Devils' Day Party: A High School Bully Romance - C.M. Stunich Page 0,76

happier if she had just said it, if Sonja would've let her go with them then. It's a possibility. At this point, I'm starting to wonder if each and every member of the Knight Crew is a sociopath.

“I'm … are we really locked in here?” Luke asks, looking at the two tiny windows, boarded over on the outside to try and discourage break-ins. Discourage, being the key word. “Because I could really use a moment to myself right now.”

“Barron gave me the key,” I start, looking down and opening my palm. The gold key catches the light, turning dust motes into faeries. It feels for the briefest of instances that we're in another world entirely.

“Yeah, and you don't think there's not a lock on the outside?” Luke asks, flushing from head to toe. I should be furious with her, and I am. But I'm also aching for her at the same time, remembering how it felt last year when Calix screwed me over. I turn and try the knob, feeling like a complete and total idiot. Again, I thought maybe in his weird way, Barron might be okay with me, too. Obviously not. “Great.”

Typical fucking Barron—give me the key, act like he’s doing me a favor, but in reality, he’s fucking me over just as much as his asshole friends.

“Do you have your phone?” I ask, turning as I realize I left mine in my car, the car that's still sitting at the gas station. Wow. Today sucks. I'm never kissing Calix again. Unfortunately, I can't unsee what we walked into, Luke and Sonja's mouths clashing in heat, their hands between each other's legs.

I feel dizzy again. The last thing I want is the image of my bestie banging a bully in my mind. Then again, in most of these timelines, Luke has to see me with one. Maybe I understand how my moms feel just a little bit better.

“It was right here,” Luke chokes out, searching frantically around the nightstand that was closest to where Calix was standing. Great. “Fuck!” she screams, leaning forward and putting her forehead on her knees. “This is the goddamn worst. The worst. I didn't want you to find out this way.”

“Yeah?” I ask, cocking a skeptical brow and putting my fist on my popped hip. “How did you want me to find out?”

“I was going to tell you …” she starts, trailing off as she realizes what a cop-out statement that is. “We've been sleeping together for a while now.”

“How long?” I gather her clothes from the floor and toss the pile into her lap, trying to control my rage. It's not fair of me. It's hypocritical as fuck, but I can't help myself.

“Since last year's Devils' Day,” Luke whispers, keeping her eyes downcast.

Now that, that is a blow.

I exhale sharply, closing my eyes and wishing I had my mask with me. Instead, it's back at the gas station, in my abandoned car. If this were day one of this nightmare, I'd be terrified about Little Bee, about her getting towed away, about how it might look that my mangled car was left in the parking lot. Interesting how a little perspective can change everything.

I care little to nothing about my car right now.

“You've been sleeping together for a whole year?” I repeat, sitting down heavily on the edge of the bed. No way I'm moving any further onto it. If I happened to sit in a wet spot … well, I'd just rather not test the fates. “How? Why?” I glance back at Luke, my mind whirling with all the new things I've learned in the last … week? How many days has it been since this started? I should probably be keeping track.

A quick count in my head tells me it’s been six. Six, long, strange days on repeat. Seven, if you count the first day.

“How?” Luke echoes, yanking her shirt over her head and not bothering with a bra. Like me, she probably realizes that we'll likely be stuck in here all day. As far as pranks go, it isn't a big deal. Maybe it would have been, on day one, but a lot's changed since then. Raz was spitting mad today, wasn't he? After yesterday, after all those revelations, my heart feels shattered and raw.

Behind all of that anger and rage, Raz is just … waiting for me.

In the span of just a few hours, he can be mine.

But I can never keep him.

Not with my world the way