Page 68 of Devils' Day Party
“Do what?” I ask as Raz shoulders me out of the way to move past.
“We're doing it,” he says as I consider if I should turn and run. But this is something that hasn't happened on any other day. And if they've had it planned for a week, that means it's something that could've happened at any time. But only on this day have I managed to get this series of events to play out. “We worked really hard on this one.”
The Knight Crew takes me past the train and deeper into the woods, toward the treehouse cabins where I lost my virginity last year. Fuck. They'd said they planned on locking me in the cabin where Calix and I slept together. Guess that’s happening even earlier today.
We indeed head to that very same cabin, and I climb the ladder willingly. Honestly, I'm sort of excited to be locked in. I can rest all day by myself then fall asleep at night to start the day over again.
After what happened with Raz, I could use a break.
A lump forms in my throat, but I push it back.
Raz likes me; I know that now. No matter how many resets I’m forced to participate in, I’ll never forget that.
Barron unlocks the door with a large golden key he pulls from inside his hoodie pocket then pushes it open, revealing Luke and Sonja, naked and in bed together.
My eyes widen, and I clamp my hand down on the cool glass bottle of the coffee to keep myself from having an overreaction. That’s exactly what the Knight Crew wants me to do, and I refuse to humor them.
“Karma,” Luke chokes out, gathering the blankets up to her chest while Sonja turns forward and crosses her legs, breasts up and out. She smirks at me, and I'm flooded with memories of me and Raz, of how Sonja and Luke are like an echo of us together.
“Tell Karma you're a part of the Knight Crew now,” Sonja says, turning back to look at Luke. My bestie’s eyes are downcast and dark with embarrassment, but she has no idea how fucking mad I am. No goddamn clue.
This isn't the first day she's done this, is it?
I've just never seen it before.
That means every day before this, she was lying to me. And not just about the phone call with my moms. She not only refused to share a secret with me that she knew I could understand, but she actively lied about it.
“Well, I happen to still be a virgin.”
Her words from the first day ring in my ears as I look at her with some expression of abject horror on my face. Luke's eyes widen in response as she looks from Sonja and back to me. Her blue anime hair is stuck to her sweaty forward as she clutches the blankets close.
“Tell her she's a useless whore,” Sonja says, and déjà vu floods over me. “Tell her that she isn't worth the air in her lungs.” Luke makes a sound of protest, but she doesn't stop Sonja's ugly words. The very same words Calix gave me that day I tried to join the Knight Crew, the ones I told to Pearl. The ones that made her kill herself. I struggle to think how I'd feel right now if I hadn't witnessed this all before, if this was my very first Devils' Day. “Tell her that the whole world would be happier if she were dead.”
“I can't say any of that,” Luke whispers, shaking as she stares at Sonja and then turns back to me. Now she looks as if we've both betrayed her. “I would never speak to anybody like that, especially not somebody I love.”
“Well then,” Sonja says, standing up as Raz leans his shoulder against the wall and grins, watching me with the dark eyes of a hungry predator. Such a change from yesterday, when we shared a tub of chocolate ice cream and cuddled. Fuck my life. “Guess I'll just have to take this with me.” Sonja grabs her phone from what looks like a charging station on a shelf, and proceeds to flash the screen at us, showing a still from an explicit video.
I don’t see much, just Luke’s bare breasts, but it’s enough for me to understand what’s going on here.
Sonja's been recording them.
My stomach knots up as I turn to look at Calix, my breath coming in heavy pants. I mean, for the Knight Crew to have arranged this meeting, that means they planned it. So they must’ve planned what happened with me and Calix, too, right? They really did engineer the whole thing. Raz seemed to think so yesterday. My head spins as a momentary bout of dizziness overtakes me.
All this time, every single day for three hundred and sixty-five fucking days, this asshole has been telling the truth? He was pranking me, that was it.
