Page 9 of Riot House
Wren smirks, closing his eyes. “She does. Usually after midnight. And yes. DTFisconsidered text speak, too.”
Damiana explodes from her seat, stabbing a finger at Wren, who can’t see her outrage with his eyes closed. “You’re a piece of shit, Wren Jacobi. I’d never fuck you in a million years. I’d sure as hell neveraskyou for it.”
“Okay, okay, sit down. Wren, stop fucking talking before I boot you over to Harcourt’s office. You guys know I love a lively debate, but we’re getting a little off topic here. What do you think ol’ Bill Shakespeare would say about all of the new words we’re creating to express ourselves, guys?”
The debate continues. Every time the class somehow veers towards the topic of sex, Doctor Fitzpatrick manages to wrangle us back into order. I sit quietly, unable to take my eyes off Wren, unhappy about the way my eyes keep gravitating back to him the moment I forget to activelynotlook at him. The old adage is true: it’s impossible to look away from a car crash. And I already know that Wren Jacobi isn’t just a metaphorical car crash. He’s a fifteen-car pile-up, and there are already people dead at the scene. I’m headed straight for him, though, and I can’t steer myself away. Worst of all, I’m not wearing a seatbelt, and motherfucker’s cut my brake lines.
He’s brutal, and he’s mean, and he’s rotten down to his very core. I can’t escape him, though. There’s a very real danger that he’ll hold his cup to my lips, and I’ll drink down his poison like I’m dying and he’s the cure.
All I can do now is brace myself and hope that the end will be quick.
A sharp, shrill bell drowns out Pres, the redhead I met earlier, and the students all shuffle out of the classroom, groaning and complaining loudly about the assignment that Doctor Fitzpatrick says he’ll email us all later on this afternoon.
In the hallway, Carina sags with relief. “God, I’m so glad that’s over.”
I don’t think she means the English class itself.
I think she means the close proximity to Wren and his crew.
At the foot of a steep, winding stone stairway, Carina gives me a quick hug. “This is where I leave you, I’m afraid. I need to get to Spanish. Your biology class is up there. Don’t worry. Everyone should be nice.”
About halfway up the stairs, my cell phone chimes in my back pocket. Excited, I scramble to pull it out and read the message that’s just come through. With the crazy time differences, it feels like I’ve been waiting for this moment for a week. It’s weird that I haven’t heard a peep out of Levi and the others until now, but at least—
Oh.
Wait.
The message isn’t from one of my friends back in Tel Aviv. The unknown number is American, with a 929 area code that isn’t familiar to me.
The message is short and to the point.
“Be less obvious, Stillwater. Desperation’s an ugly look.”
4
WREN
Dead mother.
Only child.
Small, like a porcelain doll.
Pretty blonde hair.
Pouty mouth I wouldn’t mind wrapped around my dick.
I don’t know much about Elodie Stillwater, but I can already feel that familiar old spark of intrigue at the back of my head, an itch just begging to be scratched. In fairness, I felt the dirty, sick need long before I laid eyes on the girl. Her file had been sitting there, open and asking to be flicked through, the last time I got called into Harcourt’s office. The photo clipped to the top of Elodie’s paperwork had caught my eye—I’ve always been attracted to shiny, pretty things—and my pulse had quickened, stirring from a steady, slow thrum to a far more urgent, interested clip.
In the picture, she was wearing a white sailor’s uniform—a particularly unkind school uniform, I later learned, after a bit of digging. The smile on her face was genuine. She was laughing at someone or something off camera, and her eyes were alive with energy. Innocent. That’s what it was about her. She looked innocent, dressed in white, with all of that long blonde hair flowing down past her shoulders, every part of her singing with life. I’d immediately wanted to sully her.
I took the photo. Denied taking it when Harcourt asked me if I knew where it was. For two weeks prior to Elodie Stillwater’s arrival, I spent a lot of time looking at that photo, jerking off to it but then refusing to let myself come, enjoying the anger that pooled in my stomach whenever I stared at Elodie’s pretty face. I’ve loved conditioning myself ever since I was a kid. Exposing myself to some kind of stimulus and then training myself to expect a certain outcome. I love nothing more than mastering myself, both mind and body, and my first thought when I saw that girl’s smiling face, was that I wanted to make myself hate her.
Why, you ask?
Why the hell not?
Just for the fun of it.
