Devils' Day Party: A High School Bully Romance

by C. M. Stunich

  Mom's worried, I get that. But she needn't be.

  She won't remember this moment soon enough.

  There’s blood all over my steering wheel.

  I sit up, calm for the first time in days. Dying triggers the … curse, or whatever this is. Passing out triggers it. Sleep triggers it.

  I sigh and lean forward, putting my forehead against the wheel, a familiar trickle of blood running down the side of my face. My left hand reaches out and pushes down the manual lock on my door, so that when Calix predictably storms forward to open it, it doesn't budge.

  “Are you fucking insane?!” he snarls through the window, and strange laughter bubbles up in my throat. No matter how many times I go through this, it doesn't get any less surreal.

  Turning to face him through the dirty window, I lift my lips in a grin, my bloodied white teeth the only part of my reflection I can see. And then I flip him off.

  Sitting up, I turn the engine once, twice, three times—as always—and then put the car in reverse, peeling out of the parking lot and leaving Calix Knight in the rearview mirror.

  When I get to Crescent Preparatory Academy, I park down the road, hiding Little Bee in the woods and jogging back to make sure I have time before the Knight Crew officially arrives for the day.

  I make a quick stop in the locker room to clean up, changing into my only spare dress shirt, dabbing some of the blood off the lapel of my purple blazer, and trading out my ruined tie for a fresh one.

  “Aren't we looking peppy this morning,” Luke says when I find her in the hall, sliding my glittery black mask over my face, the antlers catching the morning sunlight and casting strange shadows on the wall behind me. “Something good happen?”

  “I crashed my car into Calix's Aston Martin,” I quip, smiling as he storms in the front entrance with Raz, Barron, and Sonja on his heels. Their entourage follows behind them in a cloud, like a swarm of angry bees. No, more like locusts, intent on consuming everything in their path. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that these ugly-beautiful people were the harbingers of the end-times.

  They're all wearing their masks, somehow even more macabre in the bright early morning light. When Calix turns and spots me standing there, his lip curls to the side in an angry sneer, and he starts toward me. The others follow along behind him like trained dogs.

  “How fortunate for you to be standing in view of a security camera,” he purrs, schooling his face back to some semblance of cruel civility.

  “Did you think that was unintentional?” I quip back, throwing years of worthy self-advice out the window. Don't draw the Knight Crew's attention. Let their insults wash off like water off a duck's back. Make yourself a target and you'll become one.

  I'll admit, it's a challenge to look Calix in the face. I can still feel him inside of me, his hands on my hips, his breath feathering against my ear. And Raz … my eyes slip past Calix to find him grinning beneath his red devil mask, a perfect match to his eyes. But even if the slate of the world's been wiped clean, I'll never forget the way he looked at me yesterday.

  Like I meant nothing.

  Like I meant everything.

  My hands shake as I lift my chin in defiance and Luke's brown eyes go wide. She's staring at me like I've lost my damn mind, pulling her goblin mask from her book bag and snapping the elastic against the bright blue of her hair. Sonja watches her for a moment before turning that sharp emerald gaze of hers to me. Barron watches me, too, sucking on the red lollipop he's had every day since we started this mess.

  “You think you can hit my car and then walk away like it's nothing?” Calix asks, voice steady but laced with a cold anger that makes my chest hurt. Even yesterday, after he saw me cry, after I threw myself at him, I got nothing out of him. He may as well be carved of stone.

  “You think you can bully me for years and walk away like it's nothing?” I return, cocking a brow. Luke whistles under her breath and shakes her head, but I can tell she's fighting back a grin as I stare the Knight Crew down. “Well, guess what? I'm fucking sick of it.”

  I step forward and snatch Raz's mask from his face. He retaliates much quicker than I expected, snagging me by the wrist and yanking me in close. It's quite clear from his expression that he doesn't understand where I'm coming from or what I'm doing.

  I like that.

  Something about his confusion makes me feel powerful.

  “I'll take my fucking mask back, Trailer Park,” he sneers, yanking the mask from my hand as I stare him down and Luke grinds her teeth in nervousness. Behind Raz, his minions titter behind their pretty masks. They're barely human on the best of days, their feral cruelty too much for even their ruthless families to handle. Add Devils' Day into the equation, and they're as wild as the spirits their masks are supposed to scare off. “You're awfully ballsy today. Something up that we should know about? Maybe your dyke mommies are getting a divorce that doesn't mean shit since they shouldn't be married in the first place?”

  “Maybe you're so obsessed with me and all my weirdness because you're fucking jealous?” I retort, putting together a million insults, a million looks that I never bothered to interpret until now. Raz attacks my parents the first chance he gets. He attacks my love of art. My bat earrings. My rainbow pride shirt. The faerie mural on the front of my mothers' art studio.

  Things he isn't allowed to have, to like. Because his father doesn't allow him to be who he wants to be. Raz lives inside strictly drawn lines, a box of his parents' making.

  “Jealous?” he asks, throwing his head back with a laugh. Before I know it, he's swinging me around and slamming me into the row of gray lockers, getting in my face. His body is pressed up against the front of mine, a lean, perfect line of muscle and malice. He leans into me hard, crushing me against the metal wall behind us.

  “Watch it, Raz,” Luke warns, her voice rigid but spiced with fear. She'll stand up to the Knight Crew, but she's not an idiot. She knows how fucking scary they can be sometimes.

  “Crashed into Calix's car, fucked with me. What are you up to today, Trailer Park?” He shoves his mask back on his face as Sonja slithers up beside me like a serpent. She's always at Raz's side, like a sexy lesbian clone of the asshole himself.

  “You must really like pain,” Sonja suggests, her perfume smelling of violets, lipstick a brilliant red that reminds me of the blood I cleaned off my face earlier. “A gazelle who prances before lions doesn't often last long.”

  Calix moves up on my left side, putting his forearm up against the lockers, his face as blank and perfect as it always is. He drives me goddamn nuts, wearing a mask of his own making every fucking day of the year. The only difference today is that he wears two.

  “Clearly, you're looking for attention. If that's what you want, we'll give it to you.”

  “Make me a part of the Knight Crew today,” I say, and I swear I can hear Luke choking on her own disbelief. My eyes stay locked on Raz's red ones in challenge. There's a flicker of surprise there followed by sick pleasure. He moves back just slightly and then slams his palms against the lockers on either side of my head.

  “You've got to be shitting me,” he laughs as Barron watches from behind him, snapping the red candy in his mouth in half. The sound gives me the chills.

  “She wants to hang with us? Let her,” he suggests, his voice a perfumed poison, seeping into my ears and threatening to flip my own logic on its head. How can someone so awful sound so grotesquely beautiful? “But she follows our rules.”

  “If you want to play with us,” Calix starts, pausing and then looking over his shoulder, his eyes trained on someone down the hall. His gaze narrows before he turns those flinty eyes back to me. It's hard for me to align my view of this dark-hearted asshole with the man that touched me yesterday with frenzy and passion in his possessive hands. “Then you can go tell Pearl exactly what we think of her.”

  My heart leaps in my chest as Luke hisses under her breath, gaze flicking to the girl in question. I've never liked Pearl, bu
t I also despise cruelty for cruelty's sake. Fear flashes through me like lightning, choking me.

  “Are you kidding?” Raz says, cocky smirk falling in place on those sharp lips. He leans back and gives me a disapproving once-over. “You're asking a mouse to do a wolf's work. Trailer Park doesn't have it in her.”

  “Just like I didn't have it in me to hit Calix's car?” I quip back, shaking with adrenaline but determined not to back down. If I were to put a pause on this day, sit down and really think about, I bet I could find a lot of deep psychological issues for my behavior.

  But I feel wild. Reckless. Out of control.

  The universe is fucking with me, so I'm fucking with it.

  “Let her try,” Barron says, sliding a dark chocolate candy bar from his pocket. He snaps the end off in a very visceral sort of way, like each bite of food, each suck on a lollipop, each snap of gum, is a sexual act. He stares me right in the face as he does it, licking flakes of chocolate from his full lower lip. “Go tell Pearl what we think of her.”

  “Which is?” I manage to spit back as Sonja chortles with laughter and the horde of dark fae minions behind her snicker in mean-spirited laughter.

  “Go tell Pearl she's a useless whore,” Calix says, his voice pleasant enough, smooth and silky, like the petals of an ebony tulip. “Tell her that she isn't worth the air in her lungs. Tell her that the whole world would be happier if she were dead.”

  My eyes widen and Raz sneers, shaking his head in disgust.

  “See that expression on her face? That look of self-righteous morality? That's why you'll never be a part of our crew. Fuck off, Trailer Park. We'll come for you later to say thanks for the car.”

  I shove Raz back and shoulder Calix out of the way, but he snatches my arm before I can get past him.

  “You’ll tell her that she’s weak,” he whispers, voice so low that I’m certain I’m the only one that can hear him. “That she’s pathetic, that she’s cares far too much what the world thinks of her, that she’s afraid.” I turn my face just enough to look at him, but he’s already releasing me and stepping away, face closed-off and cold, as always. I can’t help but wonder though … is he talking about Pearl right now? Or is he talking about himself?

  With a shake of my head, I storm down the hall, my entire body quivering as my conscience screams at me to stop.

  Don't do this. You know how bad this hurts. You know what's it like to be on the receiving end.

  “Hey Pearl,” I say, drawing the attention of the pale girl with the white-blond hair. She let you, Luke, and April out of Devils’ Den that first night. But she also calls April a whore. Luke a freak. Me, Trailer Park. She cuts herself, Karma, she's hurting.

  “Karma, wait!” Luke calls out, the fear in her voice slicing through me like a knife. I glance back and see that the Knight Crew has boxed her in at the end of the hall.

  “Hurt her and I'll kill you all!” I shout before turning back to Pearl, knowing even before I do this that I'm going to regret it.

  But … then I'll go to sleep. Or I'll fucking die. And it'll start all over again. Maybe this is hell and I'm paying for every mistake I ever made in life? Maybe this is purgatory, and I'm being judged? If so, then I'm headed for the ninth circle of hell after this.

  I'm not sure that I care.

  “What do you want, Trailer Park?” Pearl snaps, looking me up and down with a similar expression to Raz's. Just … less hungry maybe. Raz Loveren might hate my guts, but he wants to fuck me, that much is for sure. I mean, I'm not exactly flattered. Pretty sure he fucks anything with a pussy.

  It occurs to me as she sneers my way that she could be the one who uploaded the video of me and Calix.

  “You're nothing but a useless whore,” I say, my voice a cold deadpan, a dead ringer for Calix's. As the words leave my mouth, I pretend like it's one of the Knight Crew saying it to me. Like it's Raz.

  “Excuse me?” Pearl asks, taking a step back from me. She's wearing a silver pleated skirt—an alternate uniform choice—and her purple blazer, an iPad clutched against her chest. She scowls at me, like my words don't bother her. I can see in her eyes that they do.

  “You're not worth the air that you breathe,” I continue, taking a step forward, hating myself more and more with each word that falls from my lips, each one a toxic cloud that hurts me as surely as it does Pearl. The Knight Crew isn't worth this; my soul isn't worth this. Tears sting my eyes, but I don't stop. I won't. “The world would be better off without you in it.”

  I do not repeat the last few sentences that Calix told me; I’m fairly certain they were meant for my ears only anyway.

  “Fuck you, Trailer Park!” Pearl screams, dropping her iPad to the stone floor with a crack. It hits the ground and shatters, her words echoing off the limestone walls of the old school. “Fuck you!” She turns and runs down the hall, leaving her iPad behind, the sound of her footsteps making me sick to my stomach.

  “Color me surprised,” Raz purrs, 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 r
oil. 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, expose the blood and bone and pain resting there, a web of flesh that makes me feel trapped. He snaps his sketchbook closed, sitting up and leaning his left elbow back on the table. Barron brings his other hand to his lips and swirls his tongue around the green candy ring on his finger. “So, what spurred your interest in us today?”

  “I'm trapped in an eternal hell,” I say, putting my hands into the front pockets on my blazer. I can feel Luke and April watching me from across the length of the courtyard, but I don't bother to look back at them. If I do, my resolve will crumble, and I'll end up doing something drastic, just to start this day all over again. “I've been living the same day on repeat, so I figured I'd try something different.”

  Raz laughs at me, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't get what I'm saying. None of them do. Barron slides a hand over his rainbow-colored Mohawk, studying me like I'm the subject in one of his drawings.

  “Nice necklace,” he says as I finger the Diana fritillary around my neck. It matches the tattoo on his chest, and I'm starting to wonder if there's any coincidence in that at all. It feels like fate to me. A dark, twisted sort of fate, but still.