Chapter 7 - Vengeance& Lip Gloss
1819 Words
Third-Person Limited – Kendra, then Dominic, then Kendra again
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Three weeks later, Kendra had to admit one thing:
Joint Service sucked… but it wasn’t the worst thing that had ever happened to her.
Most days, it was boring. She and Dominic reported to the front office at three o’clock sharp, signed in with Miss Hall, and were then assigned menial tasks. Collating worksheets. Carrying boxes to classrooms. Sorting lost-and-found into “valuable” and “how is this even still here?”
The first week, they barely spoke. Grunts and eye rolls didn’t really count as conversation.
By the second week, the silence had started to c***k. Little things slipped out. Sarcastic comments. Mutters. Jokes at Miss Hall’s expense—when she wasn’t listening, of course.
By the third week, something close to… a rhythm had formed.
Kendra still couldn’t stand him most days. Dominic was bossy, easily annoyed, and way too used to people doing what he said. But he worked. He didn’t shove everything onto her and walked away. And now and then he said something that almost made her laugh.
Almost.
Everyone else, though, only saw them leaving the office together, passing things back and forth. Occasionally, walking down the hall side by side when their classrooms were in the same direction.
And that? That was enough to start rumors.
Kendra first noticed Karina’s stare one Wednesday.
She’d just finished carrying a box of old yearbooks into the office. She nudged the door open with her shoulder and set the box down on the counter next to Dominic, who was labeling folders.
“Which dinosaur year is this?” she asked, wiping her hands on her jeans.
He glanced at the spine. “2001.”
Kendra let out a low whistle. “Wow. Before i********:. Dark times.”
He huffed. “You act like you’re not too old.”
“I am not old. I am vintage,” she said.
Miss Hall snorted quietly from her desk.
When they left the office an hour later, Kendra pushed through the glass doors and squinted into the afternoon light. Her friends were waiting near the curb, waving. She lifted her hand in response.
Movement to the side caught her eye.
Karina stood near one of the fancy cars in the student lot, phone in hand, talking to another girl. She wasn’t laughing for once. She wasn’t even smiling.
She was staring.
Not at Dominic.
At Kendra.
Her gaze swept over the distance between Dominic and Kendra measuredly, like she was connecting dots only she could see.
Kendra rolled her eyes and kept walking.
If Karina Frost thought she could scare her with some icy death glare, she’d picked the wrong one.
Later That Week – Dominic
If there was one thing Dominic hated more than paperwork, it was drama.
Unfortunately, both seemed determined to cling to him lately.
He met Karina in the parking lot on Friday afternoon, tossing his bag into the backseat of his car. She slid into the passenger side with a sharp exhale.
“You done with your little community service?” she asked, folding her arms.
“It’s not ‘little,” he said, starting the engine. “And it’s not optional.”
“It’s stupid,” she snapped. “You’re the principal’s son. You shouldn’t be sorting paper with some angry girl from Jamaica.”
He pulled out of the parking spot slowly. “Kendra hit Antonio. She slammed you into a table. We’re all lucky Dad didn’t go harder on everyone.”
Karina made a disgusting sound. “Everyone keeps talking about her like she’s some kind of legend,” she said. “Like it was cool.”
He didn’t answer.
Because people were talking. Dominic caught pieces of it in the halls. Laughter. Imitations. The word Jamaican is said with a weird mix of fear and admiration.
“She’s violent,” Karina went on. “And loud. And disrespectful. And now she gets to play detention buddy with you three times a week?”
“It’s Joint Service,” he corrected automatically.
“Whatever.” She twisted in her seat to face him more fully. “Can you at least stop walking out with her like you’re friends?”
“We’re not friends,” Dominic said.
“Could’ve fooled everybody,” she shot back. “You two are always coming out of the office together… people are starting to talk.”
He kept his eyes on the road. “People always talk.”
Karina stared at him. “You don’t see it, do you? The way she looks at you?”
Dominic scoffed. “She looks at me like she wants to throw me down a flight of stairs.”
“Exactly,” Karina said. “She hates you now. That’s how it starts. Hate, then… obsession. Then she thinks she has a chance.”
He let out a short laugh. “Karina, there is no universe where Kendra Atchinson and I are ever a thing.”
“You’re sure?” Her tone was sharp, but there was something uncertain beneath it.
“She’s a punishment,” he said flatly. “Nothing else.”
The words landed harsher than he intended.
He didn’t miss the flicker of satisfaction in Karina’s eyes, though.
“Good,” she said, leaning back. “Then you won’t care when I put her in her place.”
He frowned. “What does that mean?”
“Relax,” she said, glossing over it with a sugary smile. “Nothing serious. Just a little reminder of where she stands.”
His wolf stirred uneasily inside him. Dominic pushed the feeling down.
“Karina,” he said, “don’t start anything that’ll send us back to Dad’s office.”
She rolled her eyes. “He likes my father’s donations too much to really punish me,” she said breezily. “You know that.”
He did know it. That was the problem.
He gripped the steering wheel tighter.
“Seriously,” he said. “Don’t make this worse.”
She smiled, pretty and cold. “I won’t,” she lied.
The Prank – Friday
Kendra remembered later that the day had started kind of nicely.
She’d had a decent night’s sleep. Her math teacher hadn’t given them homework. Sofia had brought food from a Korean store she’d found thirty minutes away.
Things went downhill at exactly 12:10 p.m.
The bell rang for lunch. Kendra and the girls grabbed their stuff and headed for their lockers before the crush of bodies got too thick. The hallway buzzed with noise, people laughing, bumping shoulders, planning weekends.
Kendra spun her locker combination, hummed under her breath, and pulled the door open.
A full bucket of bright pink, glittery slime was dumped straight over her head.
Cold. Sticky. Everywhere.
It splashed into her hair, down her face, into the collar of her shirt. It splattered across her books and shoes, running in slow, disgusting trails.
For a second, she just stood there, stunned, glitter dripping off her eyelashes.
Then the laughter began.
It rolled down the hallway in a wave—snorts, squeals, full belly cackles. Phones came out, cameras up.
“Oh my God—”
“Look at her hair!”
“Bro, she looks like a busted Barbie—”
Kendra wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, smearing more pink across her skin. Her cheeks burned—not from shame, but from fury.
“Who did this?” Jeah hissed beside her, already looking around.
Kendra didn’t have to.
Karina’s laugh cut through the noise, sharp and familiar.
Kendra turned.
Karina stood a few lockers down, surrounded by her usual orbit of girls. She held a glitter-coated string in her hand—the one that must’ve been tied to the bucket. She twirled it around her finger casually.
“Oops,” she said, loud enough for everyone to hear. “Guess I forgot to ‘warn’ maintenance about that leak in your locker.”
Her friends giggled on cue.
Kendra stepped forward, pink slime sliding down her sleeves. “You think this is funny?” she asked.
Karina’s eyes glittered. “I think it’s hilarious,” she said. “You’ve been walking around this school as if you were running it. Consider this a reality check, whale girl.”
Somewhere behind Kendra, someone muttered, “Oh, shit.”
Blood roared in Kendra’s ears.
She wanted to lunge. Wanted to grab a handful of that perfect hair and yank until Karina apologized in three languages.
Instead, what came out first were words.
“Yuh see you,” Kendra began, voice low and dangerous. “You’re a whole clown, you know that?”
Karina blinked. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” Kendra snapped, slipping fully into patois now that her temper had snapped. “You walk round here like yuh own di place ‘cause yuh fada fling li’l lunch money pon di school every year. But strip off di makeup, tek off di brand-name clothes, and you’re just a basic, insecure likkle gyal who cyan fight one-on-one so yuh haffi use bucket and glitter.”
A ripple ran through the crowd.
“English, please,” Karina sneered. “This is America.”
“Oh, yuh want English?” Kendra laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Fine. You’re pathetic. You’re obsessed. And you’re pressed because I made you look stupid in the cafeteria, and you know you can’t touch me without hiding behind your daddy’s wallet.”
Karina’s face flushed. “At least my dad can afford to donate,” she spat. “Yours probably can’t even afford tuition.”
Kendra’s vision narrowed.
“My father might not be some rich politician,” she said slowly, “but he did teach me one thing: no crime goes unpunished. Remember that.”
Before things could explode further, a teacher’s voice cut through the hallway.
“Hey! What is going on here?” Mrs. Turner pushed through the ring of students, eyes widening at the sight of Kendra’s slime-covered self and the dripping bucket at her feet. “Who is responsible for this?”
Everyone looked at Karina.
Karina smiled sweetly. “It was just a prank, Mrs. Turner,” she said. “We were messing around, and it went wrong. No big deal.”
Mrs. Turner’s gaze slid from Karina to the glitter dripping onto the floor. To Kendra’s clenched fists. To the watching students.
“Both of you,” she said tightly, “to the principal’s office. Now. The rest of you, get to lunch.”
The crowd groaned and started to disperse, some still snickering. Kendra stomped toward the office, slime squelching in her shoes. Karina walked beside her, annoyingly unbothered.
“It really is a good color on you,” Karina murmured.
Kendra didn’t trust herself to answer.
- Writer
