RIOT HOUSE (Crooked Sinners #1) - Callie Hart Page 0,29

emptied our coffee cups, neither of us really in the mood to hang out anymore, Carina drives me back to the academy. She stops in the middle of the road a couple of miles before the long, winding driveway that leads to Wolf Hall. She sits in the middle of the road with the car engine idling, staring straight ahead out of the windscreen.

“Carina? What is it?”

She blinks, as if coming back into her body. “On the right. Through the trees. Look hard enough, and you’ll see it.”

“See what?” I squint over my right shoulder, peering through the thick tree foliage.

“The house,” she says. “Riot House. That’s where they live. The three of them, together—their little fortress against the world.”

It takes some effort and a re-angling of my head, but there...yes, I see the outline of the building now. A three-story affair—wood, concrete, glass—so expertly blended within the camouflage of the forest that it’d be impossible to pick out if you didn’t already know it was there.

“If you ever find yourself stranded and alone on this road, do not go knocking on that door for help, Elodie,” Carina mutters. “Whatever you do, no matter the circumstances, do not step foot inside Riot House. For better or for worse, you won’t come out the same.”

I didn’t even see Wren back at the diner, but I’d felt his presence sure enough. As Carina throws the car into gear and slams her foot on the gas, I experience that same prickling sensation again. It feels as though Wren Jacobi is watching me. And Carina can speed away from Riot House as fast as she likes.

I won’t be able to escape that place…

…or him.

8

WREN

Back at the diner, leaning against the table in our booth, I’d pressed the flat, dull blade of the butter knife into the fleshy pad of my thumb, staring at the back of her head, wondering what that hell was going on inside her skull.

I’ve never cared what a girl’s thinking or feeling before, but I can’t stop myself from trying to piece together the enigma that is Elodie Stillwater. Does she miss her old life? Her old friends? Does she miss the sun, and the heat, and the ocean, and the sand? Would she kill to be back there in Israel with her father and the life she was accustomed to?

I’ve become a parody of myself as I walk the old, familiar pathways to my classes at Wolf Hall, trying to maintain an exterior of practiced boredom and complete disinterest, when in truth, I am anything but disinterested. I am anything but bored. For the first time in a very, very long time, my ears are pricked, my mind’s engaged, and every part of my being is turned toward a girl I do not know in the slightest.

I want to know everything there is to know about her, and I want to possess that knowledge, to own it, just as I want to own her. I’m determined to make her my creature. My pet. The challenge of such an inconceivable task makes my dick harder than fucking tungsten.

“All right. Settle down. Eyes on me, friends. I need to know each and every one of you is listening. That includes you, Jacobi. Come on. Shades off. Why the hell are you wearing shades indoors anyway?”

Fitz is wearing his corduroy blazer today. Baby shit green. He only wears that blazer when he’s been reading Byron or Rilke and fancies himself one of the romantics. Poor bastard. He hasn’t been tortured enough in this life to make a good poet. With exaggerated care, I slide my Wayfarers down the bridge of my nose, eyes drilling into him as he dumps his record bag down at his feet. I don’t have to explain myself to him. I’m sure as hell not gonna tell him that I wore sunglasses to this English class so I could watch a certain delicately beautiful student sitting on the other side of the room, undisturbed. “You know me, Fitz,” I rumble. “You always have my undivided attention.”

He pulls a face. “Yeah. Right.” No come back. He mustn’t have had a coffee yet. Even as I’m thinking this, our illustrious leader flips back the front of his record bag and pulls out a Thermos, popping the little white cap from the top of it and unscrewing the seal, flooding the room with the bitter, fragrant smell of arabica. “It’s that time of year again, guys. Storm season. We’ve had a