Page 43 of Devils' Day Party
“No. Just … no. I don't support any of this. Even considering what you told me this morning”—she gives me a meaningful look—“this isn't going to end well. Say Calix up and forgets what he's done, you never will.”
“Just wish me luck and give me a ride, okay?” I ask, and Luke sighs. She'll do it, whether she thinks it's a good idea or not. Luke lets me make my own mistakes, but she's always there when I fuck-up and need a friend.
“Fine. Just … be careful with him. He's pretty to look at, but I'm sure that underneath all of that, he's nothing but hate and privilege.”
But he's not, I think, even as I hate myself for it. Or at least, I don't want him to be.Calix is sitting on the steps of the old train car when I arrive, trudging through the leaves and the dappled sunlight in my ruined uniform. He lifts his head to look at me, a lazy prince with a hard edge. It's all a facade though, that insouciant slump. His muscles are tense, his eyes like flint, his lips turned down in a sharp frown.
I stop about six feet in front of him, strands of stringy purple hair hanging over my face. I'd considered going home to take a shower and change, but what's the point? I'll wake up in a crisp uniform soon enough, the only imperfection the bright splotch of blood on my dress shirt.
“What do you want, Calix?” I ask as he surveys me from head to toe, a strange emotion on his face that I can't quite place. He takes his time studying me before he bothers to respond, playing with that thorny crown I saw him wearing the last few nights. Or rather … the same night over and over again. I exhale sharply.
“Maybe I should ask you that same question?” he says, his voice as dark and depthless as the water inside the Devils’ Den.
“Meaning what?” I snap back, because I'm quickly running out of patience. Why is this the day I have to live on repeat? Why not the day we fucked each other? At least in that, there was a mistake I could correct, a monumental choice to change my fate. What do I have here? A sex tape I can't stop from seeing the light of day. A car accident I can't undo. Three bullies who I wake up facing day after day.
Calix's face darkens, and it's like watching a lunar eclipse, that silver light darkening and then flaring with the hot white anger of the sun. He stands up, pushing the crown into his dark hair. His fingers brush the berries and come away stained with red that looks like blood.
“Meaning what?” he repeats with a scowl, walking across the forest floor like he truly is the king of the dark devils that live within its shadows. He owns them. He commands the dark. It's his to break and abuse, to lift up with strong arms and caress with soft fingers. “You hit my car today. You did that. Why?”
He moves so close to me that I can smell him, this expensive cologne mixed with the earthiness of the crown on his head. There's a prick of sweetness from the berries, too. I can almost taste it.
Calix stares down at me with those hard, dark eyes of his, like I've royally pissed him off. I mean, in a way other than destroying his three-hundred-thousand-dollar car.
“What do you mean why, Calix? I can't fucking stand you. You and your friends treat me like shit.”
His mouth curves up in a cruel smile.
“You mean the Knight Crew? I'm flattered that you think I have any control over what Barron, Raz, and Sonja do.”
“Don't you though?” I ask, thinking of this morning when he sent Barron to the car like a scolded child. “Then again, if you did, maybe you wouldn't have freaked out and lied to them about what happened between us.”
Calix's face shutters like there's a storm on the horizon, his ebon eyes narrowing to slits. He snatches my wrist in his hand, too hard, bruising. Does it make me sick in the head that I like that? That I want to hit him back? That I want to brawl and make him bleed and fuck him in the leaves beneath our feet?
“What makes you think I lied?” he says, tilting his head to one side, studying me like I'm some foreign entity, a creature from another race whose customs are alien in nature.
“Because when I saw the video, I saw your face,” I snap back, yanking my wrist away. Calix refuses to let go, and I end up stumbling even closer to him as he draws my hand to his chest. The eclipse in his face is gone now, leaving a velvety blackness that forces me to remember that we're alone in the woods together. Anything could happen. Anything.
