#pl;sp

She crushed the empty box between her fingers and hurled it to the ground. Out of cigarettes. Great. Stuck at a party she didn't want to attend, with no cigarettes. She had planned to spend the evening in the swamp, searching for wild nightshade, and already had her waders on when her brother begged her to accompany him to a stupid frat party. She and Virgil had spent nine months in their mother's belly, gestating in tandem, but that was the only thing they shared in common. Virgil was obsessed with joining the popular crowd, excited to attend college next year, already planning out his courses and which fraternity he wanted to join. Perrie struggled to complete her last semester of high school and swore she would never attend a class or read a textbook ever again. She was like their father, a cagey rambler, attracted to the silence of the forests and swamps. And now she was stuck in her worst nightmare, out of cigarettes and surrounded by blattering idiots drunkenly seeking their next fuck. 

"Bullshit." She kicked the crumpled cigarette pack with the toe of her hunting boot and giggled as it hurtled into a crowd, ricocheting off the bare calf of a pretty redhead. Perrie smirked as the redhead searched, mouth agape, for the culprit. A boyish, muscular piece of meat in a letterman jacket ambled by her, and she grabbed his arm, seductively biting her lip to assuage his surprise. "Hey, you wouldn't happen to know where I could get a drink, would you?" He blushed and thrust his plastic cup toward her. "Here, have mine," he said. She arched an eyebrow. "I don't drink piss water. Is there any liquor at this lame-ass party? Preferably whiskey." Letterman Jacket grinned sheepishly, mumbled a needless apology, and lumbered off to find her some whiskey. 

Perrie folded her thin, tanned arms across her modest chest and let a sigh bust through her scowling lips. A hundred people and none of them worth her time. There were a few attractive boys. The ones with borderline-anorexic girls wearing cheap clothes and too much makeup hanging on their arms were the most appealing. Nothing sexually excited her more than a monumental challenge. A few girls caught her eye too, especially the black girl with wild hair and hardened smile, but some fair-haired frat boy had already laid claim to her for the night, it seemed. She knew she could pluck any specimen she wanted from the crowd and entice him or her into bed, but the lack of a challenge made her interest wane. No one was worth her effort tonight. And of course, Virgil was nowhere to be found. He was either up the ass of a frat boy, brown-nosing his way into their self-aggrandizing society, or between the legs of some skanky townie. Or maybe he'd already slipped away from the festivities, headed to Bourbon Street with a group of bros and hos. It wouldn't be the first time he abandoned her in his own selfish quest for pleasure and societal gratification.