What She Left

prologue

dedicated to cockslurper for her help and excitement for this story <3

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seven forty three a.m., april twentieth, nineteen ninety nine

When thirty-nine year old Aleece Nikitis was pregnant with her fourth and last child, a girl, she imagined the baby to be everything she had ever wanted in a daughter.

Aleece wanted the child to be like herself; determined, practical, a quiet-but-powerful sort. She already had three children that took after their father, and three was more than enough.

She got her wish. When Aleece saw the small blonde baby, she smiled and named her daughter for success. Bailey; simple, but with a meaning; Alicia, after herself, and little Bailey Alicia inherited the family's name. Nikitis. Meaning victory.

Bailey Alicia Nikitis was born and raised to be victorious, to be everything her mother wanted, to choose a path that would set her higher than her siblings.

She was easily her mother's favorite. Even her mostly absent father seemed to notice her more than her siblings; James, the oldest, calculating and brilliant; Marianne, careless and beautiful, and Drew, angry and resentful and with a drug habit that cost him his life not five years after Bailey was born.

Aleece erased her second son from existence after his death; no one even mentioned his name. But the remaining three children noticed the pained look in their mother's eyes that only seemed to ease when she saw her youngest daughter.

Bailey was born to be her mother's perfect child, and she lived up to it, but in her head, she wanted more. She wanted to be the best, the smartest, the most victorious member of this victorious family.

After years and years of just thinking that same thought, she came up with a plan that would achieve all of those things.

She would become the most dangerous.

seventeen years later
four thirty two p.m., february twenty-fourth, two thousand and sixteen

   The secretary of Stone Ridge High School didn't look up as shoes clicked against the cold tile and entered the small front office. As she heard something slide into her inbox, she turned, but the person was already gone, the sound of heels retreating almost rushedly.

Her deep red fingernails grasped the new paper in her inbox. Flipping it over, she scanned the hastily written words on the envelope. Narrowing her eyes slightly, she rose from her chair.

A minute later a tap came at Principal David Lawson's door. He glanced up, his lips pressed into a thin line, and bid entrance to the knocker. The secretary took a step in, her head bent over the envelope.. "A note for you, sir," she said. "From Ms. Benson, Classroom 131."

"Thank you," said Lawson tiredly. "Set it here." He had originally no intention of even glancing at it until tomorrow, but something about it piqued his interest. Olivia Benson, a 11th grade English teacher, had been there for three years and had never once sent in something like this.

He was disappointed when he read over the first few lines. "Typical," he muttered under his breath. "Bailey Nikitis again." This wasn't the first complaint he'd had about her, but Ms. Benson was the first to suggest he talk to her parents about counseling.

He brushed the paper off into his "Unimportant" filebox and hit the button on his desk harder than necessary. "No calls," he told the secretary. "I have important things to do." That did not include Ms. Benson's letter.