by M. O. McLeod
*
The girls walked through the main gates and up to their floor.
“Do you think Nina will still be in there?” Chelsea asked. She hoped so, because she didn’t want Nina to be left out. Nina was like a sister to her. She would have to find a way to persuade Kurma to change Nina into a Raptor.
O’bellaDonna replied, “Most likely. She has nowhere else to go.”
Kurma just wanted the gun back. She didn’t know how to use it, but April did, and April was on her side. If Nina was still in there, that meant she was barred in. How would they get back inside?
The girls stood in the stairwell. Jackie knocked on the metal door and waited. They could hear feet—several as a matter of fact. Before the girls knew what was going on, the Jeers had their hands on them, pulling them into the flat.
There was chaos and screams as the Jeers taunted them and roughed them up a bit. Kurma went right along with it. She needed to find out who their leader was and figure out where Nina was hiding. She had to be behind this. Kurma knew she should have kicked her out when she had the chance.
“Nina how could you!” screamed Jackie. She hated the Jeers and hated Aaron even more. He had done some really mean things to her, and she still hadn’t gotten over it.
Nina was off in a corner, trying to disappear.
April found her brother sitting on the bed, protected by his usual bodyguards. “Aaron,” she pleaded. “Stop this!”
He held his hands up, and the Jeers threw the girls against the wall and backed away. He slowly stood up and faced the girls. “Are you ladies going anywhere? I like your outfits. Don’t they look good, guys?”
The Jeers yelled out arrogantly, obnoxiously.
Rimselda shivered. She wished she could take the dress off; it showed too much skin and way too much cleavage.
Aaron pulled a huge knife out of the back of his pants. “Tell me who Kurma is.” He knew who she wasn’t. He’d had the privilege of sleeping with all of the girls except April, his sister. So Kurma must have been the tall, Latin girl with the thick, long hair. She was exotic looking, with wide lips and a beauty mark above them. Aaron could definitely see himself getting this girl. If he hadn’t heard such bad things about her, he would have taken a liking to her.
Kurma stood still and waited for one of the girls to give her up. She would take whoever even moved their eyes her way down with her.
April pleaded, “Brother, whatever stories Nina told you aren’t true.”
“Really? So this Kurma girl can’t fly?” asked Aaron. “She didn’t turn Rimselda and Jackie into winged monsters? She didn’t turn you either, sister?”
April grew quiet.
Aaron spoke again. “I’m going to give you one chance to make this right, April. Come to me and I’ll open my arms to you. Disown these girls and join me once again.” He laced every word with menace. “Otherwise, sister, you will die with them.”
“April, don’t do this,” pleaded O’bellaDonna. She knew how Aaron worked. He was a manipulative bastard and sick in the head.
Kurma’s eye twitched. She didn’t want to give up one of her protégés—especially April, who knew weaponry. She prepared for the worst, though. Blood was thicker than water, and at the moment April wasn’t bonded with her Raptor sisters as she was with her own brother.
April stepped forward, and Kurma wanted to knock her head off. “April, he is going to kill all of us!” she screamed.
“Not you, doll,” Aaron said to Kurma. “I’ll let the Jeers have you until you beg me to kill you.”
Rimselda had had enough. She was ready to fight her way out just as she had fought her mother to get away. She wouldn’t let anyone hurt her ever again. Her arms itched, and she prepared her daggers, ready for anything.
April took another step forward as the Jeers advanced on the girls. Aaron approached April and put his arm around her. “Kill them all except Kurma. Leave her to me.”
Chelsea screamed, and O’bellaDonna pulled a short knife from inside her bra. Rimselda let her daggers show and hissed between her teeth. Kurma was over it. These boys were nothing to her. Guns, knives, none of it made any difference. She was stronger and faster than they all were. She turned into a full Raptor in seconds, clothes torn away and hot-tempered. Her skin smoked as her temperature exceeded normal. She slashed her daggers out and plunged one through April’s back into Aaron’s stomach. She heard the Jeers come for her and stop. Kurma twisted her daggers up and sideways. She wanted these siblings to feel it. The pain of betrayal was costly when it came to Kurma. She had taught her brothers, and she would show the girls that disloyalty was paid in full. She peered at the girls, who stared back at her in shock—and admiration.
Kurma pushed April off the dagger and stood over her dead body. She kicked the corpse aside. Aaron rolled in pain on the floor, blood from his wound spreading on his shirt.
“Rimselda, come here, please,” said Kurma.
The Jeers parted for Rimselda. They stood in shock as their leader squirmed on the floor. Rimselda came forward with only her arms in the Raptor state.
“Do the honors, babe,” Kurma said.
Rimselda was nervous. She had never killed anyone before except her father, and that had been an accident.
“It’s either you or him. He’ll get better and come after all of us. Do you want to constantly be on the run?” Kurma asked.
Rimselda looked at her then looked down at Aaron. He had forced himself onto Rimselda years ago, and she had fought him off. She didn’t want to keep fighting him off at every turn. All of these girls had been tormented by Aaron or the Jeers at some time in the past. She was doing it for them, really. April had chosen him over them. She wasn’t on the Raptors’ side. So there would be no one to object.
Kurma thought Rimselda was taking too long and contemplated finishing off the leader of the Jeers herself. She raised her daggers, but Rimselda beat her to the punch. She came down on Aaron’s chest wild and furious.
“Aaron, nooooo!” one of the Jeers screamed, and the rest erupted as their leader lay dead in his own blood.
The girls sprinted from the flat, down the stairs in a stampede, and the Jeers chased right after them, chains and bats beating against the station’s walls, creating even more of a ruckus. They chased the girls out of Snowhill and down the street but didn’t catch up to them. The best they could do was to throw rocks and rubble at the backs of the girls’ heads.
Kurma and the others ran for dear life.
23.
Flee or Fight