Page 106 of Riot Rules
“God. Looks like I was wrong,” I say, cringing.
“Wrong about what?”
Wolf Hall’s a private academy, but this is still high school. There’s a food chain here, just like everywhere else, and we’re at the top of it. We are a predatory species, Carrie, and you are our prey. We pursue you. We fuck you. We move on. Those are the terms in which we think of the female student body here. You’d do well to remember that.
“When a Riot House boy talks about hunting down prey, Elodie, they’re mostdefinitelytalking about sex,” I say.
“Lord, I can’t deal with this shit anymore. I’m out. I’m going back to my room.” Elodie bolts for the door, but unfortunately everyone else is trying to leave at the same time, to head out into the night, to play the game, and we’re separated in the crush. It’s a miracle, but I locate her just as she’s turning right out of Riot House’s dirt driveway, onto the road that leads back up to the academy.
“Slow down, Elodie.”
She doesn’t. I can tell she needs some time to calm down, so I give it to her, keeping quiet for as long as I can, but after a while I have to say something. I can’t keep staring at her back, stumbling after her in the dark, waiting for her to speak. “I can keep up with you, y’know. Doesn’t matter how fast you walk. I’m not going anywhere.”
“I really wish you would.”
“Elodie, come on, now. Please. You’re not being very fair.”
“FAIR?” She spins around so fast she nearly loses her balance. “You don’t get to pull the‘you’re not being very fair’card on me, Carina Mendoza. I thought you were my friend, and you’ve been hiding things and keeping secrets from me this entire time. You swore you were gonna take that journal to the cops. You didn’t even tell me anything about Mara in the first place. You said you weren’t gonna come here tonight. And, surprise surprise, what did you do?”
Alright. She has a point there. I shouldn’t have accused her of being unfair. She’s hardly innocent here, though. “You didn’t tell me you were seeing Wren.”
Remorse flickers in her eyes. “Yeah. I know that was shitty, but I didn’t feel like Icouldtell you. There was no reason for you to keep me in the dark about Mara, though, was there?”
I’m about to explain the situation with Fitz, composing what I’ll say in my head as best I can, when out of nowhere, a bloodcurdling screech tears through the night air.
Elodie wraps her arms around herself, shivering. “Why would anyone run out there into the forest with no fucking lights. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Cabin fever’s a very real thing, Elle. You’ve only been at the academy for a couple of months but try living here for a few years. You start to go a little stir crazy. You don’t get it. If you’re a student at Wolf Hall, the guys from Riot House are a big deal. They set the tone for the entire year. If you’re a guy, you wanna be them. If you’re a girl, you wanna date them. That’s the way it’s always been. So when they pull stupid shit like this, everyone’s always tripping over themselves to join in.”
“Is that what happened the night Mara disappeared? She was trying to join in whatever dumb game they were playing?”
“Yes.” In a way, that’s exactly what Mara was doing. Buying into Riot House bullshit. Definitely caught up in Riot House bullshit.
“So what? I’m supposed to just traipse right on in there and make a fool of myself like everyone else? Is that what they expect?”
“Pax and Dashiell, probably. Not Wren. I was talking to him before you showed up and he wanted you as far away from this thing as possible, Elle. It’s good that you’re going back to the academy, okay?”
It would be best for usbothif we went back to the academy. The thought of going back to Riot House and running into Dash again is so painful that I don’t even know what I’ll do if I have to go back there and bear it. I won’t be able to, and that’s a fact.
From the way Elodie looks at me, hard and defiant, I get the feeling I’m not going to like the next words that come out of her mouth. “You know what, Carina? Maybe I will just join in this stupid game. That way there won’t be any more secrets. I’ll know if he sleeps with half the academy. I’ll know exactly what went on, and no one will be able to hide anything from me anymore!”
“Elodie! What the hell are you doi—wait! Elle, you can’tseeanything!” Oh my god. She’s not listening to me. She steps right off the road and marches into the trees, and the undergrowth, and the pitch black. I have no choice but to go after her. “This is nuts. What’s the point in any of this? Who cares what Wren does or doesn’t do?”
“Me.Ido. He made me fall in love with him and nowIfucking care. It’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.”
I’m not proud of it, but I let my frustration gets the better of me. “Then just stop!”
Elodie laughs. “Oh, yeah. Of course. Like you stopped loving Dashiell? It’s that simple, isn’t it? Just a flip of a switch? I saw how you looked at him outside the gazebo the other night.”
She didn’t just find the journal in the gazebo, then. She heard the conversation I had with Dash, too. Shame and hot, metallic embarrassment flood my tongue. “Okay, okay. Slow down a little, will you? Thank god I wore flats. How the hell do you even know where you’re going?”
She stabs a finger up at the sky, refusing to do anything of the sort. “I know how to read the stars. Good Ol’ Colonel Stillwater taught me, amongstsoooooomany other things. Who knew that one would come in handy. We’re heading south-west. If I want to head back to the road, it’ll be easy. Now either keep quiet or head back to Wolf Hall. Either way, I’m done talking.”
Wow. An unexpected ache explodes in my chest. Elodie and I have never talked about the stars before. I had no idea that she had an interest in astronomy. Ishouldknow that about her. We have that in common. Maybe I would have been able to reclaim my own passion for the stars if I’d had someone like Elodie to share it with. It dawns on me, as I stumble after her through the dark, that I’ve been keeping her at a distance. I’ve been a fool. Dashiell broke me. Mara abandoned me. I’ve been so scared of being hurt by another person that I haven’t allowed myself to trust Elodie the way she deserved to be trusted…and that is totally on me.
I stew on this, berating myself as Elodie stomps onward, heading in one direction and then changing her mind, heading in another. About forty minutes after we headed into the forest, I step on a rock I think is wedged in the ground, but it rolls, taking my ankle with it. The pain is sharp and lances all the way from my ankle up into my knee.
For fuck’s sake. This is madness. We need to head back to Wolf Hall now, before one of us getsreallyhurt.
