RIOT HOUSE (Crooked Sinners #1) - Callie Hart Page 0,178

I’ve been waiting for this for a long, long time. It feels…Damn, it feels fucking—

“Hold it right there, kid. Stop what you’re doing this instant!”

Oh, come on.

I tense, freezing in place, every part of me rigid.

The female voice behind me is alive with anger as she repeats her command. “I said stop what you’re doing, asshole!”

I risk a glance over my shoulder and my stomach sinks when I see the uniform. The badge. The gun aimed at the back of my head. “If you’re referring to the fact that I’m still pissing, Officer, then I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do. Stopping mid-flow is bad for the prostate.” I smile to myself, knowing I’m not helping matters. Fuck it though, right? I am going to be arrested. No doubt about it. And if my ass is getting thrown in jail for this, then I’ll be damned if I don’t finish what I started.

“Kid, if you don’t quit right now and put your dick away, you’re gonna get Tazed. You understand me?”

Ahh. Tazer, not a gun. Well, I guess that’s something. I surrender a long, resigned sigh. I do not stop.

“Last chance, dumbass.”

There are worse things to be in this life than stubborn and dedicated to a cause. And let’s face it…this opportunity will never present itself again. I brace, even though bracing is pointless, and I wait for the pain.

When it comes, lancing into my back, striking like lightning down my arms and into my legs, I retain just enough control to make sure I sag sideways into Gary’s grave and not forwards.

After all, the very last thing I need, on the back of such a long and successful night, is to find myself slumped over the deceased remains of the man who repeatedly beat me while lying in a pool of my own piss.

Somehow, through my gritted teeth, my tensed muscles, and the blinding ball of pain that’s lashed itself to my back, I manage to choke out a single, bitter burst of laughter.

The sound echoes like a gunshot over midnight Lake Cushman.

CHAPTER ONE

Silver Parisi: most likely to suck dick for dollar.

I stare down at the slip of paper on the table, creased and stained on the back by something that looks suspiciously like mustard, and my temper riots. This, right here, is some fucking bullshit. I’m used to detention, I’m a regular attendee, and I’m used to the chores we’re tasked with, but tallying the nominations for yearbook has turned out to be a rather cruel and unusual form of punishment. Because this isn’t cleaning erasers or scrubbing graffiti from the girl’s bathroom stalls. This is fucking personal.

Silver Parisi: most likely to contract syphilis.

Silver Parisi: most likely to cook meth.

Silver Parisi: most likely to fuck your boyfriend behind your back.

The suggestions are colorful and aplenty. I already know who’s behind the offensive, hate-filled superlatives: the football team, the cheer squad, and the sheep who follow the Raleigh High elite around with their noses pinched firmly between their pampered, trust fund ass cheeks. I’d say the spiteful nominations stacked on the desk in front of me right now are innumerable, but I’ve actually had to count them, and I know exactly how many there are. And of the twenty-three vile suggestions that have been made in my honor, so far there’s one clear winner.

Silver Parisi: most likely to die on prom night.

The Raleigh High Yearbook Committee is going to replace this. No way they’ll allow such a terrible thing to be printed beneath the photo of one of their graduating class students. In fifteen years’ time, anyone who just so happens to be flipping through the pages of their dusty old high school yearbook will see a photo of a pale, seventeen-year-old girl with solemn, intense blue eyes, mousy brown hair, and an unusual shaped birthmark on her neck, wearing a Billy Joel T-shirt, and they’ll read:

Silver Parisi: most likely to learn a foreign language.

I can already see it now. Fucking foreign language. No one will remember me. No one will come across my picture and suddenly recall all of the fun, amazing times they shared with me. No, they’re going to take one look at my stern, unhappy face, and they’re gonna recoil. Jesus Christ, who was that girl, again? And why the fuck was she so damn miserable all the time?

They won’t remember the shit they all put me through in the final year of high school. Most conveniently of all, they’ll have forgotten all about the