RIOT HOUSE (Crooked Sinners #1) - Callie Hart Page 0,112

love to be able to pin something on them, but they were inside the house all night. The three of them. I saw them with my own eyes. Dashiell…” she winces. “Dashiell was with me. All of us were in the kitchen, playing drinking games. We were all so fucked, none of us left the house until the next morning. Wren passed out in front of the fireplace and slept there ‘til dawn. Pax was making cocktails all night. Whatever happened to Mara…it had nothing to do with them.”

I parse this inside my head, letting it take root. Wren wasn’t involved in the girl’s mysterious vanishing act. He’s innocent of any possible crime that took place that night. “Okay. Well. Fine. I suppose that’s an end to it, then.”

Carina gives me a relieved smile. “Great. You’re the best, Elle. Anyone ever told you that?”

“All the time.” I smile tightly, but no matter how hard I force it, I know it doesn’t reach my eyes. I watch as she puts the journal into the backpack full of beauty products she brought with her to my room, zipping the bag up tight once the book’s hidden out of sight.

“I’m done with the braids,” she says. “You want me to give you a manicure? I have a gel light. I can do a proper job.”

I register the stiffness in her voice; she’s trying hard to wipe away the memory of what just happened, but it’s going to take more than a gel manicure to erase this awkwardness. If she was one of my friends back in Tel Aviv, I’d call her out on her shit immediately and demand to know what the fuck was going on. That kind of pushing isn’t appropriate here, though. Best just to forget about the journal, and Mercy’s obvious meddling. Best just to forget about Mara, and the dark cloud that I can now feel hanging over the academy.

I replace the piece of wood, forming the windowsill again, and I amp up the wattage on my smile, trying to make it look real this time. “Sure thing. But only if you promise not to paint my nails bright yellow.”

In The Dark…

I am nameless.

Lost.

Forgotten.

The air feels like shards of glass, bristling inside my lungs.

My throat’s raw from screaming.

When the straw appears through the hole this time, I have no option but to drink.

I’m prolonging this torture by gulping down the tepid, foul water that flows through the plastic and into my mouth, but I’m not as strong as I thought I was.

If I die, it’ll be because I was trapped here, and no one thought to come looking.

But I’m too weak to give up yet.

25

WREN

“I don’t give a shit, fuck face. I bought a bowler hat and I need to wear it. End of story.” Pax throws back the remains of his beer and tosses the bottle so that it spins in the air, spraying amber liquid from its mouth as it flies end over end toward the trash can. Dashiell visually reprimands him with a trademarked Lovett family frown of disapproval. Pax ignores the look, smirking like a bastard when the bottle finds it mark and clatters loudly into the receptacle on the other side of the kitchen.

“Alex has hair in A Clockwork Orange. You’re gonna look nothing like him.” Holding his own beer bottle to his lips, Dashiell drinks, his throat working. I sit on the stool by the breakfast bar, saying nothing, brooding, glowering at each of them in turn to make it perfectly clear how little I’m enjoying this.

“Oh, ye of little imagination. If I can get a bowler hat, you don’t think I can find a fucking wig?”

“It’s ‘Oh ye of little faith,’ you heathen. And all I’m saying is, costume parties are for kids. And Halloween. At no other time should people on the verge of adulthood voluntarily want to play dress up.”

“Come on. Don’t be a prick. Girls always wear the sluttiest outfit they can find at a costume party. Aren’t you jonesing for a little T & A? It must have been, what, five years since you got your dick sucked?”

“Funny.” Dash grins sourly at him. “Wren, we’re at odds here. You have the deciding vote, mate. What do you say? Should we have an adult party, where the attendees can wear their normal clothes like big boys and girls, or should we have an infantile fancy dress party?”

I glance up from the laptop screen in front of me, waiting for