Page 38 of Riot Rules
The door swings open.
Just before we enter, something on my right catches my attention: a break-glass fire alarm. And underneath it, a wooden box, painted bright red with a fire axe hanging inside it.
It’s just too fucking perfect.
I have the box open in a flash, and then the axe’s polished handle is sitting prettily in my gloved hand; the leather creaks when I close my fingers around it. When he sees what I’ve got, Pax’s face lights up. “Yes, man. Fuckingyes. I like your style.” His eyes flash silver in the monochrome moonlight flooding in through the den’s windows, full of mad excitement.
These are the situations when Pax comes to life—when he gets to destroy something. I’ve seen him demolish hotel suites with his bare hands. There isn’t a single brand of flat screen TV that has withstood Pax Davis. We set to work quickly, aware that what we’re about to do will create a lot of noise. There will be severe consequences if we’re caught in here tonight. We probably wouldn’t be expelled, but life would be far less accommodating for us, that’s for sure. Our parents would be called. Fact. We’d be in detention until graduation. Fact. And we’d never be allowed to fraternize with people after school hours or on the weekends. Fact. We’d be confined to the house. Fact. Could be that they actually force us to move out of the house and back into the main building so they can keep an eye on us.
None of these outcomes are acceptable, which leaves us with just one option.
Don’t get caught.
I have first swing of the axe. The weight of it feels so right. It sings, whistling as it cuts through the air, and the loudcrack!that follows is stupendously satisfying. I feel thatcrack!everywhere all at once, my teeth clacking together, and I stagger back, staring at the giant hole I’ve just created in Wesley Fitzpatrick’s antique mahogany desk. Splinters stick up at all angles; smaller shards of wood rain down in the air, landing on the sleeves and the hoods of the black hoodies we wore on our early morning adventure.
I pull back the axe, swing it over my shoulder and bring it crashing down on the desk again. And again. And again. I swing the axe until my arms are killing me, boneless as noodles, and I can’t lift the thing over my head anymore.
Damn. The desk is in pieces. It looks like the freaking thing spontaneously exploded. “Dude,” Pax says. “That was fucking awesome.”
It really was. Normally, I only feel this alive when I have an illegal substance chasing through my veins.
“Did you imagine that was his face?” Pax asks.
“Something like that.” Who am I kidding? It wasexactlylike that. The prick tried to humiliate me in front of the class. He talked to me like I was a little bitch. Ever since my father packed me off to Wolf Hall, Fitz has mocked me because of my title. And he is playing a dangerous fucking game with my friend. If I had a looser grip on my sanity, the deskwouldhave been the motherfucker’s face.
Pax takes the axe out of my hands, grinning like the black-hearted fiend that he is. “My turn.”
“That was crazy loud.”
“Don’t worry,” he assures me. “This won’t take long.”
The white board gets it first. Pax destroys it with four powerful swings of the axe. The desk where Damiana sits goes next. A sofa. A shelf. Books cascade to the floor, loose sheets of paper fluttering free from their bindings. The chaos, and the destruction, and the madness…this is what I was fucking built for. I’ve been repressed by my mother, repressed by my father, repressed by the weight of the responsibility sitting on my shoulders. Repressed by this school. Repressed by Fitz. But this…this is who I truly am.
Pax and I have this one thing in common.
We were born to break things.
Beneath the stays of an impossibly strict childhood, I’ve always been a one-man wrecking crew. I’ve just never been able to wreck—
Pax freezes, the axe held high over his head. He looks back at me, eyes shining like pools of mercury from the depths of his hood. “What the fuck was that?” he hisses.
“What the fuck was what?”
A loud slam echoes out in the corridor, followed by the sound of boots hitting the polished marble floor. “That!” My roommate brings the axe crashing down one last time, and the blade embeds itself in the ruins of Fitz’s desk. We leave it there, the handle sticking up in the air like a middle fucking finger, and we bolt out of the den.
A pillar of light knifes through the darkness, back the way we came. Hugh Paulson’s voice bounces off the walls. “You little fuckers! Stop right there!”
“Split up!” Pax shoves me toward the western wing of the building. He takes the east. Neither of us hang around to debate whether this is a good idea. Hugh’s in his fifties and he sleeps a lot, but he’s in pretty good shape. Hesitation isn’t an option. We pause a second too long and one of us is getting caught.
My heart has never beat this fast before.
Behind me, Pax whoops at the top of his lungs as he bolts toward the dining hall. The unbelievable expletives that he’s yelling fade as I hit the stairs to the left and I take them four at a time, flying up to the second floor.
“Stop! Motherfucker!” Hugh roars. “Wait ’til I get my hands on you, ya little—” I can’t tell if he’s coming after me or Pax, but I don’t hang around to find out. I’m running. I’m running so fast, my feet, and my heart, and my brain have no hope of keeping up with me. I move on instinct. It’s instinct alone that has me screeching to a halt, reaching for a door handle, turning it, and tumbling into the room beyond.
Darkness.
But only for a second.
