The Replacement: A Reverse Harem Bully Romance (The Thorns of Rosewood Book 1)

by Cassie James

  Jude and Tyler, they’re both Thorns. One of two nicknames coined years ago to mark us as the ruling class of Rosewood, even long before we were seniors. The Thorns and The Roses. Three boys and three girls. The most elite of Rosewood’s elite. If Jude is the de facto head of The Thorns, I’ve always been his counterpart for The Roses. Now, two of my five best friends have snubbed me. I need to find everyone else. Maybe one of them will know what the hell is going on.

  It’s lunch time before I see any of my friends again. As luck would have it, I catch sight of the whole group loitering around the doors to the cafeteria. Jude and Tyler, plus Brennan, Tori, and Chelsey. I square my shoulders and walk toward them with determination fueling each of my steps. “Hey, guys!” I call, my voice projecting false confidence as they all turn to face me.

  After my run-ins with Tyler and Jude, it’s not like I’m expecting the warmest of welcomes, but the looks on their faces nearly stop me in my tracks. Tyler, who wouldn’t even look at me earlier, stares at me with dislike coloring his green eyes. Jude is still looking at me with a surprising amount of hatred, and Brennan, sweet Brennan, looks at me with pure distrust. I can’t even bear to look into Tori’s eyes, too scared I’ll see more of the same.

  “It looks like a girl,” Just muses aloud, the same sneer from earlier clouding his face. “It talks like a girl.” Jude paces forward, and more of our classmates press in from behind me, forming a half-circle that cages me in. Jude is towering over me now as he finishes, “But does Silicunt feel like a real girl?”

  “Stop calling me that,” I whisper out in a desperate plea. I don’t understand this. They were supposed to be happy to see me. Didn’t they miss Piper? Didn’t they want her back?

  Jude reaches toward me, and hope blossoms in my chest for a millisecond, but my stomach turns to lead when his hands brush over the tops of my breasts through my button-up shirt. I jerk backward but not before Jude helps himself to a handful of my body. I push his grappling hands away as he laughs.

  “You’ll have to grab a handful of Silicunt yourself, bro.” Jude elbows Tyler suggestively. “Not sure how she feels compared to Piper.”

  Laughter breaks out all around me, and I stumble back a few steps as his harsh words hit me. I start to get jostled in the crowd that’s gathered, my mind on overload as I try to make sense of what the heck just happened. Tori and Chelsey sink their nails into the guys’ arms, dragging them into the cafeteria as a hand wraps around my bicep.

  A girl with a head of dark brown curls starts to pull me away from the jeering crowd. Resisting her pull seems futile, so I let my feet follow along clumsily. Her lips are set in a determined line as she drags me through the closest set of doors. The sunlight outside stings my burning eyes. Am I crying?

  I reach a shaking hand up to feel my cheeks, relieved to find my skin dry. The girl mumbles under her breath, and I try desperately to match a name to her face as she pulls me in the direction of a secluded table in the courtyard. Her face starts to seem vaguely familiar, but I can’t quite place her.

  The mystery girl drops my arm when we arrive at the table and stares at me with a quirked eyebrow when I don’t immediately sit on the bench opposite of her. “Are you going to sit?” she asks, her tone is flippant, but I can see the worry in her eyes.

  Maybe she’s second guessing helping me. The Silicunt. Before she can change her mind about sitting with me, I drop my purse on the table and settle myself across from her. She digs into her bag wordlessly and produces a bag of rice cakes, offering one to me with a quirked eyebrow. I shake my head no, and she shrugs before popping one into her mouth.

  “What are you doing?” I ask. She’s slowly chewing as she stares at me. There’s no trace of worry lingering in her eyes, instead she stares at me with abject curiosity. Maybe even a little fascination.

  “Eating lunch.” She grins as I narrow my eyes at her.

  She’s every bit as pretty and proper as The Roses, and I can’t help but wonder why I don’t have memories of her. She pops another one of her rice crisps into her mouth as I watch her. I cross my arms over my chest, trying desperately to push away the memory of Jude’s hands on me, and her grin falters for just a moment. “Listen, maybe I’m out of line here, but you looked like you needed some help back there. You’re welcome to go back and try your luck again with The Thorns and The Roses if you like.”

  I remember the hostile way they looked at me and I shake my head. “I’d rather not,” I admit. I need time to formulate a plan before I try approaching them again. That same Cheshire grin spreads slowly over the girl’s lips.

  “Macie Wharton,” she introduces herself as she holds a hand out.

  I shake it delicately, a part of me afraid that she’ll run off once she feels my skin under hers. “Piper Hawthorne.” Her smile crooks a little higher on one side than the other as she studies me even closer than before.

  “But you’re not really, are you?”

  4

  Piper

  The question takes me by surprise. But you’re not really, are you? Macie watches me struggle over the question, and I pull my hand from her tight grip with a slight frown. But you’re not really, are you? But you’re not really, are you? But you’re not really... The words repeat over and over again in my head, and I struggle around how to answer. I was modeled in Piper’s likeness. I have her memories. I have her parents. I live in her room.

  “I don’t understand what you mean,” I finally offer, and Macie’s head tilts slightly toward the side as she smiles. “I am Piper?” It comes out more like a question, and if I could kick myself, I would. Piper is confident, so sure of herself that no one ever dares question her. I am that girl, and I need to act like it. I square my shoulders and straighten my back as we stare one another down.

  Around us, the noise picks up as other people trickle out here for lunch. Macie is smirking like she knows something I don’t, which is infuriating, but I stay where I am. So far, she’s the only one that’s accepted my presence openly.

  “Sure you are,” she says with a nod she obviously doesn’t mean. She pops yet another crisp in her mouth, and I fight the urge to reach across the table and rip the bag out of her hand.

  “How would you even know? We weren’t—no, aren’t friends. You don’t know me!” My tone is defensive, and I think any other person might have stood and stormed away. Not Macie, though. I’m not sure what it is that keeps her seated, but she folds her arms on the table in front of her and leans a little closer to me, mimicking my pose.

  “I know you, Piper. Even if you can’t remember me,” she says softly.

  If I expect hurt in her tone, I’m surprised to find none there. She’s not upset that I don’t remember her, and suddenly I’m the curious one at the table. What made her latch her hand around my arm and pull me away from the crowd jarring me? If we weren’t friends in the past, what makes her stay sitting across from me now?

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Doing what?”

  The girl is enigmatic, and honestly, a bit of a pain in the ass. But there’s something about her that keeps me sitting as well. “This.” I motion back and forth between us. “My reception here hasn’t exactly been friendly. I thought people would be happy to see me, but they’re not. My friends can barely look at me, and here you are, sitting here talking to me like you don’t have a care in the world. I don’t understand it.”

  Macie groans before asking, “Do you really not understand why they’re not happy to see you?”

  “No!” My answer is adamant, and my stomach lurches. “It doesn’t make sense—my parents are thrilled to have me back, and I was sure everyone else would be, too. How can I fulfill my purpose if they won’t even let me try?”

  Macie snorts as she shakes her head. “Your purpose?” She lets out a humorless laugh. “Piper, they don’t give a shit about you. Their Piper died in April, and as good a copy as you might be, you’ll never actually replace their friend.”

  “But
they haven’t given me a chance to prove that I am their Piper!”

  “You don’t get it,” Macie says as she closes her eyes for a moment. What does she know that I don’t?

  “You’re never going to get the chance to prove yourself to them. Tyler saw you over the summer, and your Dad told him you’re basically just a robot replacement for his dead daughter. Maybe whoever made you uploaded you with Piper’s basic personality, but they’re never going to be able to give you back all the moments your friends shared with you over a lifetime. It just isn’t possible.”

  “How do you know all of this?”

  “Tori’s a loud mouth. She’s also my step-sister,” she offers, and finally some vague memories wash over me. It was Sophomore year. Tori’s mom got married, and the new husband had a daughter. I gave her the chance to be one of The Roses, but she turned me down. Tori was furious at the slight, but Piper understood that Macie just didn’t care about all the dramatics of it.

  Macie tilts her head and asks, “That sparked something, didn’t it?”

  “You could have been one of us, but you turned me down.”

  “There were three Thorns and three Roses. Adding me would have put the group off-balance.” She says it like the whole thing is a joke to her, but I can sense an underlying tension. There’s something else. Something she apparently isn’t interested in sharing at the moment. Old Piper roars to life inside of me, and I latch onto the moment of vulnerability from the girl sitting across from me.

  “No, it was more than that, wasn’t it?” I ask as she pops another rice crisp and chews thoughtfully. I’m onto something here, and I lean further over the table, balancing myself with my feet as my thighs lift from the bench slightly. I can feel the smile curling over my face, and I’m certain for a moment she’s going to finally wash her hands with the entire exchange and leave me sitting alone at the table.

  Instead, she wipes her hands together, brushing away imaginary crumbs before regarding me with a serious look in her eyes. “Sure,” she offers, a bite of dark sarcasm in her tone. “I heard horror stories about you stuck-up Rosewood kids at my last prep school, and I was fucking shocked to be welcomed with open arms into the most elite group at the entire Academy. What you have to understand is that I’m a keep my head down, get through school without upsetting the social strata kind of girl. All I cared about, all I still care about is getting my fancy, prestigious Rosewood Academy education and getting into CalTech. I don’t care about your petty politics or who’s screwing who. Rosewood is a means to an end for me, nothing more, nothing less.”

  “And?” I prompt, feeling deep down that there’s still something unspoken hanging in the air between us.

  “Ugh,” she groans before rubbing the heels of her palms in her eyes. When she meets my gaze again, she looks almost sheepish. I drop back into my seat as she answers. “Fine, but I’m sorry if you don’t like what I have to say next.” I raise an eyebrow, and she rolls her eyes. “You were a god awful bitch. I couldn’t imagine dealing with you every single day.”

  My mouth hangs open in shock as she lets out a laugh at my expense. Nothing in my memories suggests that Piper was a god awful bitch as Macie put it. She was popular. Every person she knew loved her. She was the queen bee at Rosewood. But even as I think it, answers from the questionnaires shuffle through my mind quickly.

  What is Piper’s favorite color?

  Black like her heart.

  What’s Piper’s favorite food?

  The souls of her enemies.

  If you could tell Piper one thing, what would you tell her?

  That she deserved what she got.

  Did Stan read through these at all before he uploaded them into me? I’m starting to see that maybe I’m not as well loved as I initially thought. I feel sick to my stomach. Who fills out a questionnaire about a dead girl like that? How am I supposed to win over a group of people that attack from the back? I push the ugly thoughts to the back of my mind and turn my attention toward the fidgety girl across from me.

  “So why bother with me if I’m such a bitch?”

  “Listen,” her tone is completely serious, “I remember what it’s like to be new around here. Even if I didn’t want to be part of The Roses, that doesn’t mean I ignored them or that I don’t know what it takes to survive here. It’s eat or be eaten, and I’ve been fucking lucky that my slight to your group of Pricks didn’t follow me longer than a couple weeks. Plus, it isn’t really fair for your old friends to be treating you the way they are, is it?”

  I shrug. Maybe they’re just in shock. After all, it took Dad a little while to warm up to me. I offer that very suggestion to Macie, and she rolls her eyes as she stands. She shoves her half-eaten bag of rice crisps into her bag and slings it over her shoulder. “You can keep thinking that, Piper, but I think you’re going to be sorely disappointed.”

  She turns to leave, and I quickly unfold myself from the table. I grab my purse and jog to catch up with her. “Why?” I ask as she heads toward a door on the opposite side of the quad from the cafeteria. I’m not sure if it’s for her benefit or mine, but it’s in the direction of my next class, so I follow along as she pulls the door open with a grunt. “My parents are thrilled to have me! And I’ve been friends with The Thorns and The Roses since we were kids. Surely they’ll eventually be happy to have me back, right?”

  “They’re calling you Silicunt,” she hisses through clenched teeth. I grit my own teeth and struggle around a response. The name is hateful and ugly, and it burns something deep inside of me every time I hear Jude’s voice echoing in my head.

  “Only Jude is!” I say triumphantly, and it takes me a moment to realize I shouldn’t be celebrating the fact that only one of my friends is calling me a derogatory name.

  “No,” she says as she stops in front of a locker and starts fiddling with the combination lock. “All of them are calling you that, whether you’ve heard them or not. Piper, they don’t want you, and the sooner you accept that, the better.”

  My stomach sinks as Macie snags a couple of books from her locker and slams the door shut. How can all of them be calling me something so hurtful? Jude was always kind of a dick, so it’s not much of a stretch for him to be saying it. Tori and Chelsey aren’t much of a stretch for me either... They’re mean girls to the core, something that old Piper apparently didn’t seem to mind as much as I do.

  Knowing that Brennan is using the term hurts a little differently than the rest. He’s always been a little softer, smoother around the edges than their rough and jagged leader. But Tyler—that one hurts the most. Jude may be my oldest friend, but Tyler has arguably been my best friend over the past several years. Something unexplained tugs at my stomach at the thought, and I have the feeling that there’s something just below the surface that I can’t quite remember from Piper’s past.

  “They’ll come around,” I insist as Macie starts down the corridor in the direction of her class. They have to come around. If my friends don’t come around, what’s even the point of me being in school? It’s not like there’s anything I can be taught here. You’re a learning AI, I hear Stan’s voice in my head, and I grit my teeth around the thought. What is there to learn here other than the fact that my apparent best friends hate my freaking guts?

  “Okay,” Macie says as she pauses just outside of my next classroom, “you really seem to think that’s true, so I’ll let you have it. Just know that I’m around if you need someone.”

  “Great.” That seems like the end of it, but I can’t help the laugh that bubbles through my lips when we both reach for the door we stopped in front of. “Guess we have this one together,” I say to her with a shrug. She rolls her eyes, but we’re both smiling as we shuffle into the room.

  My smile falls when a group in the back corner turns to stare as we enter the room. All the seniors have to take Humanities, I remember now. Apparently, we all somehow ended up in this particular class together. The mistrustful eyes of The Roses and The Thorns foll
ow my every move as I walk into the room with my shoulders squared and a forced smile on my face.

  The word Silicunt follows me to my seat, making my smile falter. It’s not their blatant disregard for my feelings that bothers me—not really, at least. How can I expect them to care about my feelings when they probably don’t understand the complicated matrices and algorithms that went into ensuring I have feelings in the first place? No, what bothers me is something entirely different. I wasn’t lying to Macie when I told her The Roses and The Thorns are my purpose at Rosewood Academy.

  Anxiety creeps in. I’m a companion AI. I’ve already begun fulfilling my purpose with my parents, and the feeling of accomplishment I feel at that is warm and comfortable. What happens if I can’t comfort my friends? Do I fail Stan’s experiment entirely if I can’t do what he designed me to do? And what does that mean for me in the long run? If I can’t fulfill my purpose, what’s the point in keeping me around?

  Troubling questions about my purpose stab through my mind and bury themselves like barbed arrows as the rest of the class shuffles in and fills the seats around me. The guilt burning through my stomach is overwhelming, and I’m sure that I would vomit if I had anything in my stomach at the moment. As luck would have it, I still wasn’t comfortable with the idea of eating. It wasn’t something that I actually needed to do, it was more of a creature comfort for those around me, so unless Mom really urged me to, food isn’t something I imbibe in regularly.

  Aside from the occasional glare in my direction, my old friends spend most of their time ignoring my presence. I swallow around a hard lump in my throat that I don’t understand. The prickle of tears behind my eyes warns me that I’m overreacting, and I turn my head down to stare at my desk as the teacher starts the class. I fight the warm rush of tears the best I can, but I can’t stop the first few that escape.