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BJ frowned, adjusting her ratty pack on her shoulder. A castle. It was a damned castle, not a school. And there was no boulder. Well, whatever...Rolling her eyes, she noticed gratefully that the damned sun wasn't scorching here, and tugged down on the hood of her jacket and took her first step towards the place she would supposedly be staying at. For since she'd run away, she'd always considered an area just the next place in the endless line of temporary shelters. It had been too long ago for her to remember the last time she'd considered any place 'home', and she sure as hell didn't think a castle would be high on the 'home sweet home' potential list...

Why the hell had they sent him to go grab the newbie? McGrady Owens strode irritably down the hall, his polished shoes clicking lightly against the floor. Why couldn't one of the other professors gone to fetch the kid? If there was one thing Grady couldn't stand, it was teenagers. Everyone knew that. So why, then, was he finding himself taking time out of his day off to go find some snot nosed chit? Was she really so hopeless that she couldn't find the way herself?

Scowling, he impatiently flicked aside a stray lock of his glaringly red hair, and turned a corner. Ah, there she was. He stopped for a moment, decided he might as well get a look at her if she was going to be taking up space here. She was tall enough, he saw, edging in on six foot, and skinny as a damned rail. Her eyes were pitch black, as was the straight fall of hair that fell past her shoulders. There was a...was that a tattoo? It was...She had a tattoo inside her ear, it seemed, a design he couldn't make out from this distance. The hooded jacket she wore didn't let him see if she had any muscle on that puny build of hers, but the sleeves were pushed up, so he saw the small nicks and scars running up and down her arms.

"You just gonna stand there and gawk all day?" The voice, a slow drawl that managed to be sharp and biting at the same time, had him muttering under his breath. So, the little brat had seen him. Whatever...

Rolling his eyes, he huffed out a breath, strode towards her. She turned to face him completely, and her eyes locked right on his. They were cold as ice, he saw, dark and deep. She gave away nothing, and when he grudgingly put out his hand, her hand shake was brief and firm. So, maybe the girl wasn't such a chit.

"Well, you're here. I'm Professor McGrady Owens, weapons and special opps. Spirit shifter." He said on a mutter, trying to remember the notecard one of the other teachers had written a decent greeting on for him. Damned if he really cared what the proper way to treat a rookie was. She merely blinked, then shrugged dismissively.

"Yeah, sure. BJ Tulsa. Shadow Runner." She said in clipped tones, obviously tiring very quickly of mandatory introductions. He raised a brow slightly when she stated her 'race', thought of a student of his who was the same thing. Well, he didn't care.

"Follow me." He said shortly, watched her hitch a bag up higher on her shoulder before starting after him with long, sure strides. He led her down several hallways, up a flight of stairs. While going down one hall, he spotted a group of kids hanging around a window, and immediately recognized the boy in the middle of it all. Because he did, he scoffed, rolled his eyes, and started right past them.

Torin Wheeler stopped listening to a joke when he spotted Grady coming down the hall, with a girl he didn't recognize close behind him. Grinning, he realized this must be the newbie. Rumor'd been going around that they'd be having a girl coming. "Hey, check out the new meat." He said, and though he'd said it quietly enough, her gaze flicked over, met his. He let out a breath when her black eyes seemed to look right into his soul, her face expressionless. He tried a grin, shot a wave towards her, even as he felt a strange sense of anticipation.

She didn't say a word, barely even acknowledged his existence but for a roll of those dark eyes. She turned her head away from him, and that's when he saw it. At first he thought she was just a tattoo junkie, with a tattoo inside her ear. But at second glance he saw, exactly, what the tattoo depicted, and it seemed to be branded right into her skin. It was a skeleton, mostly the skull, seeming to climb along the inside of her ear. The mark of a shadow runner...no frigging way.

Abruptly he got to his feet, just as they turned a corner. Hurriedly he ran down the hall, and then could only stop dead when they were nowhere around. He swore swiftly and softly under his breath, running a hand through his dark hair. The rookie, he thought...this had just gotten a lot more interesting. Shaking his head, he let out a breath, rubbed at the identical tattoo inside his own ear, then turned on his heel and went back to his group.

BJ decided this wasn't going to be the most fun place she'd ever stayed at. Well, it was only temporary. She never stayed one place for more than three months, anyway. And if the rest of the students were anything like the weirdo and his groupies in the hall, she wanted no part of it. Instead of saying anything, though, she merely followed Grady, not saying a word when he suddenly took her through a small door, lead her up a cramped set of stairs. At the top of the landing was a huge door, and Grady knocked on it.
"Headmistress! Headmistress, I've brought you the new recruit!" Grady raised his voice as he pounded on the door, never one for subtlety. He sounded cranky, BJ mused, like a child who'd missed his nap. Lovely...

Grady swore briefly when the door slammed in his face, flipped the closed door the bird for form's sake before trudging down the stairs again, glad he didn't have to deal with any more brats today.

BJ had felt the shudder run down her spine when she'd walked into the room, had scowled down at her hand when it trembled the slightest bit.

When Perivia pointed to a seat, directed her to sit, BJ could only think of all the times a social worker had hauled her away from her latest foster home, how she'd been herded into the office of the head of the newest orphanage they'd found for her. One in particular, a bitter man named Jarvis had pointed to a seat in much the same manner, as though she were just a blip on his radar, barely noticed. And she didn't much care for it.

Still, she sat, recognizing power when she looked at it, though she'd never learned how to 'sit' in a chair. She sprawled, uncaring, ready for another spiel about responsibility and expectations. As she sat, she felt the shivers go away, and that improved her mood slightly. The light was on in the room, which made her itchy, and just to let herself know she could, she glanced at the shadow made under her chair, drew it up, wrapped it around her hand. And when her hand from the wrist down disappeared into a puff of black, she felt content. It had become a habit for her to make certain she always had that escape route, wherever she was.

When the woman spoke again, her voice was gentler, or at least not as blatently malicious. How many times, BJ wondered, had she heard that same question? Social services office, courtrooms, two-bit prison cells, a brief stint in juvie when she'd felt like having a roof over her head and not being expected to make nice...They'd all asked her that same question. But she didn't think the usual 'Because I'm a burden of the state and a menace to society' response would satisfy this woman, who, BJ instinctively knew, would be able to see right through her despite the fact that the woman was obviously blind.

She answered, as she always did, with a voice that didn't waver, didn't hesitate. "Because you managed to find a redeeming quality in someone the rest of society considers a freak. And because I'm good enough, because you wanted me to be here. I have a feeling someone could walk right next to this place and not know it was here if you didn't want them to. Figured it was better than joining the circus." She added, though she'd done that briefly, as well, when the idea had appealed to her when she'd been younger.

BJ barely glanced at the map before slipping it into one of the many pockets of her well-worn jeans. At Perivia's words, BJ merely shrugged, but then narrowed her eyes a bit when she was told to clean her room. Ok, so obviously she wasn't going to be able to sleep in peace...oh well. She'd get by. With a nod of thanks, BJ left, remembered from her quick glance at the map just which turns and stairs to take.

She reached her room with little fuss, wondering why the hell she hadn't just phased into the dark and gotten there that much quicker. Oh well...She was about to reach for the doorknob when she remembered Perivia's 'subtle' warning, and thought of all the old action films she'd seen through the years. Good guy opens door, turning knob activates time bomb/other harmful 'trick'. Yeah, not happening...She'd been in too many co-ed orphanages to walk blindly into a room.

With a disgruntled sigh, she took a step back, studied the door, then with a shrug, stood on one foot, turning the doorknob with a twist of her ankle before kicking in the door. She stood against the opposite wall, counted one second on her fingers, then two, three...Yep, her room had just gone to s**t. She heard the bang a moment before the room filled with smoke, thick and choking, and several crashes could be heard, like someone was chucking a bowling ball around and letting it drop. Eventually the crashing stopped, the smoke cleared up as it drifted into the hall.

Eyes narrowed, ready to phase into the shadows at the slightest movement, BJ took the first step into the room, saw the snapped string that had been attached to the other side of the doorknob, saw the smoke bomb remnants, and the...hell, they were bowling balls, all around the floor, having left dents in the wood. How they'd pulled that off, she didn't really give a damn. All she saw was the solid-enough looking desk and chair in the corner of the small room, and a mattress in another corner on the floor...Oh my God, she had a mattress. She hadn't been the proud owner of a mattress in...six years.

With an uncharacteristic display of delight, she let out a whoop, abandoned all caution and threw herself bodily onto the mattress, delighted when it bounced slightly, supporting her weight with the springs. It was so...comfortable!

BJ made her way to the roof of the school, satisfied that she'd successfully escaped from the idiot. However, she could only blink when a shadow snaked along the roof towards her, then grew, until sudden Torin stepped out of it, his eyes locked on her in triumph.

"Found ya." He said, and she blinked again, stared. Another Shadow Runner...Oh, hell...Determined not to be affected, she merely stood her ground, crossing her arms.

"Yeah, you found me...So, is that what you wanted to tell me? That you're a Shadow Runner? Well, lookie here, so am I, aint it great? Now that we've established this fine, unwanted connection, you can go away." She said stubbornly, and turned her back to him. For a moment, he could only stare, then shook his head. This wasn't going to be as easy as he'd hoped...

Oh. My. Good. Lord. She'd found the cafeteria. It took all the strength she had in her to resist pressing her face to the glass of the display case and salivating until she had her own little drool puddle. She was 99.99999999% sure that was meat. Actual red meat. How many months had it been since she'd had red meat? Let's see, she'd swiped that stuff from the state fair...no, that had been Spam, she remembered. Didn't count. And those were potatoes, mashed frigging potatoes. Processed, most likely, but still...green beans. Cooked green beans, not raw stuff swiped from some poor lady's garden. And that...my God, it was gravy. And that was Jello. She hadn't had Jello since...hell, had she ever had Jello? And those were biscuits...Good god, they had biscuits. To a girl who'd been living off pinched loaves of bread and whatever she could steal from gardens or pick from the forest for months now, this was...my God, it was heaven. She'd found heaven.

Determined not to make a fool of herself and start shoving things into her pockets, she waited in line with a tray, thinking how many more lovely surprises she'd get on her first day. First a room to herself, then an actual mattress, and now meat. Now this was living.

BJ froze in the doorway of her room, stared. In that moment, she saw red. Someone had torn apart her mattress. The fluffed material was strewn about the room, though someone had gotten rid of the bowling balls, leaving behind only the crushed floorboards. But she didn't give a rat's a** about the floorboards.

She heard a muffled chuckle from around the corner, and when she turned, heard the rushing footsteps. If the would-be jokesters had stuck around to see her face, they'd have seen the fierce fury, kept carefully in check even as her eyes shot out flames.

Without a word, she sank into the shadows cast on the floor, and was darting in the jokesters' shadows even as they booked for their own door room. The door slammed and locked, and none of them noticed the shadow slipping through the crack in the door as they all burst out laughing, collapsing on the beds-completely with fully intact mattresses, thank you very much-and going on and on with an arrogant confidence that they wouldn't be caught.

And oh, she thought, hear the dead silence when they see the stupid little rookie behind the toughest of the bunch, appearing out of nowhere to put a knife to the boy's throat. See the fear jump into their eyes when she let just the tip of the knife press against the boy's neck, making a drop of blood spill down his skin. And see them reach for their own weapons, look at the shock when she just disappears again, reappearing behind another.

When she reappeared once more, blocking the door, knife in hand, bloodlust in her eyes, one of the boys stepped back, eyes wide as he held his own weapon. "R-Rookie? You're the rookie?" She merely raised a brow, admiring her blade for a moment.

"Nah. I'm the psycho killer they pulled off the streets. Wanna tell me where you got off trashing my mattress?" She asked, her level tone contrasting against the sharp glint in her eyes that said she was out for blood. "Uh...well...That is..." At BJ's raised brow, he gave up, merely raised his own knife a bit higher. It seemed training didn't mean much when you had a sudden fear for your scalp.

With a sigh, BJ put away her knife, left the others blinking, as she said, "Tell ya what," And as the first boy lunged forward, she grinned, her eyes cold as ice. "I'll just kick your asses this time around." And with bare hands-and a few disappearing acts-she started kicking some a**, in an unschooled manor which gave her the unpredictable advantage of them having no clue what she was doing.

She used no official karate or other self defense moves, but things she'd learned on the streets, and all of it done with cold, brisk moves, not a single bit of energy wasted. She'd learned to look for a single weakness, a single opening, and to mercilessly take advantage of it. She did so now, practically unblinking, until she had five men twice her size on the floor, only two of them still conscious.

"Stay away from what's mine, or next time I'll not let you off so easily." She said, her voice cold and detached, and without a word she turned, unlocked the door, and walked back to her own dorm room. She stood in the doorway again, leaning wearily for a moment, the only emotion she'd allow herself. She looked at the room, all but bare and practically destroyed. She'd fought to have this, she thought, her eyes flashing once more. She'd fought for it, so finally she could consider hers. It had gone against the grain to believe it could've just been given to her, anyway. Closing her eyes for a brief moment, she tried to remember when she'd first learned that to keep something, you had to fight tooth and nail for the right to possess it.

And, remembering, she was back in the co-ed orphanage in the very slums of Chicago, fighting for every scrap of food, every stitch of clothing that she got. She'd had a tutor then, when she'd been a bit more than three years old, a hero, an idol of sorts. He'd been a teenage boy, fifteen if he was a day, but he'd seemed so old to her then. He'd been the 'leader' of the orphanage, a tall, colored boy they'd called Con who had a scar running down one eye that had kept it permanently shut.

He'd taken to her, for whatever reason, and she could still remember the way he'd grinned at her, his one good eye gleaming with adoration as he lifted her small body onto his shoulders. He'd called her his dark pixie, and he'd been...her father, she supposed. It was so easy to bring to mind his laugh, and so easy to bring to mind his ferocity, his violence.

For two years, he'd patiently taught her everything he knew, letting no others close to her, letting no one take advantage of her small build. Then she'd turned five, and he'd begun to let her loose on her own. She'd learned, and learned quickly, how to fight for herself, not relying on him or anyone. She'd learned to fight, how to use weapons, how to run when need be. And she'd learned how to make something out of nothing. And she'd worked hard, fought even after the blood had seeped into her eyes and blinded her, only to wipe it away after a hard-won victory. And she'd found it all worthwhile, seeing the pride in Con's eyes.

At night she'd slept on the mattress she'd fought hard for, safe in the curb of Con's arm, his snoring a steady lullaby. And she'd been content. But then Con had turned 18. And it was as though she'd never existed. There had been a battle, a bloody one, on who would be the newest leader. She'd fought, battling back grief, and she'd have won if she hadn't found no point in fighting when Con was no longer there. He'd left a note. A god-damned note. And god help her, she still had it. After that, she'd taken off, only to be dragged back into the system over and over again for another five or six years.

She'd gone through foster homes and orphanages, and she'd fought still, forever with the image of a laughing young rebel in her mind. Nothing she did was carried out until she'd considered the things Con had taught her, and no path was chosen until she'd tried to decided if Con might be along the way. He was still out there, she knew. Lord knew what had become of him, with his booming laugh and bruising hands, but he was still out there...And he'd be damn proud of her now.

With this in mind, she laughed, and went about scooping up the pieces of mattress, thanking God she had a needle and thread in her bag. She always kept it on hand when her clothes got just a bit too threadbare and decided to tear. It would come in handy now.