Devils' Day Party: A High School Bully Romance - C.M. Stunich Page 0,74

take the caramel one from his left hand with a frown, noticing that angry red gash that caught my attention on day one. He didn’t have it before Devils’ Day, and I can’t help but wondering where it came from.

“We're taking you somewhere special today,” Calix replies blandly, like a vampire in desperate need of blood. Senses dulled, but very, very dangerous underneath. The edge of his mouth curves sharply to the side. “Clearly, you have your own Devils' Day tricks planned.”

The pulse in his throat jumps sharply as I turn to look at Raz. His nostrils are flared, his eyes so violent and edged that when he turns them to me, I swear that I'm bleeding all over.

“You thought I kissed you because I had a plan?” I ask, trying to keep my anger from getting the better of me. “Like your plan last year? You're an idiot, Calix Knight, and I'm not afraid of you.”

“Maybe you should be?” he replies, turning us onto the road that heads up toward the site of the Devils' Day Party. I pop the top on the iced coffee drink and sip it as we come to a stop, taking it with me when we climb out. There's no point in resisting; Barron and Raz are likely to just drag me along after them.

“Are we sure we want to do this?” Barron asks, but Calix ignores him as he marches off through the woods, the only one of these three boys that absorbs darkness like an impossible void.

“Do what?” I ask as Raz shoulders me out of the way to move past.

“We're doing it,” he says as I consider if I should turn and run. But this is something that hasn't happened on any other day. And if they've had it planned for a week, that means it's something that could've happened at any time. But only on this day have I managed to get this series of events to play out. “We worked really hard on this one.”

The Knight Crew takes me past the train and deeper into the woods, toward the treehouse cabins where I lost my virginity last year. Fuck. They'd said they planned on locking me in the cabin where Calix and I slept together. Guess that’s happening even earlier today.

We indeed head to that very same cabin, and I climb the ladder willingly. Honestly, I'm sort of excited to be locked in. I can rest all day by myself then fall asleep at night to start the day over again.

After what happened with Raz, I could use a break.

A lump forms in my throat, but I push it back.

Raz likes me; I know that now. No matter how many resets I’m forced to participate in, I’ll never forget that.

Barron unlocks the door with a large golden key he pulls from inside his hoodie pocket then pushes it open, revealing Luke and Sonja, naked and in bed together.

My eyes widen, and I clamp my hand down on the cool glass bottle of the coffee to keep myself from having an overreaction. That’s exactly what the Knight Crew wants me to do, and I refuse to humor them.

“Karma,” Luke chokes out, gathering the blankets up to her chest while Sonja turns forward and crosses her legs, breasts up and out. She smirks at me, and I'm flooded with memories of me and Raz, of how Sonja and Luke are like an echo of us together.

“Tell Karma you're a part of the Knight Crew now,” Sonja says, turning back to look at Luke. My bestie’s eyes are downcast and dark with embarrassment, but she has no idea how fucking mad I am. No goddamn clue.

This isn't the first day she's done this, is it?

I've just never seen it before.

That means every day before this, she was lying to me. And not just about the phone call with my moms. She not only refused to share a secret with me that she knew I could understand, but she actively lied about it.

“Well, I happen to still be a virgin.”

Her words from the first day ring in my ears as I look at her with some expression of abject horror on my face. Luke's eyes widen in response as she looks from Sonja and back to me. Her blue anime hair is stuck to her sweaty forward as she clutches the blankets close.

“Tell her she's a useless whore,” Sonja says, and déjà vu floods over me. “Tell her that she isn't worth the