“With what money, Trailer Park?” Calix asks, moving back over to the gas pump and pulling the hose from his car. “The change your dyke mothers pay you for working part-time at that dump they call a business?”
“Don’t talk about my parents like that,” I say coldly, feeling my temper get the better of me. I have to keep it in check though. I have to. They like it far too much when I get riled up. “At least my mothers didn’t ship me off to another state like a dirty little secret. That’s more than any of you can say about your own parents.”
“Say that shit again,” Raz spits, coming around to stand in front of me and tossing his grocery bag into the backseat of the car. He slams his palms on either side of me, pinning me in against the side of the Aston Martin. Ever since I can remember, Raz has worn red contact lenses over his pale blue eyes. I think, mostly, it’s to piss off that conservative senator daddy of his. But for whatever reason, the effect is monstrous. Monstrous, and yet, he smells far too good. Probably to lure in prey, like a carnivorous plant or something.
“Back off of her,” Barron says in that low, deep voice of his, like gravestones and cold, dead things. But he isn’t defending me because he likes me. He’s defending me because he wants to wait for the dark and quiet to play his tricks. I might like him and his big hands, stained with charcoal because he draws too much, if he didn’t work so damn hard to make my life miserable. “People are watching.”
Raz pushes off the car, his long, lean athlete’s body a testament to his position on the track team. From what I hear, dear old dad was disappointed that he couldn’t hack it in football. Even as the star sprinter on the team, he’s a fucking disappointment.
“I’ll find a way to pay for it,” I repeat again, desperate to avoid having the cops called on me. Based on the way my car is positioned against his, I can’t seem to come up with any way that I might’ve done this accidentally. Although, knowing Calix is loaded, what does it really matter? He’ll pay to have the car fixed—or more than likely just buy a new one—and I’ll have gained nothing except for a burden the boys can hold over my head.
“Maybe I’ll let you pay for it tonight with your mouth?” Calix opens the driver’s side door of the car as Raz shoves me aside, leaving me to stumble and fall to my knees on the pavement. His laughter rings out as I turn and throw a handful of rocks as hard as I can at the back of the car, the wheels kicking up dust that I cough on as I rise to my feet.
As the boys—pretty much everyone calls them and their friends the Knight Crew—speed off, they drag my car along with them for several feet, metal screeching against metal, exponentially fucking my vehicle up.
Typical.
I’ve never liked Devils’ Day, and I’ve especially never liked the party that follows it.
But I always go.
Always.
Because if I don’t, they’ll find me anyway, and I’d rather be in a crowd, wearing a mask, than at home alone like I was that one night.
This too shall pass, I repeat, as I climb in my car and, on the third try, manage to get the engine to turn over.
At least today, the guys have something real to be mad about.
There are only two schools in our county. One is over an hour away via a bus that starts picking up kids in our area at around six in the morning. My mothers—yes, they’re lesbians and I have two—didn’t want that for me. Instead, Mama Jane, who grew up wealthy, liquidated what was left of her trust fund and prepaid four years at Crescent Preparatory Academy.
It’s a nice school, much nicer than Devil Springs High, the public school that struggles to get a fraction of the funding that the Crescent enjoys. But it’s also in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere—and that’s no accident. It used to be called Crescent Reform School for Boys. Back in the 1800s, any wealthy family east of the Rockies with a troubled son could send their kid there, either to get rid of them or to … fix them. Today, the school functions in much the same way, though not officially. No, now Crescent Prep is where wealthy families send any kids—boys and girls—that they want to disappear. We have pregnant senator’s daughters, disgraced heiresses running from leaked sex tapes, and teen boys too wicked with privilege and hate to fit into high society.
And for three years now, I’ve gone to school with all of them. Outclassed, outmatched, outspent.
The only friend I had at Crescent Prep before our newest addition—a girl named April—enrolled here, was my bestie, Luke.
Luke, who describes herself as a pansexual, genderfluid otaku, has highfalutin fucking asshole parents who can’t handle their kid’s identity. They basically tossed her into the backwoods of Arkansas, so she wouldn’t embarrass them in front of their fancy friends.
“You did what?!” Luke—born Lucille, which is hilarious if you know her—chortles as I narrow my eyes and tap my red and black nails against the side of the rock I’m perched on. “I can see the headline now: three-hundred-thousand-dollar Aston Martin crushed by shitty yellow VW bug with eyelashes. What a glorious start to Devils’ Day!”
“You’re not helping,” I murmur, turning to the third member in our little group of outcasts. April Iseman, the heavily pregnant sophomore that enrolled at Crescent just four months prior, stares back at me, pushing her glasses up her nose and huffing a sigh. Her mom is a state senator for Louisiana with big ambitions, and a pregnant fifteen-now-sixteen-year-old does not fit into her carefully laid plans. “Can you back me up here? There’s nothing good about this. Today is Devils’ Day, for fuck’s sake. Calix and his minions don’t make life easy for me on a normal day. You think today, of all days, was the right time to stage a coup?”
“Well, why did you do it then?” April asks, tilting her head to one side, long, brown hair cascading over her shoulder. She sits primly on another rock, dressed in our school uniform—royal purple skirt and white dress shirt, her tie loose around her neck, Mary Janes polished to a shine. Despite her official status as an outcast, April is leagues apart from the rest of the students who attend Crescent Prep—even me. She’s punctual, studious, respectful … which is why she had little choice but to team up with me and Luke.
“I … don’t remember,” I say, reaching up to rub at my sore head, my hand coming away with a bit of dried blood. The excuse sounds lame, even to my own ears, but it’s true. Something about the way I hit my head must’ve knocked my brain around a bit. No matter how hard I try, how hard I concentrate, I can remember driving down the street toward the gas station and then nothing else until the pain of impact. “But I know I’m not stupid enough to start shit on Devils’ Day.” With a long sigh, I glance up toward the towering sides of Crescent Preparatory Academy.
This area is rife with German influence, brought over by early pioneers, and our school reflects it. The damn thing looks like the fucking Matterhorn entrance at Disneyland, with wood shutters painted with tiny flowers, white stucco walls, and decorative half-timbering.
I’ve never hated a single locale more.
Glancing back at Luke, I find my painted lips pulled down into a severe frown. She’s still laughing at me, stuffing a powdered donut between her lips and grinning.