Stacy Vine

 

A/N If the genre didn't give it away, the ending is miserable.

 

Stacy Vine wasn't quite a normal fifteen year old girl. Oh, she tried, she listened to the latest music; wore fashionable clothes, and badgered her dad to let her go to parties and stay out late, just like every other girl in her class, but however hard she tried, she just couldn't seem to be normal. Perhaps it would be easier to tell you a little more about Stacy herself. Stacy was 15 years old, she had lived all her life in Cambridge with her father and mother, until a little over three years ago when her mother had left and not looked back. That hadn't been easy, Bob Vine was a police sergeant and Stacy had been just twelve, far too young to be alone all the time. She'd spent the last three summers tagging after her father and his inspector, whom she'd come to like a lot, despite him being a grumpy old bugger at the best of times. It wasn't the safest place though, the back of a police car, not for a young girl. It was certainly far from ideal, but needs must. If only, though, if only someone else had been tasked with the call out, if only she'd been sitting lower in her seat, if only she'd stayed at home that day. If any one of these things had happened, Stacy would be sitting here now, telling you the story of her near miss. But none of these things happened. The truth of it is, Stacy Vine is six feet under with a bullet hole in her head. Sergeant Vine isn't a Sergeant anymore. He's not even a Police officer. The job ruined his marriage, stripped him of his faith, and eventually stole his little girl. He saved the many, but lost the only things that really mattered to him. The people he loved. There are rules now, officers' children can't be taken along on call outs, and are only allowed to be at the station in exceptional circumstances. So, no, Stacy Vine wasn't quite a normal fifteen year old girl, she re-wrote the rules. Pity they printed them too late for her.