Page 40 of Riot Act
For a second, he looks like he’s going to come after me. I can see it flashing in his eyes—he’s contemplating grabbing hold of me and restraining me so that I can’t go anywhere. He has the sense to know how badly that will go, though. In the end, he throws his hands into the air, resigning. “Please be back before nine, Presley.Please. You’re gonna put me in an early grave if I have to come out looking for you.”
I need to forget.
I need to erase that house and everything that’s happened there.
If only.
It feels like I’m inhaling fine shards of glass when I breathe. It doesn’t seem so bad at first, but over time the pain begins to build, and build, and build, until suddenly to breathe at all is agony. At the hospital, the meds Dr. Raine kept shoveling down my throat did stop me from feeling so overwhelmed and terrified, but they also stopped me feeling anything at all. I was so sick of being numb that I quit taking them, which she reluctantly agreed to, but I’ll have to go back on them if I don’t handle my shit.
And I willnotbe able to handle my shit if I have to stay in that house.
I drive without thinking. I end up on the road that leads up to the academy, which is no surprise. I’m heading toward my friends. I couldn’t tell Carrie or Elodie what happened, so I haven’t seen either of them in over a week. They’ve been blowing up my phone and going crazy. It’s about time I showed my face and let them know I’m alive (without letting slip that I did nearly die). It’ll be nice to sit in Carrie’s massive room and lounge about with my friends.
Halfway up the mountain, I begin to brake, though. Incrementally, I slow the car. Then slow it some more. I’m not going to take the turn off. I’m really not. I’m only going tolookat Riot House as I pass. I see the large expanse of slate roof through the tree canopy on the right, and my pulse begins to sing.
I’m passing the house.
I’m passing it.
I—
I’m wrenching the steering wheel to the right, and the tires on Dad’s old Camry are squealing, and I am most definitely pulling off the mountain road and heading down the dirt track that leads to the house where Pax lives.
What the fuck am I doing? What the hell am I hoping to accomplish here? What the fuck, what the fuck, what theFUCK?I have to turn around and keep going up to the academy. I can’t, though, because the road is so narrow, trees pressing in on both sides, that I have to go forward until I reach the house if I want to turn around.
Naturally, it’s just my luck that when I emerge from the forest, entering the clearing in front of the house, Wren Jacobi is already out front, about to get into his car. He stops dead, staring at me through the windshield, obviously trying to figure out who’s just pulled up in front of his house.
My hands lock around the steering wheel. I have a choice to make. I can either make up some bullshit excuse about using their turnoff as a spot to turn around and head back down the mountain. Or…
Or.
I can be honest.
Jacobi used to terrify me almost as much as Pax did. I barely even register a flutter of nerves as he slams the car door and crosses the wood chipped driveway towards the driver’s side window of Dad’s vehicle. He’s far less scary to me now that I’ve seen how he is with Elodie. Any guy capable of loving another human being that much can’t be that terrible. And ever since I woke up on the concrete outside of the hospital, Pax leaning over me, soaked in my blood, I haven’t really been afraid of much.
He bends at the waist and smiles sinisterly at me through the window. “You gonna buzz this thing down or shall we conduct our business through the glass?” he asks.
I buzz it down.
“Greetings,” he says. There’s something gothic and dark about Wren that makes me think he’s a Victorian gentleman who slipped through time and is now doing his best to try and fit in with today’s youth. “I can onlyguesswhy you’d be rolling up here in the middle of the day while school isn’t in session.”
The whole statement sounds salacious as hell. The guy could read from the telephone book and make it sound dirty. Taking a deep breath, I decide I’m going to own my shit. No more hiding anymore, ever again. “I came to see Pax.”
He grins. “Of course you did. I didn’t know he’d told anyone about the surgery. He’s been going out of his mind, he’s so bored. I’m sure he’ll appreciate the distraction.”
I frown. “Surgery?”
“Yeah, the—” He laughs softly. “He didn’t tell you about the surgery. All right. Well. He’s in there, but he hasn’t been particularly friendly the past couple of days. Personally, I’d give the whole Pax Davis experience azero star, do not recommendrating. But who knows? Pigs might fly. He might be nicer to you than he has been to me and Dash. The door’s open.”
“Wait. You…you’re telling me togo inside?”
“You did just say you came to see him?”
“Yes?”
“You’ll need to go inside to do that. He’s still too fucked up to make it down the stairs by himself. Now, I’m gonna need you to move this very average car so I can leave. I don’t wanna be here when the fireworks start. Hope you know what you’re doing.”
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