Riot House (Crooked Sinners Book 1)

by Callie Hart

  A part of me thinks, yes, absolutely, Wren’s a private creature and he likely guards his personal space fiercely.

  But then, he’s also arrogant. Would Pax or Dash dare enter his inner sanctum without his permission? Highly improbable. And in what kind of world would Wren ever imagine an outsider having the gall to break into his home and then breach the privacy of his bedroom? Certainly not this world—the one in which everybody he comes into contact, students and teachers alike, are afraid of him.

  When I place my hand on the brass doorknob, a quiver of strange energy ripples up my back. How many times has Wren placed his hand here, on this same polished, cool brass? A thousand times. More. Hundreds of thousands of times. He touches this door knob more frequently than he touches almost any other thing in this house, and that knowledge makes a bolt of color creep into my cheeks; it feels like he and I are here together, the palms of our hands resting on top of the same buffed metal, like he and I are holding hands, and—

  Dear god, Elodie. What the fuck is wrong with you?

  I wrench the doorknob around, not really wondering if it will be locked anymore, knowing that it won’t be…

  And it isn’t.

  Next thing I know, I’m standing in Wren Jacobi’s bedroom.

  If I were brave enough, I’d turn on a light and get a proper look at the place, but I’m more jittery than I thought I’d be. There’s enough moonlight flooding in through the two huge north facing bay windows that I can see well enough, anyway, and I don’t want to risk alerting any passersby on the road that there’s someone inside the house.

  The room is massive, at least twice the size of my quarters on the fourth floor of the academy. A monster of a king-sized bed dominates the space, with a carved, solid wood headboard behind the mountain of pillows that is stunning in its intricacy. With all the colors in the room muted and muddied by the encroaching dark, the sheets could be grey, but they could also be blue. Something inside me twists sharply when I see the military corners Wren must have folded this morning, the moment he got out of that titanic fucker of a bed.

  The walls are covered in shelves, which are stacked high with books. There are so many books, old and new, tatty and worn, glossy and unopened, that they’re jammed into the spaces, lying flat on their sides, and wedged into tiny gaps wherever they’ll fit.

  What else do we have? Let’s see…

  No photographs in frames hung proudly on the walls. No pictures at all. A patinaed mirror in an antique gilt frame is propped up against a chest of drawers to the left of the bed. Aside from that, there’s no real decoration to the room.

  Hmm. No television.

  Stacks of paper sit forgotten on top of the shag rug, before the open maw of a recently used wood burning fireplace. Balled-up scraps of paper sit in the corners, discarded on the floor and forgotten about. In some form or another, there’s paper everywhere: old ticket stubs tucked under the lip of the paneling by the window; a pile of old posters, dogeared at the edges, rolled into tubes and held together by elastic bands, lean drunkenly up against the closet door; stacks of letters collecting dust on top of an old-fashioned writing desk.

  I look up, and my breath stoppers up in the base of my throat. Well, fuck me. This place is full of wonders, especially when you take a beat to check out the view above your head. The ceiling is no ordinary ceiling. It’s pure metal. My grandmother used to have a tin ceiling in her parlor that was stamped and embossed back in the 1890s, but this is nothing like that.

  It’s copper, burnished, beaten and shining even in the half-light—a vast expanse of polished copper that rises in the center, forming a focal point that draws the eye.

  It’s staggering and beautiful and completely impractical, and I can’t picture Wren commissioning something like this. Nor can I imagine him squabbling with the other boys to make sure he bagged this room before either of them could.

  It must look incredible when one of the floor lamps has been switched on. When Wren gets into bed each night, he gets to stare up at the light playing across the striations and the grain of the beautiful metal, and he probably doesn’t appreciate it. Its magnificence is probably lost on a miserable fucker like him.

  Something about the room feels nautical, like the captain’s quarters of an old galleon ship. There’s no reason for me to feel that way—there are no nautical trinkets, or themed decorations. It just does. There’s a haphazard disorder to the place, combined with the ruthless organization of other aspects within the room, that gives the impression that this bedroom is occupied by a most eccentric mind.

  “Elle! Hurry up, for fuck’s sake! I’m sweating down here!” Carina’s voice floats up to me from downstairs, crystal clear and loud enough to startle the crap out of me.

  She’s right, Stillwater. You didn’t come here to gawp at the guy’s interior design skills. Get moving!

  I obey the voice of condemnation whispering into my ear, hurrying across the room toward the desk. Up until now, I’ve been roiling in doubt. I’ve believed (hoped? God, I’m pathetic) that Tom was lying for some reason, and that my phone wouldn’t be here. That hope is ground to dust when I see the familiar gold case sitting on top of an open book, right there in the center of Wren’s desk.

  I flip the phone over, and low and behold the screen has been completely repaired. Tom must have worked so quick; I can’t believe I’d trusted him when he said it was going to take three full days to get this back to me. Asshole.

  I hold my finger over the home button and the screen lights up, listing all of the calls and the texts that I’ve missed from Eden, Ayala and Levi. Tempted though I am, I resist the urge to unlock the phone. There’s no time for that.

  “Elodie! I’m not kidding! Let’s go!”

  I drop the phone into the pocket of my jacket, already plotting and scheming all of the ways I am going to hurt Wren Jacobi for this infraction, when my eyes catch on a phrase on the page of the open book that glues my feet to the bare floorboards.

  …here, I opened wide the door;—darkness there, and nothing more…

  I know that line.

  I know it from somewhere, but I just can’t think where…

  A soft creak disturbs the hush, the sudden, weighty silence of a presence at my back. My skin prickles, each small hair on my arms and down the back of my neck bristling under the force of another consciousness entering the room.

  Ohhhhh fuck.

  “Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming…” a hushed voice murmurs. A voice of silk and honey and the rough edge of a blunt blade. It stabs into me with a tender sweetness that fills me with fear. “Dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before. But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token…and the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”

  Slowly, I straighten, taking a step back from the desk.

  “Poe,” the voice states behind me. “A little over done these days, given his recent hipster rise to fame, but I’ve been a fan of ‘The Raven’ for a long time.”

  With all the care in the world, I turn around, and there, standing at the foot of his bed, is Wren. After only seeing him in his tatty black tee and his jeans for so long, I’m staggered by the sight of him in a suit and tie. The cut of the blazer is exquisite. The pants are perfectly tailored, too. He looks nothing short of incredible, but it isn’t his clothes that have stolen my ability to form words. It’s just…it’s him. His jet hair, and the way it curls around the tops of his ears. The purse of his full lips, and the casual, amused upward tilt of his mouth. The faintest hint of stubble at his jaw, and the sharp, assessing eyes that bore into me like lasers from the other side of the room.

  Oh, how I hate that I love to look at this boy.

  He slips his hands into the pockets of his suit pants like he hasn’t got a care in the world. “Got a favorite, Stillwater?” he purrs.

  “What?” My voice cracks on the word.

  “Poet.” Wren s
miles softly, then looks around the room, as if he’s suddenly remembered he came in here looking for something but can’t recall for the life of him what it was. He goes to the bookcase, running his fingers along the spines. “Good poets bleed their pain out in their words. They capture the desolation and the hopelessness of life and transcribe it to paper in a way that makes you feel like your throat’s just been cut. It’s visceral. All troubled souls have a favorite poet.”

  What the fuck is happening right now? Why the hell is he going on about poets and not quizzing me over the fact that he’s just busted me in his room? I have to get out of here. Immediately. “Who says I’m a troubled soul?”

  Wren glances at me out of the corner of his eye. “Like recognizes like, Elodie. You and I…we share many commonalities.”

  “No, we do not.” I deny it with a little more passion than intended. “We’re nothing alike. I’d never hurt someone until they agreed to steal someone’s phone for me.”

  Wren taps his finger along the shelf as he walks from one end slowly to the other. His eyes glint with amusement, a small flash of his teeth visible as he parts his lips. “I’m sure there are plenty of things you’d lower yourself to if you wanted something bad enough.”

  “You’re sick, Jacobi. Where…oh my god, where the hell’s Carina?” I didn’t hear her panicking downstairs. She didn’t shout that someone was coming. She’s been silent since she last called for me. “You’d better not have fucking hurt her, Wren,” I snap, hurtling toward the door.

  He doesn’t try to stop me. Laughing softly, he pulls a book from the shelf, running his hand over the cover with a gentle reverence. “I didn’t touch her. Don’t panic. I might use force on misbehaving nerds from time to time…but I don’t hurt girls.” He runs his tongue over his teeth, his eyes fixed on the book in his hands—from my position by the door, his face is lit by the moonlight pouring in through the windows, highlighting the obsidian coloring of his long eyelashes against the stark paleness of his skin. “She’s still downstairs, waiting by the front door. I came around the back.”

  I stare him down, looking for the lie.

  Wren shrugs. “Stick your head over the bannister and take a look. You’ll find her right where you left her, hearty and hale, doing a really shit job of keeping lookout.”

  I won’t take him at his word. I back out of the room, my body awash with adrenalin, railing against the voice in my head that’s screaming at me to run. When I lean over the handrail and look down to the first floor, I see Carina hopping nervously from one foot to the other, standing by the open front door, scanning the night for the guy who’s already snuck his way into the house.

  “You can tell her to go back to the academy if you like,” Wren mutters. He’s leafing through the pages of his book now, his eyes roving quickly over the pages. How can he just stand there so nonchalantly? How can he not show the slightest signs of remorse for what he’s done? He’s taken my private property, planned on doing god knows what with it, and now he’s just standing there, calm as you like, suggesting that I send my friend away and stay here with him? The guy is out of his fucking mind.

  “Why the hell would I do that?” I hiss. “You could skin me alive and wear my fucking head as a hat if she leaves me here with you.”

  “Ha!” Wren throws his head back and laughs, just once, snapping the book closed in his hands. The tendons and muscles in his throat work as he swallows.

  “Elodie! Was that you?” Carina calls out. “Did you hear that?”

  I lock eyes with Wren, waiting for him to tell me to keep my mouth shut, but he just shrugs again. He doesn’t care if she knows he’s here, clearly. His wordless confidence is driving me up the fucking wall. “She’ll call the cops, y’know. If you do anything weird,” I warn him.

  “I should think so,” he agrees.

  “And you don’t care?”

  “No. I have nothing to worry about. I’m not gonna do anything to you, Elodie.” That smile spreads, taking up more real estate on his treacherously handsome face. It’d be so satisfying to slap that smug arrogance right off him. I imagine what it’d feel like to do it and my right palm tingles beautifully.

  “Elodie! What the hell!” Carina yells.

  “I’m coming!” I volley back to her over the handrail. “Just a second!”

  Wren holds out the book to me, curving a villainous eyebrow at me in an open challenge. He’s daring me to come close enough to take it from him. “A Study in Scarlett. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It’s not poetry, of course, but I think you’d like it,” he says.

  “I didn’t come here to talk books. I came here to get my phone back. Why the hell did you want it in the first place. What were you going to do?”

  He frowns, giving this question some real thought. “Would any explanation be sufficient?” he muses. “If I tell you my reasoning and give you the truth, will it make what I did okay?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Then if it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll save my breath.”

  I’m gonna kill him. I am going to fucking murder him until he’s dead three times over. “What is wrong with you! Just tell me what you were gonna do!”

  Huffing, —He’s frustrated? He is? —he steps toward me, holding the book loosely in his hands. I go rigid, frozen still in place as he draws closer. It isn’t until he’s standing a foot away from me that I realize how close I’ve let him come, and that he could probably stave my skull in with that book if he wanted to. “I should have run,” I whisper. Out loud? God, I said it out fucking loud. Never mind Wren: what the hell is wrong with me?

  “Yeah, you probably should have,” he says. “But everything’s okay. I’m not a psychopath. Do you have any idea how beautiful you are when you’re panicked?” he asks. “You get these spots of color in your cheeks and your eyes come alive. I’m glad you didn’t run.” He tacks his last statement on at the end, like he’s only just realized this himself. “It means you’re not scared of me. I knew that, but it’s nice to be proven right. As for your phone, I’d say it was pretty obvious, wouldn’t you? I wanted to strip all of your father’s malware from it so I could message you, safe in the knowledge that I wasn’t being spied on by one of the most belligerent men in the United States military.”

  “Hah! Lord, you are fucking with me, right? You seriously expect me to believe that?”

  “I don’t expect you to believe anything.”

  “Then why are you trying to paint yourself as a good guy?”

  “I’m not. Would I have gone through your photos? Looked at your texts? Gone through your call list?” He laughs bitterly. “Sure. I’m not a good guy, Elodie. I’ve been informed by numerous trustworthy sources that I’m utterly reprehensible. But do you wanna know my one glorious and shining redeeming feature?”

  “Not really.”

  “I never lie.” He declares this with a gravity and sincerity that rings true. An absolute. A check I could take straight to the bank. And I believe him. “I never lie, so when I tell you something, Little E, you can believe it’s true.”

  This superior, self-righteous ass. I hate him. “All right. Let’s try this again, then. Try telling me that you didn’t destroy all of my stuff after you broke into my room. Let’s see how that pans out for you, because—”

  “I didn’t.” He looks me dead in the eye when he speaks, his shoulders square and back, his chin held scornfully high. And the same honesty I heard in his last statement lives in these two small words, too. “I could have broken into your room. I had no reason to.”

  My throat’s on fire. Out of nowhere, my eyes are stinging like crazy. “My mother’s bird was smashed to pieces, Wren. So…maybe you didn’t break into my room yourself. Maybe that’s how you’re getting away with this vague half-lie, but you could have had someone else do it. Whoever came into my room broke the only thing I had left of my mom, okay? It was the only thing that was precious to me. It broke my heart, seeing it shattered to bits. And I will never forgive
you for that.”

  My voice is thick with unshed tears. I’ve been putting off thoughts of Mom’s bird ever since Harcourt told me it had been vacuumed up, but now the emotion crashes down on me. It feels as though I’m trying to breathe around a brace of broken ribs. Wren’s shoulders drop. He lowers his chin, looking down at his hands. His expression’s hard and unreadable. “I’m sorry you lost something so precious. I know what that feels like. But I didn’t have anything to do with it. I swear on my own blackened heart.”

  “Elodie! Oh my god, Elle! I think he’s in the house! Move, move, move!” A thunder of footsteps crashes up the stairs. Carina arrives on the top landing, gripping hold of the handrail. She bends over, panting, and looks up at me with wide eyes. “I heard a voice. I can’t see anything, but I think he’s in th—OH MY GOD! FUCK!” She rockets a foot off the ground, her eyes bugging out of her head when she looks to the right and sees Wren standing right there.

  “Hi, Carrie,” he says smoothly. “Yeah, I’m in the house.”

  Carina draws herself up to her full height, doing a stand-up job of marshalling her surprise. “You should be ashamed of yourself,” she says, flattening down the front of her purple dungarees. “I tell you to stay away from her, and then you go out and steal her phone? You’re fucked in the head.”

  Wren folds his arms across his chest, leaning against the wall beside his bedroom door. “Jesus. Stop. I’ve had enough screeching for one night, thanks. The drive back from Boston was miserable. I had to hike all the way back here from town because the Uber driver wouldn’t come up the mountain. And then I arrive home to find two petty thieves in here, sneaking around in the dark.”

  Carina grabs me by the hand. “Did you get what you came for?” she asks me.

  “Yeah, I got it.”

  “Then let’s get out of here.”

  “Elodie, wait.” Wren shoves away from the wall. “Here. Take the book. I want you to have it.” He holds out the maroon leather-bound book with the gilded edges, offering it to me.

  “Don’t,” Carina warns. “Remember Persephone? She accepted those pomegranate seeds from Hades and doomed herself to the fucking underworld.”