Riot House (Crooked Sinners Book 1)

by Callie Hart

  This thought should make me happy. I’ve been frustrated by him for weeks, and with him backing off I’ll be able to settle into life at Wolf Hall properly now, without fear of further complications.

  But.

  Urgh, why is there always a fucking but? Why can’t I just do a celebratory dance and move the fuck on like any sane person would do?

  I sit in the dark in my room, stewing. I scarf down half a bar of chocolate, but the sugar tastes sour and the candy curdles in my stomach, making me nauseous. I do whatever I can to take my mind off of the fact that Wren still hasn’t messaged me, frittering away an hour playing Animal Farm on my Nintendo Switch, then chatting with Levi on WhatsApp, but I still can’t shake the disagreeable funk that has me in its grasps.

  The clock on my cell phone finally clicks over to ten p.m. and I tell myself I should go to bed, but… fuck, what the hell is wrong with me? Why can’t I just forget about this entire thing? This is for the best!

  I should text him.

  I should ask him what the fuck he’s playing at, sending me the most confusing mixed messages. I mean, what is he hoping to accomplish here? I’ve wound myself up so tightly that I feel like I’m going to snap by the time I grab my Doc Martins from the bottom of the closest, jamming them angrily onto my feet.

  A text message isn’t good enough.

  I need an explanation from him, face to face. I need to know if he did force someone else to fix the bird for me. And, loathe as I am to admit it, I want to know if I actually hurt him by rebuffing him in the library.

  You’re such a fool, Elodie. He’s not worth your energy. Seriously, take your shoes off, get into bed, lose yourself in a good book and forget about Wren Jacobi. He’s a manipulative creep and nothing more.

  Instead, I pick up the book he loaned me—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s, A Study In Scarlett—and I jam it into my bag.

  You’re better than this. Better than him. You don’t damn well need him.

  The pep talk’s a good one. I repeat it in my head as I try to tip-toe down the hallway. It’s on a playback, cycling over and over again as I sneak my way down the stairs. I hear it again and again as I slip out of the academy and I begin to run down the long driveway, headed down the mountain.

  I didn’t have a car in Tel Aviv. I didn’t need one. A vehicle would be really handy here in New Hampshire, though, especially since I live in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. Carina offered to lend me the Firebird and said I could use it whenever I wanted, but I couldn’t ask her for the keys tonight. She’d have wanted to know where I was going, and no way could I have told her the truth: “Oh, y’know, just thought I’d pop down to Riot House. After hours. Alone. To discuss my non-starter, bizarre relationship/rivalry with the boy that you’ve warned me until you’re blue in the face to stay away from.”

  Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen.

  So here I am, jogging down the hill, jumping out of my skin at every sound I hear, just waiting for something nasty with sharp teeth to come lurching out of the forest. I haven’t seen a single car since I snuck out of the academy, and with no streetlights anywhere on the windy, hairpin road, I only have the small flashlight on my cell phone to ward off the darkness.

  I knew this was a horrible idea before I left Wolf Hall, but it’s only hitting home now just how horrible an idea it was. If anything happens to me, I’d better just die and get it over with. If I don’t, Carina’s gonna murder me, and I’d rather get eaten by a bear or buried in a shallow grave by the Riot House boys than have to see the look of disappointment in her eyes when she puts me down.

  Eventually, I reach the narrow dirt track that branches off from the main road, leading to Wren’s home, and panic closes around my heart like a fist. I can’t see any lights. There are no lights coming from inside the house? There’s no one home. Which means I’ve come all this way in the dark for nothing, and Wren…Wren’s still not back from his party weekend with the boys, and he’s out there somewhere, having a great time, having completely forgotten my existence.

  Juuuust fucking great.

  Oh.

  Wow.

  The realization hits me like a bucket of ice-cold water’s just been dumped over my head: this is not the kind of person I want to be—some stupid girl wandering off on her own in the dark, all bent out of shape because of some boy who can’t seem to make up his mind about her. I have more common sense than that. More self-respect. Clenching my hands into fists, I stare off into the night, my decision made. I’m going back to the academy. I’m not falling prey to this kind of insanity.

  Before I can start the long walk back to Wolf Hall, a light suddenly comes on up ahead, casting a yellow glow out into the darkness. Riot House rises up out of the ink-black forest, appearing out of nowhere, and my frantic heartrate slows. So, they are home after all. A part of me is relieved by that knowledge, but the rest of me is frustrated that I’d even let myself ca—

  A steel bar wraps around my neck, cutting off my air supply. “Scream and you’re fucking dead,” a vicious growl warns.

  What the…what the fuck?

  For a second, I am fear personified. My mind just…blanks. I can’t breathe, can’t move, can’t think…

  The impossibly strong band around my throat tightens. “Little sneak,” the voice hisses. “Tiptoeing around in the dark, spying on people. Very bad, petite pute française. Very bad indeed.”

  The blockade that slammed up inside of me shatters, falling apart. That phrase: little French whore. That’s what Pax called me when I walked into my very first class at the academy. I have no doubt that it’s him standing behind me, trapping me in a choke hold, and with that knowledge my fear evaporates. He’s not a monster. He’s not some supernatural creature, prowling out of the woods, looking for his next meal. He’s just a guy with an attitude problem, and I’ve been trained how to deal with those.

  I slam my elbow back and up into his ribs. He’s so much taller than me that he’s had to bend himself over to grab me, which means I can get a lot of momentum behind the blow. Pax huffs out a surprised breath, winded, and I use the opportunity to my advantage. Twisting, spinning in his arms, I jam my knuckles into his throat, slamming them into his Adam’s apple, and his hold on me disappears.

  “Fucking…bitch!” he roars. “Come here. Get your ass here right fucking now!”

  He blinks, shocked, when I obey him without a second thought. Sure, I’ll come to you, motherfucker. I’ll be right with you. He exposes his teeth, anger burning brightly in his eyes, and makes a grab for me. I have him by the wrist, though. I yank his arm around, slamming my palm against his elbow, forcing the joint to bend the wrong way, and Pax reacts the same way all the big boys do when they’re about to get their arm broken: he drops to his knees, crying out in pain.

  From there, it’s easy enough. I release his arm, but I’m not done with him just yet. The sole of my Doc Martin lands between his shoulders when I kick out, putting all my strength behind the blow. He topples forward into the leaf litter, cursing furiously, and then I’m on his back, anticipating what he’ll do next, already waiting for him to try and twist around underneath me. My fist’s raised, wound back as far as it can go, ready to break his fucking nose and end his pretty boy modelling career for good, when—

  “I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” a polite voice informs me. A hand closes around my wrist, tight enough that I can’t wrench it free. Pax jackknifes, bucking me off his back, and I fly sideways onto the ground. Dash stands over me, his face a blank mask, his expression utterly unreadable. With only the dim light from the house spilling over his features, he looks like a statue of a man. An inanimate carving left out for the elements to claim.

  “Crazy...little…fucker…” Pax pants, whirling around to face me. He’s about to lunge down and grab hold of me again, when a third figure materializes out of the shadows. Like a pale wraith, Wren stands over me with his hands hidden in his pockets, dark hair obscuring half his face. His crooked smile looks mo
re than a little wolfish.

  “Well, boys. Better break out the good china,” he rumbles. “Looks like we have ourselves an unexpected house guest.”

  22

  ELODIE

  The coffee’s bitter and warm and sends a shiver of pleasure running down my spine. Dash sits on the very edge of the leather sofa, watching me drink from the cup with a level of fascination that makes it seem like he just woke from a three-thousand-year coma and he has no idea what coffee is. Or mugs. Or sofas. Or girls who know Krav Maga.

  “That really was quite impressive,” he says, resting his chin in his hand.

  “No, it was fucking dumb,” Pax snaps, massaging his throat. “She knew I was fucking around. She cranked that shit up to eleven for no reason.” He’s sitting on the floor, leaning up against the wall by the open fire, glaring balefully at me while he tends to his ‘bruised’ windpipe. I barely fucking touched him.

  Wren hasn’t said much. He stands by the doorway that leads through to the kitchen, his shoulders tensed, as he watches his two friends. His jade eyes have skimmed over me once or twice, but his main focus has been on Dash and Pax, as if he’s waiting for something to happen. He’s wearing a black hoody and some loose sweatpants, and boy does he make them look sinful. The son of a bitch could make a garbage bag look good, though. I look away from him, only to catch Dash frowning deeply at me.

  “What brings you over, love? We adore receiving people, but the place is kind of a bombsite. It’s past midnight and we just got back from a very long trip. We were about to start some party planning.”

  The house is spotless. The thick cream rug that Pax’s annoying ass is sprawled out on looks recently vacuumed. The glass coffee table doesn’t have a single fingerprint on it. The beaten brass panel above the fireplace is so polished, it’s as reflective as a mirror. The moody paintings on the walls—black, blue, white, slashes of emotion on canvas—are much more breathtaking now that I’m seeing them properly lit, and don’t have a fleck of dust gathering on their frames. The magazines and books on top of the sideboard are so perfectly aligned that not a rogue corner or dogeared edge pokes out from their stacks. The place looks like a fucking hotel lobby.

  Wren coughs into his balled-up fist, apparently trying to muffle his snort of laughter. The corner of his eyes are crinkled, betraying his amusement, though. I never thought it possible for him to smile, but it actually happens pretty frequently. You just have to be paying attention in order to catch it—

  I catch something else, as he holds that hand in front of his face: his knuckles are bruised. One of them is split open, red and raw. They weren’t like that the other night in the attic, nor in the library, either. I would have noticed. He’s hit something since I saw him on Saturday, and by the looks of things, he hit that something hard. As if he can feel my gaze on him, Wren unclenches his fist, stretching his fingers out, and lazily shoves his hand back into the pocket of his sweatpants, looking down at his feet.

  “Sorry for interrupting your party planning,” I say in a droll tone. “I just…came to return a book I borrowed from Wren.”

  I pull A Study in Scarlett out of my bag, holding it sheepishly in the air, as if showing them the book will inexplicably make my excuse less lame.

  Wren looks up at me from under dark, banked brows, giving me all of his attention at last. He looks pained, though. His mouth twitches, slanting up at the side. “Ahh. Sherlock Holmes. Yeah. I wondered where that had gotten to.”

  “God, you’re pathetic,” Pax laughs. He rips the sock of his right foot, balls it up and hurls it at Wren’s face. “A girl skipped down the hill in the dark, by herself, and you’re standing over there, all, ‘Ohhh, Sherlock Holmes. My favorite book of all time? Credit us with a little common sense. She came here to get some dick, Jacobi.”

  Dash laughs down his nose but manages to cut it off pretty quickly. He studiously stares up at the ceiling, looking anywhere and everywhere but at me. The only person who actually does look at me is Wren. He must see the bright red stains on both my cheeks. My embarrassment can probably be seen from outer space. Ducking my head, I crack my neck, letting out a steady, even breath. What does it matter if that’s what they think? Who fucking cares anyway? They’re a pair of jackals, these two. Equally detestable, for a variety of reasons. I won’t be cowed by their stupid, inane comments or their adolescent tittering.

  Slowly, I get to my feet, still holding the coffee mug and the book in my hands. “Whatever. I’m gonna go up to your room, Wren. I’ll give you a beat to figure out those party planning duties. No rush.”

  The three of them just stare at me as I waltz across the open plan living room area and I begin to climb the stairs. My heart slams like a jackhammer, my pulse roaring, but I don’t falter. I hold the mug steady in my hands. I put one foot in front of the other, cool and even, a picture of calm. Until I reach the second-floor landing and they can no longer see me, that is. My hand shakes so violently that the coffee in the mug sloshes over the side, splattering to the polished floorboards. Thankfully the liquid misses the plush grey carpet runner, but I’ve still made one hell of a mess.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Quickly shrugging out of my zip-up hoody, I drop it to the ground, stepping on it and using my foot to mop up the coffee, shaking all over now. What the fuck did I just do? In front of Dashiell and Pax. And Wren. What the fuck? I’m gonna go up to your room? I’m gonna go up to your room??? Oh my god. I barely know the guy. Sweet Baby Jesus, why couldn’t I have just sent him a shitty text message for ghosting me and stayed in my fucking room?

  Lord knows how I make it up the second flight of stairs or the third, but I do. My legs are unsteady, barely holding me up as I open the door to Wren’s room and go inside, hurriedly closing it behind me. Well this could not have gone any worse. I should have made a plan. I mean, even if they hadn’t found me stalking about outside the house like a fucking psychopath, what was I gonna do? Just walk up to the front door and just fucking knock? Like that would have been a sane thing to do?

  I toss the book on the bed, and then I discard the half-empty mug of coffee on a shelf by the door, no longer needing the prop to make myself look normal, definitely not needing the caffeine—I’m already jittery enough, thank you very much—and I turn around, leaning back against the wall, closing my eyes for a second.

  Breathe, Elodie.

  Just breathe.

  In and out, in and out.

  Everything’s okay. This is a totally salvageable situation.

  It isn’t, though. And breathing makes things worse. The bedroom smells so acutely of Wren—all salt sea air, and fresh wood shavings, and the faintest hint of citrus—that my slowing heart rate ratchets up all over again, the pounding, pounding, pounding threatening to blow out my ear drums.

  Calm down, Elodie.

  Calm down.

  Name five things you can see. Come on. Five things you can see. You can do this. Just calm the fuck down.

  I lock onto the first thing I lay eyes on: a tattered notebook, sitting on top of Wren’s bed. Even from the door, I can see the scribbles of black ink all over the lined paper. It looks like some kind of journal…

  The second thing I see: a canvas, set up on an easel in the corner of the room, right by the floor to ceiling windows. There’s a sheet on the floor underneath the easel, splattered with paint. A pot full of brushes sits on Wren’s desk not far away, their bristled ends sticking out of the glass jar, their wooden handles flecked with even more paint. On the canvas itself…I walk over to it, my heart finally calming a little as I take in what I’m seeing.

  Black, and moody, midnight blue, and grey and white. I remember thinking to myself, when I broke into Riot House with Carina, that the paintings downstairs all looked like raging, angry storms. They had no point of focus or subject, but I could feel the unrest radiating off of them even in the dark. This painting is a far cry from those pieces of art hanging on the walls on the first floor floor. There most definitely is a subject to this
painting…and that subject is me.

  Broad, flat, sweeping brushstrokes make up the lines of my torso and my shoulders, but the details of my neck and my face are finer and more delicate. Half of the painting looks like it was done quickly, angrily, with resentful slashes, while the other half appears as though great care and effort was taken to carefully stroke in each minute detail.

  I’m not smiling in the painting. I’m sitting on a couch, the floral print of the fabric smeared and blurred out of focus behind me. The jumble and confusion of shapes and patterns directly behind my head tells me where I am—sitting beneath the print of Gustav Klimt’s ‘The Kiss’ that hangs in Doctor Fitzpatrick’s den. I’m looking off to one side, the line of my jaw hard like I’m clenching it, and there’s a detached, aggressive light in my eyes that makes me look hard, too. Fierce.

  “I liked you best when you were angry. In the beginning,” Wren says. He stands in the doorway with his arms loosely folded across his chest, watching me with another of his unreadable, unfathomable expressions on his face. “I don’t know anymore, though. Now, I like seeing you smile, but it’s hard to paint you like that.”

  “Why?” The word comes out as a whisper. A single, rush of air past my lips.

  “Because you’ve never smiled at me, Little E. I could steal those moments where you looked angry, when you weren’t looking, because they were familiar. I’d already earned the anger and the hate you wore. But when you laugh with Carina, or you smile at someone you don’t even fucking know as they pass you in a hallway…” He shakes his head. “I don’t own those moments. They don’t belong to me. I sure as shit have no right to take them and make them my own.”

  “I didn’t even know you painted,” I whisper.

  He arches a dark eyebrow, canting his head to one side. “Didn’t you?”