RIOT HOUSE (Crooked Sinners #1) - Callie Hart Page 0,78
against the idea that a grown man would hurt his own daughter. It demands to know what happened in crystal clear detail, so it can formulate an appropriate punishment for this heinous crime. On the outside, I marshal my face into a blank mask, struggling to maintain an air of calm.
“You’ll be eighteen soon,” I say. “Then you’ll be legally free of him.”
“It’s not that simple and you know it. My father’s not the kind of man to let me go, just because I become an adult. He’ll still be controlling every aspect of my life when I’m thirty for fuck’s sake.” She doesn’t sound upset, just resigned, which is even worse than if she were sad. Arguing with her will get me nowhere at this stage in our fragile proceedings, so I abandon the topic altogether. Our shitty fathers aren’t going anywhere, which is, in fact, the problem.
“What else do you wanna know?” I ask.
“Where have you gone to school?”
“Always here. Always at Wolf Hall.”
She seems surprised by this. Her eyes have been sparking with annoyance since she tumbled out of that crawlspace like a legless newborn deer, but her irritation falters as she looks at me now. “For real? You’ve never gone to another high school? Most parents shunt their kids from pillar to post until they don’t even know where they’re from anymore.”
Goddamnit, she’s too fucking beautiful. It’s like staring at the fucking sun—I look at her for anything more than a second and my retinas threaten to explode. Neither Pax nor Dashiell would say she’s the prettiest girl enrolled at Wolf Hall, but to me, Elodie Stillwater’s the most enchanting thing I’ve ever fucking seen. The defiant pout of her mouth. The always slightly messy, in-need-of-a-brush unruliness of her hair. The bright, wide-eyed stare that catches you off guard. Her hands are so fucking small, it makes me want to weep.
She’s tiny. Her waist, and her slim shoulders, and her feet, for fuck’s sake. It’s like she was crafted in miniature, the details of her hand-painted in with unwavering attention to detail. She looks as though she needs wrapping up in tissue paper, to keep her safe like a precious treasure. But isn’t that just the kicker? Because everything about Elodie is a deception. She’s small, yes, but she can defend herself. She’s made out of tempered steel, not wafer-thin glass, and she sure as hell doesn’t need keeping safe. Underestimating her would be a regretful mistake. One a guy wouldn’t walk away from uninjured.
“My father thought routine was more important for me than having him around. My mother died when I was three, and my new stepmother was highly allergic to small children, so it all worked out quite well for everyone concerned. They packed me off to boarding school when I was four. They’ve bought three new houses over the past thirteen years. I’ve always stayed in a guest room whenever I’ve been so graciously invited to stay for the holidays.”
“They never gave you a bedroom?” Despite herself, little Elodie actually looks interested in what I’m saying. And then she goes and says something that counters any concern she might have been displaying. “That’s fucking cold. I guess that explains where you get it from.”
I grin tightly. I mean, she’s not wrong. But still. “I have no reason to be warm to anyone outside of Riot House. Why would I wander around this place, beaming like a lobotomized monkey when half of these idiots don’t have two brain cells to rub together?”
“My case in point.” Elodie reaches out, her hand darting forward; she takes the bottle of wine from me, her eyes growing round when I laugh. “What? You expect me to sit through all of this sober now? No thanks.” She pours a large amount of the Malbec into one of the glasses I brought up here, shoving the bottle into my chest when she returns it.
Feisty.
“It’s a cycle of misery, Wren,” she tells me. “You cling to your social outcast status like it’s a shield that’ll protect you from the realities of this life, but the truth is that it’s isolating you more and more from everyone around you. It’s not a smart defense mechanism. And, moreover, I can see straight through it. That’s how all of this started for you—you wanted to build up a wall around yourself so high that no one would ever be able to breach it. Now, your heart’s so frozen and iced over that it’s got