Kayleen Bryant

Kayleen was the most beautiful girl in her school - not that this was a difficult accomplishment in her small town. She was really too good for the corn-fed rustics who called themselves her classmates, but her father had made his fortune here, and it was up to her to make the best of it.

She had an ally in her mother, who resented having been dragged from her glamorous city life by a husband enamored of country living. Her keen eye accurately sized up Kayleen's potential on the pageant circuit, and from a young age Kayleen was winning shows with her electric smile, good looks, and ability to muddle through a tap dance routine without any obvious mishaps.

Kayleen and her mother traveled regularly to the city for pageant dresses and for opportunities to model for local store advertisements. It was on one of these trips that the Telo broke out. Quarantines were imposed, road blocks prevented their return home, and Kayleen's mother succumbed to the pandemic in short order.

Soon all the adults were dead and Kayleen found herself alone at the Regency Hotel. With no friends or relatives in the city, and no way to get back home or contact someone in her town (phones quit working and the electricity went out when the grownups died), Kayleen sustained herself on the hotel kitchen's food stores and pondered what to do.

The arrival of Mundo and his band of followers was both catastrophe and salvation. Kayleen would no longer have the luxury hotel as her private domain, but if she played her cards right, she might get status and protection. The price would be steep, but she was willing to pay. After all, a girl with her looks was destined from birth to be some man's trophy. If that man was a teenage gang leader, so be it, as long as he could keep her safe from the violence of the post-pandemic world.