RIOT HOUSE

by Hart, Callie

  I suck in a gasping breath, but it doesn’t help. I still feel dizzy, like I’m going to throw up. “Escaping Tel Aviv, being sent here to New Hampshire? I pretended to myself like it was an inconvenience and I resented being dragged away from my friends, but honestly...it was the best thing that ever happened to me. It might not be the healthiest coping mechanism in the world, but I want to forget that time of my life. All of it. Every single last day. So, please...I don't want to talk about it anymore. I can't. It won't help, and—”

  His arms wrap around me from behind. He holds me tightly, nestling his face into the crook of my neck. “Shhh. Shhh, it's okay. It's okay. I'm sorry. Shhh, please don't cry.”

  I hadn't even realized that I was crying, but I am—desperate sobs punctuated with hiccuping gasps that echo around the hotel room. I used to lock myself in the bathroom at school during my lunch break and cry like this from time to time. I couldn't do it at home. Since he didn't have my mother to beat black and blue anymore, Colonel Stillwater had felt justified in laying into me during our morning gym sessions. Crying would have earned me the hiding of a lifetime.

  “I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry,” Wren chants into my hair. “I'm sorry I brought it up. I hate that I’ve made you feel this way, I swear to fucking god.”

  “Then...why bring it up at all?” I pant.

  Wren sighs heavily, the sound pure frustration. He turns me around so that I'm facing him, holding my face in his hands. He makes me meet his fierce gaze. “You've been through so fucking much, and you've done it all on your own. I wanted you to know that you aren't on your own now. And I want you to know that it's been taken care of. You don't need to worry about him anymore, Elodie. He's never going to be able to hurt you again.”

  “You don't know that. You can't say that. I still have months before I'm free of him, Wren. You might already be eighteen, but I have to wait until June.”

  He shakes his head. “Calm down, E. It's okay. I swear to you. It's been taken care of.”

  There's a tone to his voice. He says, 'It's been taken care of,' but he's saying something else as well. He's saying that he's done something, he's somehow taken care of my father, and he won't be able to hurt me again. A knot of panic rises in my throat. “Oh my god. What did you do, Wren?” I ask carefully.

  “You knew I was a monster when you met me, Elodie. I've changed so much about myself for you because I want to be good for you. But there are parts of me that won't be denied, E. That bastard was a dead man walking the moment I knew how you felt. Once I saw my own feelings reflected in your eyes, I couldn’t allow him to get away with what he did.”

  I...don't even know what to say. What to think. None of this is making any sense. “How I felt?”

  Wren's mouth quirks up a little. “Yes. You know what I'm talking about, don't you?” He places my hand on his chest, right over his heart, laying his hand on top of mine. “I'm in love with you. And it'll be my fucking undoing if I'm wrong, but I think you're in love with me, too, Little E. Have I been deluding myself this entire time?”

  I'm in love with you.

  It's been taken care of.

  I'm in love with you.

  It's been taken care of.

  I look up into his face—the savage, beautiful kind of face that poets have written about for millennia—and the terrible fear that's been crouched in the back corner of my mind since I was fourteen just disappears. “No. You haven't,” I whisper. “I do love you.”

  He exhales, his head dropping, his chin hitting his chest, and I can feel his relief. “Thank fucking god.”

  “Wren? Did you kill my father?”

  He looks up at me from under those dark, dark eyebrows, and my breath catches in my throat. “No, Little E. I didn't kill him. But I hurt him. I hurt him real fucking bad.”

  35

  WREN

  Mariposa used to tell Mercy and me stories when we were kids. She'd tuck us up in our beds and settle herself on a chair in the corner of the bedroom we shared, and then she'd begin, whispering in a sinister, creepy voice that used to make my skin prickle with fear. Her goal wasn't to fill our heads with fantastical fairytales that would infiltrate our dreams. Hell no. She wanted to put the fear of God into us, and the tales she told of hideous monsters and disfigured creatures were her way of trying to control us.

  The little boys and girls who fell foul of awful fates in her stories were always Bad Children. They didn't listen to their elders. They misbehaved. They were disrespectful, never did as they were told, and they were punished severely for it.

  Mariposa had hoped that her tales of woe would teach us poor motherless twins a lesson and we'd fall in line. Unfortunately, her horror stories only taught me one lesson: that the best way not to fear a monster was to become one.

  I'll tell Elodie anything she wants to know. If she wants every single little detail of what befell Colonel Stillwater the weekend I dragged Dashiell and Pax on a plane, halfway across the world to help me take down that motherfucker, then I'll sit down with her and go through it step by step. I don't think she wants that right now, though. I think she needs to process the fact that she's free, and this secret she's been keeping no longer needs to gnaw away at her soul. She can walk out of the darkness, into the light, and so help me god I'll be ready and waiting there for her when she does.

  For now, the only question she asks is this: “If this happened weeks ago, why haven’t they said anything? Why haven’t they told me that he was attacked?”

  I tell her what I know, trying not to sugarcoat the facts. “The first few days after he was dropped off at the hospital, they didn’t know who he was. He had no ID on him, and his face was, ahh, swollen beyond all recognition. Then the military police made the connection and moved him to an army medical facility. Your father was conscious there long enough to insist that he didn’t want you told what had happened. After that, he was placed into a medically induced coma so he could heal. My contact says he can’t access any further information without raising red flags, so that’s all I can tell you.”

  She nods woodenly, taking all of this in.

  After what I’ve done, I expect her to recoil from me, but she doesn’t.

  We stay at the hotel until Sunday night, and I get far too used to Elodie falling asleep in my arms. It's the most terrifying, heavenly experience I've ever endured. I'm so fascinated by the sound of her slow, steady breathing that I hardly manage to sleep myself.

  The drive back to Wolf Hall is silent. It's not an uncomfortable silence, though. It's peaceable and content, and Elodie leans her head on my shoulder, watching the world fly by out of the window, rubbing her hand up and down the inside of my thigh.

  She gets closer and closer to my crotch, her movements becoming slower and more teasing, and I eventually have to pull off at the side of the road to adjust my raging hard-on.

  “You're fucking trouble,” I growl, giving her a loaded sideways look. “How's a guy supposed to concentrate on the road when a girl's millimeters away from rubbing his dick?”

  I expect nothing of her. I haven't touched her since we spoke about what happened to her back in Tel Aviv. Not sexually, anyway. I've kissed her, and I've held her, but other than that I've been waiting for her to make the first move. She makes it now, parked next to a stand of Elm trees, by placing her hand directly on top of my cock and giving it a squeeze so hard it borders on painful.

  “Fuck knows how you're gonna concentrate when I have your dick in my mouth, then,” she says. “Drive.”

  I laugh. “You want us both to die?”

  She bites the tip of her tongue as she pops open the button on my jeans and slowly, suggestively pulls down the fly. “I've seen how you drive. We'll be just fine. Just keep your eyes on the road, Jacobi.”

  I've had plenty of road-head in my time, but it's different with Elodie. That sweet, perfect little mouth of hers is so hesitant and gentle that it fucking kills me when she wraps her lips around me. And I don't want to kill us before we
've had a chance at a proper life together, whatever that might look like. She slips her hand down the front of my boxers, her fingers fastening around my shaft, and she frees my erection. Her eyes go wide when she looks down at the swollen, glistening tip of my cock. “I'm not going to have to tell you twice, am I?” she asks.

  She's fucking sassing me now? I like that. Still, I take hold of her wrist and stop her from going any further. “I'll make you a deal. You let me eat your pussy on the hood of this car and I'll let you do whatever the fuck you want to me when we get back to the academy.”

  She looks at me like I'm mad. “On the hood of the car? This car? Right now? At the side of the road?”

  She's never going to agree to this. “Yes.”

  “Where anyone could drive past and see?”

  “Yes.”

  “And we could get arrested?”

  “Correct.”

  “Okay, fine.” She fixes defiant blue eyes on me, daring me to fucking do it. She doesn't think I will. Boy oh boy, does she still have a lot to learn about me; when I say I'm gonna do something, I damn well do it.

  “Sweet. Pants off. I want your naked ass on top of that paintwork in the next three seconds, or I'm gonna make you wish you'd kept your hands to yourself, Stillwater.”

  She balks, but only for a split second. Out of the car she gets. I follow behind her, poised to chase her around the car if she misbehaves, but she hops herself up onto the Mustang’s hood and leans back on her elbows, giving me a tempting, teasing look that makes my balls throb. God, I want to fuck her so badly.

  “You’re just gonna stand there?” she asks, her mouth quirking into a suggestive smile.

  I tuck my hands into my pockets, shifting to rest my weight on one hip. “I’m waiting for those pants to come off. Don’t mind me, though. You make for a very pleasing sight up there.” Can she hear the ache in my voice? How far have I let myself fall? How bad is it gonna hurt when this girl finally realizes what a piece of shit I am, and she tosses my ass aside? And why do I keep experiencing these moments of panic out of the fucking blue, like I’m only a hair’s breadth away from catastrophe?

  I know the answers to the last question, though I pretend not to. Easier to pretend than to face that truth. That, up until now, I haven’t made for a very good, honorable, or kind human being, and this new skin I find myself wearing now feels like a pretty suit that I stole. It doesn’t belong to me, and at some point someone’s going to want it back. It fits me, though. And I like fucking wearing it. I’m not gonna take it off without a fight.

  The bright sound of her laughter makes me want to laugh, too. “I’m sure you’ve had plenty of girls sprawled out across the hood of this car,” she muses.

  I bite my lip, quickly shaking my head.

  “What? No?” She laughs again, the sound peeling high over the tops of the trees that flank the road. “I don’t believe it. I’m the very first?”

  I move closer so that my shins are butting up against the fender, and I place my hands on the tops of her thighs. “This may be surprising to you, but you’ve scored a number of my firsts, Little E. First girl I’ve ever taken home. First girl I’ve ever called my girlfriend. First girl I’ve ever loved.” This last admission’s a hard one. It catches in the back of my throat, not wanting to come out. I say it shyly, unable to look her in the eye.

  She sits up, delicate fingers stroking over my cheek, gently turning my face so that I’m looking at her. “Then we’re in the same boat,” she whispers. “I’ve never loved a guy before, either.”

  I catch hold of her, pressing my lips against the inside of her wrist. “First is a good start,” I rumble. “But I plan on being the only guy you love, Little E. Period. For the rest of time.”

  “So greedy,” she says, teasing her fingers through my hair. Her cheeks are glowing, though. I haven’t seen her look this quietly pleased before, and it turns my insides into fucking Jello.

  “So, so greedy,” I agree. “What kind of fool would I be if I ever risked letting you slip between my fingers? I’m yours. I’ll be your weak and pathetic plaything. You can use and abuse me how you see fit. I’ll still be here, asking for more. Speaking of which.” I lean forward and kiss her. I’m still getting used to how I feel whenever I do this: brimming over, too full, breathless and dazed. She sighs into my mouth as I lay her back onto the hood again. Her pupils are blown, the black swallowing the blue, as I work at the button on her jeans, unfastening them and dragging them quickly down her legs.

  “Seconds thoughts? Change of heart?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. “Get on with it, Jacobi. Don’t you know how rude it is to keep a girl waiting?”

  I pull her panties to one side, exposing her pussy. “Ouch. And you know how much I hate being rude.”

  She gasps when I sweep my tongue over her. It doesn’t take long to have her panting and writhing on top of the mustang. Her toes curl and uncurl reflexively as I tease the shit out of her, using light, purposeful flicks with the very tip of my tongue to drive her crazy. She shakes and shivers underneath me so beautifully that it’s almost enough to make me weep.

  “Wren! Wren, oh my god. Fuck you. Fuck you!”

  She knows my game. I want to keep her here like this, made vulnerable, trapped in a highly compromising position and seesawing on the edge of coming for as long as I can get away with it. I might not be the cold, callous, cruel prince of Riot House anymore, but I can still be a bastard when I want to be. I dig my fingers into her hips and the delicious plumpness of her ass, crushed against the car, and I bide my time.

  “God… Please…. Please… Please… Wren! Let me come!”

  Where would be the fun in that? Her whole body convulses as I laugh. She bucks her hips up, trying to earn herself more pressure from my mouth, but I lean back just far enough to frustrate her. “Mmm. Now who’s being greedy?” Goddamnit, she’s delicious. I can’t get enough. I run the flat of my tongue up in a broad, torturously slow sweep, and poor little Elodie whimpers like she’s getting desperate.

  Not long to go now, though. I can hear the distant rumble of an engine coming up the road. Using the tips of my fingers, I prime her, dipping inside her pussy, enjoying the way she fists my hair and pulls on it juuuuust a little too much. My dick feels like it’s about to explode, but I can wait.

  “Please, Wren,” she begs. “God, please. I need you. I—I want you inside me so fucking bad.”

  Closer. Louder. Whoever’s coming up the road’s almost upon us.

  I thrust my fingers inside her, sucking the slick, tight knot of her clit into my mouth, rolling it with my tongue, and she fucking screams. My mouth floods with the sweet taste of her. I fuck her with my fingers, driving them up at an angle, finding that trigger that will make her see stars, and that’s when the Winnebago roars past us.

  The horn blares. Someone leans out of the window and yells something unintelligible, but I hold fast. Elodie bucks, startled, trying to cover herself, but I pin her by her hips, growling out a warning. “Finish it,” I command. “Fuck my hand, Elodie. Fuck it.”

  I move fast, climbing her body. I press the heel of my palm between her legs, right up against her clit, rubbing her, and I pump my fingers harder still…

  Elodie’s eyes roll back into her head. “Oh my god.” Her hips work. I stare down and watch, completely fucking mesmerized, as my Little E grinds her pussy against my hand, her back arching off the hood of the car as she comes.

  I have never been this turned on in my entire fucking life.

  She reaches down between her legs and presses my fingers deeper inside her, driving my hand down onto her. “Fuck! Wren! Holy shhhhhhhh—” Her legs pull up toward her stomach. She rolls onto her side, pressing her forehead into my shoulder, shaking violently as she tries to survive the nuclear bomb that’s just gone off inside her head.

  “Oh…my…god,” she pants. “Oh my god.”

  I dip down, nuzzling past her hair so I can kiss her neck. It’s here that I allow
myself a smug as fuck smile, but only because she can’t see me. “Shhh. It’s okay.” She lets out a plaintive cry when I draw my fingers out of her. She falls onto her back, her cheeks adorably flushed, and blinks up at the patch of blue sky above us like she’s still in a daze.

  “Those people in that Winnebago definitely saw us,” she says.

  I lay on my back beside her, resting my hands on my chest. “Yeah. They definitely did.”

  Laughing, she covers her face with her hands. “How did that even happen? I was the one who was trying to be bad with you.”

  Ahhh, Christ. This girl right here. I turn my head to the side, biting playfully on her earlobe. “You should know by now, Little E. You can try and be bad. But I can always be worse.”

  Once she’s wriggled her cute ass back into her jeans, we get on the road. She complains bitterly that I won’t let her go down on me, but I know I’ll plough straight into a fucking tree if I let her anywhere near me. I have to swear that we’ll spend the rest of the night naked in my room back at Riot House in order to appease her.

  We laugh and joke as I gun the engine, eager to get back. Everything feels so light and fucking free. That is, until we’re thirty minutes outside of Mountain Lakes and I catch Elodie crying out of the corner of my eye. Fat, desolate tears course one after the other down her cheeks, and my heart seizes in my chest.

  “Jesus, E. What the fuck? What—what did—did I do something? What’s wrong?” I will literally kill myself if I’ve fucking hurt her already.

  “What you—did—to my—father,” she stutters, fighting for each word.

  Fuuuuuuuck.

  Everything sinks.

  It was a risk, I knew that. I was prepared to deal with the consequences if she hated me for what I did. But the fear that wraps around my windpipe, choking me as I try not to veer off the road feels like it’ll be the end of me.

  “You flew across—the world—” she gasps. “On your—birthday—”