Page 20 of Devils' Day Party
She frowns heavily, her brown eyes dancing with carefully repressed anger.
“You know why I’m mad, and it’s not because the Knight Crew is a bag of diseased dicks. It’s because you started things today. You hit Calix’s car; you stole that key; you promised me you wouldn’t fuck with them.” Luke scoffs and shakes her head in disgust, reaching her fingers up to tousle her blue hair. “And the goddess only knows what you did with Barron to get that key.”
“What the fuck are you implying?” I ask, turning away from the bars and the masked revelry beyond so that I can look her straight in the face. My own is burning with shame, but I just hope it’s too dark in that cave for her to see it. “That I screwed Calix last year as some sort of Devils’ Day Party prank? That I wanted to be naïve enough and desperate enough to believe he really did like me?”
“You brought up Calix,” Luke snaps back, moving away from me to stand at the opposite end of the cave entrance. “I was talking about Barron. Did you steal that key spur of the moment? Or was it something you planned? Either way, you’d already made your promise to me, so it was wrong, no matter how it happened.”
“As if you wouldn’t have shoved your tongue down Sonja’s throat at the first opportunity.” I gesture at the glittering green beetle brooch clinging to the front of her shirt. “You wore the jewelry she sent, didn’t you? Maybe I wasn’t the only one planning on seeking out the Knight Crew against my better judgment? They were already planning on locking me in the treehouse, Luke. The fight was already on.”
“If they locked you in, we would’ve let you out, and they would’ve been too drunk to notice. Stealing their key, pepper spraying them, and then trying to lock them up in the Devils’ Den is a whole different animal. You messed up, Karma. Just admit it.”
“At least I tried to do something about it,” I snap back, my hands shaking, bits of purple hair sticking to the sides of my sweaty face. “At least for once, I attempted to fight back. Unlike you. Since freshman year, you’ve been letting the Knight Crew push you around, and you just take it. The worst you’ve ever done is report them which just makes you a snitch.”
“A snitch?” Luke laughs, harsh and low, shaking her head like she can’t believe I just said that. “What is wrong with you, Karma? Because you’re not acting like the person I thought I knew. The cool, quiet artist who didn’t give a shit what anybody else thought. Even the thing with Calix … I mean, I was surprised, but I understood. Lately though? I feel like you hate the Knight Crew and worship them at the same time.”
“I don’t give a shit about the Knight Crew,” I say, but it feels like a lie, tumbling off the end of my tongue like a boulder, heavy and dangerous and unstable. “I’m not the one who cries myself to sleep every night because she’s so desperate to fit in.”
Luke’s eyes widen, and I know I’ve gone too far, throwing one of her secrets back into her face. It’s like earlier, when I shouted at my mom, when I stabbed my canvas. I don’t mean to do it; I don’t want to do it. Hell, as soon as I say it, I wish I could take it back.
“Come on guys,” April says softly, but it’s too late. Luke turns away from me, one shoulder propped against the wall of the cave. A few moments later, a girl in a pearlescent white mask appears, holding up a key. It’s not the same one that Barron had—this one’s much less rusted—but it fits into the lock just the same, and the gate swings open.
“This is only because I hate them so much, not because I like you,” Pearl Boehringer says, her blond hair orange in the strange half-light. She takes the key with her and walks away, her mask glittering with eight gemstones set to look like a spider’s eyes. The effect is eerie, especially when paired with the derisive sneer on her face.
Told you: everyone at Crescent Prep is an asshole. Including me, apparently.
“Do you want to apologize before I give you a ride home?” Luke says, grabbing April by the hand and pulling her out of the maw of the Devils’ Den. “Because you know I’m going to give you one either way.”
A lump of pride gets caught in my throat, and I say nothing. I’m too frustrated by the way the party’s gone, too pissed off at the Knight Crew, and quite frankly, hating myself too deeply to say anything at all.
