Devils' Day Party: A High School Bully Romance - C.M. Stunich Page 0,5

over a hundred years, when the official motto of the school was spare the rod, spoil the child. Goddess only knows what the knife represented.

Luke grabs my arm and drags me into the classroom, moving into the corner to sit by April while the Knight Crew takes their seats in the front row. Sonja glances over her shoulder, making eye contact with Luke. The two of them have been playing some bizarre cat and mouse game for years.

“Don’t encourage her to look this way,” I grumble, crossing my arms over my chest and knowing that I can’t fault Luke for having a crush on Sonja when I’ve had a crush on each of the other members of the Knight Crew at some point over the last three years. This year, senior year, it has to be different. I’ve only got nine months left, and I’m out of this nightmare forever. I’ll move somewhere big, coastal, someplace where my purple hair and Luke’s Pansexual Goddess t-shirts and April with her baby don’t make people hate us.

“Why not?” Luke asks, dark brown eyes studying Sonja’s bloodred hair and matching mask with interest. “You let Calix trick you into bed last year. Why can’t I let Sonja trick me into the same thing?” My mouth tightens as I turn a glare on Luke, the ugly words I want to say dying on my lips before I can spout them. She’s right: I did let Calix trick me into bed, even when I knew his words were a lie, his intentions rotten, his love a trick.

“It’s your funeral,” I murmur, pausing as the door opens and the Devils’ Day committee comes in, bearing sweets and crystals and jewelry made from invasive insects. Shiny green beetles—called emerald ash borers—as well as brown gypsy moths and Asian long-horned beetles are encased in resin and hung with pretty silver, gold, and black chains. Others are pinned behind glass and framed like art, shiny exoskeletons gleaming in the overhead lights.

It’s a bit macabre, giving out insect corpses as gifts, but Crescent Prep has been doing it for years, since long before Mama Jane even attended. I’ll admit, dressed up and mounted as they are, some of them surrounded by crystals and beads and even precious gemstones, they’re beautiful.

“Lucille Perdue,” one of the masked students calls out, their mask dripping with leaves and bits of dangling vine. Luke rolls her eyes, but raises a hand anyway, and the student places a red velvet cupcake, complete with jewel-toned ruby frosting on the desk. Beside it, she sets down a pair of red jewelry boxes. Luke cocks a brow at me, and I grin.

“Only one of those things is from me,” I say as she carefully lifts the lid on one of the jewelry boxes. Inside, there’s a bracelet made from black tourmaline, a crystal that’s supposed to protect the wearer from negative energy. Yeah, we’re a little weird over here in Devil Springs, Arkansas, population two thousand and seventy-six. “Just be careful with it; black tourmaline breaks easily.”

“Oh, I love it,” Luke croons, slipping the bracelet onto her thin wrist. “But if you sent me this, then who’s the cupcake from?” She pulls the little napkin out from underneath the plastic container and smiles at the petite, feminine handwriting. “April.” Luke passes the napkin over, so I can read the note. When I was desperate and alone, only your smile shone through the crowd.

“Aw,” I murmur, feeling a genuine smile tilt my own lips as another student volunteer calls out my name—Karma Sartain—and gives me a cupcake of my own. So glad we’re having a baby together. Chicks over dicks. Love, April. I chuckle and tuck the napkin into my pocket for safekeeping as another set of jewelry boxes is set on my desk, and I quirk a brow of my own.

“Again, I only sent one of those things,” Luke says, opening her second jewelry box and pulling out a beautiful brooch made from the shiny green body of an emerald ash borer. She frowns and checks the card, face flushing as her dark eyes flick up to find the back of Sonja’s head. Luke reaches up to ruffle her anime-blue hair and then glances toward the row of windows on our left. I decide not to press, but if one of the Knight Crew sent a present, then we’re in for a really fucked-up Devils’ Day Party.

I open my own boxes up, the first one a present from Luke: