RIOT HOUSE (Crooked Sinners #1) - Callie Hart Page 0,94

that has me in its grasps.

The clock on my cell phone finally clicks over to ten p.m. and I tell myself I should go to bed, but… fuck, what the hell is wrong with me? Why can’t I just forget about this entire thing? This is for the best!

I should text him.

I should ask him what the fuck he’s playing at, sending me the most confusing mixed messages. I mean, what is he hoping to accomplish here? I’ve wound myself up so tightly that I feel like I’m going to snap by the time I grab my Doc Martins from the bottom of the closest, jamming them angrily onto my feet.

A text message isn’t good enough.

I need an explanation from him, face to face. I need to know if he did force someone else to fix the bird for me. And, loathe as I am to admit it, I want to know if I actually hurt him by rebuffing him in the library.

You’re such a fool, Elodie. He’s not worth your energy. Seriously, take your shoes off, get into bed, lose yourself in a good book and forget about Wren Jacobi. He’s a manipulative creep and nothing more.

Instead, I pick up the book he loaned me—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s, A Study In Scarlett—and I jam it into my bag.

You’re better than this. Better than him. You don’t damn well need him.

The pep talk’s a good one. I repeat it in my head as I try to tip-toe down the hallway. It’s on a playback, cycling over and over again as I sneak my way down the stairs. I hear it again and again as I slip out of the academy and I begin to run down the long driveway, headed down the mountain.

I didn’t have a car in Tel Aviv. I didn’t need one. A vehicle would be really handy here in New Hampshire, though, especially since I live in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. Carina offered to lend me the Firebird and said I could use it whenever I wanted, but I couldn’t ask her for the keys tonight. She’d have wanted to know where I was going, and no way could I have told her the truth: “Oh, y’know, just thought I’d pop down to Riot House. After hours. Alone. To discuss my non-starter, bizarre relationship/rivalry with the boy that you’ve warned me until you’re blue in the face to stay away from.”

Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen.

So here I am, jogging down the hill, jumping out of my skin at every sound I hear, just waiting for something nasty with sharp teeth to come lurching out of the forest. I haven’t seen a single car since I snuck out of the academy, and with no streetlights anywhere on the windy, hairpin road, I only have the small flashlight on my cell phone to ward off the darkness.

I knew this was a horrible idea before I left Wolf Hall, but it’s only hitting home now just how horrible an idea it was. If anything happens to me, I’d better just die and get it over with. If I don’t, Carina’s gonna murder me, and I’d rather get eaten by a bear or buried in a shallow grave by the Riot House boys than have to see the look of disappointment in her eyes when she puts me down.

Eventually, I reach the narrow dirt track that branches off from the main road, leading to Wren’s home, and panic closes around my heart like a fist. I can’t see any lights. There are no lights coming from inside the house? There’s no one home. Which means I’ve come all this way in the dark for nothing, and Wren…Wren’s still not back from his party weekend with the boys, and he’s out there somewhere, having a great time, having completely forgotten my existence.

Juuuust fucking great.

Oh.

Wow.

The realization hits me like a bucket of ice-cold water’s just been dumped over my head: this is not the kind of person I want to be—some stupid girl wandering off on her own in the dark, all bent out of shape because of some boy who can’t seem to make up his mind about her. I have more common sense than that. More self-respect. Clenching my hands into fists, I stare off into the night, my decision made. I’m going back to the academy. I’m not falling prey to this kind of insanity.

Before I can start the long walk back to Wolf Hall, a light suddenly