Page 108 of Riot House
“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 swears some more. “Okay, okay. Slow down a little, will you? Thank god I wore flats. How the hell do you even know where you’re going?”
I point up at the clear night sky peeking through the tree branches overhead, refusing to give her the courtesy of actually looking ather. “I know how to read the stars. Good Ol’ Colonel Stillwater taught me, amongstsoooooomany 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.”
* * *
We walk for an hour.
Carina screams at the top of her lungs every time a student comes tearing out of the dark clutching a wad of Wren’s red flags in their hands. The entire thing reminds me of a haunted hayride Levi’s parents took us to on Halloween two years ago, where actors covered in gore ran out of the night, brandishing prop chainsaws, trying to scare us. I’d screamed then, enjoying the spectacle of it all, but this isn’t a spectacle. It’s the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard of and I can’t believe people are participating in it.
I guide us back to the perimeter of the house, scanning the trees for any sight of a wolf mask, but I don’t see one. The beautiful Tinkerbelle dress Wren bought me gets caught on nearly every single tree branch I pass and I do nothing whatsoever to keep it from tearing.
Realizing that everyone’s probably fled deep into the interior of the forest, I change direction and head back to the north, counting my steps to keep a rough gauge on how far we’ve come. Eventually, we come across a small clearing.
“For God’s sake, can we break for a moment. My ankle’s killing me.” She rolled it about a mile ago, and she hasn’t quit complaining about it since. I grunt, sinking down onto the flattest rock I can find, listening for signs that someone might be approaching, but the air is still and silent.
Carina sits down beside me. “Look. I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you everything, okay. I love you, Elle. Youaremy 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,” I say numbly. “You didn’t want him to do anything bad to me.”
Her forehead creases, her brow marked with confusion. “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. She wouldn’t accept it at first. She kept following him around like a lost little puppy dog. Then, out of nowhere, she just got over it one day. Like, out of the blue. She was acting really weird. Mercy said she’d found out she was seeing someone, but none of us could figure out who it could be. She came to the party and seemed perfectly happy. She didn’t even speak to Wren. We were all having fun. And then…one minute she was there…the next she was gone.”
I don’t think she’s lying to me. I really don’t. I don’t think Wren’s lying to me now, either, which is the most confusing thing in the world to parse given all of the evidence that pointed to him. I’m just…I’m so fucking tired of trying to figure this thing out. My head hurts, and I’m stuck in the middle of a forest, for fuck’s sake, wearing a sparkly fairy costume, and nothing makes any goddamn sense!
Carina takes my hand, squeezing it tightly. “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.”
She looks so damn earnest. Her eyes shine brightly, a little glossy, like she might be on the verge of tears, and the anger that’s been popping and flaring, putting out a wall of heat like a campfire, suddenly gutters out and dies, leaving me sad and cold. “Okay. Then start at the beginning. And don’t leave a single detail out.”
She smiles. Nods. “That particular party was weird. I knew something was up the moment I walked through the door. Everyone was more reserved than usual. I asked Mercy what was going on, and she told me that—”
A loud crack splinters the silence. Both of us lock up, tensing, as we wait for another sound. It comes a second later—a heavy crunch, followed by another, followed by another. And then a figure steps out of the trees into the clearing. It’s a guy—shirtless—wearing low slung jeans, resting on his hips. His face is concealed by one of Wren’s wolf masks.
“Go on, Carrie,” a low voice rumbles from beneath the mask. “I wouldn’t wanna interrupt story time.”
45
WREN
I searchthe house from top to bottom.
She isn’t anywhere to be found.
I drive up to the academy and bust open her bedroom door. She isn’t there, either. But my Wolf Hall Academy sweater is. It’s hanging off the back of the chair by the window, and the moment I set eyes on it, I remember the last time I wore it. It comes rushing back to me all at once like a slap to the face, and dread coils like a viper in the pit of my stomach. I wore it a week before the last Riot House party, because it was cold out and I was meeting someone in the gazebo.
I threw it on, not even thinking about it. Took it off while I was there. Left it there in my haste to escape afterwards. It was a bad night. A complicated night. It hadn’t ended well, and I’d done everything I could to blot it from my mind afterwards.
Now the details of it come roaring back with all the subtly of a sledgehammer.
“I want you, Wren Jacobi. And I always get what I want.”
I’d smiled. Laughed it off. Dismissed him, because that’s what I was good at.
“Tough shit. You can’t have me, old man.”
And then he’d turned my world upside down.
Elodie’s probably just playing the game. She’s probably fine. But something sick and worrying niggles away at the back of my head, screaming at me to find her. She has no idea how much danger she’s in if she’s out there in those woods.
