RIOT HOUSE (Crooked Sinners #1) - Callie Hart Page 0,158
and gentlemen, may we present to you, the master of the hunt!”
A deafening furor breaks out as everyone in the foyer loses their goddamn minds.
42
ELODIE
I don’t cheer. I stand stiff as a statue, watching the insanity around me with stunned detachment. Fifteen feet to my right, Carina emerges from the living room, biting on her fingernails. She doesn’t seem as excited by what’s going on at the stairs like everyone else. She’s focused entirely on me.
“Elodie, can I speak to you outside for a moment?” she asks.
I look her up and down, recalling the way she’d sneered at Mercy when she’d told her that she wasn’t coming to this party. She’s lied to me more than once now, and I do not fucking like it. “No.”
“Elle, please—” She tries to take me by the hand, but I pull away.
Up on the stairs, Wren starts to speak. “You all know the deal. As master of the hunt, I call the shots tonight. And as always, we have a Riot House game that will either elevate your social standing for the rest of the academic year or leave you all in the gutter. Your fate rests entirely in your hands!” He sees me by the door and flinches. “Tonight’s game has been crafted to root out the smartest amongst you. In the forest surrounding Riot House, there are a series of red flags like this one.” He pulls a length of red material out of his back pocket, holding it up in the air. “There are a hundred of them hidden within a two-mile radius. Collect as many of them as you can and bring them back here to base. The person who manages to bring back the most flags wins a room in Riot House for the remainder of the school year, along with a fifty-thousand-dollar check with their name on it.”
A surprised gasp goes up amongst the crowd. The most surprising thing is the look on Dashiell and Pax’s faces. This was clearly not the prize they were expecting Wren to announce.
“The person who collects the fewest flags, however…”
A hush descends over the gathered flock of students.
“…will become a Riot House shit-kicker until graduation. You’ll cook for us. You’ll clean for us. You’ll be the lowest of the low. The choice is yours. Live here, unchecked, unbound by pointless, stupid rules, or become our whipping boy. You don’t have to play, but if you do…there will be consequences.”
“Well that’s new,” Carina breathes besides me. “Last year…” She trails off, looking uncomfortably down at her hands.
“Last year what, Carina? What was the game last year?”
She won’t meet my eye. Not that I expected her to. Her cheeks color bright red. “Last year, everyone had to fuck as many people as they could before the end of the party. These things always involve sex. This is the first time…”
She doesn’t get to finish her statement. I turn my back on her, disgusted by the implications of what she’s already told me, sick to my stomach and not wanting to hear the rest of it.
“You have until three a.m.,” Wren shouts over the renewed hubbub of noise. “Until then, happy hunting. And be warned. There will be wolves out tonight, hunting down their prey.”
Pax’s eyes flash murder. Dashiell’s face is unreadable. I don’t care about either of them, though. I only care about Wren, as he stoops down and picks something up from the step in front of him. The wolf’s mask is hideous—a contorted, snarling beast’s head that looks like something out of a nightmare. He slowly lowers it down over his face, and blood drips from the creature’s exposed teeth.
Carina makes a strangled sound. “God. Looks like I was wrong.”
“Wrong about what?”
She glares at Dashiell as he picks up a mask and places it over his head. “When a Riot House boy talks about hunting down prey, Elodie, they’re most definitely talking about sex.”
43
WREN
“Just what the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
My back hits the wall before I get a chance to respond. Pax is in my face, glowering with open rage. “You don’t get to invite people to live here without clearing it with us. What the hell, Jacobi? Where the fuck is this person supposed to sleep?”
I laugh, because his anger just looks plain stupid on him with his bowler hat cocked at such a jaunty angle. “They can have my room for all I fucking care. I’ll go sleep in the back room at Cosgroves’. No big deal.”