Devils' Day Party: A High School Bully Romance - C.M. Stunich Page 0,56

sliding up on my right side and slinging a companionable arm around my neck. “You're ruthless, Trailer Park. I guess we'll let you hang with us today.”

Barron sweeps past me without looking my way.

He doesn't need to.

I can see it written in the thin line of his mouth, the dark shadows in his eyes: disappointment.

“I can't believe you did that to Pearl,” Luke says, shaking. Her eyes shimmer with unshed tears. “You of all people should know how it feels to be treated so poorly.”

“Me of all people?” I retort as we stand in the hall during break. “Because I'm such a fucking loser? Because I'm always the one that's keeping my head down, hoping they won't notice me?”

“You know I didn't mean it like that,” Luke whispers as April storms up to us, shoving her glasses up her nose. She slaps me across the face, and I stand there in shock, my cheek stinging, my palm reaching up to press against the hotness of my cheek.

“How could you?” April fumes, her brown hair braided and slung over her shoulders. She's so mad she's shaking, glaring up at me with a disappointment as thick and cloying as Barron’s. I still have no idea why he's disappointed, considering he's one of the ones who sent me off with that task in the first place. “You're supposed to be different than them. You're supposed to be better.”

“Maybe I'm tired of being better?” I whisper, fighting back tears. “Maybe I'm just plain tired? It hurts to keep trying, only to end up at the exact same place over and over again.”

“It doesn't matter how tired you are or how hard it gets,” April shouts, her normally gentle voice rising in hysterics. Now she's crying, too. “The line between bully and bullied is always one small step away. You just crossed it.”

“April,” Luke warns, but even she doesn't have the energy to defend me. Why should she? I deserve all of this and more.

“Well, hello there, Trailer Park,” Raz says, slinging an arm around my neck and licking the side of my face. He chuckles and then flashes those bloodred eyes of his over to April and Luke. “You don't have to hang with the Virgin Mary and your dyke friend today. Welcome to the Knight Crew.”

He pulls me away from my friends and, much to my own complete and utter disgust, I follow.

Insulting Pearl isn't going to win me much of a reprieve from my own bullying. I know that. And yet, I'm playing along anyway. Maybe if I'm bad, maybe if I'm the worst, then I'll wake up and it'll be tomorrow. I'll have a bunch of shit to untangle, but that's better than being stuck in purgatory for all eternity.

“You surprised me today, Trailer Park,” Raz says as he guides me over to his crew's table in the center of the courtyard. Some of the other girls scowl at me as I approach, dressed in their Devils’ Day spoils, with long-horned beetles hanging from their ears, or European wood wasp clips in their pretty hair. I very clearly see Cami Alhambra shove her dress back in her bag and lift up her nose with a sniff. One of the other girls, the one in the leaf mask from the committee, scowls at me in a way that makes my stomach roil. The Knight Crew’s cronies know I don't belong here as well as I do. “Didn't think you had the balls.”

“Didn't think you had the stomach for it,” Barron adds, a ring candy pop on the middle finger of his right hand. He lifts it to his lips, sucking on it as his dual-colored eyes find mine. “But I guess you've managed to shock me before.”

Calix sits on the table, one leg extended, one knee propped up. He doesn't bother to look at me, carefully hidden behind the textured leather of his ebony devil mask.

“What's that supposed to mean?” I ask Barron as Raz lets me go, propping his foot on the bench seat and reaching up to undo the top buttons of his shirt. I stand next to him as Sonja settles herself on the edge of the table, legs hanging over next to Raz's as she studies me with bright green eyes.

“It doesn't matter what it means,” Barron Farrar says, looking up at me with that same disappointment from earlier, one of his eyes a warm brown, the other a cool blue that seems to cut into my chest,