RIOT HOUSE

by Hart, Callie

  If Carina knew how sweet and gentle he was with me, she wouldn't say the stuff she does about him. She'd be on my side. She's my friend. She's supposed to be on my side. That's the most infuriating thing about this. You're supposed to be able to tell your friends anything.

  I just hope he doesn't hurt me. Sometimes, when I'm lying in his arms, I feel like he might do something crazy. His mood swings can be frightening.

  June 8th.

  Bad day. I caught Poe looking at Damiana. He says he's not interested in her. That he'd never touch her, no matter what. But I know the look I saw in his eyes. He looks at me like that all the time. She was flirting with him after class. Such a fucking whore. She'd do anything to fuck him. To take something that belongs to me. If things were different, I wouldn't have to worry about this shit. One day, we'll be able to be open about how we feel and no one will stand in our way. I just have to be patient. If the guys at Riot House find out about us, there'll be hell to pay.

  June 9th.

  I can't do this anymore. I want to go home, but Mom's so fucking delusional. She thinks I'm overreacting, and I just need to distance myself from the situation. But how can I do that when he's always there? In the halls? In my fucking classes? Always looking at me, watching me like I'm something he wants to eat.

  He hurt me today. I accused him of messing around with Damiana and he pinned me against the wall. He put his hand around my throat and for a second, I could see it in his eyes. He wanted to snap my neck. For a second, he dug his fingers into my skin, and I saw the violence inside of him. It was scary.

  June 10th

  I don't want to go to this stupid party. I know something horrible's going to happen. I can feel it in my bones. I wore the sweater to class today. The one Poe gave to me last night after I left him at the gazebo, and he flipped out when he saw me in it. He made me take it back to my room and hide it. I have no idea what's up with him, but this whole thing's starting to worry me. I'm going to go to the party, and then I'm going to leave. Otherwise...I know this is stupid, I'm stupid, but I'm worried that Poe might kill me.

  38

  ELODIE

  I sit amongst the charred pages of Mara's journal with my soul bleeding out all over the floor. This can't be fucking happening. There are so many pieces of evidence in Mara's journal that have clean taken my breath away. I'm too scared to acknowledge most of them.

  Poe?

  A hidden relationship, kept secret from the members of Riot House?

  Carina's abject hatred for Mara's lover?

  The connection with Damiana?

  All of it...

  I swipe the hot, angry tears from my cheeks, trying to make sense of everything I've just read.

  Edgar Allan Poe is Wren's favorite poet.

  How many times has Wren told me we can't tell Dashiell and Pax that we're together?

  Carina despises Wren.

  And he did screw Damiana. Carina told me all about. He fucked her a month before I showed up at Wolf Hall. Does it make sense that he'd been interested in her for a long time, only to get bored of her once he'd had her?

  Mercy already implied that Wren and Mara Bancroft were seeing each other. But they were fucking? And she was petrified of him? Scared that he was going to murder her. And then she just went missing out of the blue? What the hell am I supposed to make of all of this?

  How could I have talked myself into forgetting about the girl who used to sleep in my bedroom? What the fuck was I thinking? Too desperate to keep the only real friend I’ve made here, not wanting to rock the boat, I let Carina take the journal. I believed her when she said she was going to turn it over to the cops, but she didn’t. She fucking kept it because she’s hiding something.

  Many of the pages in Mara's diary are so burned they're impossible to read. The fire destroyed much of the first half of the book, so I'll never know what she wrote there. The flames left her final entries intact, though, and they paint a damning picture.

  I haven't heard the door to the gazebo open. I haven't heard him come inside. I go very, very still at the sound of his voice. “Elodie.”

  What a disastrous mess I must look, sitting on the floor in front of the fire, loose pages covered in loopy blue ink scattered all over the place, the ends of my fingers black with soot. Wren stands over me, dressed in a white t-shirt and a pair of ratty blue jeans. This is the first time I've ever seen him dressed in anything other than black, and the sight of him in those clothes causes something to stiffen in my chest. He's never what I expect him to be. He always does something or says something to surprise me. I am officially taken aback by him now; I mean, is he who I thought he was at all?

  Two tiny lines form between his brows as he bends down and picks up one of the pieces of paper at his feet. “What are you doing, Elodie?” He sounds wary. Unsure. As well he should.

  “Tell me about Mara.” My voice doesn't sound like my own. Or maybe it's just that my ears feel muffled and everything seems so very far away. “You were seeing her, weren't you?”

  A strange, flat look forms on his face. He reads the journal entry on the paper in his hand, slowly shaking his head from left to right. It doesn't look like he's happy about what's written there.

  “What is this?” he asks, holding up the page.

  “Her diary. She wasn't very consistent about writing in it every day, but she managed to get most of the important stuff down. Why don't you tell me about her?”

  “What's to tell? She was a student here. She went missing. It was all over the news.”

  “I was in Tel Aviv when she disappeared. I wasn't paying much attention to small-town New Hampshire news reports back then. Fuck, I didn't even know this place existed then. You didn't answer my question, Wren. You were seeing her, weren't you?”

  His odd expression deepens. “I told you there were girls, Elodie. Before you. I'm not proud of how many girls I dated last year. I didn't think you were gonna crucify me for it, though. I went out with Mara once, but it didn't amount to anything. I'm sorry, this—” He shakes his head. “This isn't what you think it is.”

  “This isn't what I think it is?” A scathing burst of laughter rips up and out of my throat. “This isn't what I think it is. Right. What is it then, Wren? Just some shit a dumb party girl made up about you?” I fist a handful of the loose pages that have fallen out of Mara's journal, screwing them up in my fist. “This is some pretty fucked up shit, Wren. It reads like you hurt her. It reads like you're the reason why she went missing. Are you gonna tell me that you had nothing to do with that?”

  The calm facade he's been maintaining up until now slips. “Are you seriously asking me that? Jesus Christ, E. You think I killed Mara?”

  “There are too many coincidences here, little things that all tie back to you. Only an insane person wouldn't put two and two together.”

  “Elodie.” He sucks his bottom lip into his mouth, his green eyes—eyes that have been soft for me lately—turn to ice-cold flint. “You have no clue what you're talking about. None at all.”

  “Then enlighten me, because I'm terrified right now. I'm starting to freak out over here because there's a strong chance that I might have fallen in love with a murderer.”

  His jaw hardens. He’s clenching so tightly that I see the tension of it all the way up in his temples. “You really think that? You really think I’d do that?”

  I look down at all of Mara’s journal entries, strewn around on the floor like forgotten pieces of the past, cries for help, and I don’t know what to think anymore. “I don’t…know.”

  In the split second it takes me to look back up at him, Wren turns his back, and he leaves. Panic whips around inside me like a cyclone as I hurry back to my room. My heart won’t stop thundering away. Once I’ve closed the door and I’m sure I’m alone, I hurry over to the windowsill and I pull up the piece of wood that conceals Mara’s secret hidey hole. The day Mercy unveiled this spot and I pulled Mara’s journal out of it Carina didn’t see the black box ins
ide with the cherry blossoms painted on it. Or the bundled sweater. My hands shake like crazy as I reach down and take out both items, laying them down on the end of my bed.

  I inspect the sweater first. It’s a Wolf Hall Academy sweater, navy blue with gold lettering across the front. I’ve seen plenty of students wearing them in the halls. It’s only when I look inside the sweater and see the two small letters inked into the label that my heart officially shatters.

  W. J.

  Wren Jacobi.

  I’m frozen all the way down to my core when I open up the black lacquered box and I pull out a handful of black feathers.

  39

  ELODIE

  I make it through the next day somehow. I respond to Carina when she speaks to me, but all I see in the back of my mind is her standing with Dashiell outside the gazebo, holding her cardigan tight around her body, talking about whatever happened to Mara, and her worry that it might happen to me, too. She mopes and she complains about Andre, and I make all of the appropriate noises. I pretend as though I’m listening, and I stumble from one class to the next, wondering what the fuck I’m supposed to do now.

  I’m destroyed.

  I don’t see Wren. I don’t see any of the Riot House boys. All three of them are notably missing from Wolf Hall, though no one seems to notice their absence. They’re preparing for the party tonight, I’m sure. Though why none of the faculty have made any sort of comment about their truancy is a goddamn mystery.

  I’m in my French class, the last lesson of the day when Dean Harcourt comes to find me. She’s wearing a look of grim determination on her face as she walks me down the hallway to her office. When she’s situated behind her desk and I’ve sat myself down opposite her, she clears her throat and gives me the news I’ve been waiting to hear ever since Wren told me about his trip to Tel Aviv.

  “Elodie, I’m afraid I have some bad news. It would seem that…” She doesn’t know where to look. “Your father was involved in some kind of accident, Elodie. He was out at a bar in Tel Aviv, and three men jumped him. They assaulted him in an alley and beat him pretty severely. I know this must come as a shock to you, but it seems as though he was paralyzed during the attack.”

  I stare straight through her.

  “Now, it was a shock to me too that this happened so long ago. Usually, we’re immediately apprised if something happens to a student’s family members, but for some reason the military decided not to inform us of this uh, incident, until this afternoon. It seems that your father’s injuries were complicated due to a stroke he suffered two days after being admitted to the hospital. He’s still alive, breathing on his own, but I'm afraid he’s unresponsive to external stimuli. The doctors are working with him daily, but they’re saying that he’s entered some kind of fugue state. He’s fully awake, but…this might be hard to hear, so I apologize, but…he seems to be trapped inside his own mind. Are you okay, Elodie? Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

  I make eye contact, gripping the strap of my bag, wringing the material in my hands. “Yes, I hear you. I understand.”

  “It’s only natural that you’d want to go and be with him, Elodie. I can see just how traumatized you are by this news. But he’s currently being cared for at an army facility, and they've said that because you're a minor, there's no way you can go back to Tel Aviv by yourself. Your father signed guardianship over us here at the school while you're studying with us, so I'm afraid you're going to have to stay here until Colonel Stillwater recovers well enough to leave the hospital. I know that's probably the last thing you want to hear, but I'm asking for your help with this. I sincerely hope you won't cause trouble because you can't—”

  “It's okay. I understand. I'll abide by the rules. I'm not going to cause any trouble.”

  Harcourt looks relieved. She likely thought I was going to burn the whole fucking school down in my attempt to get to my poor, catatonic, paralyzed father. If only she knew the truth. “Well, thank you, Elodie. I don't know if you're religious at all, but I like to lean on Jesus during times like this. If you pray to him for your father's recovery, then who knows? Maybe he'll be his normal self again before you know it.”

  “I believe in science, Dean Harcourt. I'd rather know what the doctors are saying, please. Specifically, how soon he'll be back on his feet?”

  The dean’s mouth hangs slack, revealing front teeth smudged with her mulberry-colored lipstick. “I'm afraid...that is to say, the doctors think that it's unlikely your father will recover fully, Elodie. It's unlikely he'll ever walk again. And if he'll come out of this fugue state remains to be seen. That's why I mentioned prayer. It is a powerful healing tool, you see. I'm afraid that without it—”

  She rambles on, but I've already stopped listening.

  How many times did she say that she was afraid?

  I'm afraid I have some bad news.

  I'm afraid he's unresponsive...

  I'm afraid you're going to have to stay here...

  Such a weird term for her to use. She wasn't afraid. She was inconvenienced, and she was concerned, and she’s eager to get this matter hashed out quickly to avoid it taking up any more of her time.

  I, on the other hand, have been afraid for a very long time. This news changes all of that. It’s looking like I won’t have to be afraid of my father ever again. And that’s all thanks to Wren. I’ve floated through the day, so numb and detached from my surroundings, that I haven’t taken a beat to analyze whether I’m afraid of him now.

  Worryingly…I don’t think that I am.

  40

  ELODIE

  When I head back to my room, my bedroom door’s wide open. And there, sitting at the end of my bed, is Mercy Jacobi. She looks so out of place perched on top of my dusky pink comforter, but she seems to have made herself perfectly at home. She beams like a Cheshire cat when she sees me in the doorway.

  “Before you start, I didn't touch anything,” she says, holding out her hands in a placating gesture. “I just wanted to drop off your costume for tonight.”

  I scowl at her; it seems like the safest thing to do. “Costume? I don't have a costume.”

  “Wren bought one for you, silly.” She jerks her head in the direction of a black and gold garment bag hanging from the back of my closet door. “I was at the house earlier, dropping off some booze and ice, and I saw my darling big brother punch a hole right through his bedroom wall with his bare hands. Seems he's quite upset. Wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?”

  God, she is good at this—all of the pretending. I suspect that she knows all about me and Wren and yet she’s still feigning ignorance. “I have no idea what's up with him. Who ever knows what's up with Wren. He's permanently pissed,” I say.

  Mercy's smile is faker than her perfect white teeth. “Ahh. Shame. Nothing makes me sadder than trouble in paradise. Fair enough, though. You both want to be broody and miserable, that's entirely up to you. I'll leave you to try on your costume in peace.”

  “I don't need the costume, Mercy. I'm not going to the party.”

  “Oh, no. You have to! Everyone's going. You want to be the only person on your entire floor, sitting in your room like a sad sack, while everyone else has an amazing time?”

  “Carina isn't going,” I say defiantly.

  Mercy smirks as she gets up and waltzes out into the hallway. “Sure about that, Stillwater? Carina's all talk most of the time. I'd put good money on her attending this evening's festivities.”

  “I'm not in the mood, Mercy. Can you please take the garment bag out of my room? If Wren wanted me to have it, he would have given it to me himself.”

  “He's probably worried that if he gets within five feet of you, you'll freak out and accuse him of trying to murder you,” she says, with a feline smirk on her face.

  Fuck.

  So, she does know about what happened at the gazebo. I highly doubt that Wren told her, but who the fuck knows? I've been wrong plenty of times before. Like, a ridiculous am
ount of times. Wren could have told Dashiell, who then told Mercy? What does it fucking matter how she knows? She just does.

  “Invite said eight but I recommend coming at around nine or so,” she says. “Helps to make an entrance when you're fighting with a guy like my brother. And holy shit, are you gonna make an entrance wearing that costume.”

  * * *

  I'm on edge as I unzip the bag, letting it fall to the ground. My heightened state of anxiety triples when I see what's inside it. This isn't some drug store twenty-dollar costume. It isn't even the kind of expensive costume you have to order online. This is the kind of costume you have made from scratch, to a list of specifications that you send to a dressmaker weeks ahead of an event.

  It's beautiful.

  The bodice is frost-white and shimmering with Swarovski Crystals. There's boning sewn into the luxurious fabric, as well as laces around the back, which look daunting as hell. I've never in my life worn anything so convoluted.

  The skirt is made of a diaphanous, silky type of fabric, layers and layers of it in blue and silver and white, so fine and stunning that I can't help but run my fingers over it.

  This is the most gorgeous piece of clothing I've ever seen in my life. I recognize it for what it is immediately: it’s a Tinkerbell costume. I mentioned to Wren when we were verbally sparring in the attic that I always wanted to be Tinkerbell when I was a kid, but we didn’t always get what we wanted…and he remembered? It was such a flippant, off-the-cuff remark. I can’t believe he stored the information and then ordered this.

  It's too beautiful.

  It’s too much.

  All of it is too fucking much.

  I’ve pieced together a really suspicious-looking picture of Wren’s life last year and it’s so frightening and awful that I can’t bear it. I’m still in love with him, and I can’t make myself stop. A wickedly sharp knife plunges into my heart, grinding up against my ribs, stealing away my breath as I sink to my knees, clutching the beautiful fairy costume to my chest.