Page 19 of Riot Rules
Doesn’t seem like I’m going to get that lucky, though.
Mara rubs a finger over her mouth, smearing her favoriteKiss Me, Kill Megloss over her lips. She pouts, puckers up, and blows a kiss at Wren. I’d say I can’t believe she’s done it, but thisisMara we’re talking about. She’s a shameless flirt, even when the boy she’s interested in is a goddamn pit viper. Wren might see her over-the-top little display. He might not. It’s tough to tell with the blank, unimpressed expression he wears at all times. No matter what, the guy looks permanently pissed.
I’ll tell you whodoessee the air-kiss, though.
“Miss Bancroft. I’m not sure what you hope to accomplish with displays like that, but you’re better off pursuing a more intelligent suitor. The one you picked out is defective, I think.”
Wren turns a glare so icy and cold onto the teacher that it could put out the goddamn sun. So, he did see the kiss. If he knows Fitz is talking about him, then he must have done. “I’m far from defective, Doc. One can only imagine that she was hoping to garner my attention. In which case…” He looks back over at us, running his tongue over his bottom lip. “She has it.”
The class erupts into a chorus of shouts so loud and boisterous that Doctor Fitzpatrick has to pound his fist against the white board to get everyone to settle down.
“Alright, alright, you little miscreants. Let’s settle in and learn something before I puke all over myself. Please turn to page eighty-three in your books. Carina, since you’re blushing so prettily over there, you can start us off by reading the first paragraph.”
I’m staring at Dashiell, the way I’ve been staring at Dashiell for the past year. Only this time, there’s a difference. This time, he’s staring back.
“Miss Mendoza?”
Mara elbows me in the side, and I nearly slide right off the couch. “Huh?”
“Page eighty-three. First paragraph. You’re up,” my friend hisses.
Ahhhh, shit. I haven’t even taken the book out of my bag. Mara thrusts hers at me, her eyes wide, her eyebrows hiking up her forehead. “Read, weirdo.”
Her battered copy ofThe Count of Monte Cristopromises to fall apart in my hands as I crack it open and find the correct page. Silence fills the room, brimming over with boredom, and anticipation, and embarrassment, as I clear my throat and begin to read. “He decided it was human hatred and not divine vengeance that had plunged him into this abyss. He doomed these unknown men to every torment that his inflamed imagination could devise while still considering that the most frightful were too mild, and, above all, too brief for them: torture was followed by death, and death brought, if not repose, then at least an insensibility that resembled it.”
“Damn!” Doctor Fitz declares from the front of the room. “Thank you, Carrie. Nicely done. So what, guys? What’s Edmond coming to realize here?”
Crickets.
Fitz groans, letting his head fall back. “It’s right there, people. On the page. In plain English. Come on. Someone. Anyone. Just say the words.”
It’s Mara that offers up the answer. “He’s saying that, after everything his captors did to him, even killing them wasn’t enough to satisfy him,” she offers. “And that he started out his quest believing it to be just and righteous. That he was doling out vengeance for the crimes they’d committed against him. But in the thick of it, he realized that his actions weren’t righteous or just. He was driven by pure hatred. And that’s something else entirely.”
Doctor Fitzpatrick clicks the top of the pen he’s holding in his hand, all the while staring at Mara. “That’s right, Miss Bancroft. Sometimes a man becomes so enraged by the crimes others commit against him that his fury drives him to do the most wicked things. Even to kill. What do you think? Do you think Edmond was justified in his actions? Do you think those who sinned against him deserved to die?”
Mara answers without hesitation. “Absolutely. Those fuckersstolefrom Edmond. They robbed him of so much. If someone did that to me, I’d want to destroy the bastards, too.”
The doc smiles softly. “Any way you could?”
She nods. “Any way I could.”
The pen clicks in his hand again. And again. Then the teacher’s smiling, casting a conspiratorial glance around the room at the rest of his students. “Well. Don’t tell anyone this guys, we teachers and lecturers are supposed to be a little more reserved in our judgements and we’re definitely not supposed to condone murder in anyway, but I happen to agree with Edmond. And Miss Bancroft. If someone robbed me the way Edmond’s jailors robbed him, I’d end them without a second thought. If someonetooksomething from me—”
A hard rap at the door stops him in his tracks. Doctor Fitzpatrick sighs heavily. He points at the room, arm swinging left to right. “Which one of you shitheads has been misbehaving now? Own up and I’ll do what I can to save you.”
The class laughs, because he’s right—someone must have done something. Fitz’s classes are only ever disrupted if Principal Harcourt needs to see a student in her office right away. No one sticks their hand up to confesses to anything, though. No surprises there. Fitz answers the knock, surprise forcing him back a step when he sees that it’s Principal Harcourt herself standing in the doorway. Her mousy brown hair is pulled back into a tight chignon. As always, she’s dressed in a plain black pant suit. Her shirt is white today, the collar stiff and high, buttoned up right underneath her chin. She’s only forty or so, but the way she dresses, speaks, and holds herself makes her seem like she’s in her late sixties.
Blinking owlishly, she removes her glasses from the end of her nose and holds them anxiously in both hands, as if she might snap them in two. “Apologies for the intrusion, Doctor Fitzpatrick. I’m afraid I’ve just had a disturbing phone call from someone in town. I need a moment with the class, if that’s alright with you.”
It’s not a question. She sounds timid and quavering, but there’s a different kind of tremor to her voice, too: she’s boiling mad. Doctor Fitz recognizes her mood and steps back, gesturing for her to enter. “Of course. Please, be my guest.”
The Principal clips into the room on her kitten heels and stands at the front of the class, face sallow and pinched. “I won’t beat around the bush. I’ll get right to it. And I’m going to have to ask you to excuse some of the language I’m about to use, but there’s no other way of discussing this with you. Believe me. I sat in my office for the past thirty minutes and tried to figure out a way to do it, and there wasn’t one, so…” She puffs out her cheeks, shaking her head. “I’m sure you’re all aware that there was a party in Mountain Lakes last Friday night. A house party. At one of the Edmondson boys’ places. Firstly, I have always encouraged Wolf Hall students to be courteous and polite to Edmondson High students when you cross paths with them. It serves no one if there’s rivalry or animosity between our schools. But I’ve also been very clear that the Wolf Hall academy board, along with your parents, feel that fraternizing with Edmondson students is ill-advised. Your parents pay a lot of money for the excellent education you receive here at Wolf Hall. You’re from well-respected families with reputations to uphold. And while we certainly do not encourage bigotry at Wolf Hall, Edmondson High is a public school, and its students are…well…” She gropes for an appropriate word. Doesn’t find it. “Anyway. You all know what I’m trying to say. Yes, life here at Wolf Hall may feel stifling at times, but you must always remember to comport yourselves with dignity and decorum. Attending a‘rager’at some teenager’s house out in the boonies is not the kind of behavior we’d expect from fine young men and women such as yourselves.”
Hah. This woman does not know any of us at all.
“Now, the reason I’ve had to come in here this morning is because the father of the boy who threw the party claims that two of our male students found the boy’s mother upstairs at the party, a little, ah, inebriated—”
“Oh my god. That kid’smomwas at the party? So messed up,” Mara whispers.
