Red Thorns (Thorns Duet 1)

“Fine. I’m ten minutes late. So what?”

“This is your final warning, Naomi. Be late again and I’m suspending you. Countless people wish to be in your position, and if you don’t want it, there’s no need to keep it.”

As if I care. I want to say that but bottle it inside because of—drum rolls—my mother.

Making me part of this plastic bunch was such a low blow, Mom.

Maybe she’s taking revenge because of how much I pestered her with questions about my dad while growing up.

Maybe I’ll have an emotional scar from the cheer squad and won’t be able to live my adult life sketching mangas in a dark basement.

Or maybe I’ll find my father and live happily ever after. Though, it’s a long shot for that one.

“Are you waiting for an invitation?” Reina cocks her head to where the others are watching the exchange with clear disdain—toward me, not their beloved captain.

I extend my palm. “My headphones.”

“After practice.”

“But—”

“And only if you don’t slack off.” She turns around and waltzes to the others with a gentle sway of her hips.

Awesome. Now, I actually have to make an effort.

I try not to drag my feet as I follow after her. Snickers and whispers break out among the cheerleaders at my expense. They have this wolf pack mentality where one will start the mocking sessions and the others follow.

I glare at them. “What? You have something you’re too scared to say out loud, so you prefer whispering like weak little bitches?”

“The only weak little bitch here is you, Naomi.” Brianna, the co-captain and a member of Reina’s mini-me club, points at me. “Look at your fat hips. I told you to start a diet.”

“No, thanks.” I place a hand on my hip. “And these are natural beauty. Don’t be so jealous—it shows, Bee.”

“It’s Bree!”

“Oh, my bad.” I offer a makeshift smile that only angers her further, turning her face a dark shade of red.

She actually has fair skin, but she spends a fortune to tan it, so whenever she’s angry or frustrated—usually with me, because the others are too scared of her to speak out—she looks like a volcano at the point of eruption.

The best way to kill bitches? With kindness.

Honestly, I may have never let anyone walk all over me before, but it’s these people and their constant bullying that’s made me a bitch just like them.

Wait. Does this mean I’m one of them now?

God, no. This is only temporary until I graduate. Then I’ll live in a basement and beg magazines to publish my sketches.

I only have to survive this last year and then I can chalk up the cheer squad and everyone in it to life experience.

My gaze roams around the endless haters’ faces until I find Lucy’s soft one. She grins at me discreetly, then instantly hides it, but it’s enough to paint what resembles a smile on my lips.

She’s shorter and thinner than me, but she has fiery red hair and adorable freckles that dust her cheeks. Lucy is the only one I’d call a friend in the midst of these shark-infested waters. Mainly because she doesn’t belong to Reina’s clique and is kind of a reject like me.

We’ve found company in our misery ever since we first met as high school seniors, and it’s continued in college. Which isn’t a surprise since almost everyone present studied with me in high school. Another prestigious private institution in Blackwood.

Mom and I relocated here during my senior year, and let’s just say that immediately categorized me as an outcast. Hence Mom’s idea about my being part o

f the popular crowd by becoming a cheerleader.