Page 41 of Riot House
“I’m stone cold sober now and you know it. Look, I totally get it. If I were you, I wouldn’t want any part of this either. Why don’t you just drop me off in front of the house and go back to the party. I can walk the rest of the way from there.”
“Two miles, Elle? In the middle of the night? In the cold and the dark? Along windy, narrow roads? You’ll get smoked by a car. They won’t even see you until it’s too late. What kind of friend would that make me, huh?”
I have nothing to say to that. WhatcanI say? Hiking my way back to Wolf Hall sounds like a shit time. There’s no sugarcoating it. And she would be a crappy friend if she left me on the side of a mountain road. I’m grateful that she’s in possession of a fully functioning conscience. That said, I don’t want to put her in a compromising position, though.
We sit in silence, watching the twin beams from the headlights pierce through the dark like swords of light, illuminating fifteen feet of blacktop in front of us. After a while, Carina says, “Fucking piece of shit. I knew he was creepy, but I didn’t know he wasthiscreepy. He was probably gonna load up that phone with spyware apps. He’d have been listening to your calls and reading all of your texts. He would have been able to access your camera whenever he wanted…God, I didn’t even think about that until now.”
“Mmm.” I’ve thought about it. I have experience with cloned phones and all manner of different spyware. It’s all been loaded onto my phone before. What Carina doesn’t know is that my phone is already brimming over with ghost apps and dummy screens, all designed to trick me into thinking I’m not being watched. My father would have made sure of it. “We’ll get in, get the phone, and then we won’t have to worry about any of that,” I mumble.
“You should call the cops, Elle. I’m serious. This is some shady shit.”
“Let’s just see what we’re dealing with first.” I’m fobbing her off. I’m sure she knows that. But getting the police involved now would be bad. For starters, Wolf Hall will report the incident to my father, and there’s no way in hell I’ll risk him jumping on a plane to come and find out what’s going on in person. I’d rather be dragged over hot coals than have to face him.
My pulse jumps all over the place when Carina kills the headlights and turns into the driveway that leads through the forest to Riot House. I can tell by the way she grips onto the steering wheel that she’s anxious. About getting caught breaking into the place or being here in general, I can’t tell, but I’m beginning to feel really bad for putting her through this.
In the pressing darkness, all I see are trees. And then we turn a sharp corner, and the house appears out of nowhere, the three-story structure so large and imposing that it’s a miracle it isn’t more obvious from the road. It’s difficult to tell how old the place is. Perhaps it would be easier to assess when the place was built during the daytime, when there’s a little more light to work with. Right now, the floor-to-ceiling glass windows on the second floor makes it look modern, but the exterior makes it appear very old indeed.
“Just looking at the place makes me wanna throw up,” Carina murmurs. “Doesn’t it look like it was conjured right out of your nightmares?”
I look at the house, shrouded in shadows, each window cast into darkness, and…the place looks desolate. “No,” I tell Carina. “I don’t have nightmares.”
She blows out a long breath through her pursed lips. “I envy you. That must be nice.” She twists the key in the ignition, killing the engine. “Then what are you afraid of? Monsters? Ghouls? Flesh-eating beasts?”
“No,” I tell her, staring up at the house with a steely resolve. “I’m afraid of real life. The people who are supposed to care for you the most.”
* * *
Carina doesn’t ask how I know how to pick a lock. She urges me to hurry up and get it done, peering over her shoulder into the forest as if she’s expecting Dashiell to emerge from the night with a hatchet in his hand, ready to dismember both us into tiny pieces. He doesn’t come, though, and I have the door to Riot House open in record time.
I enter, preparing myself for the avalanche of empty beer cans and festering takeout containers, but the place is neat as a pin. Scratch that. It’s actuallybeautiful.
Carina turns on the flashlight feature on her phone, dispersing the dark, and I marvel at the grand entranceway I find myself in. A huge, magnificent staircase stands before me, splitting off to the left and to the right, leading to the eastern and western wings of the house. On the first floor, huge paintings hang on the walls—mostly cool, sleek contemporary art that doesn’t seem to beofanything in particular, but as I gaze at them I’m hit with the unsettling certainty that they’re all depictions of raging storms, brought to life in swirling blacks, and blues, white and greys. They feel angry. “Wren’s,” Carina murmurs. “He might be the biggest shithead to walk the Earth, but the bastardcanpaint.”
I reel in my surprise, storing that information away for later.
The house has a unique, dizzying smell to it. Far from the sweaty socks and unwashed teenaged boy odor I was expecting, the air’s colored with notes of bergamot, black pepper and rosewood.
There are knick-knacks and small keepsakes everywhere I look, placed with thought and care on the exorbitantly expensive-looking sideboards, tables and the bookcase that runs along the back wall, by a door that leads off into the unknown.
I gasp when I look up. “Holyshit.”
“Yeah,” Carina agrees, matching my stance as she cranes her head back, staring up through the winding staircases that wrap around what can only be described as the inner courtyard of the house. From where we stand, you can see all the way up to the top floor of the house, and beyond that, in the roof high over our heads, a vast skylight gives access to a view of the night sky that takes my breath away. Scores of brilliant pinpricks of light, burning away in the heavens, form the roof that Wren Jacobi sleeps under, and it’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.
“Come on.” Carina takes me by the arm, pulling me toward the stairs. “No time to admire the architecture. We need to grab the phone and get back to the academy. I have an awful feeling about this.”
“Where’s his room? Tell me and I’ll go find it myself.”
Carina shakes her head. “We’ll go together. It’s easier to get lost in here than you’d think.”
I squeeze her hand, giving her a reassuring smile. “I’ll be fine. Stay here and keep watch. If you see lights headed up the road, shout and we’ll get the fuck out of here. One of us needs to be on guard.”
Uncertainty shines in her eyes, but there’s relief in them, too. She’s glad of the excuse to stay downstairs, within sprinting distance of the exit. “All right. Go, and be quick about it. The top floor. When you get to the top of the stairs, turn right on the landing. Wren’s room is the door right in front of you. There’s a black feather nailed into the door frame. I haven’t been in there. I can’t tell you where his desk is, but—”
“Don’t worry, shh, it’s okay. It’s a desk. It’s not like I’m looking for a hidden trapdoor or anything. Give me one minute and we’ll be out of here.”
Shaking ever so slightly, Carina nods. Jesus, she looks like she’s on the verge of tears. I don’t know what she’s so terrified of here, but her emotions are proving to be contagious. My heart thumps aggressively in my chest as I jog up the first flight of steps, where I take the next flight on the right. My lungs are burning like crazy by the time I hit the third floor, and by the time I reach the fourth all I can hear is my blood charging behind my eardrums.
Gulping down breath after breath, I don’t waste a second. I head straight for the door on the right, curiosity eating at me like nobody’s business when I see the lush black feather my friend told me would be nailed into the wood. It’s right where Carina said it would be.
