RIOT HOUSE (Crooked Sinners #1) - Callie Hart Page 0,152

rips up and out of my throat. “This isn't what I think it is. Right. What is it then, Wren? Just some shit a dumb party girl made up about you?” I fist a handful of the loose pages that have fallen out of Mara's journal, screwing them up in my fist. “This is some pretty fucked up shit, Wren. It reads like you hurt her. It reads like you're the reason why she went missing. Are you gonna tell me that you had nothing to do with that?”

The calm facade he's been maintaining up until now slips. “Are you seriously asking me that? Jesus Christ, E. You think I killed Mara?”

“There are too many coincidences here, little things that all tie back to you. Only an insane person wouldn't put two and two together.”

“Elodie.” He sucks his bottom lip into his mouth, his green eyes—eyes that have been soft for me lately—turn to ice-cold flint. “You have no clue what you're talking about. None at all.”

“Then enlighten me, because I'm terrified right now. I'm starting to freak out over here because there's a strong chance that I might have fallen in love with a murderer.”

His jaw hardens. He’s clenching so tightly that I see the tension of it all the way up in his temples. “You really think that? You really think I’d do that?”

I look down at all of Mara’s journal entries, strewn around on the floor like forgotten pieces of the past, cries for help, and I don’t know what to think anymore. “I don’t…know.”

In the split second it takes me to look back up at him, Wren turns his back, and he leaves. Panic whips around inside me like a cyclone as I hurry back to my room. My heart won’t stop thundering away. Once I’ve closed the door and I’m sure I’m alone, I hurry over to the windowsill and I pull up the piece of wood that conceals Mara’s secret hidey hole. The day Mercy unveiled this spot and I pulled Mara’s journal out of it Carina didn’t see the black box inside with the cherry blossoms painted on it. Or the bundled sweater. My hands shake like crazy as I reach down and take out both items, laying them down on the end of my bed.

I inspect the sweater first. It’s a Wolf Hall Academy sweater, navy blue with gold lettering across the front. I’ve seen plenty of students wearing them in the halls. It’s only when I look inside the sweater and see the two small letters inked into the label that my heart officially shatters.

W. J.

Wren Jacobi.

I’m frozen all the way down to my core when I open up the black lacquered box and I pull out a handful of black feathers.

39

ELODIE

I make it through the next day somehow. I respond to Carina when she speaks to me, but all I see in the back of my mind is her standing with Dashiell outside the gazebo, holding her cardigan tight around her body, talking about whatever happened to Mara, and her worry that it might happen to me, too. She mopes and she complains about Andre, and I make all of the appropriate noises. I pretend as though I’m listening, and I stumble from one class to the next, wondering what the fuck I’m supposed to do now.

I’m destroyed.

I don’t see Wren. I don’t see any of the Riot House boys. All three of them are notably missing from Wolf Hall, though no one seems to notice their absence. They’re preparing for the party tonight, I’m sure. Though why none of the faculty have made any sort of comment about their truancy is a goddamn mystery.

I’m in my French class, the last lesson of the day when Dean Harcourt comes to find me. She’s wearing a look of grim determination on her face as she walks me down the hallway to her office. When she’s situated behind her desk and I’ve sat myself down opposite her, she clears her throat and gives me the news I’ve been waiting to hear ever since Wren told me about his trip to Tel Aviv.

“Elodie, I’m afraid I have some bad news. It would seem that…” She doesn’t know where to look. “Your father was involved in some kind of accident, Elodie. He was out at a bar in Tel Aviv, and three men jumped him. They assaulted him in an alley and beat him pretty severely. I know this must come as a shock