Riot House (Crooked Sinners Book 1)

by Callie Hart

  Laughter bubbles up the back of my throat again. “What, are you gonna make me fuck a conga line of girls? Seriously?”

  Pax wheels on Dash, throwing his hands in the air. “Goddamnit, you deal with him. I’ve had enough.”

  Dashiell doesn’t say anything. He stands with his hands in his pockets, watching me quietly for a second. Then he says, “This is about Elodie, isn’t it?”

  I stare back at him defiantly. “Yes. Of course it’s about Elodie. Who else would it be about?”

  “You’re in love with her.”

  “Yes.”

  “God save us!” Pax roars. “You are not in love with that girl, Wren. She’s fucking nothing. She’s just some little French who—”

  Pain rockets up my arm, screaming in my shoulder joint. Pax hits the ground ass-first, sliding across the floorboards. In half a second flat, I’m on top of him, grabbing him by the throat, winding up to hit him again. I’m deadly calm. “Say it. Go on say it. Finish that fucking sentence.”

  Pax throws me off him, scooting out of my reach as he scrambles to his feet. “This has gone far enough. We agreed. No girlfriends. Ever. Is that what you think she is, Wren? Because you know neither of us are gonna stand for it.”

  I look to Dashiell, waiting for him to back up Pax’s threat. He remains noticeably silent.

  I am so fucking done with this. Riot House used to be a sanctuary for me, back when Dash, Pax and I became friends, but it’s been nothing more than a prison these past few months. “Yeah. Elodie’s my girlfriend. There. I fucking said it. And you two can either accept it with good grace and move the fuck on, or you can find yourselves rooms at the academy post haste. Act accordingly.”

  I go to leave, but Dashiell grabs me by the arm. “You think it’s so easy to sever this friendship, Wren? It’s not. There’s a fucking army general in a coma on the other side of the world right now, because we agreed to do something that could get us all put away for the rest of our natural lives. If not executed in a fucking firing squad.”

  “Is that supposed to be some sort of threat, Lord Lovett? Because I’ve done plenty for you that would result in the same outcome and then some.”

  “And what about Mara?” Pax adds.

  “I DON’T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT MARA!” My vision’s blood-red. I swear to god, I’m gonna lose all self-control in a minute. I take a breath, reining in my fury. “Mara is not my problem. I didn’t hurt her. I did nothing to her. She’s long gone and there’s nothing any of us can do about it. So stop bringing her up.”

  I’m out of the door and down the first flight of stairs when Pax calls after me. “You’d better hope that girl of yours doesn’t go out into the forest tonight, Jacobi. You know the rules. If she does, she’s fair fucking game!”

  He’s looking for a reaction. I don’t give him one.

  He won’t fucking touch Elodie.

  I jog down the stairs with my stupid wolf’s mask hanging from my hand, dreading the kind of trouble the rest of this night may bring.

  44

  ELODIE

  The night air is cool and crisp. The trees rustle, whispering amongst themselves as I skirt along the edge of the forest, walking up the road back toward Wolf Hall. I lasted all of fifteen minutes at a Riot House party and now I need a shower. I feel dirty. I feel tricked and deceived, and I want my mother, but I can’t have her because she’s fucking dead.

  “I can keep up with you, y’know,” Carina mutters behind me. “Doesn’t matter how fast you walk. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “I really wish you would.”

  “Elodie, come on, now. Please. You’re not being very fair.”

  “FAIR?” I whip around, ready to take her head off. “You don’t get to pull the ‘you’re not being very fair’ card on me, Carina Mendoza. I thought you were my friend, and you’ve been hiding things and keeping secrets from me this entire time. You swore you were gonna take that journal to the cops. You didn’t even tell me anything about Mara in the first place. You said you weren’t gonna come here tonight. And, surprise surprise, what did you do?”

  “You didn’t tell me you were seeing Wren,” she counters, her eyes hard as flint.

  “Yeah. I know that was shitty, but I didn’t feel like I could tell you. There was no reason for you to keep me in the dark about Mara, though, was there?”

  A loud whoop echoes amongst the trees, the sound half animal, half human. Both of us stop, peering into the pitch darkness, and the hairs prickle across the back of my neck. “Why would anyone run out there into the forest with no fucking lights,” I mutter. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

  Carina sighs. “Cabin fever’s a very real thing, Elle. You’ve only been at the academy for a couple of months but try living here for a few years. You start to go a little stir crazy. You don’t get it. If you’re a student at Wolf Hall, the guys from Riot House are a big deal. They set the tone for the entire year. If you’re a guy, you wanna be them. If you’re a girl, you wanna date them. That’s the way it’s always been. So when they pull stupid shit like this, everyone’s always tripping over themselves to join in.”

  “Is that what happened the night Mara disappeared? She was trying to join in whatever dumb game they were playing?”

  Carina nods. “Yes.”

  “So what? I’m supposed to just traipse right on in there and make a fool of myself like everyone else? Is that what they expect?”

  “Pax and Dashiell, probably. Not Wren. I was talking to him before you showed up and he wanted you as far away from this thing as possible, Elle. It’s good that you’re going back to the academy, okay?”

  Huh. Yeah, that’s right. Wren didn’t want me at the party. He wanted me as far away from this thing as humanly possible. Well, Wren’s going to have to learn that he isn’t always going to get what he wants with me. I set my jaw. “You know what, Carina? Maybe I will just join in this stupid game. That way there won’t be any more secrets. I’ll know if he sleeps with half the academy. I’ll know exactly what went on, and no one will be able to hide anything from me anymore!”

  “Elodie! What the hell are you doi—wait! Elle, you can’t see anything!”

  I’ve already stepped off the road, though. I’m already walking into the woods, towards the excited cries and shouts of the other members of Wolf Hall Academy. Far be it from me to let them have all of the fun.

  Cursing loudly, Carina comes crashing through the undergrowth after me. “This is nuts. What’s the point in any of this? Who cares what Wren does or doesn’t do?”

  “Me. I do. He made me fall in love with him and now I fucking care. It’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.”

  “Then just stop!” Carina cries, exasperated.

  “Oh, yeah. Of course. Like you stopped loving Dashiell? It’s that simple, isn’t it? Just a flip of a switch? I saw how you looked at him outside the gazebo the other night.”

  She swears some more. “Okay, okay. Slow down a little, will you? Thank god I wore flats. How the hell do you even know where you’re going?”

  I point up at the clear night sky peeking through the tree branches overhead, refusing to give her the courtesy of actually looking at her. “I know how to read the stars. Good Ol’ Colonel Stillwater taught me, amongst soooooo many other things. Who knew that one would come in handy. We’re heading south-west. If I want to head back to the road, it’ll be easy. Now either keep quiet or head back to Wolf Hall. Either way, I’m done talking.”

  We walk for an hour.

  Carina screams at the top of her lungs every time a student comes tearing out of the dark clutching a wad of Wren’s red flags in their hands. The entire thing reminds me of a haunted hayride Levi’s parents took us to on Halloween two years ago, where actors covered in gore ran out of the night, brandishing prop chainsaws, trying to scare us. I’d screamed then, enjoying the spectacle of it all, but this isn’t a spectacle. It’s the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard of and I can’t believe people are participating in it.<
br />
  I guide us back to the perimeter of the house, scanning the trees for any sight of a wolf mask, but I don’t see one. The beautiful Tinkerbelle dress Wren bought me gets caught on nearly every single tree branch I pass and I do nothing whatsoever to keep it from tearing.

  Realizing that everyone’s probably fled deep into the interior of the forest, I change direction and head back to the north, counting my steps to keep a rough gauge on how far we’ve come. Eventually, we come across a small clearing.

  “For God’s sake, can we break for a moment. My ankle’s killing me.” She rolled it about a mile ago, and she hasn’t quit complaining about it since. I grunt, sinking down onto the flattest rock I can find, listening for signs that someone might be approaching, but the air is still and silent.

  Carina sits down beside me. “Look. I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you everything, okay. I love you, Elle. You are my friend. I care about you, and everything that happened with Mara was such a mess. I didn’t want your experience of Wolf Hall to be as fucked up as ours, okay?”

  “That’s why you told me to stay away from Wren,” I say numbly. “You didn’t want him to do anything bad to me.”

  Her forehead creases, her brow marked with confusion. “No. I mean, I told you…Wren was at the house the night of the party. He really didn’t leave. He and Mara were over before they even got started. She wouldn’t accept it at first. She kept following him around like a lost little puppy dog. Then, out of nowhere, she just got over it one day. Like, out of the blue. She was acting really weird. Mercy said she’d found out she was seeing someone, but none of us could figure out who it could be. She came to the party and seemed perfectly happy. She didn’t even speak to Wren. We were all having fun. And then…one minute she was there…the next she was gone.”

  I don’t think she’s lying to me. I really don’t. I don’t think Wren’s lying to me now, either, which is the most confusing thing in the world to parse given all of the evidence that pointed to him. I’m just…I’m so fucking tired of trying to figure this thing out. My head hurts, and I’m stuck in the middle of a forest, for fuck’s sake, wearing a sparkly fairy costume, and nothing makes any goddamn sense!

  Carina takes my hand, squeezing it tightly. “I really am sorry, Elodie. Please just believe that I kept you in the dark for a reason. I’ll tell you everything I found out after that night, okay? Right now. No more secrets, I swear.”

  She looks so damn earnest. Her eyes shine brightly, a little glossy, like she might be on the verge of tears, and the anger that’s been popping and flaring, putting out a wall of heat like a campfire, suddenly gutters out and dies, leaving me sad and cold. “Okay. Then start at the beginning. And don’t leave a single detail out.”

  She smiles. Nods. “That particular party was weird. I knew something was up the moment I walked through the door. Everyone was more reserved than usual. I asked Mercy what was going on, and she told me that—”

  A loud crack splinters the silence. Both of us lock up, tensing, as we wait for another sound. It comes a second later—a heavy crunch, followed by another, followed by another. And then a figure steps out of the trees into the clearing. It’s a guy—shirtless—wearing low slung jeans, resting on his hips. His face is concealed by one of Wren’s wolf masks.

  “Go on, Carrie,” a low voice rumbles from beneath the mask. “I wouldn’t wanna interrupt story time.”

  45

  WREN

  I search the house from top to bottom.

  She isn’t anywhere to be found.

  I drive up to the academy and bust open her bedroom door. She isn’t there, either. But my Wolf Hall Academy sweater is. It’s hanging off the back of the chair by the window, and the moment I set eyes on it, I remember the last time I wore it. It comes rushing back to me all at once like a slap to the face, and dread coils like a viper in the pit of my stomach. I wore it a week before the last Riot House party, because it was cold out and I was meeting someone in the gazebo.

  I threw it on, not even thinking about it. Took it off while I was there. Left it there in my haste to escape afterwards. It was a bad night. A complicated night. It hadn’t ended well, and I’d done everything I could to blot it from my mind afterwards.

  Now the details of it come roaring back with all the subtly of a sledgehammer.

  “I want you, Wren Jacobi. And I always get what I want.”

  I’d smiled. Laughed it off. Dismissed him, because that’s what I was good at.

  “Tough shit. You can’t have me, old man.”

  And then he’d turned my world upside down.

  Elodie’s probably just playing the game. She’s probably fine. But something sick and worrying niggles away at the back of my head, screaming at me to find her. She has no idea how much danger she’s in if she’s out there in those woods.

  I have to find her. I have to find her before he does.

  I take out my phone and power it on. I’m racing down the academy steps by the time I open up my texts and tap out a message.

  Me: Where are you right now?

  The reply comes moments later.

  “Where do you think I am? I’m about to join in the fun.”

  46

  ELODIE

  “Pax, stop fucking around.”

  I get up, brushing down the dress, scowling at him. I don’t have the energy to be dealing with this shit tonight. And yeah, I might have put him on his ass the last time he tried to sneak up on me in this forest, but he didn’t know I was capable of defending myself then. He’ll be ready for me this time, and that makes life so much harder. “I’m sorry if you’re having a shitty night, but I just wanna find Wren and get the fuck out of here, okay?”

  The wolf mask tips eerily to one side. Pax creeps closer. “Wren. Yes, Wren. We’re all so desperate for Wren, aren’t we?”

  “Well, you know where the guy sleeps at night. You can settle whatever issues you have with him later back at the house. I think my issues with him are a little more pressing than yours.”

  I step to the right, trying to get around him, but Pax mirrors the movement, stepping to his left, blocking my path.

  “Elodie?” Carina says.

  “Pax. Get the fuck out of the way. Or do you want me to embarrass you in front of Carina?” I try to move to the left this time, but he’s right there with me, stopping me in my tracks. I can hear him breathing thickly through the small air holes in the mask, and the sound is raspy and wet.

  “Elodie,” Carina repeats. “Elle…I don’t think that’s Pax.”

  I frown, eyeing the guy. He sure as hell isn’t Dashiell. The smattering of hair on his chest is dark. Dash’s hair is far lighter. It isn’t Wren, either. He doesn’t even have hair on his chest. A bolt of something like panic chases up my spine.

  I take a step backward.

  “Who…?”

  Suddenly Carina’s at my side, threading her fingers through mine. “We kept your secret, okay,” she hisses. “We kept our mouths shut. You swore you wouldn’t do this again.”

  The guy in the wolf mask slowly shakes his head, tutting under his breath. “I hate breaking promises, Carrie, I really do. I thought I’d be over it by now, but…” He reaches up, tugging on the wolf’s horrific snout, slowly drawing it back to unmask himself. “I just can’t stop loving him. It’s an obsession, I know. I thought I could handle him caring about someone new but it’s impossible. I hate her just as much as I hated the other one.” He turns sharp, hate-filled eyes on me, considering me with disgust. “He’s mine, Elodie. The sooner you stupid little bitches get that into your thick skulls, the sooner you can all stop dying.”

  Doctor Fitzpatrick.

  My brain can’t stop stuttering over his name.

  Doctor Fitzpatrick?

  Always so friendly and caring in class. Always rambling on about the poets, giving Wren a hard time, telling him to sit up straight. Reading Wren’s Victorian porn out to the class, trying to embarrass him. I’m so fucking confused, it feels l
ike my brain is melting out of my ears. The spiteful twist to the doctor’s features make him look like a stranger. Someone I’ve never met before. “Awww. Poor Elodie. He didn’t tell you, did he?” he sneers.

  “Tell me what?”

  “That he and I were together for a time. A short time, sure, but he just needed some time to see it. He and I, we’re kindred souls. We’re supposed to fucking be together. But you know him. He’s stubborn. Sometimes he won’t admit something unless it’s on his schedule. That’s why he hasn’t told you that he loves you yet, Elodie.”

  My mouth feels like it’s filled with cotton wool. I can’t seem to close it. I’m having the hardest time understanding what I’m hearing. “He has told me that he loves me,” I whisper.

  Doctor Fitzpatrick’s eyes narrow to cruel slits. “What?”

  I say it louder. “He has told me that he loves me. He does love me.”

  “Don’t, Elle,” Carina warns, digging her fingernails into the back of my hand.

  Doctor Fitzpatrick shakes his head violently. He presses the heel of his hand against his forehead, screwing his eyes shut, which is when I see the massive bowie knife he’s clutching in his hand. How the fuck did I not notice that before? The blade glints maddeningly in the moonlight that lances down through the canopy of the trees into the clearing.

  Doctor Fitzpatrick’s top lip pulls up, disgust radiating off him as he lurches toward us, pointing the tip of the knife at my face. Carina shrieks right next to my ear, but I…don’t…blink…

  “He didn’t say that,” he spits. “He’d never say that. He can’t. Wren’s not capable of loving a girl like you. He needs more than stupid, silly dresses and scruffy Doc Martin boots, and dumb debate questions. There’s just no way.”

  There’s no way the man standing in front of me is sane. He can’t be. No one in their right mind would be aiming a knife that size in someone’s face and ranting the way he’s ranting if they had even the weakest grasp on reality. I should say something to placate him, but that’s a dangerous game. Such a fine line to try and tightrope walk, and Doctor Fitzpatrick is a high-functioning madman. He has to be to have fooled the world for this long.