Riot Rules

by Callie Hart

  “Elodie! What the hell are you doi—wait! Elle, you can’t see anything!” Oh my god. She’s not listening to me. She steps right off the road and marches into the trees, and the undergrowth, and the pitch black. I have no choice but to go after her. “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.”

  I’m not proud of it, but I let my frustration gets the better of me. “Then just stop!”

  Elodie laughs. “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 didn’t just find the journal in the gazebo, then. She heard the conversation I had with Dash, too. Shame and hot, metallic embarrassment flood my tongue. “Okay, okay. Slow down a little, will you? Thank god I wore flats. How the hell do you even know where you’re going?”

  She stabs a finger up at the sky, refusing to do anything of the sort. “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.”

  Wow. An unexpected ache explodes in my chest. Elodie and I have never talked about the stars before. I had no idea that she had an interest in astronomy. I should know that about her. We have that in common. Maybe I would have been able to reclaim my own passion for the stars if I’d had someone like Elodie to share it with. It dawns on me, as I stumble after her through the dark, that I’ve been keeping her at a distance. I’ve been a fool. Dashiell broke me. Mara abandoned me. I’ve been so scared of being hurt by another person that I haven’t allowed myself to trust Elodie the way she deserved to be trusted…and that is totally on me.

  I stew on this, berating myself as Elodie stomps onward, heading in one direction and then changing her mind, heading in another. About forty minutes after we headed into the forest, I step on a rock I think is wedged in the ground, but it rolls, taking my ankle with it. The pain is sharp and lances all the way from my ankle up into my knee.

  For fuck’s sake. This is madness. We need to head back to Wolf Hall now, before one of us gets really hurt.

  Eventually, I have to say something. “For God’s sake, can we break for a moment. My ankle’s killing me.” Reluctantly, Elodie, in her now torn fairytale dress, slumps down on a flat ledge of rock, huffing unhappily. I sit next to her, grateful that she finally cut me some slack. “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. You didn’t want him to do anything bad to me,” she mutters.

  “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.” I continue to explain, but my heart’s not really in it. I’m trapped back in that kitchen, the night of the other party, hating Mara and Mercy’s bickering. I just left Mara there. Even now, I can’t bring myself to face that particular truth. I left her, so I could go hang out with Dash.

  I should admit this to Elodie, but I feel too stupid that I chose him over my friends that night. Everything else, though. The drugs, and Fitz, and the police, and even my oldest secrets, the ones I’m still carrying from Grove Hill—I’ll give all of that information to her now.

  “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.”

  There’s no reason for Elodie to forgive me. But I think that she might. She sighs. “Okay. Then start at the beginning. And don’t leave a single detail out.”

  I jump in, unpacking the beginning of that party, the night Mara disappeared, but I’ve only gotten a few words out when a loud snapping sound cuts through the quiet, freezing the story mid-sentence.

  Oh, holy…fuck.

  What the hell was that?

  The hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention. Beside me, Elodie goes rigid, too. We stare into the black forest, as the shadowy shape of a man emerges out of the darkness, wearing one of those hideous wolf masks.

  The voice that emerges from underneath it is muffled, but it projects perfectly across the tiny clearing we’re sitting in. “Go on, Carrie. I wouldn’t wanna interrupt story time.”

  49

  DASH

  I can’t remember the last time the three of us fought, but we fight tonight. And boy, does it get ugly.

  Wren’s planning on letting someone else move in here? No fucking way. Then he makes some stupid comment about him moving out, and everything spirals out of control.

  Finally, I’m so pissed off by Wren’s behavior over Elodie that I say some things I don’t mean. He confesses that he loves the girl, and I’m so shocked that I just stand there, replaying the same sentence over and over in my head.

  Why does he get to have her, when I couldn’t have Carrie?

  Why does he get to have her, when I couldn’t have Carrie?

  Why does he get to have her, when I couldn’t have Carrie?

  The whole thing descends into chaos.

  Pax loses his fucking mind.

  Wren hits Pax so hard that it’s a miracle he doesn’t knock him out, and then all three of us are storming out of the games room, seething mad and staving off violence.

  I take a beat to cool down in my room but cooling down isn’t really an option. Carrie’s downstairs, wearing the tiniest skirt known to man, her tits spilling over the top of her costume’s bodice, and my sick and broken mind won’t let me forget it.

  This thing between us is an infected wound. Any time a scab begins to form and either of us starts to heal, I pick at it. I can’t leave it alone. I wish I could. Maybe that way, there’d be some hope for us. We could move on. Find happiness. But no. The knowledge that Carrie is here, downstairs, so fucking close, stirs me up to such a degree that I can’t contain my frustration anymore.

  I punch the mirror above my dresser. The thing fractures, jagged cracks spiderwebbing out, out, out around the point where my fist meets the glass. My knuckles are bleeding. My head’s pounding. My heart won’t stop beating, even though I keep pleading with it to have mercy on me and just fucking stop.

  It’s at this point that I bail in search of the others. We can’t let this thing fester. If we do, the rift that’s forming between us will become too wide to close, and I can’t allow that to happen. I can’t lose my friends. Downstairs, the house is slammed. I do a preliminary search of the ground floor on the hunt for Pax, since Wren’s likely with Elodie, but the fucker’s nowhere to be found. It was a longshot, considering Wren’s challenge as Master of the Hunt. Half of the academy’s missing. They’re all out in the forest, trying to find Wren’s red flags. Pax is out there in a wolf’s mask, doing what he does best: terrorizing the girls and fucking with as many people as he can get his hands on. Even though he’s probably fuming over the punch Wren sent his way, I’m sure he’s having the time of his life.

  I try to text Wren, but the message won’t go through. I try to call him, and low and behold, the line can’t connect either. I doubt he’s out there, playing this stupid game of his. He’s probably snuck off with Elodie somewhere, which is ridiculous, considering the fact that he created this mess. We pushed him to be Master of the Hunt this time, though. I tried to suppress it as best I could, but my resentment finally caught up with me. I was angry that it looked like things were falling into place between him and Elodie, when things had gone so awry for me and Carrie. And Pax? Pax was angry because when isn’t Pax a
ngry? We forced Wren to be Master of the Hunt again, thinking somehow that would fix things. We could re-do the whole affair, and the old Wren would come back to us. That everything would go back to the way it used to be. So Wren concocted this disaster of a game, and now here we are, the three of us in three different places, the house being fucking trashed by a bunch of drunk idiots, and I’m just about ready to kill someone.

  I storm through the kitchen, and a group of girls scatter like startled birds, colliding with one another in their haste to get away from me. It’s laughable that they’re brave enough to come here and join in the party, but they’re too intimidated to come within a hundred feet of one of the residents of Riot House. One of the girls, I sort of recognize. She peers back at me as she attempts to scramble out of the kitchen, and yes, it is her.

  “Chloe! Chloe Khan, stay right fucking there.”

  She freezes, her friends giggling behind their hands as I storm over. “If you want me to switch back with Carrie…I can’t,” she says quickly. “I already told her I wasn’t going to. The smaller room’s easier to heat and it’s closer to the bathroom. Plus…you already paid my last semester’s tuition fees and you can’t make me do anything now. Harcourt isn’t going to give you a ref—”

  “Shut up, Chloe. I don’t give a shit about the room. Have you seen her anywhere?”

  She blinks. “Who?”

  “WHO DO YOU FUCKING THINK!”

  Chloe swallows, inching away until she backs into the counter. Her friends aren’t laughing anymore. “Oh. Uh…Yeah. Right. I saw her leaving with Elodie about an hour ago.”

  “Carrie was with Elodie?”

  She nods quickly. “I heard them talking. They were arguing about Mara Bancroft.”

  50

  CARRIE

  “Pax, stop fucking around.” Elodie stands, brushing off her dress. “Sorry if you’re having a shitty night, but I just wanna find Wren and get the fuck out of here, okay?”

  I already know it’s not Pax. Elodie isn’t thinking clearly. I have no idea how extensive Pax’s tattoos are, but I do know his arms are covered from his wrists to his shoulders, and this guy? Not the slightest hint of ink anywhere to be seen.

  The guy in the mask takes a step toward us, his head canting weirdly to one side. “Wren. Yes, Wren. We’re all so desperate for Wren, aren’t we?” he hisses.

  “Well, you know where the guy sleeps at night,” Elodie says. “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.”

  Panic dances up my back, settling around my neck like a noose. I step to the right, but the freak in the mask copies me, blocking my way. “Uhh…Elodie?”

  “Pax. Get the fuck out of the way. Or do you want me to embarrass you in front of Carina?” She tries to get around him, but he moves with her too, preventing her from getting by.

  Shit, this is bad. Really, really bad. How many times did I marvel at Dash’s naked body? I spent hours studying it. Worshipping it. This is not Dash. Too narrow in the shoulders to be Wren. Which leaves only one option. In the back of my mind, I know who this is. I just don’t want to be right. “Elodie. Elle…I don’t think that’s Pax.”

  I rush forward, grabbing her by the hand.

  “Who…?” she whispers.

  “We kept your secret, okay,” I hiss. “We kept our mouths shut. You swore you wouldn’t do this again.”

  Fitz, because of course it’s Fitz, tuts disappointedly. “I hate breaking promises, Carrie, I really do. I thought I’d be over it by now, but…” Slowly, he takes the wolf’s head by the muzzle and slides it off his head. “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.” The look he levels at Elodie makes my stomach twist. Her mouth is hanging open, her eyes wide with shock. We did our job well, hiding Fitz’s involvement in all of this, if her surprise is this genuine. “He’s mine, Elodie. The sooner you stupid little bitches get that into your thick skulls, the sooner you can all stop dying.”

  She looks like a feather could knock her down.

  “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.

  “He has told me that he loves me,” she whispers.

  Fitz jerks back as if she’s struck him, and alarm bells start to go off in my head. This position we’re in right now? We are not safe, and Elodie telling him something like this is only going to make matters worse. “What?” he hisses.

  “He has told me that he loves me. He does love me.”

  Fuuuuuck, fuck, fuck. “Don’t, Elle.”

  Fitz reacts wildly, hitting his own forehead repeatedly with his hands, and…oh no. He has a knife. It’s a terrible thing—a fat, viciously sharp edge that’s notched from the guard to its tip. The steel flashes, bouncing the moonlight it catches all over our little clearing, and fear seizes me by the throat.

  “He didn’t say that. 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.”

  “Wait. That knife. I recognize that knife. That’s the knife that I found sticking out of my bed!” Elodie cries.

  It takes a second for me to figure out what she’s talking about. And then I remember—her room was turned over a while back. That’s right. Of course. And I didn’t even think anything of it. I’d blamed Damiana, thinking she was just acting out, trying to scare the new girl away from Wren. God, I am such an idiot. How could I have been so blind?

  Fitz’s disturbed laughter rises up into the night. “God, you’re so self-important, aren’t you? Oh, my bed. My precious books. My things. Wah wah wah. Principal Harcourt left this in the drawer of her desk, so I took it back. I’ve had this knife a very long time, y’know. I didn’t really feel like letting her keep it for good.”

  Elodie grips my hand tighter. I look at her, wondering how she’s keeping her shit together, but the fear I’m expecting to see on her face isn’t there. She’s angry. “Why the hell did you trash my room?”

  “I didn’t have a choice, did I? That room sat empty for months, but then you came along. I still hadn’t found Mara’s stupid journal or Wren’s sweater. It was only a matter of time before you stumbled across them and started asking questions. So I tore everything apart. I looked high and low. I would have found them, too, but then you came back to your room. I could hear you on the phone complaining about your father in the stairwell, and I bolted.”

  I can’t believe what I’m hearing right now. I can’t believe how far from the path of sane Fitz has wandered. “God, you are so fucked up.”

  Next to me, Elodie takes a half a step forward, her brow creasing. “You’re the one she wrote about in her journal. Not Wren. You’re the one she was afraid of.”

  His eyes shine madly as he steps forward, extending the point of the knife out in front of him. “I may have messed with her a little, I admit. She wasn’t my type, but it was fun tricking her into thinking I wanted to be with her. I just wanted her to stay the hell away from Wren, but…she was so fucking gullible. Not like you, eh, Elodie. No, you’re smart. Pointless putting it all together now, though. It’s far too late for that.”

  51

  CARRIE

  He ties our hands.

  That’s when I realize that I’m going to die.

  Dread constricts my throat as Fitz leads us through the forest, and the whole time Elodie is baiting him, trying to push his buttons, trying to…I don’t even k
now what she’s trying to do. I check out, my thoughts whipping around in my head like fallen leaves in a storm.

  I came to Wolf Hall to escape death. Little did I know, this is the place where my life will be stolen away from me. There are eight headstones in the cemetery down by the old ruined chapel. Will there be nine after tonight? Will Alderman come and claim my body and take it back to Seattle, or will he decide he might as well leave me here? The academy has been my home for the past four years, after all. I refused to leave when he gave me the opportunity. What if he thinks I’d prefer Wolf Hall as my final resting place? There are worse places to spend eternity, I suppose. The grounds are beautiful. And I’ll still be close to Dash, for a while at least. Maybe he’ll come down to the cemetery and visit me…

  “There. Up ahead,” Fitz barks, shoving me in the back. “Through that opening.”

  The mouth of the cave is set into a wall of rock. I’ve never seen it before, but then again I haven’t been exploring the forest with a fine tooth comb. If I had ever stumbled upon this yawning maw in the rock, I would have run the other way. Even from out here, it looks evil. There are lights on inside—a warm yellow glow bouncing off the wet stone as I hesitantly head inside.

  Elodie fumes behind me, cursing. Fitz stays quiet. I walk down the tight corridor, slipping all over the place on the uneven, slick ground underfoot, and within seconds I turn a corner and the cave opens out.

  And there, standing in front of me, wearing identical masks of horror, stand Wren and Mercy. I’m actually relieved for a second. Stupid, stupid me. If Wren and Mercy are here, then Fitz can’t do anything. We’ll be able to overpower him. He’ll come to his senses and realize he’s being fucking nuts. But then I see the huge slab of stone behind Wren. And I see what’s laid out on top of it. And my heart stops dead.