Devils' Day Party: A High School Bully Romance

by C. M. Stunich

  “I convinced her to stay home,” Luke says, and I frown. That’s not in the script. April is supposed to be at the party. “Which is where you’re going. Now, can you get up or do I need to carry you?”

  “I’m supposed to suck their dicks tonight,” I say, even though I never planned on doing any such thing. “The Knight Crew is expecting me.” I sweep an arm in their direction, indicating the glittering cruelty of their licentious little court.

  Luke curses under her breath again and then sweeps an arm around my waist, attempting to haul me to my feet. She’s unsuccessful, and I’m far too drunk to stand up on my own. Shame sweeps over me, hot and itchy beneath my skin.

  “I’m sorry, Luke,” I murmur, my eyes watering of their own volition. Don’t cry here, Karma. Don’t do it. They’ll see you and you’ll never live it down, no matter how many todays you have to live. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” she says, standing up and sweeping both palms over her hair as she looks around for a friendly face. The thing is, there are no friendly faces at Crescent Prep. There are even less friendly faces in the masked gathering that makes up the Devils’ Day Party. We may as well be on an island in the middle of the sea.

  Barron appears, stepping from the firelight and into the shadows, and my heart sinks. I’m going to end up drunk and helpless on a bed in a treehouse, and then … I don’t want to think about what could happen if the Knight Crew manages to get me away from Luke.

  “I know you don’t like her, but she’s way too drunk to be fooling around,” Luke says, glaring up at him from behind her goblin mask. Barron’s red leather devil mask sits on the top of his head and as he stares down at me, he very carefully pulls it back into place. “I’m honestly worried she’s going to get alcohol poisoning, or like, pass out and choke on her own vomit.”

  “Luke,” I start, realizing suddenly that I still have my phone on me. Everybody else’s has been put into the net and hauled into the tree. But not mine. That must mean Luke—who didn’t have her phone on night one—talked to my moms before she found me at the party. “Did you get a call from my parents before you came here?”

  My best friend freezes up, going perfectly still, like a deer caught in the headlights. She doesn’t even breathe as she drops her eyes to mine. Fury fills me in a vicious, violent wave, and even though I know I should keep my mouth shut, I don’t.

  “You talked to them about the sex tape?” I hiss out, my voice thick with alcohol and menace. Luke cringes and glances sidelong at Barron, like I should know better than to have this conversation in front of him. But even if this day were to end when I fell asleep, what would it matter? Because the video would still be out there, circulating in the cruel, idle hands of the Crescent Prep student body.

  “That’s why you’re drunk,” Luke says, casting her eyes to the side, where a group of students sits in a circle with a spell book on the ground between them. They don’t believe in it, most likely, or even care if it’s real. It’s all just a bit of Devils’ Day fun. Pranks, spells, sex. There’s nothing that’s off-limits tonight. The way she says it—that’s why you’re drunk—makes it seem like I need a valid excuse to let go, some reason that Luke can use to excuse my behavior.

  “Sex tape, huh?” Barron asks, sounding intrigued as he swirls his candy around in his mouth. “This is an interesting turn of events. What sort of sex tape?”

  “None of your damn business is what,” Luke snaps, but what’s the point of hiding it? It’s not like the whole world isn’t going to find out come tomorrow. Tomorrow. I almost laugh. Tomorrow is supposed to be one of the few guarantees in life. So long as you’re alive, this too shall pass. There is always a sunrise; there’s always a tomorrow.

  “If you tell me, I’ll help you get her in the car,” Barron offers, sticking to his usual role of being half-saint, all asshole.

  “Me and Calix,” I blurt before Luke can respond. Now that I’m sitting in the cold, away from the fire and the glitter, I’m starting to feel sick. The last thing I want to do is throw up in front of Raz. “From last year.”

  “Somebody has footage of last year’s Devils’ Day party?” Barron clarifies, dark shadows sliding into his gaze. That’s a big no-no. Huge. Anyone caught taking pictures or video of the party becomes a social pariah—one with a social ranking far below even mine. One of my fellow freshmen in ninth grade made that mistake. The seniors turned him black and blue and broke his ribs. He never came back to Crescent Prep after that.

  “Apparently,” Luke snaps, sounding tired as she rips her goblin mask off and stuffs it into her back pocket. “Now, are you going to help me get her into the car or not?”

  Barron sticks his lollipop back in his mouth, reaching down and grabbing me with warm hands. He hefts me over his shoulder like so much luggage and starts off in the direction of the parking lot. I can’t see much except for his ass. That, and the long, curled tails of his coat, dusted with glitter and dragging across the ground.

  Luke sticks close behind, wary at having Barron’s help. The Knight Crew has never been kind to us. Any semblance of social nicety has always been a double-edged sword, a blade dipped in poison. It hurts, and then it keeps hurting. On their best behavior, they’re indifferent toward us.

  So although Barron’s carrying me to the car, we’ll pay some additional price for it later.

  If there is a later, that is.

  Manic laughter escapes my throat as he tosses me into the backseat of Luke’s convertible, staring down at my sprawled form with a curious expression on his wickedly handsome face.

  “Thanks … I guess,” Luke grinds out, doing her best to get me into the seatbelt before climbing in herself. She leaves the top down, despite the cold weather, and we reverse out of the parking lot, taking the windy trail through the trees slowly, carefully. Luke is always careful. “Stay awake for me, Karma,” she says as she turns her blinker on and turns left onto the main road, heading back toward Diamond Point.

  I let myself relax into the seat, staring up at the sea of stars above our head, as shiny and unfathomable as Barron’s gaze. Closing my eyes, I think of how it felt to sit in his lap, to feel him beneath me, and I wonder if I would’ve liked fucking him as much as I liked fucking Calix?

  More ludicrous laughter escapes my throat as I struggle to sit up, draping an arm over Luke’s seat and watching the road through the grimy windshield. There are fast-food wrappers all over the floor, along with bags of brand-new baby clothes that Luke’s bought for April and keeps forgetting to give her, even when they ride in the same car together.

  “You talked to my moms today; you betrayed me.”

  Luke stiffens up, but she doesn’t acknowledge my words. I’m not being fair, I know, but I need someone to blame for all of this. And here she is, right in front of me. Besides, even if she did have my best interests in mind, I’m hurt.

  “Karma, I’m worried about you is all. You’ve been acting weird all day, so when I got the call …”

  “That’s not the only reason,” I argue, sniffling in the cold air. We’re going slow enough that we can still talk, even with the top down and the wind in our hair, but I still have to raise my voice to be heard. “Even if it were a normal day, you’d have talked to them, told them all my secrets.”

  “You can’t know that,” Luke retorts, but I can; I do. “And anyway, so what? They were worried. They weren’t sure if it was consensual …”

  “Did you watch the video?” I choke out, feeling my eyes water again. “Did you see it? Nobody could watch that and not realize how much I wanted it.”

  “Karma, stop,” Luke says, but I’m not done.

  “Nobody could watch that and miss the look on my face, the one on his …” I trail off, but there it is, out in the open. I can’t take it back.

  Luke takes the next turn much slower than the posted speed-limit, but as soon as we come around the bend, a pair of deer leap into the road in front of us. Just like it did the other night, things seem to
happen in slow-motion. Luke does what she’s been told—accelerating instead of braking, doing her best to avoid the animals.

  But a third one hops out of the darkness of the woods at the last second, directly in front of us. The beast comes up and over the windshield as Luke screams and loses control of the convertible. Everything around me spins, the stars above me, then the road, the stars, the road.

  We come to a stop, sideways and straddling both lanes, upright.

  I force my aching body up, tearing off my seatbelt, the world blurring around me. But when I reach around the front seat for Luke, she isn’t there.

  Instead, I turn and find her lying in the middle of the road.

  A scream lodges in my throat and I scramble my drunk ass out of the convertible. Nearby, the buck we hit huffs and struggles to get to his feet, his antlers casting shadows that are eerily similar to the ones cast by my own mask.

  “Luke,” I whisper, voice shaking as I kneel beside her, choking back vomit. There’s blood streaming down the sides of my face, but I ignore all of it, reaching down and turning my friend’s body over.

  Dark brown eyes stare up at the blanket of stars above us. Sightless. Unseeing.

  My best friend is dead.

  The scream in my throat claws its way out, echoing around the dark woods, startling the buck into finding his feet and limping off, leaving a trail of blood in his wake.

  That’s when another car comes around the bend, and I look up into the brightness of their headlights.

  Fortunately, that’s the last bit I remember.

  There’s blood all over my steering wheel.

  I lift my head up … and find myself looking out at the gas station parking lot.

  Again.

  Calix hauls me from my car again.

  And we start all the hell over—again.

  The first thing I do when I can get away from him is to call Luke.

  Because I have to know if she’s alive.

  The thing is … at this point, I’m not sure that I am.

  “Hey chickee,” she says as she answers, and I collapse to my knees in the grassy patch at the edge of the parking lot. I can feel Calix watching me from his position near our crashed cars, but I don't care. His animosity means nothing in the face of the empty feeling from last night. “What's up?”

  Tears stream down my face as I sit in the muddy grass, the rain plastering my hair to the sides of my face before the clouds crack and the weather clears up for a brief moment.

  “I'm … I crashed my car into Calix's,” I whisper, voice cracking. A nervous laugh escapes Luke's lips before she dials back her reaction, clearly reading my emotions in the tightness of my voice.

  “I want to laugh about this, but clearly you're not. Are you hurt?”

  “Are you?” I ask, the image of the bleeding buck and Luke's cold, brown eyes flickering across my vision. “I'm fine,” she replies, clearly confused by the direction of our conversation. “But I'm not going to be for long. You're freaking me the fuck out. Where are you?”

  Before I can reply, Raz tears the phone from my hand and chucks it into the road. A passing car drives right over it, shattering the screen to pieces. It's a strange echo of yesterday, when I knocked Calix's phone into the road. My throat closes up, and I feel the first edges of panic creeping in.

  Raz grabs my arm and tries to yank me to my feet, but my body is boneless. In the narrative of my own story, I was drunk all of ten minutes ago. Got in a car crash all of five minutes ago. Saw my friend's dead eyes staring at a thankless sky two minutes prior.

  I am not okay.

  “Stand the fuck up,” Raz growls, but my legs are weighed down by the heaviness inside my heart, and I end up slumping back to the ground. When I turn my tear-stained face back to Raz, I catch him in a brief moment of surprise. He releases me and shakes his hand out, like I've burned him. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “Back off of her,” Barron warns, glancing back at the curious stares of our fellow gas station patrons. “People are watching.”

  Hearing him repeat the now familiar phrase wrenches something inside of me and I bend over, wrapping my arms around my midsection and doing my best to breathe. If I don't force myself to take in some air, I'll pass out. If I pass out, I'll wake up inside Little Bee again. There'll be blood on my steering wheel again. I'll wish I really were fucking dead.

  The tears change to wracking sobs and my body begins to shake as I struggle to pull in enough air. My head swims, and I lean forward, putting my palms into the wet grass.

  “This is … unusual,” Barron says, pulling the lollipop from his mouth with a sharp popping sound. He bends down next to me as Raz backs away, like the sight of true pain is too much for him to handle. “Should I call an ambulance? It wouldn't likely end well for you, considering you fucked Calix's car up. But I think it'd be even worse if you died.”

  “Leave me alone!” I scream, shoving up to my feet and stumbling like a newborn fawn. I turn to look at Barron, still crouched down with Raz behind him. Calix has yet to move from his position near the cars, dark eyes boring into me. “You want to fuck with me today? Go for it. Do your worst. Kill me, if that's what you want.”

  My gray eyes meet Barron's dual-colored ones in challenge, daring him to come for me. He stands up slowly, sliding his red lollipop back between his lips, staining his tongue the color of blood. His rainbow Mohawk is the only color in an otherwise gray day.

  “Kill you?” Raz spits out, scoffing and spitting before tucking his hands into the pockets of his purple Crescent Prep slacks. “I always knew you were screwed up in the head, Karma, but this is a new level. Just remember that when today sucks for you, you started it.” He points at me and turns, sweeping back toward the Aston Martin and yanking the rear passenger door open. It slams into my yellow Bug with a screech of metal on metal, and I cringe.

  “Why do you hate me so much?” The words come out in a whisper, drowned by a passing truck. I'm not sure that Barron hears them.

  “I'm calling an ambulance,” is what he says instead, more to himself than to me. His voice is distant, almost distracted as he turns and starts to dial 911. Calix stops him, tearing the phone from Barron's grip. Calix turns an apathetic gaze in my direction, as distant and cold as the spring waters inside of Devils’ Den, buried deep in the dark mouth of that awful cave with its stalagmite teeth.

  “She doesn't need an ambulance,” he says, turning his gaze back to his friend. “Get in the car; we're late to get Sonja.” Calix nods his chin in the direction of his car and Barron narrows his eyes. Like I said, the Knight Crew might be a convenient name for their group of merry assholes, but they have no leader. They're wanton, ribald, lascivious little mischief makers. They have no king.

  Barron looks at me once more, snatches his phone back from Calix, and takes off.

  After a moment, Calix steps toward me. He reaches up with one hand and uses his thumb to swipe away one of my tears, staring at it for a long moment, mouth turned down in a frown. I almost expect him to lick it off, just to taste the saltiness of my pain, to savor it. Instead, he wipes his palms on his slacks.

  “Meet me after school at the spring,” he says, and for a moment there, I'm sure I haven't heard him correctly. But then I realize that this, much like everything else regarding Calix, is likely a trick. His voice is monotone, as smooth and perfect as a river rock.

  “Why? So you can tell me you love me again?” I snap back, hating myself for even saying it. My words to Luke from last night come filtering back like a beautiful nightmare. “Did you watch the video? Did you see it? Nobody could watch that and not realize how much I wanted it.”

  Calix scowls at me, reaching out to grab me by the tie, tugging me closer.

  “Karma,” he starts, like he's about to scold me. Calix closes his dark eyes and then releases me abruptly enough that I stumble. “Either be there or fuck off. I don't care much either way.” His eyes snap open, blazing with hate, and he turns away, sto
rming across the parking lot and pausing next to Little Bee. He gestures at it with an angry hand. “And get your piece of shit car out of my fucking way.”

  Calix climbs in and slams the driver's side door, but I just sit down heavily on the grass again, smearing my skirt and socks with mud. After just a few moments, Calix takes off, dragging my car along for the ride and leaving it askew in the middle of the parking lot.

  I don't get up until one of the employees comes out to check on me.

  “I'm leaving,” I snap, before he can say anything.

  I shove to my feet and head for Crescent Prep.

  “Holy shit,” Luke says when she stumbles out of class to meet me in the hallway. I'm covered in mud, my hair wet and plastered to my skull, my makeup bleeding in two dark trails down my cheeks. My shoulder is leaned up against a bank of lockers, my head resting against the scratched gray metal. Crescent Prep might be full of rich assholes, but they're delinquents first and foremost. We don't get fancy shit here like they do at Burberry Prep or Adamson Academy, two of the richest high schools in the country. “Where have you been? You hung up on me, and then you didn't answer when I called back …” Luke trails off, pushing blue hair off of her forehead.

  “Luke, I can't do this,” I tell her, wanting to cry again, but feeling like my eyes are as empty and broken as my heart. She was dead. If the universe hadn't reset, she'd still be dead. And yet, all I can think about is how to get out of this. How to escape. And what might happen if I do.

  “Yeah, okay, we can cut class today,” she says, misinterpreting my declaration. “It's Devils' Day, after all. Nobody will care. Let me grab April.” Luke reaches out to squeeze my arm and then starts to turn away. I snatch her wrist to keep her from leaving me. I'm not sure what I'll do if she goes just now.

  “Not just class, Luke, but … everything.” The soft whisper of my voice makes her pause, her brown eyes widening. She nods once, pulls her phone out, and sends April a text before looking back up at me. “Let's go.”