Devils' Day Party: A High School Bully Romance - C.M. Stunich Page 0,18

the kissing and groping, the masks stay on. The illusion is there. I wonder how many of these hookups are Devils’ Day tricks? Each kiss like a venomous bite that won’t be felt until morning …

Inside the locomotive itself, I find the conductor’s seat empty and slump down on it, panting hard and holding my hand to my chest. My heart feels like it’s about to explode from my body and go bouncing, bloody and wild, down the length of the train. But I can’t rest, not yet. My plan is only half-executed.

After all, I can’t enjoy the party with the Knight Crew hunting me.

I check the grimy windows to make sure I don’t see any of them waiting for me and then slip back outside, pulling the rusted key from my pocket.

There’s only one place out here for the Knight Crew to wash their eyes—and that’s inside the Devils’ Den.

The shadows keep me hidden as I creep back around to the front of the cave. The entrance is about fourteen feet wide, maybe seven feet tall, at most. Just a few steps in and I’d have to crouch down. The thing is, I don’t plan on putting a single foot inside this cave.

On the right side of the entrance, there’s a metal sign that talks about the importance of the Devils’ Den and Devil Springs in general. During the spring and summer months, it draws quite the crowd. Supposedly, the waters found deep within the cave have healing properties.

Guess the Knight Crew will find that out firsthand, huh?

There’s a rusty gate made up of spiky metal poles in varying sizes, so that when it closes, the cave and the spring beyond it are completely off-limits. It’s supposed to be locked through fall and winter, and then opened on the first day of spring, but somehow, year after year, the students of Crescent Prep find a way to open it.

This year, Barron had the key.

And now it’s mine.

I pause at the edge of the cave entrance, listening to the snarling and cursing from inside. Someone’s lit paper lanterns all down the sloping path that leads to the water, stalactites dripping from above, stalagmites creating a maze of obstacles that make it hard to get in and out of the den without tripping.

It’s difficult to see from up here, with the angle of the sloping ground, but I can just make out Raz’s blonde hair and the deep rumble of Barron’s voice. Calix and Sonja got the worst of the pepper spray, so I just assume they’re down there, too, washing their eyes out with spring water.

My hand wraps the rusted edge of the gate and I start to drag it into place.

“I’m so disappointed in you, Karma,” Calix says, just before he wraps an arm around my waist and hauls me back. One of his hands clamps over my mouth as he puts his lips against my ear, breath fanning against the side of my neck. “Be quiet, and this doesn’t have to hurt quite so much.” My elbow goes back and hits Calix in the stomach, but his stupid abs are like rocks and the move doesn’t seem to have much effect.

He drags me back across the gravel as I struggle, reaching for my pepper spray again and accidentally knocking the keychain to the ground instead. If I don’t get free from him, he’ll call his friends up here and I’ll be outnumbered. Lock her up, they’d said. I’m not exactly sure what that means, but maybe they were planning to do the same thing to me as I was to them?

“Karma!”

Relief washes through me in a wave as Luke appears in her sparkly blue shirt, racing across the dirt toward me. April stands behind her, eyes wide, one arm banded across her belly. With a curse, Calix releases me, but it’s too late. Not for him, but for me.

“Where the fuck is she?” It’s Raz, ducking out the entrance of the cave with Barron and Sonja on his heels, a good half-dozen of their little followers on his tail. Two of the girls are dressed in diaphanous gowns of yellow and blue, but their faces are masked with long-tongued demons that hide their mouths. The boys that are with them are all wearing intricately painted monster masks that I recognize as coming from the shop next door to my moms’. Each one is worth several hundred dollars, at least.

“Don’t you dare lay a finger on her,” Luke warns.