Queen of Spades (House of Car...

Alice was siting in a waiting room drinking the world's worst coffee. She knew what was going to happen next, they had her fingerprints and were running them through the system. In a short while her file would pop up on screen and they'd know everything they cared to about her. The fact that her parents were dead, that she was seventeen and supposed to be living with the Walter family, but was instead a runaway. A cold dread was filling her belly as she knew by now that they were calling her foster family and informing them that they found her. They were going to return her to them. The people that had given her the scars hidden under ink.

The waiting room door opened and in stepped a social services woman and right away Ace knew. They were aready on their way here. "Don't let them take me. Please?" Alice begged of the strange woman. She was tiny and Asian and looked startled at Ace's plea.

"Why not?" she inquired, walking over to where Ace sat. She was still in her servers costume but one of the officers had been kind enough to giver her a jacket against the rain.

"Because they'll hurt me again. It's why I ran away." Alice didn't want to admit what they had done, and to her horror felt tears pricking her eyes as she was forced to remember. "The parents aren't so bad, but their son is a sociopath. He used to beat me and rape me. And when I was fournteen poured boiling water down me to teach me who had the power." her voice was flat.

"Oh dear, you know it's not right to make up lies like that." Mr. Walter announced as he stepped into the room. Mrs.Walter followed in behind him, head bowed and looking at the floor. And then he walked in, smirking at Alice. Her own personal worst nightmare. Stuart Walter, the psychopath. And she could tell by the look in his eyes that now that they had her again, he was going to be even worse.

"I'm sorry miss, she's always been like this. Ever since her father died she's made up fantastic stories that aren't real. Don't you know how serious your accusations are? You could ruin Stuart's life with such lies." Mr. Walter smoothy reprimanded. And the useless social service agent was eating it right up. Stuart was looking innocent and sweet, his handsome face hiding an evil, cruel interior. Ace felt her hope die as the social service agent wrote something down on her file and had Mr. Walter sign it, once again taking custody of her.

"Just look what you got yourself up to while away from our careful supervision. A stripper, my word. We don't truck with any of that loose moral nonesense in my household missy." Mrs. Walter exclaimed, fussing over Alice's revealing body suit. Ace raised her lip in contempt, loose morals her ass. Where had their careful supervision been when she'd been screaming for help as their son violated her at eleven? Where had they been when she lay whimpering after having boiling water poured over her after she tried to fight back? They'd been upstairs ignoring it, that's where.

"Now Alice, your foster family has graciously agreed to take you back despite your inappropriate behaviour. Once you turn eighteen you may apply to be removed from foster care but until then I suggest you take heed of these people's kindness and learn from your mistakes." the social service agent lectured. Then the Asian woman turned to the Walters, "Now she's missed most of the semester but we've found an institute that's willing to take her on and try to bring her up to speed so she doesn't have to redo the entire year. If there are any other issues or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact us. I would recommend seeing a specialist to try and settle her... attitude issues. Have a nice day." and then left the room. Alice looked at her foster family and saw smug satisfaction in Stuart's eyes, grim warning in Mr. Walter's and Mrs. Walter actually looked a little guilty.

Alice stood up before any of them could touch her. She drew on long learned practice to make her face appear blank, all thoughts and emotions locked away. Being afraid would only arouse Stuart's creativity, and any other emtion would only make the lecture she was going to receive longer. She settled the police officer's jacket around her shoulders and zipped it up, reluctantly following along behind her 'family'.

####

The school bell rang and Alice was still sitting in the principal's office. He was staring at her file as if he could make it say anything but what it listed. She tried not to shift in the uncomfortable plastic chair as her legs stuck to the seat. It was this stupid uniform's fault, freaking Catholic school insisted that all girls wear appropriate feminine attire. Thus a kilt, blouse and sweater that she paired with knee high socks and black shoes. Other girls were using platform black heels or the style de jour, but Alice's shoes were black runners, ugly and practical. Not that she needed the extra height from heels. At 5'10 she loomed over most of the other girls even in their clunky footwear. And also unlike most of the other girls, she'd added black bicylcing shorts under the kilt.

Finally Mr. Bottomswell put her file down. Then he cleared his throat and took a sip of his coffee. "Now Ms. Spade. It says here that you were located after running away in a... a strip club? As a dancer. Here at the Sacred Heart, that sort of behaviour is not tolerated and any infraction on your behalf along those... immoral tendencies will result in swift punishement. Do you understand?" he asked, not unkindly.

Alice nodded her head mutely, bruised ribs a more telling reminder of her 'punishment' than any nebulous threat. The Walters hadn't appreciated her speaking out against them and had made their displeasure known. There was only one thing that made life not absolutely hopeless for her and that was the fact that Stuart had moved out of the house and into his own apartment. He still came home on weekends apparently but no longer was Alice terrified to simply come back to the house after school. Mr. Walter still used a heavy hand to enforce his 'rules' but he had never touched her inappropriately other than to hit her and she could endure that. She just needed to find a legitimate excuse to not be around the house on weekends. Her job as a stripper was gone but she'd also moonlighted as a DJ occassionally and had a decent following amongst her own classmates without them ever knowing who she was. To them DJ Mask was an androgynous mute who used music to speak. It didn't bring in as much cash as the dancing had, and she hadn't told the Walters that she had this alternate source of income so it was useless as an excuse.

"There's only a couple more things to discuss then you may attend your lunch and afternoon classes." Mr. Bottomswell said kindly, noticing the slight fear in Alice's eyes. She was startled at his change in demeanour, accepting the harsh but leery of the kind. "You will need to complete community service hours, it is required of all our students. Our graduates are expected to have completed 100 hours but as you are late it is not fair to expect as much. We are willing to accept 25 hours of community service as you're technically only getting a year of schooling here." he offered with a kind smile. Ace felt like wilting in relief. The Walters couldn't aruge with a gradutation requirement. Just slumping in her chair however reminded her that her ribs wouldn't take a full bend right now. She sucked in a sharp breath.

"Thank you. I really appreciate it. And I promise I will be an exemplary student." She swore. "I know you won't believe me but I ran away for very good reasons. And I did what I had to to survive." Alice stated softly, for some reason wanting this rotund elder man's respect. He seemed like a decent man and she hated that every one of the faculty could read her file and judge her solely on what it read. But she'd stand by her actions, knowing it had been the right thing to do. That year on her own had given her a self sufficency she'd lacked and taught her to fight for what she wanted. Freedom and security.

Mr. Bottomswell chuckled at her declaration and smiled. "Child, we are all forced to do things we dislike. I do not for one second believe it was wanton lust that drove you to that job. But it does cause others to judge you harshly. Some of the school board were rather reluctant to take you on. I do have a question for you that isn't answered in your file though." Alice blinked at the suddenly kind old man, willing to tell him the truth just to keep earning his respect. "Your file doesn't list your religion. Do you believe in God?"

Alice looked down at her hand and rolled up her sleeve. On her forearm were three kanji and she showed them to Mr. Bottomswell. She pointed to the first, "Hope," the second, "faith", the third, "sanctuary." She explained. "I hated God for a long time after my father died. My life... I believed that God couldn't be loving if I had to endure what I was going through. And then I found an inner strength that pulled me through the darkness. Every time I was ready to give up, a little part of me begged to push just once more, just a little farther. And always in those moments I would survive. I wouldn't necessarily get what I wanted, but I'd get something I needed. So no, I am not Catholic as I don't necessarily believe in all the religious connotations therein, but yes I very much do believe in God. It's not as clear cut as you'd like, but my relationship with God is a little more... fluid." Ace confessed. His look has a respectful regard to it, as if he appreciated her not trying to suck up and claim she was a die hard Catholic in hiding.

A bell rang and Alice jerked, surprised when she saw the clock indicating noon. "Well, I won't keep you from your lunch. This afternoon your schedule is with Mrs. Moodie for both periods. I felt it appropriate to assign you into the dance class. Hopefully with a supervising hand your acquired talents may be used for more appropriate ends." Mr. Bottomswell's eyes twinkled with amusment. He was making a joke out of her old job! Alice felt stunned that a man who had every reason to treat her like scum was so understanding! "Every year she puts on a big production and they could very much use someone who does not suffer from stage fright. Tomorrow you'll meet your homeroom teacher, Mr. Vega. He'll be teaching you grade twelve english and is a good man to confide in if you find yourself in troubles here. It wasn't too long ago that he himself was going through the same stresses. If not there is the councillor, Ms. Cecillon, whom you may speak to at anytime. According to your evaluation assessment, you're a bright student and I hope our courses offer academically challenging studies to keep provoking your mind. And as always, my door is open if you need me." Mr. Bottomswell stood up and came around his desk to shake Alice's hand. Ace stood up and smiled at him, honestly amazed at his generous nature. She shook his hand and surprised them both by hugging him.

"Thank you Mr. Bottomswell. I want to do my best to make you proud of me." She said, then scurried out of the room before he could respond. Her actions surprised her because she wasn't a touchy feely person normally but his attitude gave her some hope. Hope she found she needed to survive the second half of her first day here.

She found her way to the cafeteria by following the smell of mass produced lunched and the babble of several dozen students. Lunch time was staggered here, three different half hour sections that confused Alice but made sense once she saw how small a space the caf offered. There were something like 1,200 some odd students in this highschool, but the cafeteria had a maximum capacity of under 500. She watched the students for a moment, standing off to the side until she could understand how things worked here. Making a living off of being able to judge a crowd's mood, Ace used it now to try and understand her peers. Quickly she made sense of whom the jocks were, the popular table, the 'we keep to our own culture' tables and the nerds. A few areas she couldn't figure out as they were mixed groups and one table made her freeze cold. Three boys at the popular table were familiar looking to her and dread started to pound in her veins as she realized why. They were the underage boys that had come in her last night at Suede's. She tried to calm her spiking nerves by reminding herself that A) they'd been drinking and probably had been too drunk to recall specifics and B) they'd never really looked at her face while she danced or served them. Wanting to escape any chance of being recognized, Alice grabbed a tray and joined the line up to get food from the server.

Even though the cafeteria was small, it had some interesting food choices. There were the obligatory hot dog, chili dog, poutine {a/n: poutine is a Canadian phenomenon consisting of fries covered in cheese curds and gravy super yummy!}, fries and then there were more ecclectic food options such as vegan lasagna (which made no sense), Asian salad and gluten free foods. Apparently this school aimed to give a little something for everyone. With a mental shrug Alice decided that she'd earned a chili dog and paid the lunch lady with a slight smirk as she used small bills earned while dancing.

The tables were long bench style affairs that made it necessary for her to sit down with people she didn't know. There were groups that took over entire tables, but most of them weren't big enough to lay claim to one spot and left random seats open. Finding one of these as far away as possible from the boys who might recognize her, Alice sat down and started to knife and fork her way through a generously drowned chili dog. Messy but satisfying. She could hear the group near her talking about how awesome the Halloween dance had been, and how strange the weather was for mid November. It'd been raining so much lately as opposed to the snow that normally dusted the ground at this time, that most of the students hadn't even realized that Christmas was fast approaching and gift shopping would be insane already. Alice remembered the last Christmas she'd spent with her dad, he had gotten her a new bike because she'd literally ridden the old one until it fell apart. She used to take it off roading, as much as a nine year old could, and hte light frame had collapsed after she tried a jump. Her dad had given her money that year to but him a gift he didn't know about. It'd been such a big deal to her, him trusting her with $20 whole dollars and a half hour in the mall alone. She'd gone in with a clear idea of what she wanted to get him for christmas, a gift other girls her age were giving their best friends but she wanted to give to her father. A best friends forever braclet. It was a matched pair, one for each friend and when put together completed the saying. He'd laughed when he saw it and put it on right away, very happy to be his baby girl's best friend. After his death Alice had made sure he'd been buried wearing it, the undertaker had been set to return it to her.

"Hey you're new here aren't you?" one of the girls at the table pulled Alice from her memory.

Ace smiled at the tiny brunette. "Yes I am. I'm Alice. You can call me Ace though." she offered her hand to the friendly girl.

"Hi! I'm Kim and these are my friends Justine, Theresa, Sammy and Butch." she pointed at the one male in the group.

"Your name is actually Butch? As in Cassidy?" Alice asked, smiling to show she wasn't mocking. He grinned at her.

"Yup. My parents were big fans of bad movies." Butch admitted with an easy laugh. Alice shifted her tray a little so she was actually a part of the group instead of on the fringe.

"So where'd you come here from? Did your family move here? What classes to do you?" the group asked one on top of the other. Kim frowned at her friends and hushed them, telling htem to not 'overwhelmed the poor girl'. Ace grinned at them, thinking that maybe things wouldn't be so bad here afterall.

"My old highschool was Pineridge High. My foster family enrolled me here because they were willing to catch me up after I missed the first half of the semester." Alice answered. "I have English with Mr. Vega, after that..." she pulled out her schedule, not having memorized it yet. "I have the science block with Mrs. Brown, Mr. Crack and Miss. Pottyfer. Then third lunch and finally dance with Mrs. Moddie." she read out.

"You're so lucky! Mr. Vega is a hottie!" "Why'd you miss half the semester?" "Are your parents dead?" "Butch that's so rude!" "I'm sorry!" they all talked at once again. Apparently that's just how they normally spoke together, several conversations at once.

"Ah.. it's ok. Hang on, I'm getting confused." Alice laughed. She pointed at Theresa, "If Mr. Vega is a hottie, I'll try and snap pictures for you." she offered with a grin. She pointed at Sammy, "I ran away from my foster parents for a year and missed grade eleven. But when they did my academic placement exam they realized I'd kept up in my studies while away." she admitted, deciding that if the truth was going to get out about her past, she would be the one telling it. She pointed at Butch, "they're dead." she nodded and then looked at Kim and Justine, smiling. "Thank you for defending me, but I'm pretty used to questions."

They went silent, obviously thinking over what she'd said. Kim seemed to be their leader and she spoke up first. "Can we ask about why you ran away?" she hesitantly asked.

Alice took a breath in, steeling herself for their response. "My foster family.... we don't get along." she decided, not brave enough to admit what had been done to her. Later, maybe, after she had built up trust and friendship. When maybe she felt safe. Thankfully they didn't pry more, instead nodding sagely like they understood.

"Alright, but I gotta ask, what was it like, being a run away?" Butch piped up, obviously thinking life away from parental supervision was glamourous and free.

"It sucked." Ace stated bluntly. She paused, suddenly not sure she was able to tell them what she'd been forced to do. Maybe building up to it would be better. "First off, you can't do anything that leaves a trail, the police check your bank and everything. So you have to find a job that'll pay you in cash, under the table. And hopefully it's a place that's willing to look the other way about you being a run away. Or underage if the case may be." she tilted her head, remembering the first few weeks. "And unless you're careful, most of the shelters report in new arrivals, and all of them have a roster so you can only use the good ones for a short period of time. Finding a place to live is hard unless you have cash and a good 온라인카지노게임. If you're lucky to get a job and a place to live, then it's... strange. Think about it, you've spent your entire life with a family around you, responsibilites in the house, and the routine of going to school and being with friends. Now imagine suddenly finding yourself without any of that. I missed school, so I spent a lot of time in the library. And the rest of the time I worked. I've come to the conclusion that being an adult sucks." she admitted with a quirky grin.

"Wow." was the unanimous response from her, hopefully, new friends. "So...what'd you do for a job?" Butch asked, looking less enthusiastic about the concept.

Well, here went nothing..."I danced." Alice stated softly, looking down at the table. Silence from the group.

"As in... you know... danced?" Sammy asked, eye big in surprise. Alice nodded, unable to look up and see the judgement in their faces.

"As in adult." Ace said finally. Her shoulders were hunched against the ridicule she was expecting.

"Huh." was all Butch could say at first. "Yeah I could see that. You're kind of hot." he admitted without shame. Alice's eyes shot up to look at him with surprise. He was grinning at her, liking her surprised reaction.

"Kind of? Are you sure you're not gay? She'd delicious!" Justine laughed, smacking Butch on the shoulder. Alice just blinked as they all started to argue over whether or not Butch was gay, all the while with him protesting his straightness. Alice was gaping at them, stunned by their utter lack of judgement for what she'd had to do.

"Is it as good of a workout as Carmen Electra makes it out to be?" Sammy asked. Ace grinned at the chubby girl.

"Better. You know how hard it is to climb a rope? Now imagine trying to do the same on a pole that has been greased." she chuckled.

Sammy wrinkled her nose. "Eww. Why is it greased?" she asked, incredulous.

"Remember the fireman's pole on playgrounds? How it would burn and squeak as you rode it down? It's not a sexy sound and definitly hurts. It's not actual grease that the use, instead the place I was at used Aloe Vera, hypo allergenic and a natural dis infectant." Alice explained, feeling herself relax.

"Oh, that actually kind of makes sense." Sammy looked thoughtful.

"So Mr. Bottomswell told me that the dance class puts on a big show every year?" Alice asked, wanting to know more.

"Oh yeah! The drama club, choir and band get into it and everything. Other schools have lame backsales to raise money. We have 'The Gala'." Justine piped in, spreading her hands apart as if she were picturing a sign. "I'm in drama and it's a really big thing. Last year one of the leads got signed on to star in that t.v show about highschool friends. Like Degrassi only, not Degrassi." she smiled. Alice was realizing that tiny Kim was the leader, chubby Sammy was too shy, Butch wasn't the brightest but sweet, Justine was their resident gossip and Theresa was the quiet one. Not shy, just willing to sit back and let the others do the talking for her.

"It's the final assignment for choir." Sammy added. "I'm in choir," she blushed at the attention, "and even though we don't get signed on like the drama and dancers, we all want to perform well because it goes towards our grades. The only ones who don't really get into it much are band. They perform but a lot of the time the soundtrack is from stereo, not live." The others nodded in agreement.

"Mrs. Moodie is nice but a hard drill sergeant." Justine warned. "I heard that she pushes the dancers until someone cries or collapses."

"Well that's encouraging." Alice replied dryly.

"And she has her favourites. They're the ones that always get the best parts." Kim added in, rolling her eyes at the blatant favouritism.

The bell ending lunch rang, everyone groaning at having to go back to class. Alice was both excited and nervous, having missed it so much but also dreading having to catch up. "I've got drama there too so I'll walk with you." Justine offered.

"Thanks." Alice smiled. Kim had drama as well and the trio walked to the performance hall. There was a large stage with props spilling across it, blocks and steps and the like. And there was one wall lined with mirrors and a ballet bar. It was echoy and probably a pain in the ass to run both classes in here at the same time, but it was also obviously a great place to showcase once 'the Gala' was on.

The teacher seemed nice enough, though Alice could tell right away that Mrs. Moodie knew of Alice's dance experience. Since they were already starting to work on sorting out troupes, Alice stayed at the back of the room to try and sight learn the choreography. It was both easier and harder than the choreography of a stripper. Easier because she didn't have to strip, harder because Mrs. Moodie was determined to get the best out of every dancer she had. The class itself was all girls, and Alice could feel a low level animosity towards her. She risked the established dynamic, and they resented her for it. It wasn't that they were mean or rude, but no one went out of their way to show her the difficult choreography, or even to include her in their conversations.

And then it was Alice's turn to dance. She'd caught on to the first part of the choreography, but hte second half was more demanding and she hadn't caught all of the complex footing. Taking the center stage, she had to quell the urge to run away as every eye turned to her. As a little girl her father had enrolled her in dance classes as a way to balance her natural tomboyish nature. Having no mom had made her idolize her dad and he realized she needed a healthy mix of female guidance. So baby ballet until he died, and then Alice had ket up with dance classes until Stuart's abuse had made it too difficult. She swallowed her nerves down and waited until the music cued. And then she danced. As soon as the first moves were initiated, her nerves fell away and she relaxed into the beautiful choreography. It wasn't straigh ballet, but instead flowed into other dance forms like hip hop, jazz and contemporary. The music was also a mix-up of styles, somehow working together despite the differences in genre. Where she lost the choreography of the troupe, she decided to press on and create her own according to the baseline of the music. And when the music stopped, it was almost physically jarring for her to come back to reality.

She stood on center stage again, breathing harder but not panting and awaited the teacher's comments. "Well done. I think I know where to place you." was all Mrs. Moodie had to say. "Alright Lexi, if you can take the stage, I'd like you to go through all the choreography..." And class continued. Alice danced at the back of all the troupes until she had the moves memorized and she quickly learned that Lexi was the star of the show. And she did not appreciate Alice's attempts to change that.

Lexi 'had words' with Alice in the back of class. Ace was told in no uncertain terms that she was expected to fade into the background and not screw up. There were a lot more insulting terms that Lexi used and a very threatening air to it all but Alice just took it mutely. And promptly decided to ignore it. The only reason the blonde, green eyed and beautiful Lexi had come down so hard on Alice was that she felt threatened. Which meant that Ace really was a good as she felt she was. With a renewed sense of pride, Alice went to the Walter house after school and diligently reported her day's activities to the parents. They were less than pleased that she had to complete community service, but couldn't argue with it either. Of course Alice had failed to mention that the required 100 hours had been cut down for her, she wanted them to think she had to spend a lot of time away from home. Now all she had to do was actually find a place that'd let her do it that another student hadn't already taken.

Knowing that she had the beginnings of a group of friends forming gave Alice a sense of excitment for school beyond just the routine it offered. She liked learning, but it felt nice to have friends to look forward to seeing. But when she got to school, she realized that people were looking at her and whispering to each other. She walked past them to her new locker and dumped her books inside. The door to her locker slammed shut as someone pushed it and suddenly Lexi was there with a whole cohort of her friends. Which included those three boys that had seen Alice dance on her last day. They were all leering at her, and it was clear as day that they remembered her.

"So I hear you're a whore." Lexi stated cruelly. She may have had the face of Venus DeMilo but she had the heart of Cruella DeVille.

"Sweety if you're too dumb to know the difference between a stripper and a hooker, you may want to wear a helmet." Alice retorted, refusing to be a victim to a bully. Her quick response made Lexi gape, she was definitly not used to people standing up to her. "See, a stripper dances and takes off their clothes. Ask your three stooges there, they've seen it. A hooker sells sex. And the only whore here is you. Have a nice day." she waved her fingers at the group and walked away. The whispers continued but she ignored it.

Kim ran up to her and hugged her out of the blue. "I heard what happened! I'm sorry. I didn't know that those guys had seen you dance. They've told everyone." she fretted. The rest of her friends slowly materialized from the directions of their lockers. They stood with Alice and she realized that they were physically standing guard for her. The hurt and shaking she felt inside eased a little.

"It's alright. I figured it'd get out somehow. I was just hoping for more than a half day of peace. Thank you guys. I know you just met me and don't owe me anything so this really means a lot." Ace smiled at them.

"Pish posh, you're one of us now." Justine deflected with a flick of her hand. The first bell for class rang out. "Enjoy sexy Mr. Vega!" she grinned. Alice laughed and walked into the class they had discreetly escorted her to.

She sat in a seat near the front, resolutely ignoring the not so silent whispered conversations about her. She was looking at the Shakespeare book they were reading in class, Hamlet. Thank god it wasn't Romeo and Juliet, she was so sick of it! She didn't look up when the teacher strode in as the final bell to class rang.

"I hear we have a new student in class." a familiar voice announced. Alice's head shot up in shock.

"You've got to be ****ing kidding me." she said outloud as he looked up from his sheet in shock at the same time. It was Malcolm, the man she'd met on his birthday, her last day as a stripper. Well this wasn't awkward.