Devils' Day Party: A High School Bully Romance - C.M. Stunich Page 0,2

reason, the effect is monstrous. Monstrous, and yet, he smells far too good. Probably to lure in prey, like a carnivorous plant or something.

“Back off of her,” Barron says in that low, deep voice of his, like gravestones and cold, dead things. But he isn’t defending me because he likes me. He’s defending me because he wants to wait for the dark and quiet to play his tricks. I might like him and his big hands, stained with charcoal because he draws too much, if he didn’t work so damn hard to make my life miserable. “People are watching.”

Raz pushes off the car, his long, lean athlete’s body a testament to his position on the track team. From what I hear, dear old dad was disappointed that he couldn’t hack it in football. Even as the star sprinter on the team, he’s a fucking disappointment.

“I’ll find a way to pay for it,” I repeat again, desperate to avoid having the cops called on me. Based on the way my car is positioned against his, I can’t seem to come up with any way that I might’ve done this accidentally. Although, knowing Calix is loaded, what does it really matter? He’ll pay to have the car fixed—or more than likely just buy a new one—and I’ll have gained nothing except for a burden the boys can hold over my head.

“Maybe I’ll let you pay for it tonight with your mouth?” Calix opens the driver’s side door of the car as Raz shoves me aside, leaving me to stumble and fall to my knees on the pavement. His laughter rings out as I turn and throw a handful of rocks as hard as I can at the back of the car, the wheels kicking up dust that I cough on as I rise to my feet.

As the boys—pretty much everyone calls them and their friends the Knight Crew—speed off, they drag my car along with them for several feet, metal screeching against metal, exponentially fucking my vehicle up.

Typical.

I’ve never liked Devils’ Day, and I’ve especially never liked the party that follows it.

But I always go.

Always.

Because if I don’t, they’ll find me anyway, and I’d rather be in a crowd, wearing a mask, than at home alone like I was that one night.

This too shall pass, I repeat, as I climb in my car and, on the third try, manage to get the engine to turn over.

At least today, the guys have something real to be mad about.

There are only two schools in our county. One is over an hour away via a bus that starts picking up kids in our area at around six in the morning. My mothers—yes, they’re lesbians and I have two—didn’t want that for me. Instead, Mama Jane, who grew up wealthy, liquidated what was left of her trust fund and prepaid four years at Crescent Preparatory Academy.

It’s a nice school, much nicer than Devil Springs High, the public school that struggles to get a fraction of the funding that the Crescent enjoys. But it’s also in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere—and that’s no accident. It used to be called Crescent Reform School for Boys. Back in the 1800s, any wealthy family east of the Rockies with a troubled son could send their kid there, either to get rid of them or to … fix them. Today, the school functions in much the same way, though not officially. No, now Crescent Prep is where wealthy families send any kids—boys and girls—that they want to disappear. We have pregnant senator’s daughters, disgraced heiresses running from leaked sex tapes, and teen boys too wicked with privilege and hate to fit into high society.

And for three years now, I’ve gone to school with all of them. Outclassed, outmatched, outspent.

The only friend I had at Crescent Prep before our newest addition—a girl named April—enrolled here, was my bestie, Luke.

Luke, who describes herself as a pansexual, genderfluid otaku, has highfalutin fucking asshole parents who can’t handle their kid’s identity. They basically tossed her into the backwoods of Arkansas, so she wouldn’t embarrass them in front of their fancy friends.

“You did what?!” Luke—born Lucille, which is hilarious if you know her—chortles as I narrow my eyes and tap my red and black nails against the side of the rock I’m perched on. “I can see the headline now: three-hundred-thousand-dollar Aston Martin crushed by shitty yellow VW bug with eyelashes. What a glorious start to Devils’ Day!”

“You’re not helping,” I murmur, turning to the third