Page 26 of Riot House
Panic will kill you quicker than anything else.
That’s what my old surfing instructor used to tell me, back when we lived in South Africa. I repeat it over and over like a mantra, driving the words into my brain, making them feel true. I just need to stay calm.
“Fuck!” A rumble of thunder crashes directly overhead, and I nearly jump straight out of my Docs. The force of it vibrates inside my body, resounding in the hollow of my chest. Lightning rips across the sky—giant forks of brilliant, piercing light that shoots from left to right. I try not to picture what it would feel like if one of those fearsome fingers of light were to strike down and make contact, using my seventeen-year-old dumb ass as a conduit to the ground. It’s enough to know that it would really fucking hurt.
I keep on walking, head bent, shoulder constantly into the wind, which doesn’t seem right since I change direction every few seconds, but it appears the wind is just as trapped inside this maddening network of pathways as I am. It skirls and eddies around, around, around, and no matter how quickly I hurry, I can’t get ahead of it.
Just when I’m about to give up and look for a place to shelter, another hand reaches out and grabs hold of me, fingers closing tightly around my upper arm.
I scream.
Jesus, do I scream.
I hate that I react so dramatically, but in the moment, it feels so fucking real that I believe it. Iknowwith a terrifying certainty that some unknown specter has emerged from the eye of the storm, taken me by the arm, and is about to drag me down into the darkest pits of hell. I’m not cut out for hell. I’m more of a cotton candy and endless backrubs kind of girl. An eternity of damnation does not sound go—
“Jesus, Stillwater, quit screaming. You’ll wake the fucking dead.”
Startled, I close my mouth, my teeth making a sharpcrackas they snap together. Not an unknown specter, it turns out. I’m familiar with this demon, with his raven black hair and his shockingly green eyes. Even in the rain and the darkness, Wren Jacobi’s eyes look too, too vivid. He smirks, his hair arranged in artful, wet curls that flick up around his ears, rivulets of water coursing down his handsome face, and I almost let out another blood curdling scream.
My maternal grandmother told me stories about the devil sometimes. She told me that he was the most beautiful of all the angels. That God gave him a countenance that made women sigh and curdled men’s hearts with jealousy. The last time I saw her, at the tender age of eight years old, she warned me, “Elodie, child. Be extra careful of the handsome ones. They’ll trick you with their beauty, but it’s all a façade. Their eyes may peer into your soul, and their mouths may leave you breathless, but beneath their pleasing exterior lies a wickedness bestowed by Saint Nick himself. All good-looking men have been tapped on the shoulder by evil.”
I assumed it was just the ravings of a mad old woman, but looking at Wren now, standing in the rain like he’s out for a stroll on a balmy summer’s day, I’m beginning to think she might have been right.
“What the fuck are youdoing?” I rip myself free of his grasp. “You think this is some sort of game? People die from exposure in this kind of weather.”
He laughs—a soft huff of amusement down his nose, like I’ve just said something fucking funny. “Prone to hyperbole, Stillwater? You’ve been outside for five whole minutes. I doubt you’ll catch hypothermia from a bit of wind and rain. Unless you have a weak constitution?”
Weak constitution. I’ll give him weak fucking constitution. I’m gonna tear him a new one.
Wren’s dark eyebrow arches, the right corner of his mouth lifting up as he makes a show of slowly offering his hand out to me, palm up. “I know the way,” he says darkly.
I glare at his extended hand like it’s covered in a deadly bacterium. “To where?”
“To warmth. Shelter. Unless you’d rather spend another thirty minutes out here, spinning your wheels in the mud before you figure this thing out. Up to you. Woman’s prerogative and all that. It’s all the same to me.” He tips his head to one side, both eyebrows rising now, and my Judas of a heart stumbles over itself. Damn, I want to punch him in his smug fucking throat more than I’ve wanted anything in my entire life.
“I don’t need your hand. I can follow you just fine,” I snap.
Another burst of thunder crashes, deafeningly loud right over our heads. Wren’s thrown into stark relief, shadows stretched out across his face, bleached black and white by the staggering display of lightning that chases on its heels. The moment is so surreal that I’m struck by the absurdity of my situation. Wren drops his hand. “Keep your eyes open, then! You’ll need to actually look where you’re going!” He shouts to make himself heard over the din. I watch the muscles in the column of his throat work, wondering if he’ll chase after me if I run from him.
No.Hewon’t run.
I’ll run, and I’ll stagger, and I’ll trip, and I’ll stumble, and Wren will calmly walk after me, untouched by the elements. He’ll capture me, and he’ll expend zero energy doing it, because that’s just who he fucking is.
He turns around, his black shirt clinging to his back like a second skin, and he walks off, turning left into the maze.
I’m left with no choice but to follow.
* * *
In five sharp turns through entrances I don’t even see until the very last second, Wren has us at the maze’s center. Amongst a riot of rose bushes, whose late blooms have been smashed and obliterated by the driving rain, their peach-red petals strewn all over the ground, a squat gazebo stands on a raised platform beneath the massive boughs of one of the giant live oaks that stands guard over the maze.
I can’t see the structure from my bedroom window. From that vantage point, all I can see are the high hedge walls and not much else. Here it stands, though—a small, solid structure crafted out of wood and glass, small and utterly charming, painted white and blue. Inside, a warm orange glow promises light and protection from the cold.
Wren climbs the steps that lead up to the enclosed gazebo’s entrance, pausing in front of the door, his pale hand resting on the weathered brass knob. “This place is off limits,” he says. “We’re not supposed to be out here.”
“Noshit.” I gesture up at the sky. “We aren’t supposed to be outside in general.”
He laughs that laugh again, breathy and entertained, as though everything about me is quaint and silly to him. “I assume you’re okay with breaking a few rules, Stillwater. If you’d rather toe the line, I can take you back to the academy. I’d just need a moment to grab my things.”
