Nicci Normandin (chemicalshell) wrote in light_of_may, @ 2013-06-15 21:46:00 |
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Entry tags: | #solo, 2009-09-27, nicci |
I am a queen, understand
Who: Nicci (+NPCs)
When: Late
Where: Outside the school
“Your father will reassume control of the pack. At least until we know that Mason can come back.”
Nicci stared into space, tears pouring down her face as she clutched her phone. She was sure she’d heard her mother wrong. Linda Normandin had called ten minutes ago to tell her that something had happened at the homecoming dance at the school and everyone was trapped inside, and they had no idea if they were okay. Mason and the twins were in there. No one could get in and out. The majority of the pack would gather outside what was being called the barrier to show support, and her father was making pack politics a priority. Of course he was. In one breath she hated her mother for thinking about that sort of thing right now, and in another she hated herself for not thinking of it first.
“Nicci? Did you hear me?”
Nicci sniffled and pushed her tears away. The twins. Mason going was bad enough, anything happening to any of her family was bad enough, but dear God not the twins. Her little brothers. “I hear you, Mom,” she responded. “I’m coming over to the house. Then we can go to the school together.” She hung up the phone.
She had been having a lazy night at home when her mom called. She wore only a pair of Victoria’s Secret PINK sweatpants and a tank top, and she didn’t even think about changing. Lingering only long enough to wash her face, she stepped into a pair of flip-flops, grabbed her car keys, and she was out the door. Something was nagging at her. A great deal was nagging at her, actually. As she got in the car she tried to dissect what all it was.
Easiest things first. First, she should not let members of the pack see her like this. She was not at her best, and instinct told her she needed to be. At the same time, there was a voice in her head saying quite strongly, ‘Fuck what anyone thinks. I am Nicci Goddamn Normandin and I will look how I want to look.’ Okay, that was one problem solved.
Her father was reassuming alpha status. Temporarily, he said, and Nicci actually believed that. When Mason came back he’d have no choice but to step down again – he simply didn’t have the strength to go against him. Nicci had been happier when her father had been the alpha, but now the idea didn’t settle well with her at all.
She didn’t like the way Mason did things. At all. She’d been horrified with the way he’d taken over, and pretty damn dissatisfied with every change he made. The Normandins had always been the elite, and big enough to afford to be choosy. One great example of that was just how few women there were in the pack. Back in the day, her mother had taken great issue with there being too many other females in the pack, and unfortunately Nicci had inherited that issue herself. She liked being one of the few women. There was also the matter of borns. The pack had never taken in a bitten, but after her encounter with Corwin Nicci had left with a sinking suspicion that Mason would be perfectly happy to bend the rules for that redhead mutt bitch and her annoying brother. If that happened, there would be uproar. If that happened, Nicci thought there was a fair few within the pack who would pick up and leave.
And there was a great chance that she might be one of them. That was the kicker. For as long as Mason had been alpha, Nicci had been quietly evaluating her options. She didn’t like the idea of leaving her pack and starting over somewhere new, but she knew herself. She knew if she felt like her position was being compromised, she would strike out. She wasn’t happy, and her father reassuming control for any amount of time should make her happy. But it wasn’t right. For one thing, Mason would hate it. She could dislike the way things worked with him as the alpha, but he was still, for the moment at least, her alpha.
Nicci did not go to her parents’ house like she had said she would. She had meant to only drive by the school to see what the scene was, and there were already so many people. Daddy should be here already, she thought, parking her car across the street. He should be on this shit like white on rice, not… preparing a speech, or doing his hair, or whatever the fuck it is he’s doing. His absence in Nicci’s mind was all the more shameful considering the fact that there was already a couple dozen members of the pack congregating near the cop cars. Nicci headed straight for them.
William would be Mason’s choice, she thought, absently. But William wasn’t here either. And as much as she loved William, she didn’t see him as having alpha tendencies. They joked about him being a beta, because that was what he was. At the end of the day, Nicci was hard pressed to think of any wolf she’d want to have her back more than she did William, and she thought a lot of people felt that way about him. He was, in his crazy elitist way, born to support people. Nicci didn’t like to say a bad word about her brothers (yes, even Mason), but William just didn’t have it in him. But she thought she knew somebody who did.
“Nicci!” someone called out. When they realized she was there, they began bombarding her with questions.
“Is your dad coming?”
“Does he know anything?”
“Do you know anything?”
“Will he resume control?”
“No,” Nicci answered, walking to the center of the group. “He will not.” Voices buzzed in confusion around her. “Mason wouldn’t want that, and you all know that.”
The voices rose. They needed someone, they said. This was an emergency, and surely Mason would understand that when he came back. If he came back.
Nicci’s control began to snap. “He’s coming back,” she said, voice raising. “They all are. And until he does, I am in charge.”
One of them laughed at her. Nicci’s eyes narrowed on him. A wolf she’d known her entire life, just a few years older than she was. She’d never liked him much. A few years back their moms had tried to set them up on a date, and Nicci had seen him as so far beneath her that she’d almost stood him up entirely. Only the fact that he was pack had held her back, but she had told him not to waste his time. She’d told him exactly what she thought of him, and he had not responded well. Perhaps he still held a grudge. Either way, some part of Nicci was pleased that he objected to her claims. If she needed to make an example out of someone, he was really the perfect candidate.
“Do you have a problem with that?”
“A few of them, actually,” he answered. “I don’t think you’re any better than your old man, for one thing.”
Nicci wanted to rip his throat out for speaking that way. Not just of her, but of her father. “And for another?” she prompted.
He grinned. “You’re a girl.”
Nicci’s hand went flying out in a whirl of motion that would have been too fast for the human eye to spot. She backhanded him once, then brought her hand back around to hit him again. Then she grabbed him by the throat and took him to the ground. He hadn’t seen it coming, and that had certainly helped. Beyond that, she knew damn well the vampire blood in her system would give her the edge over just about anyone here. Once she had him flat on his back, she put her foot over his throat and stood tall again.
“You will submit to me,” she snarled. “Or Mason will hear the reason why.” Her eyes traveled over all of them, waiting for another objection. She saw hesitation in many faces, but no one spoke against her. “I will step down willingly the very second he comes back, but until then, I will guide this pack the way I know he would if he were here. And the next person to speak against me will be immediately renounced by the pack. If you think Mason will condone your disrespect of his sister, then by all means,” she said. “Try me.”
It was a gamble, she knew. Nicci wasn’t actually sure if Mason would stand by a decision to abjure anyone, but, she thought, he just might. He was still a Normandin after all, and Normandins had never taken well to a sleight of any kind. In the end, the gamble won. Heads lowered.
Later, Nicci might feel a little sick. She had just betrayed the father she loved to buy favor for herself. You could spin it any way you liked, but in the end it boiled down to that. Mason would come back, and when he did she could tell him she did it for him. And she had. But mostly, she did it for herself.
She was still a Normandin, after all.