RIOT HOUSE

by Hart, Callie

  Wren aside, I’d say, as first weeks at new schools go, this one’s been fairly successful.

  Saturday morning arrives, and my bedroom door crashes open with an earsplitting BANG! I hurl myself out of bed, heart slamming in my chest, adopting an automatic fighting stance that has Carina, dressed in a bright orange jumpsuit, arching her right eyebrow at me like I’m certifiably insane. “Whoa, now, Jackie Chan. What the hell is this all about? Are you about to karate chop my neck or something?”

  I take a calming breath, straightening out of my defense stance as quickly as possible, laughing nervously under my breath. “Ahh, y’know. Military father. He used to drill me harder than he drilled his men.” This is not a lie. It’s the truth. Just not the whole truth. She’s been amazing and welcoming, but I don’t know Carina well enough to be spilling that shit just yet. Maybe I’ll never know her well enough.

  Carina cringes, patting me on the shoulder sympathetically. “I literally thank god every day that my parents are just lazy shits and not army personnel. I’m not cut out to be duck rolling from beds and preparing to fight a split second after I wake up. You amaze me.”

  Uneasy, I tug at the oversized Real Madrid soccer jersey I slept in last night, wrangling it into position so that it covers the tops of my legs. Seems like Carina bought my half-truth, or at least she didn’t suspect that it was only a half truth. Catching sight of the old digital clock on the nightstand, I groan at the time. “Oh my god, Carina. What are you trying to do to me? It’s six forty-five!”

  “That’s what time we always get up.”

  “During the week! It’s Saturday. Am I not entitled to a lie-in? A little R and R? It’s cruel to wake a girl up before eight on the weekend.”

  Carrie laughs. “If you’re not up and out before seven thirty on Saturdays, Harcourt makes you help serve community breakfast in the dining hall. You get stuck cleaning pots and pans until midday. And if you’re not out of the building by eight on a Sunday, Mr. Clarence makes you attend his non-denominational gratitude service, and that, my friend, is a fate worse than death itself.”

  Ah. Damn. I guess there’s still a lot to learn where the day-to-day operations at Wolf Hall are concerned. Community breakfast sounds like torture. And non-denominational gratitude service? Yeah, fuck that. “How long do I have to get ready?” I ask, already bee-lining for the closet to grab an outfit.

  “Twenty-five minutes,” Carina advises, checking the time on her cell phone. “Shower, makeup and hair. Let’s go. One second over and we’re gonna be stuck ladling porridge onto food trays like convicts on mess hall duty, and I did not wear this jumpsuit to be ironic. Go, go, go, go, go!”

  * * *

  For the past five days, my world has been Wolf Hall. The classes, the people, the building itself…it’s all been so overwhelming, so much information thrown at me all at once, that my mind hasn’t considered the world beyond the edge of the academy’s immaculately kept lawns. Now that I’m in Carina’s beaten up yet classic Firebird, speeding down the long, winding roads with the wind blowing in my hair, I suddenly feel free. Like absolutely anything might be possible.

  New Hampshire is a breathtaking feuille morte kaleidoscope: all burnt oranges, umber, russet, crimson and carmine. The winter trees, still stubbornly grasping onto their colorful autumn foliage, whip past in a blur as Carina burns through the chicanes and hairpin corners that lead down the mountain like she was a rally driver in a past life. Soon, we arrive in the town of Mountain Lakes itself—a dozen or so quaint little shops; a high school; a football field, and not much else—and I’m pleasantly surprised to discover that the town is actually bordered by two beautiful, vast and shining lakes.

  Carina pulls up outside a diner called Screamin’ Beans and slams the parking brake on the car before the vehicle’s even stopped moving. I haven’t driven much since I passed my driver’s test in Israel, so I can hardly judge, but Carina’s a little hair-raising behind the wheel. “Come on,” she commands. “These guys have the best breakfast, but they stop serving super early so the Wolf Hall kids don’t bother them.”

  “Aren’t we Wolf Hall kids?” I call after her, as she bounds toward the diner entrance.

  “We don’t count! Come on!”

  Carina picks out her own table—a corner booth next to a vintage juke box—and makes herself at home. I sit opposite her, wondering exactly how many coffees she had before she kicked down my bedroom door this morning. It’s unholy that anyone should have this much energy at such a horrendous hour, even if the sun is shining.

  “Well, well, well. Look who it is. Miss Carina Mendoza, in the flesh. Thought you’d gone and died up on that mountain, girl. Where you been? All our lemon cake went bad last weekend. We don’t make it for anybody but you.” The waitress who comes to serve us smiles broadly at my friend, leaning casually against the side of the booth. She slaps her notepad on top of Carina’s head, studying me suspiciously out of the corner of her eye. “And who, pray tell, is this?”

  “Jazzy, this is Elodie. Elodie, this is Jazzy. She’s worked at Screamin’ Beans for the past twenty-five years.”

  “Twenty, girl! Twenty years! Don’t go makin’ me older than I already am!” She pretends to sulk, stuffing her notepad back into the front pocket of her apron. “I take it you don’t want no lemon cake today. No coffee neither.”

  “Oh my god, Jazzy, you know five years wouldn’t make a difference,” Carina says, catching hold of her by the hand. “You’re gonna look eighteen until the day you die. Pleeeeeeaaasssee don’t take away the coffee.”

  Jazzy laughs, rolling her eyes. “Okay, okay. I’d hate to have to see a poor, undernourished, impoverished child such as yourself having to beg for some caffeine,” she says, laying it on thick. “I’ll be right back. You want coffee too, child?” she asks me.

  “Hot tea, please. If you’ve got it. And a little cold milk on the side?”

  I don’t think my out-of-the-ordinary order does me any favors in Jazzy’s eyes. Straight black drip coffee, she can get on board with, but hot tea with milk? She probably thinks that’s a posh Wolf Hall kid type of order. She jots down my request all the same and hurries off in the direction of the kitchen.

  “Most of the other kids drive over to Franconia in search of a Starbucks. They don’t realize the coffee here is so good,” Carina says.

  “And you haven’t been going around, sharing your secret?”

  “Hell no!” She smirks, waggling her eyebrows. “This is my cloak and dagger spot. I only bring the best, most trustworthy people here.”

  “Glad to know I made the cut.”

  She’s about to hit me with a come-back, her eyes dancing and sharp, but then the mirth radiating from her abruptly vanishes. She sees something over my shoulder and everything about her changes. The bell above the diner door jangles, announcing a new customer, and Carina shrinks down into her seat, all of her enthusiasm vaporizing in a puff of smoke. “Yeah, well. I’m usually very good at gauging who should be allowed into the Screamin’ Beans club, but sometimes even I make an error in judgement.”

  Behind me, a male voice with a thick English accent asks for a table for three, and my insides tangle themselves into a knot at warp speed. Impressive how quickly I go from relaxed and at ease to frozen and uncomfortable. Carina and I must be quite the sight, sliding down into our seats.

  “We can get our breakfast to go?” I suggest. “Drive until we find somewhere nice, or we could eat by the lake?” It’s shitty to have to leave just because Dashiell’s showed up, more than likely with Pax and Wren in tow, but we’re not at Wolf Hall now. I don’t want the weekend ruined by their bullshit.

  Carina shakes her head. “He’s seen us. It’ll look weak if we bail now. We should just chill and make the most of it. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to react that way, it’s just…Dashiell knows exactly how to get under my skin.”

  She might not want to talk about it, but my curiosity’s getting the better of me. I have to ask her. I have to kn
ow. “I take it something happened between you guys? Something…romantic?”

  “Hah!” She shakes her head, looking up at the ceiling. “Romantic? Yeah. I guess you could call it that. He was charming, and polite. A real gentleman. Treated me with respect. Took me out to dinner. Wined and dined me. Made me feel so special that I thought I was the only girl he’d ever been interested in. And that fucking accent. He got me good, Elle. I swear, I’ve always prided myself on being smarter than the dumb girl who gets duped by a handsome guy with a few cheesy pickup lines. I should have seen it coming. I should have seen him coming a mile off, but he totally blindsided me.

  “I was saving myself. Hadn’t even let a guy graze my fucking kneecap with an index finger before. I was a virgin. And I’m talking virgin. No experience whatsoever. And then, low and behold, Lord Dashiell Lovett the fourth comes along with his family fucking title, and his airs and graces, and he looked deep into my eyes and told me that he loved me, and I just…” She throws up her hands in disgust. Her knuckles bang the table, clipping the wood when she drops them. “I just spread my damn legs for him like it was nothing. Two days later, he asked me to meet him in the observatory after dinner. So I went along, excited about getting to see him, getting to kiss him, getting to tell him that I’d fallen head over heel in love with him…and I walk in to find Amalie Gibbons on her knees with his dick aaaaaallllll the way down her throat.”

  A tear streaks down her cheek, and my heart squeezes tightly, aching for her. Reaching across the table, I hold her hand, shaking my head. I don’t even know what to say…

  “And you know the worst part?” she says, laughing shakily, batting away the rogue tears. “The worst part was that he didn’t even care. He wasn’t embarrassed. Didn’t scramble to push her off him, or pull his pants up, or come after me. He saw me, standing there in the doorway, saw the hurt and the pain in my eyes…and he fucking laughed. He said—” She clears her throat, frowning deeply. “He said, ‘Looks like I might have made a scheduling error. Can you come back in an hour? I should be ready to go again by then.’”

  “Wow. What an unbelievable prick.” So, so, SO shitty. Who does something like that? Any guy with money, a title, an accent, and a name like fucking Dashiell? a voice in the back of my head offers. It seems so obvious after the fact, but I get it. Carina is a smart girl, but guys like Dashiell are master manipulators when they want to be. They’re exceptionally talented and very well practiced at getting what they want. It can feel so real at the time…

  I can’t count how many guys I’ve come across like Dashiell Lovett. The only reason I never fell for their bullshit and gave them precisely what they wanted was because my father would have murdered me ten times over and then some. He only let me hang out with Levi because he knew he was gay. It never ceased to amaze me that my father could hate so many people to such brilliant and astonishing degrees, for all kinds of stupid, pointless reasons, but he never had a problem with me having a gay friend.

  “I wish I’d been here then,” I tell her. “I’d have kicked his ass for you, no question.”

  “There’s still time,” she jokes, smiling lopsidedly through a fresh round of tears. “You’re a good friend. Maybe if you had been here, you might have been able to talk some sense into me and stop me from making such a fool of myself.”

  “Don’t do that. You didn’t make a fool of yourself, okay. You trusted someone who lied to you and broke your heart. That reflects poorly on him, not you. At some point karma’s gonna come along and render him infertile as punishment.”

  “Jesus. I really hope not.”

  Goddamnit, what the hell is it with these boys, sneaking up on people? I should have been paying attention to Dashiell’s precise whereabouts, especially since we’re talking about him, but I dropped the damn ball. Dressed like he’s off to watch a polo match, the smug motherfucker leans up against the counter, popping a toothpick into his mouth as he glances from me to Carina. His gaze settles on her, full of contradicting emotions. For a second, I think he looks remorseful, but then I see the cruel delight flickering in his blue eyes, and I want to leap up out of my seat and kick the fucker right in the kneecap.

  “Can you kindly fuck off,” I hiss. “This is a private conversation. You’re not welcome at this table.”

  Dashiell looks to his left and then to his right, his eyebrows hiking up to his hairline. “Sorry, mon amour. I’m over here at the counter, minding my business. What fault is it of mine if you’re talking loud enough to wake a dead man and give him a hard on? I heard something about Amalie Gibbons on her knees with someone’s dick in her mouth and I lost all sense of propriety. And then…” He laughs, holding up a finger, “…and then, I remembered that I had Amalie Gibbons on her knees and my dick was in her mouth, and things just got really messy. Because that was a really fun time, girls. A really fun time. I am sad you don’t want to play with me anymore, though, Carrie. I guess I should have said I was sorry or something. Better late than never, though, right?”

  Ho-ly shit. The stones on this prick.

  Jazzy arrives with our drinks at the worst possible moment. She hums under her breath, swaying from side to side as she sets Carina’s coffee down in front of her and then arranges my tea paraphernalia for me. Her smile disappears when she sees that Carina’s been crying and her cheeks are still wet. “What in god’s name…” She looks at me like I’m responsible for her friend’s distress, but then she sees Dashiell loitering by the counter and her expression darkens. “Oh no. No, no, no. I don’t know who you are or what your name is, boy, but you better be outta my sight in two seconds flat or you are gonna wish you had never been born.”

  Dashiell nearly purrs. “Ma’am, I am a nihilist. I don’t really care if I live or I die. Mustering up the amount of energy it would require to wish I’d never been born is very unlikely on my part. I commend the rousing speech, though. Can I get a wet cappuccino when you have a second?”

  Jazzy just stares at him. “Boy, you musta got knocked on the head when you was a child. You ain’t getting no wet nothin.’ Now get the fuck outta here before I call the cops on your ass.”

  I admire Jazzy’s tenacity. She’s a waitress in a small-town diner, probably scraping by on minimum wage. She knows Dashiell’s a Wolf Hall student. She must know that, with one call from Dashiell to his father, Screamin’ Beans will have been bought out and shut down before she can even aim a kick in the spoiled bastard’s pants. Still, she speaks her mind; she won’t let herself be cowed by him. A brave woman, indeed.

  Dashiell grins. It’s unsettling, that grin. It makes me want to duck for cover. “You remind me of my grandmother. I didn’t like her very much. She was a very outspoken woman.” He runs his tongue over his teeth, shoving away from the counter. “I’ll honor your request and make myself scarce. My friends might order a to-go for me, though. I’d appreciate it if you kept the saliva to a minimum. There’s a love.” He stalks off without acknowledging Carina again.

  “That smug little piece of shit. I’m betting he never had his hide tanned for him. I oughta do him a favor and put him over my knee. Wallop the shit out of him on account’a that smart ass mouth of his.”

  “I wouldn’t, Jazz,” Carina says morosely. “He’d only enjoy it.”

  An hour later, after we’ve picked over our meals and emptied our coffee cups, neither of us really in the mood to hang out anymore, Carina drives me back to the academy. She stops in the middle of the road a couple of miles before the long, winding driveway that leads to Wolf Hall. She sits in the middle of the road with the car engine idling, staring straight ahead out of the windscreen.

  “Carina? What is it?”

  She blinks, as if coming back into her body. “On the right. Through the trees. Look hard enough, and you’ll see it.”

  “See what?” I squint over my right shoulder, peering through the thick tree foliage.

  “The house,” she says. “Riot House. That’s where they live. The three of them, together—their
little fortress against the world.”

  It takes some effort and a re-angling of my head, but there...yes, I see the outline of the building now. A three-story affair—wood, concrete, glass—so expertly blended within the camouflage of the forest that it’d be impossible to pick out if you didn’t already know it was there.

  “If you ever find yourself stranded and alone on this road, do not go knocking on that door for help, Elodie,” Carina mutters. “Whatever you do, no matter the circumstances, do not step foot inside Riot House. For better or for worse, you won’t come out the same.”

  I didn’t even see Wren back at the diner, but I’d felt his presence sure enough. As Carina throws the car into gear and slams her foot on the gas, I experience that same prickling sensation again. It feels as though Wren Jacobi is watching me. And Carina can speed away from Riot House as fast as she likes.

  I won’t be able to escape that place…

  …or him.

  8

  WREN

  Back at the diner, leaning against the table in our booth, I’d pressed the flat, dull blade of the butter knife into the fleshy pad of my thumb, staring at the back of her head, wondering what that hell was going on inside her skull.

  I’ve never cared what a girl’s thinking or feeling before, but I can’t stop myself from trying to piece together the enigma that is Elodie Stillwater. Does she miss her old life? Her old friends? Does she miss the sun, and the heat, and the ocean, and the sand? Would she kill to be back there in Israel with her father and the life she was accustomed to?

  I’ve become a parody of myself as I walk the old, familiar pathways to my classes at Wolf Hall, trying to maintain an exterior of practiced boredom and complete disinterest, when in truth, I am anything but disinterested. I am anything but bored. For the first time in a very, very long time, my ears are pricked, my mind’s engaged, and every part of my being is turned toward a girl I do not know in the slightest.