Page 111 of Riot Rules
I immediately unlock the phone and call her, holding the handset to my ear. The line connects, rings once, and then drops. I can’t even get it to connect when I try her again.
Whatcaves?Caves on the mountain? What thefuckis she talking about?
This could be another one of Mercy’s cries for attention, but Wren’s sister isn’t known for her brevity. If this was an attention seeking text, wouldn’t she have used more words? Helpful fucking words that might have actually told me what’s going on, or where she wants me to go?
I have no choice but to treat this as a real cry for help. Working out how to provide that help is going to be difficult. I can’t even bring up a satellite map of—wait! WAIT! Can I bring up a satellite map? I might not have reliable internet out here, but I’ve opened maps a thousand times back at the house where the WIFI’s stellar. Will my phone have saved the data? Will it open on the mountain?
YES!
The app opens, and the blue dot, demarcating my last location at the househasbeen saved. It’s a fucking miracle. It’s the street view, though. Roads and services marked on a plain white background. No details pertaining to the landscape itself. I’ll only get that once I hit the ‘satellite’ option, and there’s a chance…there’s a chance…
Thank fuck! I don’t lose the data. A sea of green populates the screen on my cellphone, interrupted by the grey slate roof of Riot House, seen from above. How much of the landscape has the app saved? How much of the mountain will I have to scour?
I get all the way up to the academy on the map before the image turns to pixelated, blank space. I swipe over every square inch of the map, pinching and zooming, trying to find anything that looks even faintly cave-like…but there’s nothing.
“Goddamnit!”
Massive waste of time.
I shove my phone into my back pocket and continue heading north, up the mountain, because I have to headsomewhere. Every hundred feet or so, I check for signal, but the bar never reappears.
Where the fuck are these caves!
A sick, oily sensation writhes like a snake in the pit of my stomach. I can’t put my finger on it, but something about this feels off. Wrong, somehow. I need to find Mercy. That single statement repeats in my head, jumping and skipping like a scratched record…
You have to find Mercy. Youhaveto.
It feels like something truly terrible will happen if I don’t, and I’m not ready to unpack this overpowering sense of foreboding just yet. Another minute ticks by, and then another ten. And then, up ahead, there’s a pale flash of white amongst the trees. “HEY!” I holler at the top of my lungs. “Hold on! Who’s up there?”
No response.
I quicken my pace, hurrying toward the patch of forest where I saw the glimpse of white and the movement. I don’t see the source of the disturbance amidst the trees until I’m almost right on top of it. Which means I don’t see the knife until it’s too late, either.
“rrraaaaAAAAAAAGHHH!”
A bright, dazzling explosion goes off in my skull. I drop down to one knee, reeling, trying to get away from the pain, but it follows me. There’s no escaping it.
Above me…deranged laughter. “Oh, this is just too good. I got to take care of one annoyance, and now I get to dispose of another? Y’know, I’ve never believed in manifestation before, but—” A hand grabs at my hair, wrenching my head back. Towering over me, Doctor Fitzpatrick is shirtless and covered in blood. There’s a truly demented look on his face that sets alarm bells ringing in my head. “I’ve recently discovered that, if you ask the universe for something andreallybelieve it’ll happen, then guess what? It fucking does!”
I dive to the right, wrestling myself free of his hold, just in time to avoid a right hook aimed at my jaw. “Fitz!What the fuck!”
“What the fuck! What the fuck!” he parrots. “I never could understand why Wren chose to surround himself with such idiots. You and Pax are like…” His mouth turns down into a frown. “Like fucking lemmings, following him around, basking in his intellect and his looks—”
“Steady now. He hears you talking about him like that and he’ll beunbearable.” The joke’s meant to distract him, but Fitz snarls like a rabid dog.
“You and that smart mouth of yours. You think you’re fucking untouchable. Smashing up the den with that neanderthal friend of yours. Backtalking and giving me shit during class. Hinting at things that were none of your fucking business. Well, you aren’t the only person at Wolf Hall who knew something they shouldn’t. Like Little Miss Mendoza? You did a great job hiding that, didn’t you, fuckhead. The whole school—” He abruptly stops talking, his eyes rolling back into his head.
Whoa.
He staggers sideways, steadying himself against a tree.
What the fuck is wrong with him?
I see the blood trickling down the side of his face and along his jawline, then. The matted section of hair on the side of his head, shining wet and black in the moonlight. Did Mercy take a stiletto to the fucker’s head? I wouldn’t put it past her. If thatisthe case, then I’m sorry I missed it.
“Is this because no one invited you to the party this time, Fitz? ’Cause we voted on it, y’know, and all three of us decided that it was a hard pass.” I shouldn’t antagonize him, but it’s hard not to when he’s been such a grade A motherfucker since the day I met him. There are very few people I hate in this world. I’d go so far as to say there are onlytwopeople that have earned that title, and Doctor Wesley Fitzpatrick is one of them.
He laughs again, and the wet rasping sound of it makes my skin break out in goosebumps. “You just don’t know when to stop, do you? There’s just nooffswitch. Well, don’t worry, Lord Lovett. I’m good at finding people’s off switches. Let’s see if I can’t find yours.”
