BlueK Dynasty: The 1st Seven Days (20 page)

Nina and the others saw
O’bellaDonna fighting and went running in. Nina saw her friend go
down hard as she entered the kitchen. Rimselda looked guilty, and
Kurma looked smug. She was so tired of this bitch, and she couldn’t
stand it any longer. Nina let out a shrill, angry
scream
 
as
she tried to get to Kurma. She would kick the new girl out if it
was the last thing she did. She lunged with both arms
out
  

Kurma could see this one
coming. She didn’t want Nina as a Raptor. If anything, after she
turned all the other girls, she would leave Nina out just to spite
her even more. Kurma picked one of her long legs up and kangaroo
kicked Nina in the gut as she came barreling at Kurma like a
banshee. Nina flew back and knocked April aside as she fell into
the coffee table; she hit it so hard her head bounced, and she lay
still. Kurma picked April up off the floor and pulled her long
sleeve back, and placed a bare hand on her freckled
arm.
  

“
There
you go,” Kurma said, then dropped April on the floor as the
convulsions began. “Your turn, my little
Chelsea.”
  

Chelsea screamed her head
off. She was shorter and more petite than Kurma; there was no way
she could take her down by herself. “Nina!” she screamed, watching
Kurma as she stalked toward her. Chelsea found the nearest object
she could hold—a massive high heel with spikes on the front. If she
had to, she would beat the crap out of Kurma. “Don’t get any
closer.”
  

“
I’ll
need you to be more assertive and independent when I turn you,”
Kurma teased. “None of this whiny stuff you
do.”
  

“
I
swear, I will knock your head clean off!”
  

“
Yeah,
babes, kind of like that!” yelled Kurma. She chased after Chelsea,
who tripped over all the clutter in the room. Thank God the girls
never cleaned.
  

Kurma caught up to her and
grabbed her by the hair. “Ssssshhh. It won’t hurt a bit.” She
wrapped her hands around Chelsea’s neck; the blood rushed in
Chelsea’s skin, and her heart raced.
  

Chelsea cried out and then
blacked out.
  

Rimselda poked her head
out of the kitchen and was afraid of what she saw. All her friends
were on the floor. She didn’t know if they were dead or
transmuting. What had she done?
  

20.

The Spawns of
BlueK
  

O’bellaDonna was the first
to wake. She felt like she had been hit with a ton of bricks. Her
arms, her legs, and most of all her head throbbed. She sat up in a
daze and looked around.
  

She lay in a line with her
flat mates—all except Nina, who was by the table. What was the
meaning of this? All she remembered was confronting Kurma and
nothing else after. Her clothes were torn half off her body, and
everything seemed to be stretched out as if she had grown several
inches.
  

April sensed O’bellaDonna
moving next to her. She was so scared that she played dead, making
her body as still as she could. She remembered everything: Rimselda
telling her that horrible story, and Kurma attacking her, and she
even remembered how she’d felt when she’d begun to change. She’d
tried everything to stop it from happening. What would her brother
think? He would abandon her just like their family had abandoned
them.
  

Jackie groaned and ached.
She tried to roll over and get up from the floor, but her arms and
hands would not work. “What the hell?” she mumbled. Her legs felt
like jelly. Why was she on the floor? What had
happened?
  

She tried again to press
her arms against the ground and almost lost her mind at what she
saw: her arms were not working because they were no longer arms but
wings! She screamed so loudly she scared even herself. She looked
down at her body and saw it was completely deformed and hideous.
She had wings the color of pears, big and heavy and real. Her body
was covered with smooth, short, deep-purple hair. She had never
seen anything like it.
  

Chelsea was the last to
awake. She heard screaming, and she opened her eyes. Her vision was
funny, though; everything seemed to be in black and white. Had she
gone color-blind? She
 
instantly became nervous. She
blinked once, twice, three times, and still her vision was gray.
She grabbed at her eyes and rolled over, clambered onto her knees,
dragged herself to the nearest chair, and pulled her body up. Her
heart was racing; she could hear its beat in her ears. She took in
the whole room from where she was sitting and saw Kurma was still
there; Rimselda, who had betrayed them all, stood right next to
her. But Chelsea’s vision must have been even worse than she
thought, because the two girls were in some animal form. What were
those wings and hair and metal daggers?
  

Kurma looked at Rimselda,
who had calmed down after all of the events of the night. Rimselda
had messed up her plan to select the individuals she wanted;
however, she had helped Kurma tenfold by revealing that Kurma was
the only one who could change another person into a Raptor. Kurma
couldn’t be too angry at her since things still had panned out her
way. She now had five Raptors, one of whom was already as advanced
as she was. She also had access to a living arrangement where she
could come and go as she pleased. And she had successfully avoided
touching Nina. That girl would never become a Raptor if Kurma had
anything to do with it. She hoped Nina would somehow run into
Santino and be done away with. That was kind of mean, but Nina
deserved it.
  

Kurma had placed all her
newborns in a row so they would see what she was and what they were
about to be. She purposefully changed into her Raptor state so the
girls would not doubt her as Rimselda had. Rimselda stood next to
her, glowing with her red hair. She was to be Kurma’s second in
command. If the girls didn’t believe Kurma then they would have to
believe Rimselda.
  

Kurma wasn’t worried about
any one leaving or going against her. She had a feeling that even
though at the moment she seemed like the bad guy, the girls would
come around and treat
 
her with the respect she
deserved. Rimselda had done alright by her; Kurma believed the
other girls would fall in line as she had…or
else.
  

Kurma clapped her hands
loudly. The sound echoed off the walls and vibrated her ear drums.
She looked at her massive hands and was pleased with herself. She
really had become content with being a Raptor.
  

“
Ladies,
if I can have your attention,” said Kurma. She waited for the
others to situate themselves. Chelsea was already seated. Jackie
was trying to cover her Raptor body with her wings. April eyes were
rimmed with red, and she simply lay on the floor. O’bellaDonna
shuffled to the bed, holding her back like an old
granny.
  

“
What
have you done?” she screamed.
  

Kurma held her hand up to
stop the talking. “If you give me a chance to explain, I’m sure an
understanding will be reached.”
  

“
Hear
her out,” Rimselda said. She looked at Kurma and gave her tiny
smile.
  

“
Thank
you, Rimy. I want to get straight to business. You have all been
turned into Raptors, as I am. Everyone except Nina.” Kurma waved
over to her. She still lay still.
  

O’bellaDonna looked at
Jackie, who was clearly birdlike, with wings and hair and even
freakier eyes that seemed to glow bright. “I’m like you?” she asked
Kurma, bewildered.
  

“
Yes.
We’re all Raptors. Nothing has to change if you don’t want it to.
We can still stay here and go about our normal
lives.”
  

“
How so?
I’m a freaking bird, you bitch! Don’t play with me right now!”
screamed Jackie. “I want to turn back to
normal!”
  

“
You
can,” Kurma said. “We have the ability to turn back into our normal
sizes, with our regular faces and hair. Our bodies can morph back
and forth. I can teach you how if you let
me.”
  

Chelsea didn’t trust
Kurma, but she looked like Rimselda, who looked like Jackie. If
what she was saying was true, then they needed her. “So what can a
Raptor do? What makes you two—well, the three of you so special?”
She looked at Jackie and mouthed “sorry” to her.
  

Kurma spread her
powder-blue spotted wings full for the room to see. “Clearly we can
fly,” she said. “But that’s not all. We have magnified vision,
better hearing, and better smelling abilities. We can command our
bodies to morph only single parts if necessary. For example you can
be in your human shape and still see out of your Raptor eyes. There
are numerous advantages to being a Raptor.”
  

O’bellaDonna said, “That’s
all good and fine, but you didn’t have our permission to turn
us!”
  

“
No one
had my permission to turn me, but here I am, and here we are.”
Kurma felt the need to defend herself, but then thought better of
it. They wouldn’t all follow her if she didn’t seem sorry for what
she’d done. She wasn’t sorry, but she could at least pretend to be.
There was, after all, a time to be stubborn and severe and a time
to be sympathetic. She chose the latter.
  

“
Look,
I’m sorry I attacked you, Donna. Chelsea, I hope you can forgive me
as well for scaring you.” Kurma directed her apologies to the girls
who were talking the most. April seemed to be in shock, so she’d
get to her later. But Jackie was already hers—Kurma could feel
it.
  

“
Jackie,
how does it feel to be a Raptor?”
  

Jackie wasn’t quick to
respond. She looked down at her body and nervously laughed. She was
bigger than she remembered. She didn’t know if being a Raptor
caused her to grow or not, but she had never been this tall. Her
pelt color was beautiful, with swirls of deep forest greens and
lime-yellows in its pattern. She stroked the hair on her stomach
and felt how soft it was. She
 
giggled at her hands, too,
which were thin and freakishly long. She brought them to her face
and noticed the claws that used to be her nails.
  

“
I look
so sick,” she squealed. She bet she looked cool, like a woman in a
comic book. “In a good way, though.”
  

Rimselda and Kurma looked
at each other and nodded. Rimselda then looked at April and worried
for her friend. “April, how are you, hon?”
  

April cringed. She didn’t
want to talk back. She just wanted her brother to find her and
rescue her from this nightmare. She saw her gun across the room
where she had set it down before she’d gone into the kitchen with
Rimselda. If only she could reach it, then she might be able to get
out of there alive. She would run and tell her brother, who would
handle Kurma and the rest of these traitors who were so quick to
accept Kurma’s little gift.
  

“
Don’t
talk to me,” she spat at Rimselda. She dragged her body to the
nearest corner and pulled her knees up to her face, and hid away as
best she could.
  

“
April,
don’t be that way,” O’bellaDonna said. “Everything will be alright,
I promise.”
  

“
How can
you promise me anything?” April shot
back.
  

O’bellaDonna was silent.
The room was too, and the tension thickened.
  

Nina came to and rubbed
the back of her head. That witch Kurma had kicked her into the
coffee table. Nina would deal with that; she felt around on the
floor, searching for the nearest weapon. She noticed a strange,
clawed foot by her face and followed it up a thin, creepy-looking
leg, which turned into a body with wings and arms. The body
belonged to her old friend Jackie, but with a scaled
face.
  

Nina jerked backward and
yelled, “What have they done to you?”
  

“
Nina!”
screamed April. Her friend had finally woken up, and she needed
some backup. “Help me, Nina. They’ve turned me into them.” She ran
over to Nina, who looked as if she had seen a
ghost.
  

“
Do I
look that bad, guys?” asked Jackie.
  

“
You
look splendid, babes,” Kurma said. She wasn’t lying,
either.
  

“
Stay
away from me,” Nina screamed, putting up her hands as April ran her
way. “Whatever she gave you guys, I don’t want it.” She saw what
Kurma had done to Jackie; she could only imagine the other
girls.