RIOT HOUSE (Crooked Sinners #1) - Callie Hart Page 0,85

I know his self-righteous, holier-than-thou attitude is all an act. Because I could turn his world upside down with one tiny phone call.

“Because he’s my father. That’s just what he does,” I say softly.

She seems to stew on this for a beat. After a moment, she shoves away from the desk and gets to her feet. “You like chicken?”

“Everyone likes chicken.”

“Okay. I’m gonna run over to the cafeteria and get us some food. I’ll sneak it back in and we can eat here. They won’t even notice.”

I have no idea how vigilant the librarians are here, Carina knows better than I do, so I take her word for it. I offer to come with her, but she tells me to stay put and save our spot for us. I get back to work, hunting for references and information that will be useful in our essays, but as the minutes tick by, I grow more and more restless. I can’t concentrate. Trying to focus on any one thing is almost impo—

“The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,

And his cohorts were gleaming in the purple and gold…”

The hairs on the back of my neck stand up, adrenalin singing through my body, bringing my focus to a very sudden, sharp point.

“And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,

When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.”

I slowly close my eyes. “Don’t you have anything better to do with your time than quote grim poetry at me,” I ask, valiantly maintaining my cool, as the phantom owner of that voice comes to stand behind me. I can feel him there, his presence like a raging inferno at my back.

“I wouldn’t call it grim.” I nearly jump out of my skin when something touches me. My hair, specifically. I see his hand out of the corner of my eye, as he coils a length of my hair around his index finger, his nail still marked with the tiniest chip of black nail polish, rubbing the pad of his thumb lightly over the blonde strands.

Fighting for an even breath, I remain very, very still. I lick my lips, my mouth too, too dry, and then I speak.

“For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,

And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;

And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,

And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still…”

Wren lets the loop of hair he wound around his finger fall loose. He moves silently, walking around the desk so that he’s no longer hovering behind me but standing, brazen as you like, as if he doesn’t care who sees us together, right freaking beside me. “So, you do have a favorite after all,” he muses, looking down at me with curiosity kindling in his eyes.

I try not to look at him, but not looking at him is like not picking at a scab, or not poking a wobbly tooth with your tongue. Impossible. “Not really. I had to memorize that poem for a class last semester. I guess I haven’t scrubbed it from my memory just yet. Byron’s poems were too flowery for me. I don’t like how they rhymed so obviously most of the time.”

Wren catches his bottom lip between his teeth, his eyes glowing in an amused way I’ve never seen before. He skirts the table and sits down opposite me, leaning across the polished wood. “You like poetry.” That’s all he says, but it looks as though this revelation is the most amazing thing that’s ever happened to him.

“That seat’s taken, y’know,” I reply bleakly. “Carina’s gonna be back any second. If she sees you sitting here, talking to me—”

“The whole world will implode and burn to ash, and the seas will dry, and meteors will strike the Earth, obliterating all life as we know it.”

“—she’ll piece this together, whatever this is. And—”

He looks confused. “Whatever this is?”

“Oh. I forgot. Piece of Shit Playbook, rule number three. This is the part where you pretend like nothing happened between us last night, right?”

Wren smothers a dark grin by resting his chin in his hand, covering his mouth. His hair looks extra wild and unkempt today, which only makes me want to run my fingers through it even more than normal. He’s wearing a thin black sweater with a tiny hole in one of the cuffs. I can’t stop staring at that little hole, as I wait for him to confirm my