Devils' Day Party: A High School Bully Romance - C.M. Stunich Page 0,29

his eyes like he thinks I’m trying to pull some elaborate Devils’ Day prank on him. Or hell, maybe he’s the one pulling a prank on me? That makes sense, doesn’t it? For the Knight Crew to set me up like this, over and over again, just to fuck with my head?

“Are you okay?” It’s the old woman again, the one in the yellow shirt with the purple hat. I’d remember her anywhere. Her eyes are as sharp as tacks, and her nails are painted with tiny daisies. They must’ve paid her to get in on this, to keep up the charade.

I turn an awful look on Calix, enjoying the slight tightening of his face when he sees the venom in my expression.

“I’m just fucking fine,” I snap, feeling my anger get the better of me. It’s been doing that a lot lately, hasn’t it? Taking over everything and blinding me with white-hot rage. I reach up and find that the cut on my head is open again. Since it was scabbed over last night, that means the Knight Crew must be reopening it every time I pass out.

Karma, you drove off the edge of a cliff. The Knight Crew didn’t engineer that.

And yet, I can’t come up with another logical explanation for what’s happening, so I roll with it. Besides, it feels good to hate Calix, to look at him and want to kill him, to look at him and blame him for everything that’s going wrong in my life.

“How are you doing it?” I hiss as the woman takes another tentative step forward, clearly unconvinced by my proclamation.

“Should I call the police?” she queries as the rain pours down from the sky, and I try really hard not to wonder how the Knight Crew could possibly engineer the same weather patterns over and over again. I just need to go home and lie down. That’s it. It’s Saturday, so there’s no school. I can take a moment to collect myself.

“That won’t be necessary,” Calix says, smiling in a way that sends chills down my spine. He’s good at it, I’ll admit, following the same script over and over. “We’re classmates; I won’t be pressing charges.” When he leans forward to swipe some hair from my face, I hit his hand back, and his jaw clenches with anger. “You know what tonight is?” he snaps, much less practiced than he was the last two times we played this game.

“Fuck off, Calix, I know what you’re up to,” I snap, so freaked-out by the whole situation that I forget how bad the Knight Crew can really make my life when they put their minds to it. “And I’m not sticking around to play this game.”

“Play this game?” he repeats, his own anger rising in a violent wave. I can see it in his eyes, teetering on the brink of destruction, like a tsunami about to crash into shore. “What game? You crashed your car into mine. So what could I possibly be up to?”

“I’m not buying this Groundhog Day shit.” I shake my head, thinking about that old Bill Murray movie, the one where he wakes up over and over again on the same day. Life doesn’t give second chances, and it most definitely doesn’t give third or fourth or fifth ones. Sorry, but the prank is over before it’s even really started.

“Groundhog Day?” Calix echoes, looking at me like I’ve truly and utterly lost my mind. “You must’ve hit your head pretty hard, Trailer Park. Maybe I should call an ambulance and let you explain how this all happened?” He gestures at our smashed cars as the bells on the front door of the convenience store ring and Raz and Barron appear, right on schedule.

“What the fuck happened here?” Raz asks, still carrying that plastic grocery bag as he circles us. Like Calix, he plays his part very well. I’m almost convinced. Almost. But time travel does not exist. People do not get caught up in an endless cycle of days. I mean, imagine that? Imagine having to live Devils’ Day—and the Devils’ Day Party—over and over and over again. “Little trailer trash bitch thought she’d get the first Devils’ Day trick on us, huh?”

I turn and head around the back of Calix’s car, climbing in the driver’s seat of Little Bee before Raz catches up to me, grabbing the door to keep it from closing. Doesn’t stop me from trying the engine and, on the third try, getting