Devils' Day Party: A High School Bully Romance - C.M. Stunich Page 0,17

in masks of their own—testing their instruments.

Live music, what an upgrade.

I suspect we have the Knight Crew to thank for that. From what I hear, the public school—Devil Springs High—has these outrageous, wild parties in an old junkyard, with music blasting from the open doors of a car someone borrowed from their parents. The beer is cheap, the masks are rubber Halloween decorations or shitty paper cutouts, and the Devils’ Day Party is legit.

It feels forced out here, with the stuffy faces of the Crescent Prep students, the fancy masks, the over-the-top outfits, like two different faerie courts battling it out to see who can be the worst, the most lewd, the most wanton, ribald, and lascivious. Although the Devil Springs High party sounds like more fun, I have no doubt who would win in a contest.

Nothing refines cruelty like unlimited resources.

“Looks like Trailer Park didn’t take our warnings seriously,” Raz bites out, pretending to smile beneath his mask. But his eyes look irritated and weepy from the gravel I threw in them earlier, although it seems he didn’t bother to take his contacts out. He’s shirtless, the tattoos on his chest impossible to make out in the low light from the fire. “Or maybe she just likes a firm hand?”

Sonja chuckles, seated beside Calix, her red hair up in a bun, a crown on her head made up of thorny branches and gold glitter. She watches me with eyes like emeralds, ready to lap up whatever drops of blood or tears I might shed.

Calix says nothing, one long leg extended, the other bent at the knee. His eyes are as black as the night sky above the trees, starless, moonless, depthless. He, too, has a crown on his head, but his looks less like a prop and more like the real thing. There are berries threaded onto the ends of the branches and as I watch, one of them drips red onto Calix’s forehead, like blood. He swipes it off with a single finger and then sucks it into his mouth.

“I’m fairly certain I asked you not to come tonight,” he muses after a moment, clearly not concerned with hurrying this conversation along. After all, he has all night to torment his fellow Crescent Prep students. There’s a girl named Pearl that he really doesn’t like. She’d probably be a part of our little group of misfits if she didn’t call April a whore, Luke a freak, and refer to me like all the others—as Trailer Park. “But then, you started the day off by crashing into my car.” Calix’s face tightens up slightly and he sits up, slinging an arm across his knee. His eyes are ringed with liner beneath the mask, his lids shadowed with black. But it’s his mouth that really gets me, a slash of awful menace that curves to the side in a smirk. “You’re not particularly concerned with consequences today, now are you?”

“You don’t tell me what to do,” I snap back, feeling my anger ride hot and wild inside of me. For years, I’ve tried to keep my cool, but my patience is wearing thin. “None of you do. If I want to be at this party, I have every right.”

“Mm.” Calix looks to Sonja, then Raz, then Barron. “What do you think? Should we lock her up?”

“Lock her up,” Raz agrees, grinning as Calix hops off the car and I feel my heartbeat pick up speed. But I prepared for this. Fuck, I was hoping for it. I yank the keychain off my belt loop, the one that looks like lipstick. Twisting the top off, I press down on the nozzle and shoot pepper spray in an arc, not caring who I hit.

And then I turn and run.

See, trouble found me. I just retaliated.

I can hear screaming and groaning behind me—pretty sure I nailed every member of the Knight Crew and most of their followers, too—but I don’t stop running. Shoving my way through the crowd near the bonfire, I make my way past the tables laden with alcohol before bursting into the abandoned train that sits behind the entrance to the cave.

There are plenty of people in here, too, and it’s standing room only, but that doesn’t stop me from working my way through the crowd to the front of the train. On either side of me, couples are entwined in intense make-out sessions … and more. There’s a lot of sex happening on this train, but even with all