Page 38 of Devils' Day Party
“Nobody could watch that and miss the look on my face, the one on his …” I trail off, but there it is, out in the open. I can’t take it back.
Luke takes the next turn much slower than the posted speed-limit, but as soon as we come around the bend, a pair of deer leap into the road in front of us. Just like it did the other night, things seem to happen in slow-motion. Luke does what she’s been told—accelerating instead of braking, doing her best to avoid the animals.
But a third one hops out of the darkness of the woods at the last second, directly in front of us. The beast comes up and over the windshield as Luke screams and loses control of the convertible. Everything around me spins, the stars above me, then the road, the stars, the road.
We come to a stop, sideways and straddling both lanes, upright.
I force my aching body up, tearing off my seatbelt, the world blurring around me. But when I reach around the front seat for Luke, she isn’t there.
Instead, I turn and find her lying in the middle of the road.
A scream lodges in my throat and I scramble my drunk ass out of the convertible. Nearby, the buck we hit huffs and struggles to get to his feet, his antlers casting shadows that are eerily similar to the ones cast by my own mask.
“Luke,” I whisper, voice shaking as I kneel beside her, choking back vomit. There’s blood streaming down the sides of my face, but I ignore all of it, reaching down and turning my friend’s body over.
Dark brown eyes stare up at the blanket of stars above us. Sightless. Unseeing.
My best friend is dead.
The scream in my throat claws its way out, echoing around the dark woods, startling the buck into finding his feet and limping off, leaving a trail of blood in his wake.
That’s when another car comes around the bend, and I look up into the brightness of their headlights.
Fortunately, that’s the last bit I remember.There’s blood all over my steering wheel.
I lift my head up … and find myself looking out at the gas station parking lot.
Again.
Calix hauls me from my car again.
And we start all the hell over—again.
The first thing I do when I can get away from him is to call Luke.
Because I have to know if she’s alive.
The thing is … at this point, I’m not sure that I am.
“Hey chickee,” she says as she answers, and I collapse to my knees in the grassy patch at the edge of the parking lot. I can feel Calix watching me from his position near our crashed cars, but I don't care. His animosity means nothing in the face of the empty feeling from last night. “What's up?”
Tears stream down my face as I sit in the muddy grass, the rain plastering my hair to the sides of my face before the clouds crack and the weather clears up for a brief moment.
“I'm … I crashed my car into Calix's,” I whisper, voice cracking. A nervous laugh escapes Luke's lips before she dials back her reaction, clearly reading my emotions in the tightness of my voice.
“I want to laugh about this, but clearly you're not. Are you hurt?”
“Are you?” I ask, the image of the bleeding buck and Luke's cold, brown eyes flickering across my vision. “I'm fine,” she replies, clearly confused by the direction of our conversation. “But I'm not going to be for long. You're freaking me the fuck out. Where are you?”
Before I can reply, Raz tears the phone from my hand and chucks it into the road. A passing car drives right over it, shattering the screen to pieces. It's a strange echo of yesterday, when I knocked Calix's phone into the road. My throat closes up, and I feel the first edges of panic creeping in.
Raz grabs my arm and tries to yank me to my feet, but my body is boneless. In the narrative of my own story, I was drunk all of ten minutes ago. Got in a car crash all of five minutes ago. Saw my friend's dead eyes staring at a thankless sky two minutes prior.
I am not okay.
“Stand the fuck up,” Raz growls, but my legs are weighed down by the heaviness inside my heart, and I end up slumping back to the ground. When I turn my tear-stained face back to Raz, I catch him in a brief moment of surprise. He releases me and shakes his hand out, like I've burned him. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Back off of her,” Barron warns, glancing back at the curious stares of our fellow gas station patrons. “People are watching.”
Hearing him repeat the now familiar phrase wrenches something inside of me and I bend over, wrapping my arms around my midsection and doing my best to breathe. If I don't force myself to take in some air, I'll pass out. If I pass out, I'll wake up inside Little Bee again. There'll be blood on my steering wheel again. I'll wish I really were fucking dead.
