Salem marched down the street, her temper rising. In her fists at her sides she’s got a little concealed tube of mace spray and in the other an envelope, crinkled up where her fist holds it.

Salem is dressed nicely concealed, or, at least compared to how she’s usually dressed. Her skirt is short, very short, just short of showing off her butt and undergarments. It’s black, it’s leather, it’s typical. Her shirt looks like a bit of silk and a lawn mower mated and produced this shredded maroon…piece. It drapes more then it gets worn, fitted to her torso, slash marks over the chest and the sleeves probably once got worn as sleeves. Now there’s a slit all the way up to the shoulders and the sleeves become ‘extra material’ and just hang against the back of her arms. She’s got a maroon strip of cloth fashioned as a collar, another around one wrist, and on the other wrist a dozen and one gel bracelets. Her heels click loudly on the empty street, boots, technically. Knee high and leather, the heel raises her short frame to five feet six inches. She’s thin, she’s pretty, she should be the cover girl to some magazine...if she’d just put some clothes on.

Salem is hiking back down the dark streets with her pay check and a bonus inside the envelope. Her bonus was earned, but her boss had given her even more because he thought she deserved something for the little...issue tonight. A few college students were in the strip club and one had decided rules are made for breaking and he should touch one of the girls. He fancied Salem. Thus the black eye he got just before the bouncers got a hold of him and the black bruise on her thigh just below the skirt. He hit her for hitting him.

Her boss kept her after to make sure she was alright, talk to her. She’s illegal. She’s only seventeen years old, but he’d hired her anyways because he knew she’d had it rough. He also babied her more then the rest of the girls, because she was the baby.

Now she’s just pissed. And she doesn’t want to go to the apartment because she knows that Ashley and Victoria would just be waiting up to baby her when she comes back. She doesn’t want it, so she’s wandering circles in the worst part of town to be wandering. Her short hair is spiked into a Mohawk today, the sides gelled flat and the top all pushed upward, her long bangs hanging down one side of her face, covering one of her vivid green eyes and the scar over her eyebrow.

Artis was wearing almost the opposite of Salem this shitty evening. Her dull, over-worn clothing was clinging to her slim body as she moved quietly over the cracked cement ground. Her messy, knotted hair was left hanging at her shoulders, the bangs providing a sort of curtain over her fierce eyes. She had a bit of blood around her mouth and some dirt smeared on her cheeks. The fourteen-year-old had been in a fight?

No. She had just hunted, actually.

A pathetic meal of a few mice were all she'd had to eat. If you could call it a meal. And now she wandered the streets alone in her too-small jeans, old worn belt, short pleated skirt, hoody, and a 'My Chemical Romance' teeshirt over top of the grey hoody.

Her dark eyes came to rest upon the woman storming up the street towards her. Artis wouldn't hurt her unless Salem tried anything first, and she wouldn't eat a person because that was really, really disgusting. And she is disgusting, but not that disgusting. Well .. maybe if she was really, really, really hungry. Anyways. Artis slowed her pace, wondering if the woman would say anything to her.

She didn't say anything. She just glared past the girls shoulders, continued marching, breezed right past her. And then she stopped. She turned halfway around as if she were going to say something, doubled back again to continue on her way, but then turned half way back again and looked at the girl's back.

They aren't vary far apart in years, you'd never guess though. Salem looks, tries her best to look, like she's twenty-one, so that she can keep her job. It's important to her entire lifestyle.

"Are you alright?" Her voice was soft, pretty, but not good enough to be a singer. She was one of those people with a voice that most would tell 'you should be a singer' but the singing business won't accept.

Artis really didn't care that she didn't giver her any attention at first. She really didn't want any attention--attention usually meant questions. Questions concerning her age, parents, and all that shit she didn't want to talk about. But when the loud 'click, click' of the other female's shoes ceased once and Artis felt eyes on the back of her neck, she almost stopped to turn. But she didn't, the staring discontinued, and the 'click, click' began once again.

Then she stopped again. Artis felt the hair on the back of her neck prickle, she wasn't turning to go on her way. A soft, feminine voice came from behind the werewolf, asking her if she was okay. Artis walked a few more paces, then halted on her own. 'The interrogation begins,' she thought bitterly.

"I'm fine. Leave me alone .." Her tone was low, with a slight rasp edging it. Artis purposley tried to sound creepy; it meant that perhaps whoever the hell was trying to start up a conversation with her would be frightened off or just lose interest in the little bitch. She continued walking again, hugging the backs of her arms tightly.

The voice wasn't strange to Salem in the least bit, it didn't frighten her. She's been approached by men with stranger voices, by bigger men, and they didn't frighten her or creep her out. Usually it was what the men wanted that bothered her so terribly.

Salem frowned and hesitated, useing her fingers to push the bangs back behind her ear, the little sliver of a scar on her eyebrow shone. Leave me alone. She sniffed slightly, crumpled the paper tighter in her fist. Really she'd not had a good night at all.

"Fine. I just wanted to make sure you were alright." She wasn't going to linger over someone who didn't want lingered on. "You should clean that up somewhere." Maybe just a suggestion before the click click click of her boots started again, a little slower, but she was definatly still stomping.

The young girl sneered as she continued walking. Yeah right, she probably wanted to attempt at robbing Artis or something. She wouldn't have gotten much anyways, Artis had little money. But wasn't this just the sweetest?

"I don't need any of your advice, thanks." She spat back at the girl over her shoulder, and stopped. But it wasn't because of Salem -- she had caught a scent. Something that smelled mildly appealing.

Not food appealing, but appealing in the sense that it could benefit her. She turned directly left, and moved to the edge of the sidewalk, to an old cement doorframe of one of the crappy old buildings. A man lay passed out [not dead, Artis would have picked that up too] beside a near-empty glass bottle of alcohol and a used needle in his right hand. She bent over him and stared for a moment -- then she took the needle from his hand.

Artis tossed it away. She didn't need diseases, she needed food.

She began to sift through his pockets, looking for some spare change or food. The man grunted and moved, and Artis snatched up some change and leapt back. Artis stood up straight and began walking away, this time in the same direction as Salem.

Salem had turned to watch over her shoulder, frowned slightly when she watched the girl digging through the man's pockets. She paused when the girl left back and then moved on, without looking back, because the girl had started to walk behind her. She did not want that girl to try to steal from her because she felt bad for her. And she did not want to have to spary mace in her eyes.

Ahead, there were two men on the sidewalk, loitering around like a bunch of thugs. She wasn't afraid of them, she'd passed them before, evening knew who they were, though not them themselves. They were some of Victoria's boyfriends friends. Her roomates pals. But they were intimidating and they were eyeing her, and then their gazes slide past her, something behind her.

She stopped, then, throwing caution into the wind, and waited for the girl to catch up with her. She didn't want them to attack the girl for her cash she'd just stolen, or for their other unsavory reasons.

Artis is actually a fairly attractive young girl -- but you wouldn't really guess it from the way she looks at this very moment. Her hair is shaggy, ungroomed, and her clothing isn't as flattering as Salem's. But if these young men held any interest in her or her money, she'd probably be able to protect herself.

Now that she's a monster.

Her pace did not faulter as the girl ahead of her stopped and turned to look at her. Huh. Did all three of them work together? Perhaps she'd get a nice mugging after stealing from that passed out man. But she continued, and walked right past Salem and neared the boys. Caution was not evident in her stride or expression.

Not that Salem knows she can protect herself, mind you, Salem knows nothing of monsters. To Salem, these two normal, non-magical boys were monsters, her father had been a monster. She knows nothing of magic, to her, magic was a childhood dream of unicorns and fairies.

When the girl had caught up and continued to walk, Salem fell into stride beside her and the two men grunted annoyingly. They couldn't hurt Salem, not without knowing who all would come after them if anyone found out who they were. She has a lot of friends in very very low places, willing to do very low things. Not that she's ever asked for a favor yet. It would take a lot to make Salem want someone to hurt.

"What's you name?" Blunt but kind. "I'm Salem."

Artis was more uncomfortable with Salem walking beside her than with those boys staring at her. She could take them. She could take all three of them. Only a few months earlier, if she found herself here, she'd be thinking completley differently, however. She'd cross the street, and walk very fast. But she didn't, instead she almost dared them [silently, of course] to try something. 'Pull a knife on me, and I'll bite your fingers off one by one,' she threatened all three of them at once in her mind, but kept her frightening gaze drilling into the boys'.

Her arms folded more tightly across her chest as the female asked her name, then proceeded to give her own. Artis snorted quietly. She was half tempted to ask if that was only her stage name or something and imply that she was dressed like a dancer [Artis really didn't know that Salem is a stripper, she's just a bitch], but refrained from doing so. She wasn't feeling very angry towards the girl .. just .. average -- for lack of a better word.

She waited until they were alittle ways away from the boys before answering in her quiet, rasp-edged voice.

"I'm Artis."