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Melissa 'Misty' Collins is a student of the Monmouth School and one of the leaders of the Secret Runners of New York.

History[]

Early History[]

Born in the year 2001 to Conrad and Starley Collins, both of whom were descended from two of the Mayflower's settling families, and whom in the present day existed in the top 1% of New York's wealthy society, Misty grew up highly privileged, along with her older sister Chastity and younger brother Oz.

From a young age, Misty became spoiled and used to getting her own way, and grew to be a narcissist and sociopathic. When talk between her parents and Bo Bradford's parents began noting that Misty and Bo would likely be wed one day, Misty took this to heart and began obsessing over Bo. Despite Bo's lack of interest in her, Misty failed to recognise this and fully expected that their parents' hopes would come to pass.

By the time Misty entered the Monmouth School, she had become friends with Verity Keeley and Hattie Brewster, becoming the undisputed leader of their clique, as well as befriending Griff O'Dea. Together with her female friends, Misty reigned over the rest of her classmates, being subtle in her cruelty by allowing Verity and Hattie to speak harshly towards their classmates while acting either disinterested or feigning sympathy to make herself look good. Jenny Johnson was the only one who was vocal about seeing Misty for what she was, though Misty would only ever remark on Jenny's lower status and the work she did to earn money.

During an instance where Misty was grounded, she defied her punishment and went out, only for Oz to inform their parents. Furious, Misty decided to take revenge by stealing his phone and performing numerous pornographic searches on it before handing it over to their parents, getting Oz into trouble and ultimately sent to military camp the next summer as punishment, to Misty's delight. To further torment her brother, Misty spread rumours about Oz's supposed searches and tarnishing his reputation at school.

After Misty turned 15, she and Chastity were both granted an amber gem from their mother, which activated a mysterious portal mechanism located beneath Central Park. Deciding to do what their mother had done with her friends in their youth, the sisters began traversing the tunnel for a thrill-inducing "runs". While they were given shared ownership of the gem, Misty had more possession over it than Chastity, and imitated her mother by often wearing it within a necklace and hiding it in a hollowed-out book for safe keeping. Over time, the Collins girls brought some of their friends from the Monmouth School in on their secret about the portal, including Bo, Verity, Hattie, Griff and Dane Summerhays. Together the group called themselves the Secret Runners of New York, and every time after they did a run, they marked their wrists with a line drawn using a permanent marker.

While Bo discovered that the world above the well was a desolate version of New York, due to the presence of a crazed bald man who sometimes shouted at them from the top of the well, Misty and the other Runners decided to avoid any further exploration. However, without the male members of the Secret Runners knowing, Misty and the other girls managed to get to the top of the well and did some minor exploring of the immediate Central Park area on their own, avoiding the "crazies" who lived in that world, figuring that it was a future or alternate version of New York.

During this time, Misty became friends with new student Trina Miller. However, when Trina asked Bo out on a date, Misty, still living under the delusion that she and Bo were meant for each other, was livid. When Misty confronted her, she declared that Trina was no longer her friend, hurling insults and slapping Trina, getting a suspension from school as a result. In a subsequent psychological evaluation session with Dr Vivienne Freeman, Misty expressed no remorse, however she was determined to not be psychotic and instead recommended ongoing therapy sessions.

Despite freezing Trina out, Misty felt that wasn't punishment enough for Trina, and so, with Chastity, Verity and Hattie's help, she took revenge by luring Trina to the conversancy garden above the tunnel entrance and tasering her unconscious. The girls then dragged Trina through the portal and up into the world above the tunnel before tying her up and drawing the crazies in to kill her.

Following Trina's disappearance, Dr Freeman was asked by investigators if Misty could have been responsible considering their altercation. Unable to even conceive of the idea that Misty had access to a portal through time, Freeman believed it to be unlikely that a 15 year-old, even one with Misty's state of mind, could have done anything to Trina without leaving any evidence behind.

When the portals were next active the following December, Misty and the other girls did the same thing to Delores Barnes, who had accidentally spilled hot chocolate into Hattie's handbag; a vindictive act which Misty and the others did simply for fun.

The following March, after Becky Taylor (who may have become a member of the Secret Runners) was named the Belle of the Ball at the March East Side Cotillion instead of Chastity, Misty and her friends helped her sister in ditching Becky in the desolate future New York. With the growing number of disappearances, in order to throw off any suspicion, Misty and Chastity set up Becky's phone with a suicide note claiming that she couldn't take the pressure and was going to throw herself into the river and planted it in their victim's own bedroom.

In the lead up to the new school term, Misty was granted the privilege of being set to debut at not one, but two debutante balls during the next ball season, first at the December International Debutante Ball and then the March East Side Cotillion.

The Secret Runners of New York[]

To Be Added...

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Personality[]

As with many of the students at Monmouth born into wealth and status, Misty displays many of the stereotypical character defects seen in those raised in high society, including narcissism, entitlement, arrogance and impulsiveness. As Dr Freeman describes in her notes, Misty is controlling, manipulative and self-involved, issues which aren't able to be fixed with medications, though Freeman believed that she was only a troubled youth and not psychotic. In reality, however, Misty excels at hiding her true self and putting on a front, with few people being able to see through her or being shown the true Misty. Misty cares little for anyone she sees as beneath her, even her own family or friends, being more-than-willing to manipulate, abuse and abandon them as she sees fit. Whenever she was at school, Misty would be subtle in her cruelty by letting Verity and Hattie be open in harassing their classmates while she acted either disinterested or feigned kindness at times in order to make herself look good.

Among Misty's numerous traits, however, her psychotic obsessiveness and vindictiveness are the strongest qualities displayed. Notably, Misty held a strong obsession towards Bo, to the point of deluding herself into believing they were in love with one another and being unable to accept or recognise that he was not interested in her despite her flagrant advances, taking it all in her stride. Whenever another girl demonstrated an interest in Bo, Misty would take it as a personal offence and a betrayal.

Misty feels a constant need to take vengeance on anyone who slights her, even going so far as to falsify evidence that Oz had performed pornographic searches when he simply told on her for ignoring being grounded, and taking things further by completely trashing Oz's reputation by spreading lies. However, it was her access to a future New York that allowed Misty free reign to take out her frustrations, abandoning Trina in the future for her perceived betrayal out of spite. Conversely, in Delores's case, it was simply a matter of having fun for Misty.

Even when she was advised to hold off on taking retribution on Skye, Misty couldn't help but needle her rival by pretending to be her friend and constantly remarking on her - self-presumed - closeness with Bo and prodding Skye into discovering she would go missing (which Misty had already learned in advance), just for her own amusement. However, when Jenny stood up to Misty and claimed that nothing she said or did could hurt her, and with the end of the world approaching, Misty was incensed enough to take action and dispose of her like the other girls, but initially wanted Jenny to suffer slowly and so did not lure in the "crazies" to kill her.

Conversely, Misty's obsessiveness is her own greatest weakness. When she realised Skye had gotten loose and was still alive in the future, Misty took huge risks to try and ensure Skye's death; first manipulating Griff into blaming Skye for abandoning him through the gamma cloud event, knowing that he would pursue her if he lived through to the time the portal opened to (although how much of this Misty planned is unknown); and secondly, took obsessive vigilance in going through the portal for a couple of hour each day armed with a handgun. Ultimately, her obsession with trying to see through Skye's death, in addition to her own ignorance, ended up costing Misty her own life.

Skills[]

  • Master Manipulator: To Be Added.

Equipment[]

  • Portal Gem: A mysterious amber-coloured gem shared between Misty and Chastity, which is used with the portal mechanism beneath Central Park to enable travel from the present day to the future and back. Despite being ostensibly shared between her and Chastity, Misty appears to be the one most often in possession of the gem, usually keeping it hidden in a hollowed-out book or on a necklace she often wears.
  • SABRE Stun Gun: A handheld taser which Misty brought with her when the Secret Runners began the first official exploration of the world above the portal tunnel.
  • C2 Taser: Another type of stun gun in Misty's possession, she used it to tase Trina unconscious before abandoning her in the future. When she and her clique caught Skye in Vandermeer's office, Misty used it to shock Skye.
  • Pistol: A pearl-handled pistol that belonged to Misty's mother. Misty stole it in order to be prepared to kill Skye if she turned out to be alive despite abandoning her in the future, however, having no experience in firearms, Misty had no idea that she needed to chamber a round first.

Trivia[]

  • Misty is the first female main antagonist to appear in any of Reilly's novels.
  • While she never became aware of it, Misty's strategy of manipulating Griff to pursue Skye ended up costing Bo his life first.
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