BlueK Dynasty: The 1st Seven Days (18 page)

“
Wait
guys. Don’t act like this. I said she’s cool,” said
Rimselda.
  

“
Whatever you say doesn’t mean whatever goes,” Jackie said as
she crossed her arms in front of her chest. She stood blocking
Kurma’s way.
  

Kurma had the feeling that
the big-hipped girl was the pack’s leader. She wasn’t as tall as
Kurma and not as pretty as Rimselda; but she did have an
independent feel to her, as if she did what she wanted, the rebel
type.  
  

Rimselda stood in between
Jackie and Kurma. Jackie was all talk, and Kurma was the one who
had actual weapons; Rimselda hoped it wouldn’t come to blows. She
wanted the girls to accept Kurma. If they did then they would
accept Rimselda as well even though she wasn’t the old Rimselda
they knew and loved.
  

“
You
didn’t answer my question. Where have you been all morning?” asked
O’bellaDonna.
  

Rimselda rolled her eyes.
This was not how she wanted things to go. If she started explaining
her story then they would surely jump to
conclusions.
  

“
I was
down by the café. I ran into Kurma and totally forgot about meeting
Millie. That early in the morning, the mind isn’t all the way
there. When I see Millie, I will simply tell her the same thing. By
the way, Donna, I’m surprised you’re delivering her messages. When
did you two become butt buddies?”
  

Nina and Chelsea smirked
in unison at O’bellaDonna.
  

“
Shut up
you two!” she screamed, then shrugged her shoulders. “I was just
trying to be the bigger person, you know. My main concern was
seeing where you were.”
  

O’bellaDonna and Millie
hated each other. Millie had stayed with the girls for a year. Back
then the two girls were going after the same guy at the same time.
O’bellaDonna had her bag of tricks and knew ways to make the boy
crush happy. Millie, on the other hand, was a professional
streetwalker. She bagged the crush and bragged about it every
chance she got. After that O’bellaDonna schemed and plotted to set
Millie up. Things had never been the same since.
  

O’bellaDonna wasn’t the
leader of the group; she was simply the oldest and had the most
clout and seniority. She used those facts every chance she got.
However, the girls always voted whenever they made decisions or
argued about something important. April, Jackie, Nina, and Chelsea
stuck together like glue because they were the youngest, so that
always left O’bellaDonna by herself.
  

O’bellaDonna saw Kurma as
a way to even the odds. She hated coming in last in anything. She
had to be first, the winner, the clear victor. Living with the
girls made her feel like
 
an outsider because they
always ended up in little duo cliques. She would give the new girl
a chance to prove herself; if she didn’t, one of the other two
groups would surely pick her up, and the beam would be even more
off balance.
  

O’bellaDonna stepped in
between Rimselda and Kurma. The space was tight; she could almost
touch her nose to the new girl’s nose. She smiled her biggest, most
charming smile in the girl’s face. “You can call me Donna. Everyone
else does. Don’t touch my stuff, don’t eat my food, and don’t call
me Bella. Got it?”
  

Kurma stepped aside and
brushed her hair back. She wasn’t fazed at all. “Perfectly clear,
Donna.” She would play nice for a few more minutes. “Can I take a
seat, rest my legs for a bit?”
  

“
Sure,
you can sit over here near us,” Chelsea said from the back of the
room.
  

“
Chelsea!” Nina screeched. She knew never to be nice to new
girls until they earned their way into the group. Chelsea was
clearly clueless. “This seat is actually taken. Jackie, come sit
next to me.” She smiled an even phonier smile than Donna had. She
had rosy cheeks paired with pearly, white teeth. Nina was the mean
girl in the group, but you wouldn’t know unless she wanted you to
know, and she wanted Kurma to know she wasn’t welcomed. Kurma would
be another mouth to feed, more clothes to steal, less hot water for
her, and another girl to look after.
  

Jackie followed the sound
of Nina’s voice and obediently sat on the other side of the two
girls.
  

Kurma saw that the girl on
the bed hadn’t moved or even once opened her mouth to speak.
“Anyone sitting here?” She made her way toward the queen-sized
bed.
  

The girl swiftly moved to
the side, then rolled off the bed and sat next to Jackie. There
were four girls sitting on two bean bags, which made for an odd
sight.
  

Kurma laughed in her head.
The girls had no idea she was used to this kind of treatment. She
had always been a loner. If the girls had actually been nice to
her, she may not have known what to do.
  

“
Look,
let’s cut out all this unnecessary tension.” Rimselda went and sat
next to Kurma on the bed. “You don’t know her. I get that. But you
don’t have to alienate the girl. I say we vote for her to stay or
go.”
  

“
I vote
stay.” O’bellaDonna was the first to
speak.
  

Kurma was silently
surprised. Maybe she had a friend after all in the big-hipped girl
called Donna.
  

Rimselda raised her hand.
“I vote for her to stay as well.”
  

“
Well I
vote for her to get the hell out,” Nina said without raising her
hand.
  

Chelsea followed right
after her.
  

“
I vote
for me to stay,” Kurma said.
  

“
Newcomers do not get a say in the voting…moron,” Nina
said.
  

Kurma cut her eyes to the
girl. She had a big mouth. Before, Kurma had thought she was a
dingbat; now she realized she was just a smart-aleck who had never
been slapped for what came out of that mouth. If Kurma couldn’t
stay here then she would definitely lay one on this girl before she
left.
  

The vote came down to one
girl.
  

April looked at the new
girl. She saw a brunette with long, pretty hair and olive, milky
skin, pale-orange lips and noticeably thick eyebrows. April had
thought O’bellaDonna would not have liked her. The choice would
have been clearer if O’bellaDonna had voted against the girl. April
didn’t like confrontation one bit, and could see that everyone was
waiting on her vote. She
 
thought long and hard.
Rimselda had taken a liking to Kurma, Nina disliked everyone but
herself, and Chelsea followed behind Nina like a sick puppy. April
couldn’t find anything physically wrong with Kurma, so she couldn’t
use that as an excuse. She decided to test the girl’s mental
capacity. That way it would technically be her wrong answer that
made the vote, not April’s.
  

“
You
have to answer one question only,” she said. “If you get the
question right then I will vote for you. If you get the question
wrong then you’re out on your ass
immediately.”
  

Nina looked at April and
couldn’t believe the balls on the girl. If it had come down to her,
the answer still would have been no—instantly. Playing around with
trick questions was beneath Nina. She was upfront, blunt, and to
the point. Life was too short to waste time.
  

“
Okay,
here goes,” April cleared her throat. She remembered all the dumb
jokes her dad used to tell her before the accident happened. She
found a suitable one—a silly riddle that could be simple if you
knew how to think around the question.
  

Kurma mentally prepared
herself for the worst. Rimselda had told her that April was
supposed to be the funny girl in the group. Kurma hoped the
question wouldn’t be some joke that everybody knew except her. That
would have been embarrassing.
  

April said, “What starts
with a T, ends with a T, and is full of T?”
  

The room went silent. Nina
was stumped; she didn’t even try to figure it out. O’bellaDonna
gave it a go but only came up with
 
teat
 
and
 
tight
, and neither made any bit of sense. Rimselda had never been
any good at riddles. Chelsea raised her hand to have a go at it,
but Nina nudged her hard in the ribs.
  

“
Well,
we’re all waiting.” April smiled. The riddle was easy—you just had
to go through the entire alphabet to figure it out. It made April
miss her dad and his quirky sense of
humor.
  

Kurma sat on the bed,
feeling all eyes on her. She ran through the letters in her head.
The end of the alphabet was a no go. The beginning was too
obvious.
  

“
I am a
teapot, full of tea!” Kurma was sure of it. She looked at April,
who wasn’t smiling anymore.
  

“
Well,
is she right?” asked Nina.
  

April looked around the
room. “I vote for Kurma to stay.”
  

“
Awww,
come on, man. You can’t be serious. She couldn’t have gotten that
right,” screamed Nina, getting up from the beanbag. “You two must
be in cahoots. I want a rematch.”
  

O’bellaDonna walked away,
unmoved by Nina’s antics. Jackie frowned at April and at Kurma.
Chelsea set the playing cards on the ground and followed Nina as
she stomped her feet and yelled loud enough for everyone to hear.
Rimselda looked at Kurma and gave her an approving
smile.
  

Kurma sat there and
beamed. She was victorious.
 
That was too
easy
, she thought. She had won her away
into a group of girls who could be turned into Raptors—her Raptors.
One leap for Kurma and a hundred leaps for her
plan.
  

18.

C.O.N.J.A.R
  

O’bellaDonna would leave
every night and go off to see her lover, and then return in the
morning. April left during the day and night to patrol the outer
banks of the station. She was paid with food and security that she
offered to the group. Jackie was there in the mornings and
afternoons, but once the night fell she would disappear, telling no
one when she would be back. She was a car thief who worked for a
shady, black-market dealer.
  

Rimselda was a panhandler
who made signs in three languages to ask for money. She would bring
home breakfast or trinkets she picked up off the streets. She
stayed gone for most of the afternoon and night, leaving Kurma with
only Nina and Chelsea. The two girls would strike up a conversation
between themselves every time Kurma had tried to start one with
them, excluding her every chance they could. Kurma was beginning to
go stir crazy.
  

As the days wore on, she
became hungrier and hungrier. Rimselda felt it as well. The two
girls would sit together and whisper their fears to one another.
Kurma told Rimselda she had no idea what to eat, and she had been
hungry since the beginning of being Raptored. The girls ate the
food that was given to them but then went off to the restroom and
threw it all up. It seemed that human food would not stay down.
Rimselda told Kurma they would have to reveal their secret. She
felt nervous every time one of the girls offered them food.
Sometimes Rimselda would throw up in her mouth as she tried to
swallow the food down. She couldn’t bear to eat it. The girls
started noticing that their skin looked saggy and yellow; their
hair was becoming stringy and dull, and they were losing weight
rapidly.
  

Rimselda confided in Kurma
about what she thought they needed to eat one night as the two
girls snuck off to the stone museum in Dover Park Square. The moon
lit the girls’ paths as
 
they walked through the park.
Kurma had grown to like Rimselda. She was nice and simple, and
didn’t ignore her as the other flat mates did.
  

Rimselda was nervous about
talking to Kurma. She didn’t know how Kurma would take her
revelation. “Kurma, I think I know why we can’t keep our food
down,” she whispered. The night was filled with sounds of the park.
Still Rimselda whispered so even the trees wouldn’t
hear.
  

Kurma’s ears perked up.
“What do you think it is?” she asked.
  

“
The
other day I was sitting on the ground with my bucket in front of
me, and I was so hungry. This guy came by and dropped a sandwich in
instead of money. I could have stabbed his eye out for it. I tossed
the sandwich away, but then I noticed a bug was crawling on
it—eating it, I guess. My hands, without thinking, mind you,
reached out and snatched the bug. I put it in my mouth before I
knew what I was doing!”