Piranhas in Pink: Piranhas in Pink Book One

by Nova Knightley

  Farrah looked at Yasmin and burst into giggles like I was some kind of joke. She started to say something, but before she could, I grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her head back. She yelped in pain. It was music to my ears, motivating me to twist her hair harder.

  “Lennox, stop it!” Piper shouted.

  I watched Yasmin, waiting to see if she was going to help her friend.

  Her eyes were wide, and she seemed like she didn’t know what to do—all bark. “Let her go,” she said weakly.

  Struggling, Farrah reached behind her, trying to scratch my face, but I took one of her arms and twisted it behind her. I kicked her legs out from underneath her, sending her to her knees. Yasmin grabbed my shoulder. I whipped my head to the side and bit her hand. She leapt back, howling.

  Piper was screaming at the top of her lungs by then, and I was afraid someone would hear. I needed to end it. Bending over, I spoke right into Farrah’s ear. Her hair smelled like peaches. “Take the damn coat off, or I’ll take it off you and make you swallow it.”

  She started unbuttoning it, so I let her go. She flung it to the ground. “What the fuck? You are batshit!”

  Farrah and Yasmin took off into the darkness. Piper glared at me with tears streaming down her face. “Look at what you’ve done. Now they’re never going to speak to me again.”

  “Good! They’re horrible. Why can’t you see that they’re only using you?”

  Piper shook her head. “You just want to be my only friend. That’s all. You’re jealous.”

  It was too cold to be outside, and I was over the situation. I grabbed Piper’s coat from the ground and threw it at her. “Put it on before you freeze to death.”

  She slid the coat over her hideous costume, mumbling under her breath that I was ruining her life.

  I followed her as we headed back into the auditorium. “I’m so sick of having to babysit you. You’re like a stupid child. Why can’t you just be normal?”

  Piper turned to me. Her lips trembled, either from the cold or because she was crying, or both. I waited for her to say something. I wanted her to say something mean back to me, but she wouldn’t. She never did.

  Instead, she wiped her tears with the back of her hand. “I don’t know how to be normal. I’m sorry. Clearly, I don’t belong here.”

  I didn’t know what she meant by “I don’t belong here,” but I would have done anything to take back everything I had said to her that night. Piper didn’t have to live with those words anymore, but I did.

  8

  Piper’s Angel

  Just as I was wrapping up my reading for Global Studies, a dinging sound came from my laptop. I hurried over to my desk to accept the incoming call. It had been a week since I had spoken to my best friend from back home. Abby Michaels’s thick blond curls and deep-brown eyes always reminded me of Vermont, and her bright smile made all my troubles melt away.

  Her eyes widened when she saw me. “Well, don’t you look happy. I take it that Bainbridge is still standing and you’re already the most popular girl in school.”

  “Something like that,” I told her.

  Abby still attended my old school, Archer High. They had started back the week before. “How’s everything there?”

  Her smile faded a bit. “More of the same. Definitely not the same without you.”

  I felt bad for Abby. Things were awkward for her because of me. Our old group of friends had dumped me because they didn’t approve of the way I chose to handle my grief. You could tell who your real friends were by how they acted when you were going through something. I had been weird and angry after Piper died. I could admit to that. While Abby had been patient and understanding, Bailey, Devyn, and Iris had not. Bailey turned on me first, and since she was the unspoken leader of our group, everyone except for Abby followed suit. Because she chose to stay by her best friend’s side, the others slowly iced her out. She’d made new friends, but things were not the same. I wished I could have been there to make it not so lonely for her.

  “So how is it really?” she asked.

  I sighed. “The school is everything the website says—state-of-the-art, and the classes are rigorous. They claim there’s no homework, but we have tons of projects and after-class reading to do. That’s homework, in my book. I’m sure I can keep up if I stay focused.”

  Abby narrowed her eyes like she was concentrating hard on something. “That is incredibly interesting. Now get to the good stuff. How are the kids? The guys specifically.”

  That was one difference between the two of us. Abby was just a tad boy crazy, while boys were the last things on my mind. They were distractions that I didn’t need.

  “I haven’t really been thinking about boys, and the kids are nice, for the most part.”

  Abby blinked, waiting for me to say more. She knew me better than anyone. “Lennox, spill.”

  I’d decided I wasn’t going to tell Abby about my plan. She would only try to talk me out of it then get mad when that didn’t work, but she knew what I was up to. I gulped. “Okay. I found them. I found the perfect girls.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “How do you know? It’s only been four days.”

  “Well, I haven’t seen it for myself yet, but according to everyone else, these girls are scary. They do terrible things to people. Everyone calls them piranhas.”

  Abby was quiet for a long time, but she didn’t need to speak. I could predict what she was going to say word for word. “Lennox, I was hoping that a new town and a new school would help you drop this.”

  “I can’t drop it. These are the kinds of girls who ruin people and make everyone miserable just because they can. They prey on the weak and take advantage of their power. They have to pay.”

  Abby’s face softened. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but maybe you need to see someone.” It wasn’t the first time she’d made that suggestion.

  She closed her eyes. “I know you hate when I say this, but I wouldn’t be your friend if I didn’t. You need help, Lennox.”

  “Bye, Abby. I have to go.” I hung up before she could say anything else.

  Talking to Abby had awakened something in me. I logged in to an underground forum I had been part of for the past year. Until Piper died, I had no idea that such a thing even existed. The site for Revenge Seekers Anonymous was red with angry black letters. It was as if the person who designed it had been filled with rage at the time. I put in my password and my username—PipersAngel.

  The forum was especially active that evening. It had been two weeks since I’d last logged in. I was happy to see that my favorite poster, DaGrimReepa, was currently online. I clicked on his latest post, which was titled “Paint it Red.”

  I had a dream last night. I have many dreams, but this one I hope comes true. I had my bastard father chained to a bed. I listened to him beg for his life for an hour, then I did to him what I always wanted to do. I stabbed him slowly over every inch of his body. I made sure not to pierce deeply because I didn’t want him to bleed out too soon. I needed his death to be slow and painful. I needed him to think about what he did to my mother.

  DaGrimReepa’s story was tragic. When he was six, his father accused his mother of cheating on him when she had come home late one night. Grim was supposed to have been asleep in his bed, but he woke up when he heard the shouting. He stood in the doorway of the kitchen, watching helplessly as his father stabbed his mother to death. His father got twenty years in prison, and he got to bounce from foster home to foster home. All he thought about was making his father pay for what he had taken from him, and I couldn’t blame him. If not for his father’s actions, his life would have been completely different.

  Nice dream, I commented.

  DaGrimReepa: Hey, PipersAngel. Been missing you.

  All identities were to remain anonymous, so I had to be very careful with what I said. Instead of saying I was busy with the new school year, I typed, Been a little busy with life.

  DaGrimReepa: That’s good. K
eeping busy helps. I’m in between jobs right now, so I have a lot of time on my hands. That’s not a good thing.

  PipersAngel: I hope you find something soon.

  Murder_is_the_best_revenge: When does that bitch get out of prison, Grim. Let me know. I want to watch.

  Murder was one demented son of a bitch. I mostly ignored him. He never shared why he wanted revenge. I got the feeling he was just there to troll. It was easy to tell the trolls from the real ones like DaGrimReepa and me. When his comment was ignored, Murder went on to make comment after comment filled with nothing but skull emojis.

  I left Reepa’s post and read a few more. The posters were my people, the only ones in the world who knew what it felt like to have everything taken from you, your entire world broken, and the anger that came with it. That anger never went away, no matter what you did.

  9

  Our Enemies Are Your Enemies

  On Friday, I borrowed a nice pink blouse from Mom and paired it with some Lucky Brand jeans. Instead of sneakers, I wore a pair of leopard-print wedge heels. I managed to steer clear of the PIPs all day using the “hard to get” approach. Seeming too eager was not the way to go. The information I’d received from Angie and Owen was a little unnerving, but mostly, I was even more intrigued. What’s so bad about them? What did they do to Carrington?

  Despite my efforts to avoid them, I was summoned to Eden’s office by the end of the day. I was in the bathroom, and when I stepped out of the stall, Seiko stood there with an annoying grin plastered across her face. “Hi, Lennox. Eden would like to see you in her office immediately.”

  I gulped. It sounded like I was in trouble with the principal. “In her office? You mean at her locker?”

  She shook her head. “No. Bainbridge takes student leadership very seriously. Every member of student government is given their own office in the town hall.”

  “What’s the town hall?”

  Seiko tugged on her bleached-blond tresses. “Just a big room filled with offices where they have student government meetings. Even though elections for this year haven’t happened yet, Eden is still our acting representative since she was last year’s rep. As if we don’t all know that she’s going to be voted in again. Anyway, she wants to see you now.” She linked her arm around mine and pulled me toward the door.

  “Wait,” I said. “Can I at least wash my hands?”

  She thought this over for a few seconds. “Oh, yeah. But hurry up.”

  I washed my hands at a pace I thought would be suitable for a PIP under strict demands to bring me back to her leader, then I followed Seiko to the social studies wing.

  She wasn’t kidding about the town hall. We entered a darkened room divided into ten cubicles. The lack of light in the room didn’t hide the walls filled with posters of the branches of governments, past presidents, and other things dealing with politics. All the cubicles were empty except for one. Eden sat in front of a small desk, while Kyla and Dani were perched on top of it. The girls had been talking, but they fell silent as Seiko and I approached.

  Seiko grabbed a chair from another cubicle and placed it in front of Eden. “Have a seat, please.”

  I did as I was told, setting my backpack on my lap. What is this about? Are they going to tell me how good I look today? Did they finally come to their senses and realize there was no point in even considering Bree and they should just give me the spot?

  Eden folded her hands in her lap. “Lennox, it has come to our attention that you have been spending time with Angie Kaufman.”

  “She gave me a ride home from school yesterday. So?”

  “So?” Kyla folded her arms over her chest. “Angie Kaufman is a self-proclaimed enemy of the PIPs.”

  Of course. I should have known. “I don’t know why you guys would have a problem with her. She seems cool.”

  “Well, she’s not cool,” Dani snapped. “Angie makes a mockery of us. She disrespects us every chance she gets. Angie invited the entire school to her Sweet Sixteen except for us. Do you know how humiliating that was? To not have been invited to a nonexclusive party? Even Maisie Snodgrass and all the other losers were there.”

  Seiko sighed and leaned against Kyla. “It was the party of the year. She landed in a helicopter and closed out the night with a marching band. It was totally reality-show worthy.”

  Eden glared at her. “Seiko, we wouldn’t have gone to the gaudy, tacky, wannabe-filled party even if we had been invited, but that’s beside the point. Bottom line, Lennox, that purple-haired ferret and that weirdo who calls himself ‘Obeezy’ are off limits. Got it?”

  I was not cool with someone telling me who I could and couldn’t hang out with. Not even my parents did that, but I had to do what I had to do to stay in their good graces. “Sure. I didn’t know. I won’t hang out with them anymore.”

  What would Angie and Owen think if they could hear me? They would probably call me a lemming. But they didn’t understand that my actions had a greater purpose.

  Eden’s face brightened. “Anyway, we’re all going to Kyla’s. We want you to come.”

  I was curious to see what this so-called palace looked like. “Sure.”

  And just like that, with the satisfaction that their orders had been understood, they were ready to move on.

  ***

  Angie and Owen weren’t exaggerating about the Scotts’ home. It did seem to be on its own little island. From the outside, it looked like a castle, complete with turrets and steeples. A large iron fence surrounded the property. Kyla had to put in a special code to get in.

  Her house was the most magnificent home I had ever seen. It made the homes in Roosevelt Park look like shacks. I couldn’t begin to imagine how much it cost.

  Kyla parked her Range Rover on the large circular driveway. The double doors of the house had two large lions’ faces that looked like they wanted to devour us. Inside, lavish marbled tile led to a double staircase. The home was beautiful, but it was cold and impersonal like a hotel. It even had an elevator to take you to the third floor.

  I followed the girls upstairs to Kyla’s bedroom, which was more like a mini apartment. Kyla’s section of the house consisted of her bedroom, where everything was purple and white, her own bathroom, a room that held fancy purple couches and a humongous TV, and a whole room that served as her closet. The closet could have easily been mistaken for a small boutique. A silver mini fridge sat in one corner of the room. Kyla pulled out a six-pack of Cherry Dr. Peppers and handed them out.

  Everyone found a comfortable spot to settle down.

  Eden sat beside me on the chaise lounge. She unzipped her satchel and removed a pink file folder. “We have a little questionnaire we would like you to fill out before your trial next week.”

  Kyla handed me a pink pen with a pink fuzzball at the end of it. I took the questionnaire along with the pen and read it over. The first few questions were basic, things like my birthday, favorite foods, favorite colors, and social media info. They asked stuff like If you had three wishes, what would they be? What superpower would you like to have?

  Then the questions got weird. There was stuff like If you could do anything to your worst enemy, what would you do? Do you believe in the death penalty? What is your greatest fear?

  If you ever told anyone what you were truly afraid of, they would only use it against you later. I wrote spiders and the sight of blood as my answers because neither of those things scared me at all.

  After that, the girls took pictures of me from every angle like a mugshot. Eden said they had to do that to figure out my style and what silhouettes would look best on me. “Don’t worry. If you are chosen, we’ll make sure you get everything you need.”

  Seiko curled up beside me, staring at herself in a hand mirror. “My skin is flawless, huh?”

  That was pretty vain, but I nodded because she did have great skin.

  She admired herself further. “Between my black genes and my Asian genes, I’m never going to age.”

  I
kept one eye on Eden and Dani as they scrolled through the pictures they’d just taken of me, whispering to each other. “Black genes?”

  She beamed with pride. “I’m Blasian.”

  “Really?”

  “Black and Asian,” she added as if I couldn’t have figured that out.

  “She’s not Blasian,” Kyla called from her desk.

  “I am too. My great-great-grandfather is Egyptian. Egypt is a part of Africa.”

  Kyla sighed, abandoning her laptop and heading for the closet. “She’s not Blasian.”

  “I am—”

  “Oh my god,” Eden snapped. “Can we not have this conversation again? It’s like every week with this.”

  “Sure,” Kyla called from her closet. “But she’s not Blasian.”

  Seiko opened her mouth to disagree, but Eden held her hand up, and Seiko didn’t say another word.

  Eden moved over to Kyla’s vanity and opened one of her compacts. “Anyway, this girl named Ashley from Everson Heights is throwing a birthday party on Friday. I was thinking we can swing by after we’re done with Bree’s trial.”

  Everson Heights was Bainbridge’s rival, especially in football and basketball. It was an exclusive private school, and everyone who went there had money.

  Dani lay stretched across Kyla’s purple shaggy rug. She turned a page in the book she was reading. “Remember what happened the last time we went to one of their parties…” She threw Seiko a pointed look.

  Seiko placed the mirror on the vanity and pouted. “That wasn’t my fault, and you know it!”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  Dani went back to her book. “Seiko got in a fight with one of their seniors.”

  Seiko shook her head. “Tell the whole story, or don’t tell it at all.” She made a circular motion with her finger. “I got into a fight for us. I was defending us.”

  Eden was playing with Kyla’s eyeshadows. “Yes, you were, Seiko. Dani, stop being so judgmental, huh?”

  Dani ignored her as Kyla emerged from the closet in only her bra and panties. She held a long floral skirt against her slim waist. “Would this be considered boho chic?”