Page 69 of Riot Rules
Thankfully, most people have already gone back down to Mountain Lakes or up to the academy. There’ll be a handful of people who need rounding up and herding out, but Riot House is mostly deserted. There’s broken glass everywhere I look. There’s also a bright red slash of color across the sectional couch, that could be blood but I’m hoping is wine. Cups, glasses, plates. Half gnawed-on slices of pizza, face-down on the marble. A used—urgh!—a used condomdiscarded on the fucking coffee table? What thefuckis wrong with people?
“Looks like you guys are gonna have some cleaning up to do.” Carina looks horrified as she spins around, taking in the destruction. “I could stay and help?”
God, she’s fucking perfect. Her color’s a little high. Bright splashes of red stain the apples of her cheeks. Her baby pink lip gloss is long gone—that vanished the moment we started making out—and now her lips are a natural ruby red, swollen and pouty from all of the attention I’ve given them. Her flowy black pants are fine, but the little black top she showed up in didn’t survive the night. She’s wearing one of my t-shirts, the material tied into a knot over her left hip, and she looks so hot I almost want to take her back upstairs and fuck her all over again.
I tuck her wild curls behind her ears, smirking at the fact that I can see her nipples through the shirt. We couldn’t evenfindher bra. “It’s okay. We have a cleaning crew booked for six a.m. Normally we go down toScreamin’ Beansfor breakfast while they clean the place, but I don’t think that’s on the cards this time. Wren’s out cold, and Pax…” I cast a look around. “Fuck knows whereheis. Probably off deflowering a virgin somewhere. Where areyourfriends?”
She takes her phone out of her purse and taps the screen, groaning when it doesn’t light up. “Dead. Oh,shit. Poor Pres was practically passed out when I left her in the kitchen. I hope Mara looked after her.”
“Mara doesn’t strike me as the Florence Nightingale type.”
“She’s not. And she was fighting with Mercy, too. I don’t think she was really focusing on Pres.”
Mara vs Mercy? Now there’s a fight I would have struggled to put odds on. “Last I heard, those two were thick as thieves.”
Carina gives me alook. “Well, they fell out over something. Mercy came over and told Fitz that Mara was screwing Wren, and—” She frowns. “How weird was that, by the way? Fitz was here. Just…showed up and started taking shots with us like it’s totally okay that he’s having sex with a student.”
I freeze, the hairs on the back of my neck prickling. “Mercy told himwhat?”
Carina looks at me blankly. “I mean, yeah. It’s fucked, I know. She played into what Mercy was saying because she liked how jealous Fitz got, but—”
“Shit.Fuck. Oh, god, this isn’t good.” I run my hands through my hair. “Wait. What exactly did Fitz say when Mercy told him Mara was fucking Wren?”
Alarm creeps onto her face. She doesn’t have a clue how bad this situation is yet, but my reaction must be tipping her off to some degree. “Uhh, I don’t know. Mara said she didn’t know they were exclusive or something, and Fitz agreed. He seemed calm, but he went really pale, and then he stalked off to the bathroom. That’s the last time I saw him before you showed up and we bailed. Dash, what the hell’s going on? Why do you look like you’re about to have a heart attack?”
Shiiiit.I clench my jaw. I haven’t said a word to Carrie about Wren’s extracurricular activities. I wanted to make sure she didn’t get dragged into this hot mess if it was avoidable, but now I’m not sure that I have a choice. Wren’s still passed out at my feet, looking ridiculous in his pink party hat, and for the first time ever I want to throttle the bastard. He’s probably been loving the way Fitz and Mara have been vying for his attention. He thrives on chaos. Fuck, he’s thekingof chaos. And now it looks like things are about to blow up in his face.
Urgh, where do I even begin with this shit? Probably best to just come out and say it. There’s no sense in sugarcoating it. It’s going to sound bad, no matter how I phrase it.
I breathe deep and spit it out. “Mara hasn’t been fucking Wren, Carrie.Fitzhas.”
27
CARRIE
Fitz and Wren.Fitz and Wren?I keep turning the idea over in my head, and it makes no sense. Only…I guess it does explain the way Fitz reacted in the kitchen earlier. Just like everyone else, I’d thought he was jealous over Mara hooking up with another guy. I hadn’t even considered that he might have been jealous because of the other guy fucking Mara. What a goddamn mess—the three of them locked into this poisonous love triangle, and Wren smack dab in the middle of it.
Dash finds someone to help him carry his friend up to his room. I wait downstairs in the foyer, pacing up and down in front of the door with my shoes in my hand, wondering what kind of epic fallout will arise from this fucked up situation. Whatever happens, it isn’t going to be good.
Eventually Dash jogs down the stairs with a set of keys in his hand. “Come on. I’ll drive you up.”
At first, I think he’s ‘borrowed’ the keys to Pax’s Charger. I’ve never seen any of them in a car besides the Charger, so I’m shocked when Dash leads me around the back of Riot House and there’s a large detached garage set back into the trees.
It’s warm by New Hampshire standards, but it’s still pre-dawn. I wrap my arms around myself, shivering while he reverses a black Mercedes SUV out of the garage. It’s only when Dash has turned the car and pulled it up alongside me that I can see it’s a Maybach. Christ. That’s a hundred and fifty thousand dollars’ worth of car right there. I only know because Alderman’s always going on about buying one.
I go to get in, but Dash races to get to the door handle before I can. “I might be a piece of shit, but at least let me pretend to be a gentleman.” He kisses me swiftly on the temple as he bundles me protectively into the front seat.
“I had no idea you evenhada car,” I tell him, as he pulls away from the house.
He scowls. “I hate it. My father had it delivered on my last birthday. I’ve driven it three times. Ever.”
I check out the odometer and laugh out loud at the figure displayed on the dial. Fifteen. There arefifteenmiles on the clock. My old Firebird’s approaching the one-hundred-and-twenty-thousand-mile mark.
The drive up the mountain is short. It takes three minutes to wind our way up the switchback road. Before I know it, Wolf Hall materializes out of the dawn gloom like an abandoned ghost ship, floating on a sea of fog.
Dash pulls the car up in front of the academy’s entrance, leaving the engine idling. He kisses me again, and this time the contact between us is deep, and gentle, andmeanssomething. “Text me when your phone’s back on,” he whispers. “Let me know you’re okay.”
I laugh. “I doubt anything’s going to happen to me between here and my bedroom.”
