Page 98 of Riot House
ME: What do you mean, messy?
WREN: We play these stupid games. I'd love to say I'm innocent, but I'm not. I used to enjoy fucking with people just as much as Dash and Pax. Sometimes things would get a little out of hand. We've hazed people pretty hard in the past. That's what they're expecting from me this time, too.
ME: From you, specifically? Just don't participate?
Eventually, he replies.
WREN: It's not that simple. I owe Dash and Pax a lot. I wasn’t alone in Tel Aviv, remember? I've put them through hell in the past, and they know so many of my secrets. Things I haven't told you yet. Maybe we should meet...
Now it's my turn to tap out and erase my responses. I'm suddenly anxious. What kind of secrets can he possibly be talking about? And how bad can they be? My mind goes from naught to sixty in three seconds flat.
ME: Are you supposed to hook up with girls at this thing? Is that why you don't want me there?
Nothing but dead air.
I clutch my phone to my chest, struggling to breathe around the sharp pain that's stabbing me in the ribcage. What the hell kind of partyisthis? Eventually, my phone chimes.
WREN: Can you just meet me in the gazebo in an hour? It'd be easier to explain this in person.
ME: Okay.
My heartbeat's hovering somewhere around the one-thirties. I can't believe...fuck, I can't believe after all of the time we've spent together, and Wren telling me that he's in love with me, and all the promises we made to each other in that stupid fucking country inn, he's pulling this shit on me now. Horrifyingly, it feels like I'm about to get broken up with or something, and I don't think I can take hearing that right now. I get up from the bed where I was watching TV on my laptop, and I begin pacing the floorboards, back and forth, back and forth, back and—
I stop in front of the window, peering out into the darkness. There's already a light on out there in the maze—just the faintest glimmer shining through the boughs of the live oaks, but it's there. I see it plain as day. Which means Wren's already at the gazebo. So why, then, did he tell me to wait an hour to meet him? Jesus fucking Christ, I'm probably blowing this way out of proportion, but I’m not waiting a goddamn hour to find out what’s going on if I don’t have to. So help me, I’m going down there and I’m finding out what the hell is going on.
* * *
Unlike the first time I ventured into the maze, tonight the air is calm and still. It's even warm enough that I've come outside without a jacket. It's much brighter, too. The sky's clear and the moon is almost full; it casts so much light down onto the grounds of the academy that I'm able to navigate a path through the high walls of the maze without losing my way at all. My ears roar from the silence as I approach the gazebo. I've planned a litany of abuse that I'm gonna hurl at Wren if I find him sitting in here with his nose in a book. I haven't let myself consider what course of action I’ll take if I find him in here with another girl. I know he wouldn't do that. I know it like I know the sun will rise in the morning, and the world will keep spinning on its axis. This awful feeling that keeps churning around in my stomach won't give me any peace, though.
Why didn't he answer the question I asked him in that text message? If he's not planning on messing around with other girls at this party, then why wouldn't he just say so?
I'm five feet away from the gazebo when I'm finally close enough to see inside. And it's not Wren inside, after all.
It's Dashiell.
And Carina.
Fuck!
I duck down, and the taste of copper floods my mouth; I've bitten my damn tongue. My eyes water around the pain, but I don't make a sound. Crouching down in the bed of rose bushes outside of the window, they can't see me from inside...but now I'mstuckhere. It's a miracle they didn't see me marching toward the building. Even if I squat down low and scurry back towards the entrance of the maze, there's a very real chance that they'll spy me. I am well and truly screwed.
Voices float out of an open window into the still night air.
“You don't have any right!” It's Carina's voice, and it sounds like...ahh, shit, it sounds like she's crying. Fuck, this is the last thing I need—to get busted eavesdropping on this conversation. At least it sounds like she’s giving him hell for messing in her relationship with Andre.
“You're right. And I'm sorry,” Dashiell murmurs. The acoustics inside the gazebo must be ridiculously good. His voice is low and deep, but I can hear him perfectly. I havereallygotta get out of here. “I just don't want any of this coming back to hurt us down the line, okay?”
Hah. Dick. He's got a funny way of showing her he cares. If he didn't want anything coming back to hurt him down the line, he shouldn't have arranged for Carina to walk in on him while he was getting his dick sucked by another girl. That would have been a great start.
“The copsneedto know,” Carina says. “This...what you're asking me to do. It isn't fair, Dashiell. There have got to be consequences. He can't just...” She's crying now. Crying hard enough that she's choking on her emotion. “He can't just be allowed to get away with it again. What if...what if he hurts someone else? What if he hurts Elodie?”
Everything stops.
My heart.
My brain.
All cognitive thought.
