look like a true devil, one with horns that cut and bleed.
“You did. But you’re wrong. Karma is local. She’s poor. She’s an artist. And if she managed to snag a couple of filthy rich boys for herself, who are you to begrudge her that? Get fucking lost.” Calix releases her chin and then glances back at me, his face as impossible to read as it always is.
Doesn’t mean my heart doesn’t swell with pride and affection.
The girl scurries off, and I bite my lower lip.
“You might be an artist, too. I just think you paint with words and cruelty.” I look up to find Calix watching me, Raz sipping his beer and studying the two of us with interest. What the hell did I do today to get them all on my side? Because I like it. “Still, you could’ve been nicer to her.”
“You’re the only girl I care about being nice to,” Calix says, pausing for a moment and narrowing his eyes. “Although I don’t think I’ve ever managed to actually do that either.”
“Marry me, Karma.”
Calix’s words flit through my head like a butterfly searching for nectar, hungry, desperate, but weightless, too. He’ll say those words to me again, one day. I just … need to figure out how to get us all to tomorrow.
“You will,” I promise him, choking back the rest of the words I want so desperately to say. You did. You did before, at the Crescent Hotel. But I’m not quite ready to mention the time loop to Raz or Calix. Barron is different; he thinks differently. “Let’s go find somewhere to be alone.”
“Alone, huh?” Raz purrs, throwing his head back with a laugh and downing the rest of his beer. He chucks the bottle at an old minivan, the brown glass shattering to pieces and raining down like sharp rain. “I like the sound of that.”
I turn and lead the way, noticing that Barron’s already snagged one of the full vodka bottles and found us a place to sit in the back of an old school bus. He’s waiting for us with the emergency exit open wide, legs dangling over the edge. The bus has no tires, and it’s sitting on top of several other cars, but there’s a stack of wooden boxes creating a makeshift staircase.
Barron holds out his hand and helps me up, leaving Raz and Calix to climb up on their own.
“Oh, wow,” I murmur, moving down the aisle and touching the cracked headrests of the few remaining seats. Most of them were stripped out long ago, but there are plenty of places to sit. There are blankets on the ground, too, and I’m surprised to see that they look relatively new.
“I just gave a kid a thousand bucks to leave his blankets and beer and fuck off,” Barron says, explaining the presence of a small blue cooler and the makeshift bed before I even get a chance to ask. The roof of the bus has been rolled back, the metal crumpled up like a fucking banana peel. Whatever accident the bus must’ve been in for that to happen, I don’t want to know.
“Sweet digs,” Raz says, slurring a bit as he grabs the bottle of vodka from the floor and tips it to his lips. He pushes his red mask up into his blond hair and looks around with red-rimmed eyes, already on his way to being drunk. Fuck, you’re such a sweetie underneath all of that bite, I think, watching him drape his insouciant ass into one of the seats like he’s the king of this gritty junkyard.
Calix looks like a visiting dignitary, glancing around like he doesn’t quite know what to make of the place.
“I like that we can see the stars, even from in here,” I say, tilting my head back to look up at the night sky. It’s as if the world is dressed in ebony velvet, dotted with diamonds that sparkle and wink in the silver light from the crescent moon. It’s amazing, how beautiful the sky is, how ugly the junkyard is, and how fucking happy I am in this moment.
I take a seat, sweeping my skirts aside and finishing my beer. After a brief moment of hesitation, I throw it toward the front windshield, hitting the glass and shattering both items in the process.
“Nice one,” Raz hisses, leaning over the back of the seat, his eyes bright with interest. “You’re really shaking things up today, aren’t you, Karma Sartain?”
“I’m sure as hell