Page 110 of Devils' Day Party
“I want you to look at me the way you always do, like you hate me. But I want you to do it holding my hand. Can you do that?”
Raz looks at me like he has no idea what to think, and I close my eyes, pressing my face into his shoulder. That day at the hotel with Calix was like a dream, one that I was so desperate not to wake up from that I fought sleep for almost thirty hours. But trying to force my tired body through hours of exhaustion is not a way to escape this time loop.
I have to figure out how to balance all the things that I want to happen. And then I need to keep doing that until it sticks somehow. That's the only way.
“Put her down,” Calix repeats, his words a clear command. The only thing his statement seems to do is cause Raz's fingers to tighten on my ass. At this point, I half-expect the boys to throw me in the back of the Aston Martin and take me out to the cabin again. All I have to do is piss off at least two of the three guys to trigger that timeline, right? “Let's take her with us.”
I guess I've never tried it when one of them is actively on my side though.
“Nah, I think Karma's made it pretty clear what she wants today,” Raz says, looking back at me, his face torn between his mask of hatred and that deep, inner want that I saw from him at the cabin. “Some part of me wants you to get pregnant. Because then I'll be allowed—no, encouraged—to be with you.” It cost him something to admit that to me, to be that raw and honest and open. I need to see that side of Raz again, even if it’s just for one, last day. “For whatever reason, she wants to spend Devils' Day with me.” He smirks at Calix, and I swear, I can feel the other boy's eyes boring into my back. “Drive us back to the school, will ya? My dad's having something dropped off for me today.”
“I at least have a right to ask why you thought to hit my car, if all you wanted to do was run in here and throw yourself into Raz's arms?” Calix’s voice is thick with shadows, like a swirl of fog in an empty graveyard. I have completely and utterly pissed him off today, worse than usual even.
Raz releases me when I lean back, dropping my feet to the floor and putting his hands possessively on my hips. I stare up into his red eyes, but his expression is an enigma; I can't quite figure out what he's thinking.
“J'ai embouti ta voiture pour te faire une crasse, Calix, rien de plus,” I whisper, turning to look at Calix over my shoulder, even though the words kill me. “Everything will be different tomorrow.” He promised, but he couldn't possibly know the odds he faced in order to keep that promise. I hit your car as a prank, Calix, nothing more.
“Let's take them back to the school,” Barron says, voice as dark as the night sky in his secret cave of butterflies. He pulls his red devil's mask from his pocket and slips it over his face, dual-colored eyes still watching me from beneath it. “You can afford to get your car fixed.”
He turns and walks down the aisle, tossing a wad of cash onto the counter before heading outside. I notice as he leaves, that he takes the sketchbook out from under his arm and shoves it in the garbage can.
My heart stutters, and I feel the tears at the edges of my eyes again.
“What are you doing, Karma?” Raz asks me as Calix leaves the store in a fury, the bells on the door jangling as he throws it against the wall on his way out. Karma, he called me, not Trailer Park. “What the fuck do you want?”
“I want you, Raz,” I say, reaching up to wipe the tears from my eyes with the end of my blazer sleeve. After a moment, Raz takes his own blazer sleeve and wipes the blood from my forehead.
“Why would you hit Calix's car?” he asks, that cruel, cruel face of his carved into lines of confusion. He's adorable like that, all muddled up. I almost smile. Almost. But then, I should’ve spent the weekend sleeping in Calix's arms, waking up for a cheesy ghost tour, watching seconds and minutes and hours tick by. Instead, I spent three days crying alone in my room.
“I was driving by, and I just couldn't take it anymore,” I tell him, a partial truth that I know he won't able to see through. I hit Calix's car because I was angry; I was punishing him. Because I care too much, because now that I'm stuck here, I care even more than I ever did before. “We're evenly matched, Raz. Tit for tat. You know how to verbally spar with me like nobody else.”
