactly how it affected her older brother. She began to wear black, and complain about everything, and blare the loudest rock music as she laid in her room, moping.
Missy, the only Gaile child who never turned, found herself being the rock of the family. She coordinated her sisters band and track schedule with her brothers college class schedule. She arranged doctors appointments, dentist visits, went grocery shopping, gave her little sister a very awkward "talk" about, well, you know.
Most people didn't notice how almost everything Missy did, she did for her family. There were quite a bit of people who hated her for her always happy attitude and her ability to never make a mistake. But when she had two siblings at home, who struggled with creating their own happiness because of the inner turmoil being a werewolf brings, she chose to do her best to create happiness and calm and order for them. If they couldn't make their own happiness, she was more than willing to share hers with them.
