RIOT HOUSE (Crooked Sinners #1) - Callie Hart Page 0,175

the other students, too.

Elodie laughs against my mouth. “Okay, you’ve proved your point. You’re fearless. I think they want us to stop now.”

I give her bottom lip a quick tug between my teeth before I let her go. “Lucky, Little E. Saved by your fellow classmates.”

“He—oh. Hello, class. Young man, if you wouldn’t mind putting down that poor girl, I’ll pretend that I didn’t see any of that.” At the front of the room, a woman in her early thirties hovers by the new chalkboard that’s been freshly installed in between the book cases. I twist around in my seat, slouching down into the sofa next to Elodie, earnestly pretending to study the ceiling. However, just like everyone else in the room, I study the interloper, scoping her out. She’s pretty. Sweet-looking, like she bakes on the weekend and feeds the birds outside her kitchen window. I catch Dashiell elbowing Pax in the ribs—a dig hard enough to knock the air right out of him—but Pax doesn’t even seem to notice. He’s staring at this new person like he’s just unveiled the face of God and he cannot look away.

The woman smiles, clears her throat, and takes us all in.

“Class, my name is Jarvis Reid. You can call me Jarvis. As you’ve probably surmised, I’m your new English teacher. I’ve just moved to Mountain Lakes from New York and I’m still figuring out where everything is at the academy, so please bear with me while I get the lay of the land. If one of you would like to catch me up on what you’ve been studying, that would be a good start.”

Pax hops to his feet. He smiles the kind of smile that’s destroyed the hearts of countless supermodels from Rome to London and back again. “Hi Jarvis. I’d be happy to lend a helping hand.”

Elodie and I trade a look that says it all.

Christ.

Here we go again.

Author’s Note: Thank you so much for reading Riot House! I hope you enjoyed Elodie and Wren’s story. If you’re ready for some more dark and delicious content, keep reading to meet The Rebel of Raleigh High!

THE REBEL OF RALEIGH HIGH

PROLOGUE

Grave robbery has never been that high on my to-do list, but tonight, with a frigid Washington wind blowing in off Lake Cushman, I find myself up to my waist in dirt with a shovel in my hand. Weird how life likes to fuck with you sometimes. There are plenty of other places I could be tonight, and yet here I am, the muscles in my back aching like a bitch as I lift the haft of the shovel over my head and I pile-drive the steel blade into the unforgiving, frozen earth.

“Dorme, Passerotto. Shhh. Time to go to sleep.”

I ignore the soft whisper in my ear. That voice is long gone now. It doesn’t serve me to remember it, but…forgetting wouldn’t be right. Forgetting would feel like a betrayal.

The cut, scrape, swish of my work fills the night air, and a river of sweat courses down my spine. My body’s no stranger to physical labor, and I’m grateful for the fact as I press forward, hurling clods of icy dirt over my bare shoulder and out of the deepening hole. This task would be way shittier if I weren’t in shape. Scratch that…it’d probably be impossible.

I don’t believe in zombies, vampires, ghosts, or any other kind of apparition, but there’s something about this place that creeps me out. Yeah, it’s a graveyard, Poindexter. You’re surrounded by rotting bodies. I roll my eyes at my own inner monologue, again lobbing loose grave soil out onto the well-manicured grass to my right. It’s only natural that this place would have a sinister edge to it. It’s abandoned, not a soul in sight (very convenient for me), and yet there are signs of the living everywhere—laminated cards bearing the smiling faces of children; floral tributes, tinged with the first signs of fading decay; stuffed animals, fur matted and crusted over with frost. The people who left these trinkets and treasures are safe in their own warm houses now, though. It feels like the end of the world out here, a neglected place, filled with neglected memories. The moon overhead, round and fat in the clear September sky, casts long shadows, making spears out of the headstones.

I wipe at my forehead with the back of my forearm, grit and clay smearing my skin, and I consider how much further down I need to go. They