A/N: You asked for it, so here it is. Please note: while this story is rated T for now, it'll include some very dark themes. Reader discretion is advised.
Disclaimer: I don't own iCarly. This has been previously established, has it not?
PROLOGUE
Monday, January 9, 2012
1:00 A.M.
Those few brave souls who were still out and about at this ungodly hour couldn't help but wonder at the sight: a small blonde girl, wearing nothing but jeans and a T-shirt that inexplicably read "Bonus Monkey," tromping through Seattle's icy streets, ignoring the near-zero temperatures, her arms folded and a glower on her face as if she wanted to challenge Mother Nature herself to a bare-knuckle brawl.
If those baffled onlookers had had any idea what Sam Puckett's day had been like, they might have been more sympathetic. She was an hour late to school, because her mother, in a drunken fog, had misplaced the car keys the night before. When Sam finally arrived, Miss Briggs had given her an epic tongue-lashing in front of the entire class. This, of course, wasn't unexpected, but it was the way the diatribe ended that truly stung:
"You're just like your mother – you'll never amount to anything!"
Sam blew her a raspberry (which elicited a round of applause), then walked out of class, calmly, deliberately. It was only when she was out of sight in a supply closet that she burst into tears.
That afternoon she had simply sat at the kitchen table, staring at the UW-Seattle application form she had yet to complete. The empty boxes mocked her, daring her to fill them up with nonsense. What did it matter? She'd never get in. Not with her record. Why even try? Finally she had scribbled furiously all over the pages with black crayon, then flushed them down the commode.
Carly was out of town, visiting her grandfather. Sam had called Freddie, not knowing exactly what she was going to say to him or what she expected him to say in return, just wanting someone to listen while she poured out her insecurities.
His cell. "Hi, this is Freddie. Leave a message."
His apartment. "You've reached the Benson residence. Please wipe your phone with hydrogen peroxide and then leave a message. Germs can travel over the phone lines, you know!"
Across the city (not even bothering to put on a coat), to the Bushwell, to bang on his door, ignoring Lewbert's howls from below.
Silence.
And so it was that Sam, alone and adrift, was wandering the Seattle slums, silently cursing the world, her friends, her mother, and herself.
She knew that she couldn't go on like this. If she was to have any hope of keeping herself from exploding, she had to find an outlet, some way to release her pent-up rage and frustration.
At the end of a grungy cul-de-sac, she spotted a familiar tarpaper shack, and smiled. Old Ebenezer Dixon. Of course.
Look up "curmudgeon" in the dictionary, and you'd surely find a picture of Ebenezer Dixon's dour face. When, some three months before, Sam had made the mistake of cutting across his "front lawn" (a pathetic patch of weeds, rocks, rusted tools, and an old spare tire), Dixon barreled out of his front door, spewing profanity at her, and fired off into the air a load of rock salt from an ancient shotgun. The whole display had obviously been meant simply to frighten Sam, but instead it had galvanized her. Since that fateful clash, Sam had made Ebenezer Dixon her Number One regular pranking target. Eggings, TPings, flaming dog poo on the doorstep – you name it, she had done it. Dixon knew that she was responsible, but could never prove it; Sam was careful to cover her tracks.
But something was different tonight. Sam felt a spring of pure, poisonous malice welling up within her. She didn't want just to annoy old man Dixon this time; she wanted to do some real damage. The world kept on telling her that she was good for nothing? So be it. They wanted her to be a two-bit delinquent, and a two-bit delinquent was exactly what they would get. It was a new feeling, one that exhilarated her – and at the same time, far down deep within, utterly terrified her.
Sam picked up a rock, and tossed it up and down experimentally in her hand. Just the right size and weight to shatter a bedroom window. And that would only be for starters. Softly, she sneaked down the street and around to the back of Dixon's shack.
She froze in her tracks. There was a light on in the shack window. Months of stealthy pranking had made her intimately familiar with Dixon's schedule, and the old man was never awake after ten o'clock.
Should she flee? That would be the more prudent course of action, surely. But Sam wasn't in the mood for prudence just now. The rock still clutched in her hand, she tiptoed carefully through the shadows and peered in the window.
/
6:00 A.M.
Blowing on her hands to warm them, Fran Koslowzski fumbled with her keyring. It wouldn't be long before the first customers descended on her little coffee shop, desperately seeking the jolt that would get them going on this dismal, gray morning, and she had no intention of disappointing them.
From the alley beside the shop came a sharp crash. Fran jumped. Her other hand went for the pepper spray she always carried; in fifteen years of early mornings and late nights she'd never had to use it, but this wasn't Seattle's finest neighborhood, and there is, after all, a first time for everything. Nervously, she peered around the corner.
Fran gasped. A girl lay on the asphalt; she had knocked over a trash can as she fell. Her blonde hair was streaked with dirt, her thin shirt torn; one of her shoes was missing. And on her bare arms…
Blood. Blood everywhere.
Fran ran to her and lifted up her head. She was breathing, thank God, but only barely. The telltale blue of hypothermia had already left its first imprint on her cheeks.
The girl's eyes opened, sluggishly.
"What happened to you, dear?" Fran asked.
A whisper: "He's dead…oh, God, he's dead…please, help me…"
And Sam Puckett fainted.