RIOT HOUSE (Crooked Sinners #1) - Callie Hart Page 0,72

to go drink a gallon of water so I don’t end up with a hangover in the morning. We miss you so much, y’know. I can’t tell you how glad I am you’re not dead.”

“Thanks. I’m glad you’re not dead, too.”

“You know what I mean. Your dad’s such an asshole, Elodie. Seriously. If it wouldn’t earn me a whole heap of really shitty karma, I’d wish something really bad on the guy. Like two broken legs. Or that he’d be involved in some horrific accident while on a training exercise and his dick and balls gets blown off by an I.E.D.”

“I’d prefer not to talk about my father’s junk. But yeah, a couple of broken legs would be nice. I’ll wish it on him for the both of us and take double the bad karma if that helps?”

“It does. Night, girl. Please come back and visit us soon.”

“You come here and visit me!” No way Colonel Stillwater’s going to allow me to fly back to Israel for a vacation any time soon. If I could figure out a way to head back there without him knowing, that would be one thing, but my father would know the instant I left Mountain Lakes. He’d fucking kill me.

“Okay, okay,” Ayala says—I can hear her broad, infectious smile in the tone of her voice. “Call me, Elodie.”

“I will.”

The line goes dead. I just lie there for a minute, staring up at the ceiling, feeling the pressure of the headphones in my ears, not willing to take them out and admit the call is over just yet. It went dark a long time ago. The tiny lamp by my bed casts a fuzzy orange halo on the ceiling, warped and stretched by the pitch of the ceiling’s uneven surface.

I will not check the time.

I will not check the time.

I won’t fucking do it.

A door slams a few rooms over, and a gaggle of high-pitched female voices ricochet off the corridor walls as a handful of my fellow classmates head off out together somewhere. I close my eyes, fidgeting on the mattress, which still feels too new and too hard and not broken in yet.

Take a look.

What’ll it hurt?

Knowing the time isn’t going to knock the planet off its axis, dumbass.

Just open your eyes, for fuck’s sake!

I relent, even though I don’t want to. The clock in the top righthand corner of my cell phone’s display reads seven forty-nine in the evening. Eleven minutes to eight. Wren’s probably walking up the driveway to the academy even as I’m lying here, moping around like some sort of friendless, hopeless, moronic loser. I get up, pretending to myself that I need to stretch, which is so pointless and stupid that I give myself a firm telling off in my father’s voice. I know perfectly well that I’ve gotten up to look out of the window and trying to convince myself otherwise is pure folly.

Frustration sweeps over me when I realize I can’t see the driveway from the vantage point my window offers. Only the maze, and the sprawling expanse of lawn is visible from the east wing of the house, which means I won’t be able to see if Wren’s on his way here or not.

He won’t come. He’s testing you. He wants to know if you’ll jump when he commands. You are not going up into that attic, Elodie Stillwater.

I don’t know why I’m repeating this to myself. I already know I’m not going up into the attic. I do have a little self-respect.

The clock on my phone updates: seven fifty-three p.m.

If I had my laptop, I could be watching re-runs of The Office right now. I could be doing some of my homework. I could spend five hours spiraling down a YouTube hole, watching videos about rescue dogs finding their furrever homes, and Adam Driver, and Timothée Chalamet, and fifteen hundred movie trailers promoting films I’m never likely to watch.

Hurling myself back onto my bed, I close my eyes, stacking my hands on top of my stomach. “God, this is so fucking stupid,” I mutter.

Vrrrn Vrrrrrrrnn. Vrrrn Vrrrrrrrnn.

I’m so startled by the powerful vibration that buzzes my ribcage that I nearly fling my phone out of my hands. My ears are full of the sound of rushing blood as I check to see who the message is from.

WREN: Don’t disappoint me.

And that’s all it takes. Suddenly, I’m livid. Just who the fuck does he think he is? Don’t disappoint him? He’s not my father. In