Page 33 of Riot Rules
Through the reference stacks, past the Biology section, and around the corner where the AV section is located, the table is shoved into a dark corner of the library. This is where Principal Harcourt assumed ill-behaved students would best serve out their punishment without disturbing anyone. She didn’t consider the fact that no one can actually see what’s going on back here, or that Mr. Joplin (no relation to Janice—we’ve asked) literallyneverstays with the kids he’s supposed to be watching over. This is, without a shadow of a doubt, the worst spot in the entire library that they could have put the detention table. This Wolf Hall faculty oversight works in my favor this afternoon, though.
Dashiell’s back is to me. His head bobs up and down to a beat that only he can hear; I see the small white AirPods in his ears—strictly prohibited—as I approach the table, breathing a sigh of relief that he can’t hear my approach. My heart’s beating so hard that he must feel the thunder of it shaking the ground beneath his feet, though. I’ve really got to get a handle on the insane physical reaction he triggers in me—I can’t have myself falling to pieces every time I’m within twenty feet of the guy.
I’m almost at the table.
Oh, fuck, I’m almost at the table. What the hell am I going to say? What the hell ishegoing to say?I’m so nervous that I almost spin around and march back the way I came, but I steel myself at the last second, forcing myself forward. I dump my bag on the table next to Dash’s open Math textbook, and then I pull out a chair and sit myself down before I have a moment of anxiety and flee.
Annoyingly, Dashiell doesn’t even look up from the book. He goes rigid, staring fixedly at the table, eyelids wide and unblinking. He waits for a second, sighs wearily, and then commences to ignore me and carry on with his reading.
“We’re not doing this, Dash. Look at me.”
He doesn’t.
Asshole.
“Dash, take the damn headphones out. I need t—” My impatience gets the better of me. I reach over and yank the AirPod out of his right ear. The look he gives me when he raises his head is cold enough to re-freeze the melting polar ice caps. Good for climate change. Not so great for my anxiety. “Give it back, Mendoza. These things only work if you have both of them.”
“I’m aware of that.” I close my hand around the AirPod, then slide my hand underneath the table. I don’t think he’d grab my wrist and prize my fingers open, but I’m not taking any chances. “Don’t worry. This’ll only take a minute, and then you can have it back. I need your undivided attention for a second.”
“Good luck with that. I’ve been struggling to focus evenhalfof my attention on anything since two thousand and ten.” As if to prove his point, he glances back at his book, wrinkling his nose. “Did you know that the Danes have no word for please? Weird, right? Begs the question, how would I ask you to leave me the hell alone right now if we, by some inexplicable twist of fate, found ourselves to be Danish.”
God, I am going to fuckingkillhim. “You are literally the most frustrating person I’ve ever come across, you know that? One second you have your tongue in my mouth, and the next—”
“That word is overused way too much.”
“What? What the hell are you—”
“Literally. The word ‘literally’ gets used in the most inappropriate ways.Oh my god, you arelid-er-allythe worst,” he pantomimes in his best valley girl accent. “Whoever they are, they aren’t the worst. Hitler was the worst. Or Stalin. Ninety percent of the time, there’s a way more accurate term that should be used. People are so hyperbolic—”
“I’m not being hyperbolic, Dash. Youareliterally the most frustrating person I’veevermet. Now shut your mouth.” He’s so stunned that he grants me my wish and his mouth snaps closed. I lean toward him across the corner of the table, trying to keep a steady hand on my anger. If I’m not careful, I’m going to wind up shouting in here and causing the exact kind of tomfoolery that’ll make Mrs. Lambeth blow steam from her ears. “I had a run-in with Wren Jacobi in the dining hall this afternoon.”
Dash sits up straight, his eyes narrowing. Well, well, well. Looks like I have at least eighty percent of his attention. That’ll suffice.
“He was acting really weird. He ignored Mara, but guess what? He had a bunch of questions forme. Strange. Can you think whythatmight be?” Alderman hates sarcasm. He says it’s the lowest form of wit. He’s tried to train me out of it over the years, but he hasn’t had much luck. If he were here right now, he’d roll his eyes so hard he’d pull a freaking muscle.
Dashiell closes his book and sits back in his seat. “What did he want to know?” Even, steady, and completely devoid of emotion: the question is calmly posed, but there’s something in Dash’s multifaceted eyes that tells me he’s experiencing plenty of emotion. His fingers twitch against the surface of the table.
“He wanted to know if my parents were in the military. He wanted to know where I come from.”
“And?Those are pretty normal questions. Here, anyway,” he adds. “Seventy-five percent of the students at the school come from military families. No one’s from Mountain Lakes. It’s not like he can do anything weird with that kind of information. Now, if he asked you if you had any life-threatening allergies…that might have been a little worrying.”
He has a point. Under normal circumstances, the questions Wren asked wouldn’t have been cause for concern. However, that’s not the case here, is it? My circumstances are not normal. Haven’t been normal since I fled Grove Hill. The very last thing I need is someone like Wren Jacobi sticking his nose into my business. “Look. I’m a private person, okay. I don’t want everybody knowing everything about me. It’s—it’s just not who I am. If you could tell him to just mind his own business—”
“If you wanna keep your shit private, the last thing you should ask me to do is tell Jacobi to back off. That’s like waving a red flag in front of a bull. A deranged bull that’s not quite right in the head. Y’know.Mentally.”
“Yeah, yeah, I already know he’s out of his goddamn mind. Please, Dash. I’m not joking, okay? If he’s planning on digging up dirt on me for you because he thinks he’s doing his duty as a good buddy or something, you need to set him straight. Tell him there’s nothing going on with us.”
Out of nowhere, Dash flares his nostrils and clenches his jaw, his eyes sparking with electricity. He leans toward me, baring his teeth. “Thereisnothing going on with us. Don’t you think I’ve told him that? Wren and Pax…they’re gonna do whatever they’re gonna do, Carina. We aren’t yanking on each other’s leashes, reining each other in. We get enough of that shit from our parents. It isn’t how our friendship works. Just don’t engage with Wren. He’ll be harmless once he’s figured out what he wants to know. He likes nothing better than figuring people out. You guys are like fascinating puzzle boxes to him. If you didn’t answer his questions, he’ll probably go and read your academic file. He’ll read about your parents and check out where you came from, and that’ll be the end of it.”
“You and I both know the words ‘harmless’ and ‘Wren Jacobi’ do not go hand-in-hand. Not when he’s got something in his head. He must want to know about my shit for a reason. Don’t you guys talk about this stuff? What does hewant?”
On the other side of the library, a loud crash disrupts the silence, followed by a strained, “thunderation!” I can picture the tall stack of books on Mrs. Lambert’s cart, wobbling, teetering, see-sawing, then crashing to the ground. I should go help the poor woman, but Dash will have Houdinied his way out of the library by the time I get back.
We just stare at each other. “He doesn’twantanything. He’s bored. If you don’t react, he’ll be even more bored, and then he’ll give up. That goes for Pax, too. If Pax does or says anything—”
I’m going to have a hand-on-heart, honest-to-goodness heart attack. “Who said anything aboutPax?Why isPaxinvolved now?”
Dash rolls his shirt sleeves up his arms, heaving out an irritated breath, and I have to catch myself. He showed me his track-free skin in my bedroom last night, when he stripped out of his clothes and stood there in his boxers. I was too distracted by his chest and his stomach to pay much attention to his forearms, but I can’t stop staring at them now. What’s fuckingwrongwith me? All this time, I’ve been so careful, been so diligent not to screw up and let anything slip, but Wren Jacobi’s about to uncover my biggest, most damning secret, and I’m sitting here marveling at Dash’sforearms?
