Piranhas in Pink: Piranhas in Pink Book One

by Nova Knightley

  Eden took a look at it and nodded. “Yes. I approve.”

  So this is what I have to look forward to? Having to get Eden’s approval for everything I wear? I was going to hate that, but I had more important things to worry about. I had to find the cracks in the group. That was the best way to break something—find the weakest spot, then take it from there. Dani didn’t approve of Seiko’s violent behavior. Eden apparently did, as long as she was defending them, and she thought Dani was being judgmental. I scribbled those details down in my mental notebook to keep for later.

  ***

  That night, I Facetimed Abby. My heart warmed when she popped onto the screen with her blond curls piled into a bun. I hoped she wasn’t mad that I’d hung up on her the last time.

  Abby looked genuinely happy, and that relieved me. I had been worried about her. Her smile made me smile. “Somebody had a good day.”

  She grinned even bigger. “I did. A certain girl has a date with a certain hottie tomorrow.”

  “Really? Details, please.” I listened while Abby told me all about the new guy she had been crushing on. I didn’t have room in my life for love and boys, but I was happy for her.

  I had to ask her a question I’d been holding in for a while. “How’s Yasmin?”

  Abby looked away from the camera. “You should know. Or have you stopped stalking her Instagram?”

  No, I hadn’t. My hate for Yasmin Patel ran so deep it went straight to my core. Even though she’d blocked me from all her social media pages, I’d created a fake account to take a peek at her vapid life when I needed to. Her pictures were full of her happy and smiling—doing everything a college freshman should be doing. Things Piper should have been doing—camping, partying, trips to the beach with her friends. Every picture I saw cut me to the bone.

  “No, I don’t look anymore,” I lied.

  Abby sighed. “I don’t believe that for a second, but she was home during the summer. I saw her around. She hasn’t looked like her usual self since Farrah… you know.”

  Things weren’t going as well for Farrah.

  Someone knocked on Abby’s bedroom door. “Phone off, Abby.” I recognized the voice of Abby’s mother. It was a huge rule in the Michaels’ house that all phones had to be turned off by nine.

  Abby had been known to break that rule for me, but most times, she obeyed it. “I have to go. Lennox, you really should stop thinking about Yasmin. It would be better for you.”

  “Yeah. I’m working really hard on that.”

  Abby sank back in her seat. “How can you be the best and the worst liar at the same time?”

  She had given up on talking sense into me a long time ago. I didn’t blame her. It was a waste of time. Nothing she said was ever going to change my mind. Yasmin would never be free of me, and she wasn’t the only one. The Piranhas had met their match, and they didn’t even know it.

  10

  Play the Fool

  I spent my weekend reading and working on projects for school. The Bainbridge workload was almost twice as much as it had been at Archer. It was a lonely weekend since I had been ordered to stay away from Angie and Owen and the PIPs were busy with Bree’s trial. I had the urge to call Maisie and ask her if she wanted to watch a movie or something, but that wouldn’t help me become a PIP. She would probably laugh in my face, anyway.

  Saturday night, I made a visit to Mercy’s Market just before closing time, when it was most likely to be empty. I was right. Hayden was alone, cleaning the front counter with Lysol wipes. I didn’t really want anything, but I slapped a king-sized Snickers bar down on the counter.

  He glanced at it and smirked. “Rough day?”

  “Not really. Just a lot of schoolwork, and I’m extremely bored.”

  He pointed finger pistols at me. “I can help you out with that. The ice cream containers are all mixed up because of you careless shoppers. Reorganizing them is super fun, and I can even give you mitts so your delicate little fingers don’t get frostbite.”

  I rested my elbows on the counter. “That is so tempting, but I’m going to have to pass.”

  Hayden raised an eyebrow. “So why aren’t you hanging out with all the awesome friends you must be making?”

  I shrugged. “Don’t have any. At least not yet.”

  He opened the register and started putting the bills in neat piles. “It’s only been a week. I’m sure that’ll change soon.”

  “What are you doing after this?”

  “My friends are in a band. I’m going to see them at this club they’re playing at. We’ll probably hang out a little bit, but I have to be back here at seven in the morning.”

  I placed two dollars on the counter. “Have you lived here your whole life?”

  He took the money and placed my change on the counter. “Sure have.”

  “Did you know a girl named Carrington Blue?”

  He leaned over the counter next to me. “Carrington, yeah. She would always come in here to buy pickles. The jumbo-sized jar. She had an addiction to them or something.”

  I ripped open the Snickers and offered Hayden a piece. He tore a chunk off. I wrapped a dangling piece of caramel around my finger.

  “What was she like?”

  “She was cool. We took a dance class together.”

  I almost choked on a piece of nougat. “You take dance classes?”

  His cheeks reddened like he wished he hadn’t said that. “Took. I took one dance class. It was a hip-hop class. I don’t anymore, though. It was a phase I was going through. It’s over.”

  I nudged him with my elbow. “Plenty of boys take dance classes. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  He rubbed his eyes. “Yeah, that’s what my mom told my stepdad. He had the same reaction you did.”

  “Sorry. It’s just that I would never have pegged you for a dancer.” I tried to picture Hayden with his too-cool-for-everything vibe doing anything that resembled dancing. Every mental image made me giggle. “Anyway, I hear her family left town because of her father’s job. Do you believe that?”

  He moved from behind the counter to lock the entrance doors and flip the Open sign over to Closed. The clock on the wall behind the register read 9:03. “I don’t know why they left, but I know she couldn’t wait to get out of here.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  Before Hayden could answer, we were both drawn to a clicking sound at the front door. It was Robbie, the store manager, coming to help Hayden shut the place down and lock up. Robbie was in his late twenties and always looked like he didn’t want to be there. I should have been gone already. He also had the worst timing ever.

  Since I didn’t want to get Hayden in trouble, I held up the uneaten portion of my candy bar to prove that I was a paying customer and moved toward the door.

  “Bye, Hayden.”

  “Thanks for shopping at Mercy’s,” he called after me. “Come again.”

  I most definitely would.

  ***

  Bree was absent from school Monday morning. I found that strange. Was her trial so grueling that she had to take the day off? The PIPs were all present, looking perfect, as usual. They gave me small waves when we passed in the hallway, but other than that, they ignored me. I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Maybe Bree’s trial had gone so well that they were no longer interested in me.

  At lunchtime, I stopped to leave my binder in my locker before heading to the cafeteria. Owen stopped by his locker at the same time. I remembered the warning I’d received from Eden, but that didn’t mean I had to be rude. I shut my locker and snapped the lock shut. “Hey, Owen. How’s it going?”

  “Hi.” He gave me a tight smile. Something about him seemed off. He pulled a pair of sneakers from his locker and paused. “Lennox, I hope it’s okay, but I was curious, so I looked up your sister.”

  “Oh.” I couldn’t be mad. If I were him or Angie, I would have done the same. They hadn’t forced me to drop the Piper bomb on them. Of course they wanted to know what h
appened to her.

  He looked down at the sneakers dangling from his fingers. “I’m sorry. I know I said that before, but I’m really sorry. I vaguely remember hearing about it on the news. What happened to your sister was fucked up.”

  My throat tightened like it always did when I was about to cry, but it wasn’t the time or the place. “Yeah, it was.” I looked around to see how many people might potentially witness me break down. Except for a few stragglers, everyone was either at lunch or in class. “So now you know.”

  He nodded. “I know you probably don’t, but if you ever want to talk about it, I have good ears.”

  My throat tightened even more. I barely managed to squeak out, “Thanks.” I wanted to tell him how sweet it was of him to offer, but I couldn’t. If I said one more word, I was going to break. Waving, I turned and headed for the nearest bathroom.

  ***

  Tuesday, Bree was back. I wanted to ask how her trial went, but I didn’t bother. She wouldn’t tell me. I, after all, was her competition.

  It wasn’t until I nearly brushed shoulders with her in the hallway that I realized how horrible she looked. Her eyes were bloodshot, and she had dark circles underneath. Her clothes were wrinkled and disheveled. She wasn’t even trying to look perfect anymore. Maybe the weekend had been a disaster, and she had given up.

  I expected her to ignore me, so I was surprised when she popped up at my side while I was on my way to the cafeteria. “Let’s do lunch on the bleachers. We really need to talk.”

  That was all she said before walking past me and entering the cafeteria. I had no idea what she could have wanted to talk about, but I was curious. I joined the lunch line and grabbed a turkey sandwich, a small container of fruit salad, and a bottled water before heading out to the football field.

  Bree’s lunch rested on the metal bench while she tossed an apple from hand to hand. Her left knee bounced up and down.

  Setting my tray beside her, I asked, “Bree, what’s going on?”

  “I’m not supposed to tell you this, and I can get into a lot of trouble.” She looked around like someone was watching her.

  “You’re not supposed to tell me what?”

  She stared at the apple and took a deep breath. “It’s about what happened this weekend.”

  “The trial?”

  “Yeah. It was really crazy, and things kind of got out of hand.”

  She had me sitting on the edge of my seat. “What got out of hand?”

  “You can’t tell them I told you, okay? Remember they made us sign that nondisclosure agreement? I’m not sure if it’s going to be the same for you, but it probably will be. The first two tasks were crazy but not that big a deal. It was the last one.”

  I took a bite of my turkey sandwich. “Just tell me already.”

  “Okay! They took me to their hangout. You may not know her, but Seiko’s cousin, Mei, pulled up. She and Seiko never get along. I didn’t understand why Mei was there until she got out of her car, screaming that Seiko had to come home right away. They got into this huge fight, and Seiko shoved Mei. She fell back, and it looked like she banged her head against a rock.”

  My stomach twisted in knots.

  Bree dug her fingernails into the apple. Juice dribbled from its pierced skin. “Mei wasn’t moving, and everyone was screaming and freaking out. Eden went to her car and came back with a butcher knife. She forced it into my hand and told me to finish the job. She said I had to kill Mei if I wanted to be a part of them. Dani pushed me toward Mei. She kept saying, ‘Right through the heart. Stab her right through the heart.’”

  I dropped my sandwich, watching it tumble to the asphalt. “Did you do it?”

  Bree scowled. “Of course I didn’t do it. What kind of crazy question is that? I might want to be a part of them really badly, but I’m not willing to kill for them. I threw the knife down and told them they were insane. Then Mei sat up and laughed.”

  “What?”

  She slammed the apple down on the bench. “Yes. It was all a setup. A fake fight to see how far I would go for them. Mei lifted her sweater, and she was wearing a bulletproof vest Eden got from her dad. The knife wouldn’t have hurt her.”

  Bree looked so traumatized I actually felt bad for her. I couldn’t imagine how she must have felt when she thought that Mei was really dead. “I’m sorry, Bree. That must have been a horribly scary thing to go through. What happened after that?”

  “I asked them if I failed, and they said they had to think about my reaction. I kind of lost it and flipped out on them. It’s cruel to play with people’s emotions. After I went off on them, they said I had definitely failed. I blew it.”

  I held Bree’s trembling hand. “You know you did the right thing, right? No one in their right mind would have stabbed Mei just because they said to. You had no way of knowing it was all fake.”

  She squeezed my hand back. “Thanks. I just wanted to be a part of them so badly. At least now they’ll definitely pick you.”

  “Yeah.” Lucky me. I let go of her hand. “Wait a minute. Why are you telling me this? Why are you trying to help me out?” Maybe she was lying. Maybe she was trying to scare me away from them.

  Bree shrugged. “You have the right to know what kind of people they are before you join them. I wish I had known.”

  I still wasn’t sure if I believed her, but for the time being, I was going to give her the benefit of the doubt.

  11

  Play the Fool

  During the week, I kept to myself. Bree was hanging out with Maisie once again, and the PIPs acted like I didn’t exist. I did my best to avoid Angie and Owen since I had no way to explain to them why we couldn’t be friends without sounding like an ass. In Ms. Rosen’s class, I tried to sit as far away from Angie as possible. I ate lunch by myself under a tree in the courtyard and took the bus home from school.

  That Friday night, I was told to wear all black and to be ready at any time. The girls would text me when they were outside. I threw on a long-sleeved shirt, black jeans, and black sneakers, then I sat on my bed and waited.

  Mom was knocked out. She had been taking sleeping pills all week. The doctor prescribed them for her only when she needed them, but she seemed to be using them more and more.

  Finally, at 10:30 on the dot, I received a text from Eden, telling me to come outside. Downstairs, Gary worked at the dining room table, pounding away on his laptop. Manila file folders were scattered around him.

  “I’m going out,” I told him.

  He nodded without looking up from his laptop. “Does your mother know?”

  “Yeah,” I lied.

  “Okay. Have fun.”

  I waited to see if he would ask where I was going or when I would be back, but he didn’t. He didn’t care what I did. We barely knew each other. I was just some luggage that came along with his new girlfriend. I missed the days when I had two parents who worried about where I was going and gave me a curfew. As much as I’d complained about receiving the third degree, it was just a part of having parents who cared about you. Maybe I should have been thankful for the freedom, but it felt wrong.

  After locking the front door behind me, I jogged out to Kyla’s Range Rover. The night was chilly and unusually quiet. The girls were dressed in all black and wearing serious expressions. We looked like we were about to pull off a heist.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  No one answered.

  Dani handed me a bubble-gum-pink gift bag. “A present for you. Put it on now.”

  I reached into the bag and removed an adult-sized onesie covered in pink and yellow ducks. “Are you guys serious?”

  “Do we look like we’re joking?” Seiko snapped. “Put it on!”

  I got it. I’d seen similar stuff on TV. When people pledged to a sorority, the girls were mean to them during Hell Week. I just had to go with the flow and not take it personally.

  Although it was a chore to do in such a cramped space, I switched my black attire to the onesie. I
looked ridiculous, and it was not the least bit flattering on my figure. It even had a flappy part on my ass that opened up.

  After I was dressed, Seiko blindfolded me. “Is it too tight?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “No, it’s fine.” She pulled the blindfold tighter.

  Whatever they were about to have me do, in the end, it would all be worth it. It was just a game. That was the only thing that would keep me from throat-punching Seiko.

  Kyla blasted classical music as we drove. I guessed that was supposed to torture me, and it almost did. I took pleasure in the thought that they were also punishing themselves. After about thirty minutes, the music cut off abruptly.

  “Aw, I was enjoying that,” I whined.

  Someone pinched my arm, and I flinched. It hurt, but I didn’t give them the satisfaction of making a sound.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, preparing myself for another pinch.

  No one pinched me, but no one answered my question either. I sank into the seat and readied myself for whatever was about to happen. Remembering how shaken Bree had been after her trial, I hoped I didn’t end up like that. She had been a mess. But Bree and I were cut from totally different cloth. I was stronger than her, and I could handle anything they were about to throw my way.

  Finally, the blindfold was ripped over my head. I squinted as my eyes adjusted to being able to see again. When I looked around, I found nothing but darkness broken by a random streetlight every so often. Wherever we were, I didn’t recognize it. We pulled into the parking lot of a dive bar, and my stomach dropped. The place was shaped like a box and had Christmas lights sloppily dripping from the roof. A huge sign with neon-green letters read DAVE AND EDDY’S, or at least that was what I thought it said, because three of the letters were out.

  The parking lot was packed with cars, which meant the inside was full of people. I looked around, pretending to be nervous. “W-What are we doing here? They’re not going to let us in.”