I stand up and pad over to the cabinet to grab some incense, lighting the stick with a match and then carefully blowing on the end until it burns bright and perfumes the air with smoky sweetness.
“Where did you hear that?” Calix asks, his voice dark. “Erina? She's been stalking me, you know.”
“Stalking you?” I ask, turning back to see Raz's jaw clenched, his face burning with rage. I can't decide if I struck a nerve, and what Pearl told me is true, or if his internal homophobia is starting to show. “Since when?”
“I've been struggling with her since last year,” Calix says, frowning hard. “Since, likely, she filmed us fucking in the cabin.” He takes a sip of his tea and then pauses to glance down the hallway, like he expects one of my moms to appear. Mama Jane very well might, and her initial reaction to finding out that Calix and I slept together was not good, despite her sex positive beliefs. She doesn't like him; he bullies her little girl. Jane thinks I deserve better.
I agree.
But the Knight Crew deserves a chance to prove themselves. I'm laying everything out on the table here, spilling every grain of truth that I have, and seeing what they'll do with it.
“He's had to change his number a dozen times,” Barron says, shrugging his broad shoulders. “And move dorm rooms after she picked the lock and snuck in one night.”
“I woke up with her naked in my bed,” Calix grinds out, his own jaw clenched as Raz remains uncharacteristically silent. “She won't leave me alone.”
“Why?” I ask, trying to understand Erina's motivations. They must be strong ones, if she was willing to kill Calix for his feelings towards me. I mean, likely she has barely concealed trauma, like all the rest of the students at Crescent Prep, but there has to be some specific reason she'd target Calix. “Did you fuck her and leave her sad and lonely, too?” Shit. I shouldn’t have said that, especially not after what he told me at the hotel. Old habits die hard, it seems, even for me.
“I never touched her,” Calix snaps, running his fingers through his ebony hair in a rare moment of frustration. He turns his raven-dark eyes on me, searching my face as I stand there with incense smoke curling around me. “Boys are more often monsters, yes, but you attend Crescent Prep with us. You know as well as I do that girls can be cruel.”
“You've never done anything to her?” I ask skeptically, raising an eyebrow and then moving back to my seat. My feet bump into Calix's as I settle in and our eyes meet. “No bullying? No tricks? No teasing?”
“She hangs out with us, doesn't she? I've tried to handle her as best I can.” His voice is smooth, capable of devilish machinations I could only dream of. He'd make an excellent politician. No, no, he'd make an excellent prince. “We were friends when we were kids, but it's not her that I want.”
“No?” I ask as Calix finishes his tea and sets his cup on his saucer with a clink.
“No.”
Just that one word.
My heart is thundering as he closes his eyes in thought for a moment.
“Who told you that gay shit about me and Calix?” Raz asks, clearly still stuck on the previous subject.
“Pearl.” I reach for the teapot at the same time as Barron and our fingers tangle, eyes locking as electricity shoots up my arm. It turns to goose bumps as it sizzles through me and Barron makes a half-bow, offering up the teapot to me first. “She said that she's the reason you two attend Crescent Prep, that she told her parents you were a couple.”
“She did,” Calix replies easily, looking at me with a slight tilt to his head, like I've managed to surprise him. “And did she tell you about my brother?”
“That your parents stole the baby she had with him, yeah,” I add, wondering how I might be able to help with that situation at some point in the future. I mean, I know it's not my business, but Pearl deserves to be reunited with her baby, if that's what she wants.
Which is why I can't let her die.
Not tonight, or any other …
There might also be something else that I have to do, something that I don't want to think about, not right now. I'll try a few more things, and then … we'll see. Because my actions, they don't just affect me. There's a whole web of humanity attached to each and every one of us, if only we could see its thin, fragile strands. I can't let the world sink with me, living on repeat. I shove the ugly feeling down again, determined to ignore it.
“Weird that they sent them to the same school, huh? Considering they were so worried about the gay thing,” Barron adds, shoving a whole shortbread cookie in his mouth. “That's how little attention our parents pay, that they didn't even know they were shipping their delinquent faggots to the same school.”
“Call me a faggot again,” Raz snarls, shoving up from his seat and turning his red-eyed glare on his friend. “Do it, I dare you.”
“What's wrong with being a faggot?” I ask, hating the word, knowing it shouldn't be my emotional burden to teach Raz not to be a bigot. Sometimes, though, it's okay to give a little to help incite change. “You're so pretty, Raz, but when you talk like that, it's ugly as fuck. Please don't.”
“We made out,” Calix says with a shrug and a sigh. “Pearl ended up with a picture, somehow, and sent it to our parents.”
“You and Raz kissed?” I choke out, struggling to picture it. And not because I see anything wrong with them kissing—well okay, I'm a little jealous—but because Raz and Calix are like oil and water. “I would've paid to see that.”
“We were making out at a party for some girls,” Raz says with a smirk, trying to take control of the situation. Yet another defense mechanism of his. He doesn't like that I know one of his secrets, and he's shamed at the thought. If only he knew how little I'm judging him. If we ever get our tomorrow, I'll have to show him. “Chicks do it for guys all the time.”
“You don't have to justify anything to me,” I tell him, looking directly into his eyes. I'm desperate to ask if they might want to do it again sometime, but this isn't the time nor the place. Pretty sure I'm still in a bit of shock over what happened last night, but at least the pieces of the puzzle are starting to come together.
Erina Cheney is the one with the sex tape. She can be stopped. The boys can all be made to, at least, listen to me if nothing else. But what next? I know I have to go to the party. This day … it was always going to end at the party.
No matter how I break this loop, that's how my night is going to end: at the Devils' Day Party.
“Yeah? Well, you'd be the first,” Raz says, and then we all pause as the back door opens and Mama Jane steps in, pausing and tossing a critical eye in the boys' direction.
“New friends, Karma?” she asks, smiling as she nods at the teapot on the table. “And can I get you guys more tea while I'm here?”
“We're okay; we have to leave for the party soon.” I'm just sort of assuming here that the guys are going to drive me. Honestly, to them, this is a day like any other day. As far as they're concerned, I'm public enemy number one. But I've got to think positive. I have to assume they're not going to lock me in the cabin tonight. Or the Devils’ Den. “And yes, new friends.” I gesture loosely in the direction of the guys. “Calix Knight, Raz Loveren, and Barron Farrar.”
Swear to god, Jane's eye twitches at the mention of their names. She's heard stories; she's seen me cry. I can guarantee that she isn't impressed.
“Well then, I'll come back and fiddle around in the kitchen later,” Jane says, giving me a look. “If you need any lemon cake, just let me know?”
My lips curve up in a smile.
‘Lemon cake’ is our family safety word. If we're ever in trouble, we can always call and just mention lemon cake, no questions asked. In a situation like this, where the boys could very well be finding some way to drag me to the party against my will, I could just thank Mama Jane and tell her I did indeed want cake. She'd kick the Knight Crew's collective asses to the curb.
“I'm okay, but thank you.” Jane nods and then slips out the back door.
A few seconds later I hear Jewel's Foolish Games start playing from inside the art studio.
“Look, I don't care if you and Calix kissed, Raz.” I shrug my shoulders, only slightly unnerved by having all three of them staring at me so intently. The Karma I was before this all started wouldn't have been so calm in this situation. “What I do care about is the fact that all three of you like me back.”
“Says who?” Raz barks with a caustic laugh. “Your weird gay bestie?”
“She's pansexual, but no, I'm sure Luke is more concerned with her yearlong relationship with Sonja.” Raz's eyes widen and his mouth drops open, temporarily shocked into rare silence. “Barron's been drawing me every day since freshman year, Calix wasn't lying last year when he said he loved me, and you've been jealous ever since.”
“Jesus,” Barron murmurs, brows drawing together as he pushes his sketchbook across the table toward me. His dual-colored eyes are intense as he stares me down. “Remember how I told you I wanted to show you something?”
I take the book and then turn it around, flipping it open to images that make my heart throb painfully. Me and Barron, kissing at the Devils' Day party. Me and Barron, in the cave of butterflies. Me and Barron, in the chapel. My throat gets tight as I close the book and pass it back to him.
“How did you know about this?” he asks, gesturing with the sketchbook. “I'm never without it for long, so how did you see it?”
My lips tilt up in a sad smile, but I don't have time to spend the evening explaining the time loop to them. We have to get ready and get to the party. Tonight, we'll do it without lies and guns and blood.
“So fucking creepy that you draw her,” Raz murmurs, but he doesn't deny being jealous.
Calix doesn't deny that he loves me. If he wouldn't deny it at gunpoint, then he certainly can't deny it now.
“Part of me wonders if this is too easy, if you're going to play the worst sort of Devils' Day trick on us and tell us it was all a lie later.” Calix studies me, his full mouth set in a slight frown. His fingers are curled tight and there's tension in his shoulders that I bet he thinks I don't see.
“And you'd deserve that, wouldn't you?” I retort, raising both brows. “So, what do you have to lose?”
Raz stands up and curls his hands around the back of his chair, staring me down like we're in a contest or something.
“Let me get this straight: you want all three of us to take you to the Devils' Day party? Like, as your dates?”
“Would it be so bad? You guys are always hanging out anyway.” I just stare Raz down. What he doesn't know is that I'm not only struggling with my feelings towards all three of them, but I'm drowning in a goddamn time loop. The magic of Devils' Day has really and truly gotten the last laugh from me, the ultimate party trick. So, can I choose one of the three guys I love? Break my heart into thirds, and throw two pieces away? I can't. “But let’s skip Crescent Prep’s party and do Devil Springs High instead.”
Either tonight they share, or I stay away from them altogether.
“I want you as my girl,” Raz says, standing up and lifting his chin defiantly. He's such a cocky prick, his dirty blonde hair mussed, red eyes narrowed, sharp mouth curved in a smirk. “Just mine. How about that, Karma?”
“How about you earn it?” I retort, and Raz laughs, shaking his head at me. There's a flash of something in his gaze that I don't quite catch, but then it's gone and I'm not sure if I imagined it or not.
“You know what? You had the balls to ask, so why the fuck not? We'll even triple-team if you want us to.” He shoves his chair in and throws his hands up. “We'll play your game tonight, Karma. Like you said, it is Devils' Day. It's a night for finding rules and breaking them.” He pulls his leather mask from his back pocket and slips it on.
“If you want three devils on your ass all night, then I'm game.” Barron puts his mask on next. Calix pulls his black mask from his pocket and looks at it for a minute, rubbing his thumb over the leather. He hands it over to me and I take it, purposely bumping my fingers against his.
“I have another red one in the car,” he says, standing up. “I'll wash the dishes. Get dressed.”
I struggle to keep my jaw off the floor as he sweeps the cups, plates, and teapot off the table.
Calix Knight … washing dishes.
They say magic happens on Devils' Day.
They must be right.
As I move down the hallway in a daze, that niggling feeling is back, that unwanted, awful feeling that tells me what I need in order to break the time loop.
Sacrifice.
Darkness is just beginning to kiss the horizon when we arrive at the party, climbing out of the Aston Martin to a rapt audience. Dozens of pairs of eyes reflect back the light, as if the Devil Springs students are predators instead of teenagers. Painted fingers reach up to adjust masks with papier-mâché moth wings or store-bought monster maws.
Their masks are nothing like the ones at Crescent Prep, where each one is a piece of original art, shrouded in mystery and money and magic. The ones here are … just masks. It’s a bit of a relief, actually, to be surrounded by teenagers instead of a court made up of cruel, dark faeries.
“Crescent Prep, huh?” one of the students says, stepping forward in a maniacal looking demon mask, eyes wild, teeth just a bit too real to be glued to a cardboard face. “Thought you guys were too good for us.” The boy steps back and grabs the chain-link gate, dragging it open and allowing us into the party proper. “But, on Devils’ Day, all are welcome.”
There’s a massive bonfire in the middle of the Devil Springs Junkyard, much bigger than the ones we make in the woods. Theirs, too, is piled with old, broken furniture and stolen tree limbs, fed with gasoline and youthful rage. Instead of a live band, one of the students has put down the top on an old green Mustang, music blaring from its speakers.
“Hollow” by Icon for Hire is playing as revelers feed the bonfire and dance in a circle around it, wielding metal pipes, more animal than human. The darkening sky lights up with flames as orange tongues flick up toward the stars.
“Let’s go,” Barron says, striding forward in his white coat with the curled tails, his ass a slice of perfection in those black leather pants of his. Raz, Calix, and I start after him, entering into a fray of red Solo cups, cheap beer, and raucous laughter.
“The poor man’s Devils’ Day,” Raz says with a laugh and a grin so sharp it looks like his face is being sliced in half by the sharp shadows cast from the bonfire. He snatches a bottle of beer from a big plastic bucket filled with half-melted ice, and pops the top with one of the bottle openers sitting nearby.
Much to my surprise and pleasure, he hands the beer to me before going back for his own.
Calix’s dark eyes watch the interaction carefully, but he doesn’t say anything. Tonight, he’s dressed in a black velvet coat that hangs to the ground. It’s unbuttoned, and he’s shirtless underneath, his black jeans too tight and covered with bloodred glitter. Yet another new outfit. How many he has, I’m not sure, but enough that I’ve never seen him dressed in the same one twice.
Part of me, a very distant part, feels bad about what Sonja did to Erina. Yet … just yesterday, Erina killed April. And Calix. She shot Raz.
She’s clearly dangerous, but I don’t know that bullying or violence are solutions for anything.
One thing I do know: saving Pearl isn’t the magical act of sacrifice the universe is looking for from me. Clearly, I’ve missed the memo on something here.
“Walk with me,” Barron purrs in that sensual baritone of his, each word like a caress of dark satin against my cheek. He turns around and starts walking backward, beckoning me forward, his sketchbook tucked under one arm.
I hurry to catch up with him, Raz and Calix not all that far behind me.
“I can’t stop drawing you today,” he says, studying the masked figures crouching on top of ruined cars or fucking in the backseat of an old minivan, the doors wide open, a boy’s pale ass pumping
up and down. I glance away and take a sip of my drink, studying the outfits of the Devil Springs High students. Most of them are wearing something related to the school: a red hoodie with the grinning devil that makes up their mascot, black sweatpants with Don’t Deal with the Devil printed down one leg, or t-shirts with Devil Springs High written above a red splash that looks suspiciously like a blood splatter.
“Based on my insider knowledge,” I start, tapping the side of my head with a single finger. I’m wearing the black ballgown again, the one with the red laces and the corset-like bodice. “It seems you draw me every day.”
“Yes, but today’s different,” he says, handing me back the sketchbook. “It’s like my brain is bursting with images I can’t erase. They plague me unless I draw them.” I flip the book open, turning the pages until I get past the images I already recognize from earlier. Apparently, while I was getting ready to go, Barron added several more.
One of them features Erina, gun raised, the barrel pointed at April. I stand helplessly by as my friend falls toward the ground. Seeing it in still form like this gives me the chills, and I close the sketchbook quickly, tucking it against my chest.
“I’m living in a time loop,” I tell him, glancing his direction and seeing his brows furrow. “I’ve told you this before. Maybe some, distant part of you remembers?”
Barron says nothing, pausing near a plastic folding table covered in liquor bottles. He pours himself a generous amount of vodka in one, splashes in some juice, and then flicks those beautiful eyes my direction.
“A time loop, huh? Like … the same day on repeat?” he queries, and I shrug my shoulders. He doesn’t have to believe me, but I want to be honest.
“Exactly that. You’re drawing other timelines. The more days I live, the more timelines you have to draw. That’s why it’s getting harder.” I glance over my shoulder to see Raz and Calix, surrounded by girls—and a few boys—their mouths in coquettish half-smiles, lashes batting behind their masks. I narrow my eyes and glance back at Barron. He’s watching me with that intense stare of his, making me shiver.
Devils' Day Party: A High School Bully Romance Page 37
