RIOT HOUSE (Crooked Sinners #1) - Callie Hart Page 0,33

airport, and I lost all of my numbers. And annoyingly, Levi’s one of those ‘technology is evil and I will have no part in social media’ guys, so I’ve had to wait for him to make the first move. The tone of his message is super weird, though.

ME: Wow. No need to go making out like I died, dude. It’s not like I moved to Mars. We can figure out a way to hang in the holidays if your mom doesn’t whisk you off to Switzerland or something. How’s everything going? Has Professor Marshall checked himself into rehab yet?

Our old science tutor was forever nipping into the back of his room to sneak a hit from his hip flask. There were rumors he was using the chemicals on hand in his lab to concoct his own—

My phone buzzes, it’s loud ringtone echoing off the walls as I climb the endless stairs up toward my room. I cringe, silencing it, checking to see if there are any members of faculty in sight. Phones are prohibited in common areas. Luckily, I’m already on the second floor and the only people in close proximity to me are other students.

“Hey, dude! I wasn’t expecting you to call right away. I’m almost back at my room. Give me a second to—”

“Elodie?”

There’s something about Levi’s tone that stops me in my tracks. He sounds…I’m not sure what he sounds like. Something isn’t right, though. “Lee? What’s up? Is everything okay? What’s happened?”

“You’re alive?” he whispers. I’ve been friends with Levi for two years now. Not a long time in most people’s books, but we’ve crammed a lot into those seven hundred and thirty odd days. I know him inside and out, and he knows me, too. Every dark, dumb, stupid, embarrassing little secret I’ve ever had. From Sweden, he’s fairly representative of his people. Stoic, serious, ever calm and deeply grounded, he doesn’t really let anything affect him. He keeps his emotions close to his chest. Those words, though…his voice was choked with tears when he said them. My friend is fucking crying.

“What are you talking about, I’m alive? Of course I’m alive. I’m in New Hampshire.”

Levi sniffs, making a strangled sound. “I’m—I’m sorry, I just need a…” He stops talking. Draws in a deep breath. He sounds like he’s trying to compose himself. And then he says, “Your father told the dean you were in an accident, Elodie. The entire school’s been in mourning all week.”

I’ve reached the fourth floor landing now. Thankfully I’ve left the stairs behind or I’d probably fall face-first down them. I slap my hand out against the wall, steadying myself as my vision dims around the edges. “Sorry, what did you say?”

Levi coughs. I can picture him in his bedroom back at Mary Magdalene’s, in his pajamas, perched on the edge of his bed, his wonderfully brown eyes vacant as he tries to process this news.

I’m alive.

I’m speaking to him on the phone, back from the fucking dead.

The whole thing is too confusing to comprehend. “I’m really struggling here, Lee. Sounds like you are, too. Can you explain what you meant when you said my father told the dean I was dead, though? ‘Cause my brain’s melting out of my ears right now.”

“He came to the school on Monday. Showed up with a full military guard. We thought there was some sort of threat to the school at first. Then Ayala saw him with the dean. She said he talked to him for a second in the hall, that Dean Rogers looked shocked and tried to put his hand on Colonel Stillwater’s shoulder, but he backed away, spoke for another brief second, and then marched off, got back into his car and disappeared. Next thing we know, we’re being pulled into our home rooms and we’re being told that you were in a plane crash over the weekend. They said you didn’t make it.”

“What?” What the fuck is he talking about? Why the hell would my father tell such a vicious, flagrant lie? It makes no sense. “He didn’t do that. He couldn’t. I mean…” I mean, I can totally imagine him doing it. On his nicest day, he’s a vile monster who doesn’t give a flying fuck about anyone else but himself and his own precious career. Why would he have said that, though? He could have told the staff at Mary Magdalene’s I was being relocated. It happens all the time—students coming and going from these kinds of