Editing Locker Incident (section)

==Prelude==
Following [[Emma Barnes]]' assault by [[Azn Bad Boys|ABB]] thugs and her rescue by [[Shadow Stalker]], Emma started a campaign of harassment against her former friend Taylor in an effort to prove to herself that she was stronger than Taylor.<ref>If she’d experienced her first real taste of fear when the gang members attacked the car, her first real taste of terror when Lao proclaimed he’d cut her face, then it was the thought of Taylor, of becoming Taylor, that gripped her with panic, a whole new level of fear.<br><br>''I won’t become Taylor.''<br><br>''I’m not-''<br><br>''I’m not strong enough to come back from that.'' - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/03/19/interlude-19/ Excerpt] from [[Interlude 19.z]]</ref><ref>Emma had fought in a moment of desperation, as if fighting could make her stronger than Taylor, set herself apart.  Except she’d failed.  It was unbearable.  She hated herself. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/03/19/interlude-19/ Excerpt] from [[Interlude 19.z]]</ref><ref>Before, Emma suspected she’d have been offended, aghast at the idea that this girl would leave her to suffer, leave her life at risk, just for an answer to a question.  Now?  Now she could almost understand it, oddly enough.  “Who was I?”<br><br>“There’s two people in the world.  Those who get stronger when they come through a crisis and those who get weaker.  The ones who get stronger naturally come out on top.  There’s ups and downs, but they’ll win out.”<br><br>“Who was I?” Emma asked, again.<br><br>“You’re here, aren’t you?”  The girl smiled.<br><br>Emma didn’t have an answer to that.  She shut her mouth, all too aware of the people walking past them, going about their everyday lives, overhearing snippets of their conversation and yet failing to pick up anything essential.<br><br>“I want to be one of the stronger ones.” - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/03/19/interlude-19/ Excerpt] from [[Interlude 19.z]]</ref>Together with Madison Clements, they formed a [[the Trio |trio]] that harassed Taylor since the beginning of high school, tormenting her while manipulating other students into socially isolating Taylor or even participation in the bullying.<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3" /> One day, they decided to escalate things further than they usually did.<ref name=":0">“There’s three girls at school that had… have been making my life pretty goddamn miserable.  Doing pretty much everything they could think of to make school suck, humiliate me, hurt me.  Each of the three had their individual approach, and for a good while, it was like they were trying to outdo each other in how creative or mean they could get.”<br><br>[...]<br><br>“It went on for almost a year and a half before things quieted down.  Last year, around November, they… I dunno.  It was like they got bored.  The pranks got tamer, then stopped altogether.  The taunts stopped, and so did most of the hate mail.  They ignored me, left me alone.<br><br>“I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.  But I made a friend, one of the girls who had sometimes joined in on the taunting came to me and apologized.  Not one of the major bullies, more like a friend of a friend of the bullies, I guess.  She asked me if I wanted to hang out.  I was too gun-shy, told her no, but it got so we were talking before and after classes and eating lunch together.  Her approaching me and befriending me was one of the big reasons I could think the harassment was ending.  I never really let my guard down around her, but she was pretty cool about it.<br><br>“And for most of November and the two weeks of classes before Christmas break, nothing.  They were leaving me alone.  I was able to relax.”  - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2011/10/01/shell-4-3/ Excerpt] from [[Shell 4.3]]</ref>

The trio started off their plan by temporarily stopping their bullying efforts for most of November and December. During this period, Taylor was approached and tentatively befriended by another student, who had participated in the bullying prior but was seemingly remorseful. In the absence of any bullying, with someone she could almost call a friend, Taylor allowed herself to let her guard down and relax.<ref name=":0" />

Some time before winter break, the trio laid a trap in Taylor's locker, almost filling it to the brim with used sanitary pads and tampons. The locker's contents were then allowed to ferment over the course of winter break, developing a revolting smell over the weeks.<ref name=":1">I sighed, “That ended the day I came back from the winter break.  I knew, instinctually, that they were playing me, that they were waiting before they pulled their next stunt, so it had more impact.  I didn’t think they’d be so patient about it.  I went to my locker, and well, they’d obviously raided the bins from the girls bathrooms or something, because they’d piled used pads and tampons into my locker.  Almost filled it.”<br><br>[...]<br><br>I swallowed, feeling a flush creeping across my face, “It was pretty obvious that they had done it before the school closed for Christmas, by the smell alone.  I bent over to throw up, right there in a crowded hallway, everyone watching.  Before I could recover or stop losing my breakfast, someone grabbed me by the hair, hard enough it hurt, and shoved me into the locker.”  It had been Sophia, I was almost positive: She was the most physically aggressive of the three.  But these guys didn’t need to know her name.<br><br>[...]<br><br>I couldn’t leave the story unfinished, after getting this far, as much as I really wanted to. “They shut the locker and put the lock on it.  I was trapped in there, with this rancid smell and puke, barely able to move, it was so full.  All I could think was that someone had been willing to get their hands ''that dirty'' to fuck with me, but of all the students that had seen me get shoved in the locker, nobody was getting a janitor or teacher to let me out. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2011/10/01/shell-4-3/ Excerpt] from [[Shell 4.3]]</ref>