Devils' Day Party: A High School Bully Romance - C.M. Stunich Page 0,68

“The hell you think?”

“I don't know what to think,” I respond, getting angry. My swollen lips turn down in a frown as I lean over the counter, propping my elbows on the smooth, epoxied surface of the bricks. The only light in here is coming from the crescent moon outside, and even then, it’s diffused and dreamlike. “Do you actually date girls? Because it seems like all you do is fuck them.”

Raz looks back at me, offering up the joint, but I'm not about to move around the counter to take it from him. Instead, I shake my head and wait for a response of some kind. In the half-dark, how could he not answer me truthfully?

“I don't date,” he says, the joint crackling as he inhales again. He's too stoned to be a super asshole like usual. I almost like him this way, mellow and snarky but lazy and satisfied, too. “One-night stands work better for me. Nobody wants to eat the same meal twice.”

I roll my eyes and turn back to the coffee maker as it beeps, pouring us two hefty mugs. Raz sounds like he's telling the truth, but like he's holding back at the same time.

“Cream? Sugar?” I ask, keeping my eyes on the mugs and then jumping as he steps up behind me, too close, his body heat seeping through the thick fabric of the quilt.

“Black,” Raz quips, the ‘K’ sound snapping off his tongue like a whip. He reaches past me and takes his mug, pausing for just a beat too long as my breathing picks up, my exhalations loud enough that I know we can both hear them. Finally, he steps away and heads back through the living room. I hear the screen door snap closed as Raz moves out onto the deck.

I add a heavy dollop of cream and no sugar, taking my coffee outside and over to where Raz is leaning on the railing.

His eyes scan the darkness, and we both go completely still at the sound of rustling in the bushes across the gravel road and beyond the creek, where the forest begins. A huffing sound follows, and I realize it's a buck.

I shudder in horror at the memory of the bleeding buck that killed Luke and, subsequently, me as well.

“At least it isn't spring,” Raz murmurs, taking a sip of his coffee as he uses the ashtray to snuff out the last of his joint. “Males get crazy when it's time to mate.” He casts a strange look my way and then gives that cruel laugh of his. It feels more hollow than usual, almost like his facade is cracking to pieces. “Sometimes, they even kill people … or each other.” He glances back out at the woods, tilting his head to one side as he takes another drink of his coffee. At this point, I'm not entirely sure we're still talking about the deer.

When I glance over at Raz, I can see how damaged his lower lip is, the split clearly visible, his face slightly swollen from the rough impact of my skull. Just because he's a guy, I shouldn't be hitting him like that. But … he manhandles me all the damn time, right? Still, seeing him hurt doesn't feel like justice; it just feels like two wrongs struggling to make a right.

“Do you want to stay the night here and head home in the morning?” I ask. It's a Saturday, so it isn't like we'd have to leave early for school or anything. I will have to call the moms though and let them know I’m okay. Luke and April, too. Even though the thought of calling my friends makes me feel physically ill. What I did to Pearl … I will not soon forget. How the Knight Crew can live everyday with these feelings is beyond me. Either they lack empathy entirely, or else they’ve just learned to live with this nauseous feeling in their gut.

“What are you doing, Karma?” Raz snaps, turning to me with his teeth gritted tight. He reminds me of a wounded animal, cowering back and baring its teeth for fear of getting hurt. Raz would rather bite me than admit he carries any weakness whatsoever. “We're not friends. Don't act like you didn't hit me in the goddamn face earlier. Having sex doesn't change that.”

Hurt strikes me like a match, setting my emotions on fire.

But then I remember the way he came at me in the woods, when he caught