Page 105 of Riot Rules
“Yeah, the one you and Dash failed to burn properly at the gazebo.Wewere meeting there that night. Elodie found it in the grate and she read the whole damn thing. And now she thinks I had something to do with Mara’s disappearance. So, yeah. Thanks for that.”
“How was Isupposed to know it was intact?”
“Look. Stay out of shit that doesn’t concern you, Mendoza. If you see Elodie tonight, just make sure she doesn’t get caught up in the game, okay? I wanted to get as many people out of the house as I could, so things wouldn’t get crazy. I—”
“Oh hey, look! There she is!Carina!”
Wren and I look to the front door in unison, and…oh, fuck. Well, isn’t this just perfect? Right on time. Elodie’s just arrived with Pres, and, whoa…I hardly recognize her. I bought her some hair dye weeks ago, when she mentioned she hated being blonde, but I figured she’d tossed it out when she didn’t use it right away. Well, she’s used it now. In the dim lighting of the entryway, her long, thick waves look almost black. She’s absolutely stunning in the snow-white, flowing dress she’s wearing. Its bodice sparks and catches the light, studded with thousands of tiny little crystals—she looks like something out of a fairytale. When she catches Wren and me standing together, her face darkens like we’reboththe last people on Earth that she wants to see. Pres waves and starts to head toward us, but Elodie turns and bolts in the opposite direct.
“Goddamnit.”
“Carrie, let me—”
Yeah. Like I’m going to listen toWren. I cut through the crowd, trying to peer over the tops of people’s heads, but Elodie has disappeared.
Five minutes pass, and I curse and grumble, bullying my way back and forth across the house, searching everywhere I can think of for her. Another ten minutes. Where the hell did she go? Did she justleave?
“WREN JACOBI! Where the fuck are you!”
Oh great. Dressed in a Clockwork Orange costume with a bowler hat jammed on his shaved head, Pax stands at the foot of the stairs, with Dash standing beside him. Déjà vu hits hard, dragging me back to the night of the last party, when Wren announced the stupid challenge that he had everyone participate in. Looks like there’s going to be another one this time. They can’t be stupid enough to have bought more coke, though. They cannothave been that stupid.
“WREEEEEEEENNNNN! You’ve got three seconds, asshole! Show your ugly face!”
Wren appears a moment later, angrily moving through the press of bodies to the staircase, and Elodie is not that far behind him. He must have found her before I could.
Dash actually looks relieved, like he thought Wren might have bailed from the party altogether. “Students of Wolf Hall! The moment you’ve all been waiting for has arrived!”
Pax grins when he adds, “Ladies and gentlemen, may we present to you,the master of the hunt!”
The other partygoers all cheer and shout at the top of their lungs. Their excitement makes it really difficult to make my way across the packed space to get to Elodie. When I reach her, I’m nervous as hell. She found the journal, after I explicitly told her I was going to give it to the police. She’s mad at me, and she has every reason to be. I don’t blame her one bit. “Elodie, can I speak to you outside for a moment?”
She looks up at me, her expression ice-cold. “No.”
“Elle, please—”
Wren begins to speak. “You all know the deal. As master of the hunt, I call the shots tonight. And as always, we have a Riot House game that will either elevate your social standing for the rest of the academic year or leave you all in the gutter. Your fate rests entirely in your hands! Tonight’s game has been crafted to root out the smartest amongst you. In the forest surrounding Riot House, there are a series of red flags like this one.” He pauses, holding up a length of red fabric in the air for everybody to see. “There are a hundred of them hidden within a two-mile radius. Collect as many of them as you can and bring them back here to base. The person who manages to bring back the most flags wins a room in Riot House for the remainder of the school year, along with a fifty-thousand-dollar check with their name on it.”
What?
Holy hell breaks loose. Everywhere I look, people trade stunned glances and excited words. The winner will move into Riot House? And fifty grand?
I guess the money Wren saved on copious amounts of narcotics had to go somewhere. There is no way folks weren’t going to participate in the game with that kind of money up for grabs, but moving into the house? That’s the real prize here and everyone knows it.
“The person who collects the fewest flags, however…”
Everyone falls silent.
“…will become a Riot House shit-kicker until graduation. You’ll cook for us. You’ll clean for us. You’ll be the lowest of the low. The choice is yours. Live here, unchecked, unbound by pointless, stupid rules, or become our whipping boy. You don’t have to play, but if you do…there will be consequences.”
“Well that’s new. Last year…” Wait. I shouldnotfinish the sentence.
Elodie regards me sharply, though. “Last year what, Carina? What was the game last year?”
“Last year, everyone had to fuck as many people as they could before the end of the party. These things always involve sex. This is the first time…”
Disappointment chases across Elodie’s face. She turns away from me, and my heart plummets in my chest. This is such a fucking mess. I have no idea how I’m going to fix any of this, but I have to try.
“You have until three a.m.,” Wren shouts. “Until then, happy hunting. And be warned. There will bewolvesout tonight, hunting downtheirprey.” He picks something up from his feet—a lifelike wolf’s head, the creature’s lips peeled back in a snarl, its muzzle creased, its awful, blood-coated teeth exposed. It’s so convincing that for a second I think it’s the mutilated head of one of the animals I saw running down by the cemetery last year. But then Wren pulls it onto his head, the latex stretching over his head, and no…it’s just a mask.
