BlueK Dynasty: The 1st Seven Days (14 page)

“
Damn,”
said Kurma. She rolled the redhead’s body over, then picked her up
and tossed her in the dumpster. Kurma hopped in right after. Her
body sank deep inside the vile, cold container filled with smells
and wet stuff. Bags and bags kept the redhead
covered.
  

Kurma listened for the
lone stranger as he hopped from his dumpster. She heard his
footsteps as he hoisted himself up onto another dumpster, the
second to last one in the alley. Kurma and the girl were in the
last. Hopefully the stranger would hit the jackpot where he was and
leave Kurma to her own business.
  

The girl gasped as metal
rods came from her arm and sliced through the trash. Kurma quickly
covered her mouth and strained her ears to listen to the man’s
movements. He hadn’t stopped jumping about in the other dumpster.
As Kurma waited for the girl to finish changing, she thought about
how she was going to get out of this situation. She had touched the
girl and somehow passed along whatever she was. Her hands were
contagious. The girl would be too. She would have to understand and
accept a lot of new information whenever she came out of her
change, including that they could have no contact with anyone,
ever…no matter how lonely they became…
they
. Kurma had a companion on this
journey. She peered under the trash bags and saw wings poking out,
covered in brown-colored skin. The girl’s head rocked back and
forth, and she opened her eyes. She tried to sit up, but her body
only sank farther.
  

“
You
have to be quiet. Someone is out there,” Kurma whispered to the
redhead, signaling up out of the
dumpster.
  

The girl looked
frightened. All her clothes were gone, her shoes halfway hanging
off, and her arms felt heavy. She knew she was in a dumpster—the
smell and trash bags were a major giveaway. She touched herself and
realized she had short, fine hair all over body, and a scaly face.
 She was scared and didn’t know who this girl was in front of
her. She heard rustling
 
outside, and her body froze,
her eyebrows raised like hills. The girl tried to move her body
toward the girls but was held in place.
  

Usually she was good in
these predicaments. She lived on the streets, so she was tough. She
was eighteen and had been through more stuff than she liked to
admit. Her name was Rimselda, and she was originally from the
super-city of Dublin Estates. She had run away when she was twelve
from an abusive mother and a drunken father. She’d left her
brothers and sisters behind; she was better alone. She could look
after and defend herself. It would have been hard to do that if she
had to be responsible for three younger siblings. Rimselda knew how
to take care of herself, but at the moment, she felt sick—like
emergency needs-a-hospital sick.
  

Kurma heard the man come
closer to the last dumpster. Her hands itched, and she didn’t know
what to do. Could she scare him enough to make him run away? Would
he tell someone about her? What if he wanted to hurt her and the
new girl? He could have been harmless, though, and Kurma didn’t
want to hurt anyone if she could avoid it, and she certainly wanted
to avoid all human contact if possible.
  

The lid of the dumpster
opened, and Kurma could have sworn her heartbeat doubled. She heard
the man place his feet on the dumpster and waited for him to look
inside. Kurma popped up from the trash and yelled. He had a mushed
face, with whiskers and furry eyebrows. He sported an ugly beanie
on his head and had a prodder in his hand that he swiped at Kurma’s
head in shock.
  

With her new reflexes,
Kurma’s hand went out, and her metal rod struck the bum across his
face. He fell back and stumbled across the alley, then ran off
screaming, “Help, help, help!”
  

Kurma could see blood
spots trailing behind him. She panicked. Behind her, the girl
struggled to pull herself up. Kurma knew she didn’t have enough
time to make a run for it. For all she knew, the bum would run and
tell a cop that he’d been attacked in the alley.
  

Kurma looked at her own
arm and saw her wing had come back.
 
Great
, she thought.
  

“
A
little help, please,” said Rimselda.
  

“
Oh,
yeah,” said Kurma, then pulled the girl’s hand, and out she
popped—wings, metal rod, and all.
  

“
Oh my
God!” Rimselda nervously laughed and looked at
Kurma.
  

“
We have
to get out of here,” Kurma told her.
  

“
Not the
way I’m looking.” Rimselda thought she must have been dreaming. She
looked hideous. Why did she have wings? There must have been some
kind of mistake. “I legit have wings. I’m not going anywhere with
you or anyone else.”
  

She poked her head out of
the dumpster. No one was around, but still, there must have been
cameras or two-way mirrors out there. This wasn’t real. “Do you
hear me? I’m not coming out to be someone’s guinea
pig!”
  

Kurma quickly covered the
girl’s mouth. “You’re coming with me whether you like it or
not.”
  

“
Like
hell I am.” Rimselda crossed her arms in front of her and felt the
metal rods in her arms. “Eeeww, what the hell
man?”
  

The girl gave Kurma no
choice. She head butted the redhead and watched as she fell back in
a daze.
  

Kurma commanded her own
body to transform. She concentrated on her arms and back, as she
had done the previous night. She thought about her legs and hands,
and made her body
 
break and bend where necessary. Her wings took up the whole
dumpster. “I’m going to smell after this.”
  

Kurma’s second-hand
clothes were stretched to the max and fell away from her body. She
felt hot and squished in the little dumpster. She quickly grabbed
the new girl and threw her over her shoulder. She braced her hands
on the dumpster’s edge and flapped her wings over and over until
she felt the air currents surrounding her, lifting her into the
air.
  

Kurma flapped harder. The
redhead was big and tall, and weighed her down. Kurma came out of
the dumpster and kicked off with her feet, and gradually achieved
elevation. She watched the building windows, praying no one would
peek out or pull up their blinds and spot her and the unconscious
girl with brown wings. She looked to the ground and saw two figures
rounding the alley’s corner—the bum had returned with back up. The
two men searched in the garbage, looking for Kurma. They never
thought to look up, where she was steadily rising. If they had they
would have seen two bodies, four wings, and long, red and brown
hair intertwined and swirling in the morning
air.
  

12.

Rimselda the
Rogue
  

Rimselda dreamed of
Nathanial, her old crush. He was Italian, beautiful, and taken. In
her dream she walked around her old block back in Dublin Estates.
All the kids were out playing in the narrow streets. She noticed he
was on his porch, looking at her as she walked by. She always liked
when he did this; it seemed as if he only had eyes for
her.
  

Rimselda approached his
walkway. He came down the steps, smiling his perfect smile. She was
so happy; she loved hanging out with him. If she could only tell
him that. He came closer, dragging his feet, toying with Rimselda.
He was almost there, so close Rimselda could smell the cologne he
always wore. She loved his smell. All he had to do was open the
fence and then he would be hers.
  

As he drew near, his smile
faltered. Behind him the front door of the house opened, and a tall
grasshopper of a girl stepped out. She was thin and bony, with long
hair like a horse. Rimselda watched as Nathanial turned to her. The
girl yelled his name out loud.
  

No
, Rimselda thought,
 
don’t go
. But he walked away. Rimselda’s heart ached as she watched
him go. The grasshopper girl smiled and laughed, showing big,
straight teeth. Nathanial turned to her one last time with a somber
face. She reached over the gate for him. He turned away and slammed
the door. She fiddled the lock on the gate, and it turned to dust
in her hand. She looked back at the house and saw it too was
crumbling. She backed away and looked around. All the kids and the
old neighborhood were gone. She was on an empty street, a dead end,
and there was only silence.
  

13.

Redheads Are No
Fun
  

All she could hear was the
wind flapping loudly in her ears. Then she woke out of her sleep.
She felt the wind rush her face and her breath catch in her throat.
Rimselda looked around and realized she was in the air. She
panicked; the sky was too blue up here, the clouds too white. She
was too heavy, and she was going to drop to her death. She held on
for dear life, and then it dawned on her that she was on something…
Something… Someone was holding her in place. She saw legs and
claw-like feet. She was upside down, flying along with someone who
had wings. Rimselda could hear them beating noisily. What was going
on? She tried to right her body, but the creature pushed her back
down.
  

“
What’s
going on? How are you flying?” Rimselda asked. “How are you doing
this?”
  

She felt a drop in
altitude and heard a voice yell out, “When I land I’ll tell you
everything. Just hold on and don’t move around so
much.”
  

Rimselda prayed and prayed
she wouldn’t slip off. Her red hair flapped in the wind. She could
see clouds, and through them what looked like Alexandria. She saw
the roofs of the skyscrapers and traffic that moved in a line like
a river of silver, flowing around curves and
bends.
  

About five minutes later,
it felt as if all the blood had run away from her face. She felt
ice cold since she didn’t have any clothes on. Rimselda wasn’t
worried about that; for one she had a great body, and for two her
main concern was finding out how and why she was flying around with
a person with a pair of powder blue and white wings. Was she in
danger? The voice sounded feminine, so maybe she didn’t have to
worry about becoming a sex slave, shipped off to some foreign
country.
  

Her heart palpitated at
all the crazy thoughts that flew through her head as she held on,
waiting to land.
  

The rooftop zoomed in, and
Rimselda tried to raise her body back upward so her face wouldn’t
be smashed on impact. Before she could brace herself, the stranger
with the wings tossed her backward as if she weighed less than
nothing. She felt herself being lowered to the ground.
 Rimselda’s legs felt wobbly, but there was solid earth
beneath her feet. She covered her bare breasts and looked around.
She was alone on the roof, and she saw a door leading into the
building. She made a dash for it but skidded to a
halt.
  

A huge shadow moved lazily
across the rooftop. Big and dark, it had legs and a head, and two
huge wings. Rimselda stood locked in place, and she looked up to
see if she was imagining things.
  

Low and coasting, nearer
and nearer, was what looked to be a girl. Rimselda strained her
eyes against the sun. The girl had tan skin and thick, long, brown
hair. Her body seemed huge, and her legs were bone thin. She was
shaped in the weirdest way. Rimselda had never seen anything like
it before. The girl had wings—huge wings that were blue and
speckled with white spots. The girl flew closer and closer to
Rimselda until her feet skimmed the top of the
building.
  

Rimselda’s heart stopped.
This thing was triple her size and had crazed-looking steel colored
eyes. Whatever it was, Rimselda wasn’t going to stick around for
it. This was a terrible dream; she just wished she could wake up.
She took off toward the door and reached out for the door knob, but
was snatched back.
  

“
Nooooo!
Oh my God, help me!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. Rough
hands turned her body around forcibly. This was it; she was going
to die. Facing her assailant, she caught one glimpse of a
shockingly beautiful face before she
fainted.
  

14.

Two Choices, One
Life
  

Kurma dragged the naked
redhead behind the building’s pipes on the roof. She had nothing to
cover her with, and prayed to God that no one would come up there
to mess around. It wasn’t safe for the new girl—not until Kurma
knew what she was and how to deal with it.
  

This was the rooftop of
Kurma’s building. After turning the redhead into a Raptor, she knew
she needed help. It didn’t matter what people would think of her or
how they would treat her when they found out. She couldn’t continue
harming other people and ruining lives. If someone had done this to
her, she could never forgive them. The unconscious girl who lay
naked and hidden didn’t deserve this curse. No one deserved the
pain, or the wings, or the fear of exposure.