Devils' Day Party: A High School Bully Romance Read online

  “Oh, that's even better,” Raz hisses, reaching around to cup one of my breasts and kneading the small pert mound with assertive, ambitious fingers. His touch is just this side of cruel as he tweaks my nipple, and I cry out. “You know, when you asked to be a part of the Knight Crew, I just about lost my shit. I was going to show you everything that you've been missing.”

  I'm not entirely sure what Raz means with that statement, but it doesn't matter. My body is greedy, aching, and all I can think is: what's the timeline on this? At what point does my day stop—regardless of sleep or unconscious spells or deaths—and I wake up at the gas station again?

  I'm not ready for this day to be over just yet.

  “Why do you hate me so much?” I whisper as Raz moves his cock to my opening, hesitating briefly there and making me curse myself for asking a question like that in a time like this.

  Instead of answering me, Raz thrusts in, balls-deep, a long, low groan of relief escaping him in a rush.

  “Why are you so wet for me, Karma?” he asks, and I notice that he doesn't call me Trailer Park while he's fucking me. I'm glad. I'm not sure that I'd let him touch me if he kept calling me that. “If you hate me so much?”

  It's my turn to ignore the questions, pushing my hips back against Raz's hot pelvis. He grabs onto me with one hand, holding me tight, fingers a punishing pressure against my overheated flesh. With the other, he grabs the long, purple strands of my hair, rubbing them between his fingertips before giving my hair a hard yank.

  My cry is a mingled sound of pleasure and pain as he moves inside of me, working up fervid friction between us. The pain in my scalp turns into delicious pleasure, and I realize that I may very well have some masochistic tendencies.

  When the water goes cold, Raz and I move to the twin bed downstairs. It's in the corner of a sitting room with a whole wall of shelves filled with German-themed knickknacks. It seems like a weird place for a bed, but since this is an Airbnb and guests always seem to want more beds, my aunt put one in this little nook.

  It's a cozy place to spend some time naked—even if that time is with Theodore Rasmus Loveren aka Raz. His nude body is all the hell over me, thrusting between my thighs, our fingers tangled together, his mouth claiming mine.

  He's a strangely skilled and possessive sort of lover, leaving me in a panting sprawl beside him, the sheets a mess of our mingled juices as Raz cracks the window next to the bed and lights up a joint he dug out of his pants pocket. He exhales smoke out the window before turning back and passing the joint my direction. I’m surprised he was even able to light it, considering how wet it was.

  Our fingers brush, sending an electric tingle through me as I sit up, tugging one of my aunt's quilts over my body to hide it from Raz's view. Him looking at me now is nothing like being naked when we're both sweaty and swept away by hormones. I feel our old dynamic locking into place between us like an iron gate and open my lips, desperate to break old habits.

  “It's like nine o'clock,” Raz says, before I get a chance. “We could head back to the party.” He reaches up and, for the first time since we got here, pushes his mask up his face to sit in his still-wet dirty blonde hair. “Sonja is blowing up my fucking phone.”

  “We could head back to the party,” I suggest, biting my lower lip and looking down at my fingers twined together on the blanket. This might be business as usual for Raz, but this is only my third time having sex. It’s all still new to me, and I’m struggling a bit. “Or we could stay here.” I pull in a drag on the joint and pass it back, being careful to keep my fingers to myself this time.

  “You want to stay here?” Raz asks, clarifying as he turns to look at me, his red eyes catching a bit of silver moonlight and shining like the eyes of a demon. I move my own mask up my face to sit in my tangled hair. “With me? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  “I'll make new coffee,” I blurt, taking the quilt with me as I stand up and pad into the kitchen. Oddly enough, he follows me, still smoking the joint, still naked as the day he was born. He doesn't seem to give a shit, yanking out a chair from the table and folding himself into it with every bit of arrogance and self-aggrandizing privilege as usual.

  “What is it with you and coffee? That's what people in their thirties do—go out for coffee on a date. We should be shooting targets in the woods with a Glock and fucking in the mud.” Raz takes another drag on the joint as I turn and cock a questioning brow at him. He isn't looking at me though, content to glare out the window with narrowed bloodred eyes.

  “Who said this was a date?” I ask, my feet kicking up clouds of coffee grounds as I move around the kitchen. Can't possibly forget we had an actual fight just a few hours ago. “We're just … hanging out.”

  Raz throws his head back in a braying laugh, shaking it in disbelief as he drops his chin and smirks at me.

  “Yeah? Like you hung out with Calix? Is it that easy for you?”

  My hand squeezes tight around the handle of the coffeepot as I dump the liquid from earlier and start fresh.

  “Rich of you to judge me like that, considering I've only ever slept with Calix once.” I pour the coffee grounds in and press the start button, using one hand to hold my quilt up. “And then you once. That's the extend of my sexcapades. What about you?”

  “Me? I'm a virgin,” Raz says with absolutely no truth in his voice whatsoever. There's something else there though, something he's trying to hide from me by being a prick. Surprise. “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 me bent over for Calix.

  “Having sex changes everything,” I say, looking away from him toward the woods. The video of me and Calix is already out there, making me realize that no matter how well I try to get things to go between me and Raz, he'll always see it. And if he's this mad now, how mad might he get after he watches it? “But if you want to leave, I won't stop you.”

  I start to turn away and Raz grabs my arm, causing me to drop my mug. It hits the deck and bounces away, sloshing lukewarm milky coffee onto my toes as Raz leans in and crushes his mouth against mine. My surprised fingers drop the quilt, leaving us naked in the moonlight, his coffee cup still held out to one side in his right hand, like a shield to protect us from getting too wild.

  He tastes like barely restrained desire, malicious narcissism, and dangerous temptation, all wrapped into one. When Raz pulls back, I naturally lean forward. My palms settle on his chest and we stare at each other again.

  “You never answered,” I reply, gesturing toward him with my head. “When I asked why you hated me.”

  He's silent for a pause, setting his coffee down and then grabbing me by the wrists. He takes a step back, putting some space between us.

  “You're …” Raz starts, hesitating just long enough that I can hear my phone ringing in the silence. When Raz turns away and grabs his coffee again, I sigh and pick the quilt back up, shambling down the steps of the deck and across the grass. My phone sits in the small space between the front seats, and I lean down to grab it, ignoring the cracked screen as I unlock it.

  There are dozens of missed calls from my mothers, from April, from Luke.

  I decide to glance at my texts instead; the most recent one from Luke grabs my attention.

  It's about Calix and Pearl. Please call me first.

  All the weirdness of today flees in a wave and I forget, for the briefest of moments, that I'm living in a time loop. Fear strikes me cold and wild, making my hands shake as I frantically call Luke back.

  “What is it?” I blurt as soon as I hear her start to speak. I'm moving up the steps with one hand clutching the quilt, the other holding the phone, collapsing into the cushioned bench on the deck. Raz pretends to ignore me, his elbows resting on the railing again. “Please tell me it isn't bad.”

  “It's really bad, Karma. Really, really bad.” Luke sniffles, like she's been crying. “Do you want the shitty news or the shittier news first?” I close my eyes and wet my lips, sucking in a breath of icy nighttime Arkansas air.

  “Hit me with the worst first,” I say, knowing it's going to be about the video.

  Of course, I'm completely wrong.

  “Pearl is dead,” Luke gushes, sniffling again. “She killed herself. There's a note.”

  No.

  “Apparently, she mentioned you in it. The police are looking for you, Karma.”

  Luke keeps talking, but I don't hear anything she says after that. My vision focuses to a pinprick of white and I have to scramble my way to the railing to throw up my coffee over the top of it.

  “The fuck?” Raz snaps, but I'm not listening to him either.

  The things I said to Pearl … did they push her over the edge?

  The indisputable fact that I’m now a monster as big as Barron or Raz, Calix or Sonja … that’s a hard pill to swallow.

  “What? How?” I stutter, my head spinning as my fingers curl around the rough edges of the old wooden railing.

  “She shot herself, Karma. At the party.”

  “At the Devils' Day Party?” I choke out as Luke sniffles again. What if she saw something? I mean, this timeline will likely end come sunup—or sooner, I’m sure—but that doesn’t mean some part of that trauma won’t stick to Luke's soul like glue. What if, with each day that passes, we all just collect bad memories in our psyches?

  “Yes, at the party,” Luke repeats, exhaling sharply. I can just imagine her pinching her brow with her short blue nails. “Where are you? I can come and get you if you need me to.”

  I'm staring out at the darkness, my mind slipping away before I can catch myself, and trying to talk some sense into my emotions. Today will end and tomorrow will give you another chance. It's okay, Karma, it's going to be okay. But it isn't, really, not for me. I will never forget the things I said and did today. A universal reset does not absolve me of my own actions.

  “I'm with Raz,” I whisper, shivering as the night air finally seems to settle across my overheated skin. “We're at my Aunt Donna’s place. We've … I think we like each other.”

  “You … what?!” Luke shrieks as Raz rips the phone from my grip and hangs up. He's panting for breath, looking at me like I've lost my damn mind. But then he seems to notice the tears glinting on my cheeks.

  “Who was that?” he snaps, squeezing my phone in his fist.

  “Luke. She said Pearl killed herself at the Devils' Day Party tonight. My name was mentioned in a suicide note, and the cops …” I trail off, letting my honesty pour forth. What does it matter? It’s night already, and I’m certain that our evening has a time limit. Midnight, is my first guess.

  “Jesus Christ,” Raz hisses, putting his fingers in his blond hair for a moment. He looks up at me, almost like he's … feeling sorry for me? “Over this morning? Seriously?”

  “You should always be nice, Raz, because you never know when someone's so full of pain they might snap. Maybe one kind word could've saved her?” I move past him and into the house, heading for the kitchen and hoping there's food in the fridge. Sometimes renters leave it when they go, unwilling to throw out the unopened items they bought for a trip and didn't need.

  I really don't expect to find a container of unopened chocolate ice cream, but there it is, beside an open bag of popsicles. I take it out, grabbing a spoon and heading upstairs to my favorite room. When we stay here with Donna, she always lets me have the master. Teenagers need their own bathrooms, damn it. The words of my aunt ring in my head, making me smile briefly through the tears.

  Doesn't last long.

  As soon as my ass hits the upstairs bed, I feel the tears again, stinging my face.

  Raz appears in the doorway just a few minutes later, his academy-issued slacks pulled on but left unbuttoned.

  “Do you need me to take you back?” he asks, narrowing his eyes in irritation. “I left my spare key with Sonja; I can make her drive out here.”

  “I'm going to stay the night,” I say, resting my chin on my knees, the ice cream probably melting as I clutch it in my hand. My gaze slides over to Raz as he stands with a forearm against either side of the doorjamb. “But you can go if you want. I'll get a ride back … tomorrow.” My eyes close, but I know I'm no
t going to sleep tonight. I need to see how long I can go before I'm sitting back inside my little yellow car with blood smeared across the wheel.

  Raz hesitates for a moment before retreating, and I feel loneliness and sorrow sweep over me again.

  Weirdly enough, he actually comes back with two fresh cups of coffee.

  He hands one to me and sits down on the other side of the bed. After a strange span of tension, we both end up properly getting on the bed and leaning into the mountain of pillows, our bodies just inches apart.

  I open the ice cream and swallow a spoonful before offering it up to Raz. He curls his lip at me, like I've lost my damn mind.

  “You just came inside of me like, three times,” I say, gesturing with the food and utensil. “What's a little saliva between friends?”

  Nostrils flaring, he takes the ice cream, our fingers tangling briefly and filling my belly with heat. It's hard not to stare at the long, lean length of his exposed torso. He has a few tattoos, too, nothing quite like Barron’s ink, but sexy, nonetheless. Raz digs in, swallowing a massive spoonful of chocolate. The way he's staring down at the food makes me wonder if he's actually exposing himself to deep thought in that cruel head of his. He looks a bit shaken.

  “I've never come in a girl before,” he says, taking another bite of ice cream before handing it back. Like marijuana etiquette: puff, puff, pass. Only this time, it's chocolate ice cream etiquette: lick, lick, pass. “My dad doesn't believe in abortion.”

  The leap of logic between those two statements makes my eyes widen and my head spin.

  I turn to look at Raz with what must be an expression of complete and total shock. He scowls at me again, but that doesn't change what he's just said. I've never come in a girl. Just in case. Because pregnancy means … something. Because, reasons.

  With a groan, I snatch the food back. I don't have to worry about silly things like STDs or pregnancy, not with my life on a loop, but Raz does. That's what he's doing now as he looks up at me, worrying.