Disclaimer: Victorious and its characters are the property of Schneider's Bakery and Nickelodeon. This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author. No profit is intended or wanted for this story.

Note: Jade uses a non-PC term but it's not meant to show her opinion about the group but rather a reflection of the horrid situation she's in.

Chapter 1

God I Hate My Life

God I hate my life!

Not that I ever I've really enjoyed it much, even as a kid. My favorite toy really was a hammer so I could pound the shit out of my other toys when my cold, emotionless parents ignored me.

High school was the only bright time in my life. Hollywood Arts was the closest I came to having a supportive family – which my past caused me to keep at arm's length, at best. I also found someone who really cared about me - my boyfriend Beck Oliver. But we broke up for the fourth or fifth - and final - time a few weeks before graduation.

Unfortunately, at that point, I was already teetering on the event horizon of my current black hole. All thanks to Daddy Dearest.

As I said, my parents couldn't care less about me. I think I was the unfortunate result of some obligatory fuck shortly after they got married. A marriage based totally on financial gain as it resulted in the merger of two companies into a larger corporation. An anniversary fuck, about five years later, resulted in my little brother. A complete fucking, spoiled brat.

My loving mother walked out on us shortly after Bratzone was born, with a substantial chunk of the estate and also taking brat-attack with her – the only good thing she did. She started to shack up with some pothead surfer stud in Malibu and sold her interest in the company back to Dad. Dad ended up selling out to another man and became the CFO of the new operation, basically he became a glorified accountant.

But there began the fall. Roy Werner West was a brilliant accountant and financier but his greed got the better of him. Insider trading and embezzled funds that quickly went to offshore accounts in Switzerland and the Caymans, were finally brought to light about the time I was spending Spring Break with my friends down in San Diego.

I came back to a sealed-off house, seized by the Feds for assets forfeiture. My clothes, books, movies, my car, everything was locked up to be auctioned off. Even my movie memorabilia like the one-sheets, the autographed scripts and press kits. But the worst: my prop scissors. The fucking Feds wouldn't let me have anything. (Babysitting didn't pay enough for Cat to go to Cancun as we had planned.)

At least Roy ended doing hard time in a Federal prison. Since he's not in a Federal supermax, I hope he's someone's bitch taking it up the ass every fucking night!

Fortunately, I had almost seven hundred dollars in my personal savings account. On a whim, I opened that myself at a completely different bank and had the passbook with me so the Feds didn't grab that. That money went to replace clothes and for food. But not much farther.

At least, since it was already paid for, I still managed to finish my senior year at HA but it was hard.

No one knew what had happened. I did what Cat had tried and lived in the crawl space above the Black Box. I used some industrial strength poison to make that room rat-free although I did have trouble breathing for a few days.

As I said, no one knew what had happened, so I just explained my respiratory problems as a spring allergy. I knew if the gang learned what happened, I'd end up living with Cat and Sam in a very crowded, one-bedroom in Venice or, worse yet, trapped with the Vega sisters. Tori I could handle but Trina was the part of that package deal I just couldn't face. Robbie? Yeah, right! He'd be dead inside a day with that damn puppet mysteriously in his lower colon. Andre? Could've been a possibility except I heard about his crush the year before. Of course, Beck was out.

My dear mother wanted nothing to do with me since I decided to stay with Dad - only because I wanted to stay at my grade school, and later Hollywood Arts. Since she had sold her interests, with nothing to tie her to Dad's crimes, she got off scot-free. The bitch. But she blew through the money in what had to be a Guinness record – I'm guessing buying the beach house outright with cash along with all the booze, weed and coke had something to do with it. Then, to keep her surfer boytoy, there was some boob work, face and butt lifts and lypo. Didn't matter. Once the money ran out, Studly Surferboy moved on to a sugar daddy… Leave it dear old Mom to turn a guy gay. Mom lost the house to back taxes and ended in some broken down mobile home on a wild-fire prone hill well above that beautiful beach house she lost in Malibu.

Oh, and the brat? Still underage, he was forced to move with our mother into their Airstream. I'm sure they're both very happy about that. I like to think they both pray for a wildfire or a mudslide or an earthquake to end their misery.

As soon as school ended, I packed what little I had and took a bus across the continent to New York. A huge step down from my classic, black '67 Challenger that now belonged to some lucky federal auction winner.

Why New York? I figured I could maybe get started on some chorus line and the performer-to-gig ratio was supposed to be better than LA. I saw no evidence of that. I couldn't get a job to save my life! And that was almost literally the truth. Even off-off-off Broadway wasn't hiring. And I got desperate enough to be willing to flash the girls if necessary.

Little did I know, that was coming…

I was walking near the Hudson in Jersey City, dreaming of living in one of the renovated lofts or the restored homes the yuppy scum had for their abode across the river in Hell's Kitchen, when I walked into someone. Literally. He excused himself and started to walk on then stopped and asked me if I wanted a job where I could make real money. He looked like a nice guy so I figured what the hell?

Mickey could charm the rattle off a diamondback. He was also a made man, as I later found out. A low rung in the Irish mob but still made. Definitely not a man to mess with, if you were smart. I suddenly smartened up soon after I took the asshole's offer.

Turned out, the job was at a dive… Actually calling Skin Deep a dive bar would be an insult to the other dive bars in the world. It was in one of the nastier parts of Newark between the airport and the Passaic Valley sewage treatment plant near the port rail lines. The place was ostensibly a night club but, in reality, it was half strip joint and half a den of any other vice you care to name. The best that could be said of it was it was a step above an opium den. The Irish Mob, through Mickey, had a big interest in it and gleaned any profit from the sales of drugs, booze or sex.

Oh yeah, it wasn't really a night club in name either. The place was open twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year – three hundred and sixty-six if it was a leap year. The place would "close" for a half hour, two days a week to 'clean up'. If you were in there and drinking, you could stay. If you tried to come in, no dice. You had to wait for up to a half hour as they spewed ammonia around the bar, the stage and the special backrooms. Closing time was around 10 AM on Sundays and Wednesdays.

Once I walked in, I realized I was only hired because of my puppies and my admittedly nice ass. I almost turned and walked out but then I remembered the fact that I barely had bus fare back to within a mile of the fleabag motel where I lived. Rent there was due in three days and I didn't have that.

I was officially a waitress. My uniform was a skimpy bra that barely covered my nipples with a lot of side and under-boob showing and a matching G-string along with spiked heels. The color depended on the season, or the holiday. Beyond wearing those…garments, I had to accept all the pawing and pinching that came my way while working.

A week after starting there, I had to join the other girls on stage, stripping some stupid costume for the entertainment of the sub-human customers. It wasn't as bad when I danced with one of the other girls but I felt so dirty that first week – like the gawking sleazebag customers' eyeballs covered me with some disgusting slime I couldn't wash off.

Then, after another week, there were worse things I had to do…

The shit kept coming and weeks passed. Then months…

The money we took in was great but our cut? Ha! That's a joke. The pay was shit and the tips, even on a 'good' night, didn't make up for that. I know much of it was taken by the fuckin' Micks.

I was skirting the poverty line, on the bottom side, but with enough of my head above water that I didn't drown. I hadn't been in New Jersey long enough to apply for welfare so I moved out of the fleabag into an old no-tell motel near the 'club'. Mickey fronted me the money for the first week as well as money for my work clothes. Which I had to pay back. With interest. The interest made payday loan stores look like philanthropists.

At the old motel, about half the normal motel rooms had been split into two even smaller places. The 'luxury' suites were the half with the bathroom. The other half, behind a cheap construct of particle board, was used by hookers for their johns. At all hours, my neighbors would carry on for a few hours – different hookers and guys on an irregular rotation – making sleep difficult at first. Then I found a few shots after a long day of shit would help me unwind and fall into a coma-like sleep.

I rarely drank enough to forget my craptacular life though. I found I'd get too depressed before I got to that stage. And the hangovers were horrible. So I dealt with the crap sandwich life dealt me.

Anyway, as you can guess, I paid a little more and got the luxury half. The room had a small dresser bolted to the wall across from a single bed with a cigarette-scarred end table. I had an electrical outlet in the bathroom and another near the bed. Surprisingly, both worked.

The Black Hole of Calcutta cost me a hundred dollars a week which cut into my skimpy money badly but I managed to save enough to get a hot plate so I could make coffee and simple meals. I also got an old ghetto blaster so I had some music.

I don't dumpster dive. Not yet anyway. But I saw it on top of the other junk when I took my trash out one afternoon. Sadly to me, it was like striking the motherlode. I took it in and found out it worked – sort of. It was an old black and white TV with a broken antenna that managed to get two local stations, and a lot of static when the flyway we were under was being used by flights into and out of Newark International.

One day, I promised I'd get a new PearPhone and a real TV. I still had my PearPad (which I'd taken to Dago on our trip along with my PearPhone) - that was saved from the seizure by judiciously hiding it before the Treasury men got their hands on my car. While I had a pre-paid long-term contract on the PearPad, my old PearPhone contract ran out while I was still in school and I couldn't afford to renew it so I sold the hardware to some freshman techie for ninety bucks, after pulling the SIM card.

I had to rely on wifi hotspots for connectivity on my pad but I could still write, read and otherwise keep myself distracted when I was in the hole-in-the-wall they called an apartment.

Oh, and did I mention my roommates? The roaches? That motel was a literal roach motel. I averaged killing ten to twenty a day. I had Raid, roach traps and boric acid but it wasn't enough. If I cleared my room for a day or two, they would come in from the other half of the room or either of the neighboring units.

From my history class, I remembered, back during the First World War, an ace had to shoot down five planes to qualify as an ace. By the Second World War, the German Luftwaffe pilots had to down thirty fighters or fifteen bombers to earn an Iron Cross and be considered an ace. While the roaches weren't airborne, I figured I had killed enough roaches to be either a multiple ace…

Or a serial killer.

I almost forgot to mention the two burned-out, boarded up units at the far end. They were pointed out to me by the manager as he threatened me with a fate worse than death if I tried to cook meth in my place like the 'goddamned hillbilly scum' did in those two rooms.

Welcome to La Paradiso d'Hotel. A paradise? Yeah, right. Maybe back in the Stone Age when rock and roll was starting out and a lot of movies were still in black and white. I'm not even sure the name isn't just a bad mix of a couple of the Romance languages trying to look sophisticated.

So, this is the start of Jade West's journal. I'll add to this as events warrant and time allows. At least, hopefully, there will be a record of me if I end up face down in the Raritan River.

Six months later…

Jade slammed the door of her room and gave out a growling sigh. Another shitfest of a night! Skin Deep started lingerie fashion shows for the loser patrons. All the girls had to take turns wearing cheap Victoria's Secrets knock offs as they strutted through the crowd, rubbing up against the filthy bastards. And most of them were literally filthy. Most of the outfits were skimpier than the damned 'uniforms' they had to wear.

These 'shows' usually ended up with the girls in a backroom with one of the customers, sometimes more. Jade had no choice but to give in and perform in the club and in the back – pleasuring the customers for tips. Safer than trying to swim the shipping channel with her arms broken.

At least, if it came to fucking, she was allowed to demand a condom. The management didn't want to spread diseases to other customers through their staff.

Much as this disgusted her, she couldn't afford to lose this job, abhorrent and demeaning as it was. She owed those Mick bastards too much money. Fortunately, sometimes, one of the less sleazy customers would actually give their girl a decent tip. Unfortunately, her attitude towards the job and the clientele was mediocre at best. Jade had actually been warned once about that.

Jade, being of Irish descent, had no qualms calling these bastards by such a demeaning nickname, just not to their faces. PC was way overrated in her current world.

Tonight was a grand night, she mused as she kicked her shoes off. Jade had sucked off two truckers then had to take some stevedore in the ass. She had never even done that for Beck so the fucker really hurt, even if he had a tiny dick. His shipmate wanted to cum on Jade and said he'd pay extra for it. He didn't. Pay extra that is.

After that, the boss wanted a blow job. And he liked to dominate his 'girls' by cumming on them. That meant Jade's face, hair and her breasts.

All for less than thirty dollars in tips.

Not to mention, it started to snow as she returned 'home' and her jacket wasn't quite up to the challenge.

Now, at 3 AM, all she wanted to do was thaw out and wash the filth of the club, and especially the customers, off of her then climb into bed and oblivion. Scrubbing her face, she silently ranted, That creep gear-jammer who pulled out of my mouth to spew his…shit all over my face! I hope he gets shanghaied at the port and ends up somewhere at sea to become the ass-bitch for Somali pirates or…

First came a shot of cheap whiskey, then a double dose of mouthwash to wash the taste of all the cum she had to swallow, then brushing her teeth, then more mouthwash.

But it never seemed to be enough.

Another shot of that cheap whiskey did little more than burn as she swallowed it. Didn't' stop her though.

Turning the ghetto blaster to one of the more progressive New York rock stations, Jade realized it was Friday morning which meant freeform programming until the 6 AM deejay came on – freeform meant any combination was possible like alt rock followed by blues or Big Band jazz followed by classic rock followed by... Even true classical music was likely to be in the mix. She preferred Sunday nights-Monday mornings, when they featured all jazz from 11 to 6, but this was fine with her for tonight.

Listening to Collective Soul's Precious Declaration, she got into the shower, killing several more cockroaches who must've thought the shower was some king-sized waterpark, then scrubbed herself under the hottest spray she could turn up - which was still barely lukewarm.

At least we have sort-of hot water this week, she thought as she rinsed the conditioner from her freshly washed hair. Next came the Dollar Store body wash.

Finally, she dried herself with a new towel she got at the same, nearby Dollar Store and padded out of the bathroom to pull on a t-shirt and shorts she wore to bed.

Glancing at the basket near the door, she decided to go to the Jumbo Wash the next day.

In the background, an old Triumph song, Magic Power, was playing. The second verse caught Jade's attention.

She climbs into bed, she pulls the covers overhead and she turns her little radio on

She's had a rotten day so she hopes the DJ's gonna play her favorite song

It makes her feel much better, brings her closer to her dreams

A little magic power makes it better that it seems

She's young now, she's wild now, she wants to be free

She gets the magic power of the music in me

Soon in the song, she heard,

If you're thinkin' it over but you just can't sort it out

Do you want someone to tell you what they think it's all about?

Are you the one and only who's sad and lonely, reachin' for the top

Well the music keeps you goin' and it's never gonna stop

Never gonna stop

Never gonna, never gonna, never gonna stop

Pulling up the sheet and blanket, she sadly thought, Yeah, as if that's all it takes...

Real or imagined, the horrid taste was still in her mouth. Another session with the toothbrush and another gargle helped.

Just as she was again crawling under the covers, a new song but a familiar voice was heard over the speakers. Jade froze as she heard the melodic voice and was suddenly hit with a quick, massive wave of homesickness and loss.

...And she's lost so much but carries on,

Lost so much but still stays strong.

Lost so much but still stays strong...

"Tori," Jade whispered into her pillow. The sadness was gone, replaced by a strange feeling of warmth and comfort as the voice of the focus of much of her teen-aged scorn flowed over her.

The song ended and the sadness returned briefly until the DJ came on.

"That's the new crossover hit by Tori Vega and the Drake Parker Band. Don't forget, they'll be playing two sets at Earful in two weeks. These are on Friday night, the seventeenth and again on Saturday, the eighteenth. Each night, the first show is an all-ages show at 7 o'clock and the second set starting at 10 for the 18 and older crowd. I've seen Drake Parker and his band. They can rock old school. You gotta see 'em. And I am really looking forward to seeing Ms. Vega in her first appearance in New York. Now, after a short break to pay the bills, I'll be back with a classic Outlaws song – Green Grass and High Tides. The nearly forty-minute live version."

"Vega's with the Drake Parker Band? Not some bubble-gum and Clearasil band? Who knew she could rock and roll...?" Jade muttered aloud.

Jade fell back on the pillow, realizing there were undoubtedly so many things about Tori Vega she never learned after refusing to allow the now-successful singer close to her.

She fell asleep to the Outlaws, aka Florida's Guitar Army, her mind full of hopes and regrets, new and old.