Devils' Day Party: A High School Bully Romance - C.M. Stunich Page 0,154

Calix. “You may as well, it's already too late.”

“Karma is freedom,” Calix says with a small sigh. “She's empathy. She's everything I'm not.”

He said it again, I think, but I can't exactly find it in me to be happy, not with April likely dead, and Raz bleeding all over me. His teeth are gritted as he sits up, panting as he looks at me with something akin to fear in his gaze. He isn't ready to die. I reach over and rip his awful skeleton mask away, tossing it aside.

“You love her?” Erina asks, sniffling, and I glance back just in time to see Calix nod.

“I love her.”

Those are the last words he says.

Erina drops the barrel to Calix’s chest and shoots him, right through the fucking heart.

The sound of that gunshot makes my head ring as I choke on my own breath, watching as the boy I've loved for years falls to his side in the leaves and does not get up.

“No, no, no, no, no!” Raz shouts, scrambling to get to his friend, even as he bleeds and bleeds and bleeds. I look up to see Erina pointing the gun at me. Her face is pale and pretty beneath the leaf-covered mask she wears, her expression as cold as ice.

“Goodbye, Karma,” she says.

That's the last thing I remember, the horrible, horrible sound of her voice.

There's blood all over my steering wheel.

I sit up, shaking all over, wanting to puke. I'm so disoriented that when Calix opens my door and tears me out of the car, I barely see him. My eyes are glazed over, and I start to wonder if I'm coming apart at the seams.

“Are you fucking insane?!” he snarls, but then I collapse forward into his arms, fisting my hands in his Crescent Prep blazer and letting out a small sob. I'm strong, at least, I try to be strong, but holy shit.

Holy shit.

Holy shit.

I lift teary eyes up to Calix's face and find him staring down at me with an expression that isn't entirely unlike the one he had just moments ago. There's an edge to it, like he's balancing on a precipice, but there's a tenderness, too. I realize then that I've seen this expression before, more than once, but that I've just never recognized it.

With a gun to his fucking head, Calix Knight admitted he loves me.

There is no more of an endgame romance than that.

“Let me go today,” I whisper, my voice verging on hysterical. April with bloody spittle on her lips, Luke screaming, Barron running, Raz bleeding, Calix dying. Seems the only person I managed to save yesterday was Pearl, but at what price? “Something bad happened. Just … let me go home, okay? And I'll explain everything to you tomorrow.”

“Karma, what are you talking about?” Calix asks, his fingers tightening on my shoulders instead of releasing. Why he panicked and broke my heart last year, I may never know, but it's clear from where I'm standing now that he loves me. Calix Knight is in fucking love with me.

He's looking at me like maybe the car crash was an accident.

“Please,” I whisper as the woman in the bright yellow shirt, with the little daisies on her nails and the purple hat, approaches us.

“Are you okay?” she asks, and I have to bite back a scream. It isn't fair that when I tried to help, I just managed to make things so much worse. Pearl didn't kill herself last night, but I saw two people I care about die. I saw Raz shot. I saw Luke's heart breaking as she held April's dying body.

“Leave me alone,” I snap, knowing it isn't fair to the old lady, and putting my forehead down against Calix's chest. He's holding me in the hotel room at the Crescent, I tell myself, eyes squeezed shut. My mind is entirely blown when his left hand comes down to rest on the back of my head.

“She's fine,” he tells the woman, his voice much less caustic than normal. “I'll take care of her.”

“Should I call the police?” she inquires, taking another step forward. I suppose I should be grateful to her for picking up on the subtle signals between me and Calix. But today, I just can't. Minutes ago, one of my classmates killed two others, and I'm struggling to wrap my mind around why. I've never needed that mental health day more than I do right now.

“That won't be necessary,” Calix says, and I nearly collapse. Hearing