Riot Rules

by Callie Hart

  A hard rap at the door stops him in his tracks. Doctor Fitzpatrick sighs heavily. He points at the room, arm swinging left to right. “Which one of you shitheads has been misbehaving now? Own up and I’ll do what I can to save you.”

  The class laughs, because he’s right—someone must have done something. Fitz’s classes are only ever disrupted if Principal Harcourt needs to see a student in her office right away. No one sticks their hand up to confesses to anything, though. No surprises there. Fitz answers the knock, surprise forcing him back a step when he sees that it’s Principal Harcourt herself standing in the doorway. Her mousy brown hair is pulled back into a tight chignon. As always, she’s dressed in a plain black pant suit. Her shirt is white today, the collar stiff and high, buttoned up right underneath her chin. She’s only forty or so, but the way she dresses, speaks, and holds herself makes her seem like she’s in her late sixties.

  Blinking owlishly, she removes her glasses from the end of her nose and holds them anxiously in both hands, as if she might snap them in two. “Apologies for the intrusion, Doctor Fitzpatrick. I’m afraid I’ve just had a disturbing phone call from someone in town. I need a moment with the class, if that’s alright with you.”

  It’s not a question. She sounds timid and quavering, but there’s a different kind of tremor to her voice, too: she’s boiling mad. Doctor Fitz recognizes her mood and steps back, gesturing for her to enter. “Of course. Please, be my guest.”

  The Principal clips into the room on her kitten heels and stands at the front of the class, face sallow and pinched. “I won’t beat around the bush. I’ll get right to it. And I’m going to have to ask you to excuse some of the language I’m about to use, but there’s no other way of discussing this with you. Believe me. I sat in my office for the past thirty minutes and tried to figure out a way to do it, and there wasn’t one, so…” She puffs out her cheeks, shaking her head. “I’m sure you’re all aware that there was a party in Mountain Lakes last Friday night. A house party. At one of the Edmondson boys’ places. Firstly, I have always encouraged Wolf Hall students to be courteous and polite to Edmondson High students when you cross paths with them. It serves no one if there’s rivalry or animosity between our schools. But I’ve also been very clear that the Wolf Hall academy board, along with your parents, feel that fraternizing with Edmondson students is ill-advised. Your parents pay a lot of money for the excellent education you receive here at Wolf Hall. You’re from well-respected families with reputations to uphold. And while we certainly do not encourage bigotry at Wolf Hall, Edmondson High is a public school, and its students are…well…” She gropes for an appropriate word. Doesn’t find it. “Anyway. You all know what I’m trying to say. Yes, life here at Wolf Hall may feel stifling at times, but you must always remember to comport yourselves with dignity and decorum. Attending a ‘rager’ at some teenager’s house out in the boonies is not the kind of behavior we’d expect from fine young men and women such as yourselves.”

  Hah. This woman does not know any of us at all.

  “Now, the reason I’ve had to come in here this morning is because the father of the boy who threw the party claims that two of our male students found the boy’s mother upstairs at the party, a little, ah, inebriated—”

  “Oh my god. That kid’s mom was at the party? So messed up,” Mara whispers.

  “—and, ah, apparently these students seduced the boy’s mother. They—” Principal Harcourt looks to the heavens, like the almighty himself might lend her a hand if she stalls long enough. Which he does not. “They both had sexual intercourse with the boy’s mother, and then when they were done, one of the boys cut open his hand and painted a series of very graphic curse words onto their bedroom wall that frankly…I don’t want to repeat. I’ve assured the gentleman that he’s wrong about this on every count. I made it very clear to him that there is no way any of our students would have behaved in such an egregious manner. They certainly wouldn’t be engaging in group intercourse with a forty-six-year-old woman, and they would never be so disrespectful as to scrawl profanities on a wall in their own blood. Not when such an action would be highly idiotic, considering the police now have their DNA, and can go about finding the owner of that DNA with ease.”

  “Not without a warrant,” Wren says coolly. “We’re minors, Principal Harcourt. With very influential parents, as you so aptly pointed out. The cops aren’t gonna bust down the front door of the academy any time soon. Plus, it sounds to me like this guy, whoever he is, has more important things to worry about. Sounds to me like his wife fucked two underage kids. Wouldn’t that be considered statutory rape? Grown woman at a party, drunk, supposed to be supervising the innocent festivities. If she took advantage of those poor boys…”

  “You know perfectly well the age of consent in New Hampshire is sixteen, Mr. Jacobi,” Principal Harcourt spits. Her cool, calm demeanor—which was pretty fragile from the get-go—goes up in smoke. “And you boys—” She eyes the Riot House boys, because of course it was them. Wren all but confirmed it when he piped up just now. “All three of you are seventeen, which makes any sexual conduct you may or may not have legal. Lucky for you, the boy’s father doesn’t want to press charges.”

  Slowly, Dashiell gets to his feet, dusting off his hands on his pants. “I beg your pardon, Principal Harcourt. What charges could he lay against these students? Were any laws actually broken? Are we being accused of something right now?”

  “I—” Harcourt blinks again. “The description of the boys was very specific. And did not include you, Dashiell.”

  “Lord Lovett,” he says.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Lord Lovett. That’s my name. Lord Dashiell August Richmond Belleview Lovett the Fourth. My father was very particular about me being referred to that way when he dropped me off on the doorstep three years ago. Did he pay for the academy’s roof to be replaced that summer, or was it the one after? I don’t recall.”

  Flustered, Principal Harcourt looks down at her glasses in her hands, opening and closing the arms twice before slowly putting them on. “I think…I believe that was the summer after you arrived, Lord Lovett. Anyway. As I was saying. I told the gentleman he must have been mistaken, and that there was no way any of our boys would do such a thing. I wanted to warn you all that there might be some slanderous rumors floating around town, and to do your best to pay them no heed if you hear anything upsetting. I think—” She backs away, heading for the exit. “Yes. I think that about covers it.”

  10

  CARRIE

  Dashiell’s hair is the kind of blond that stands out; it’s all honey, sunlight, and brilliant, burnished gold. Coupled with the fact that he stands more than a foot taller than most people at Wolf Hall Academy, and his height and his hair color make him pretty easy to track. I follow him down the hall toward the science block, wondering where the hell he’s going. He doesn’t have class there now. I know he doesn’t, because he’s in AP Physics, Biology, and Chemistry, and so am I. He won’t need to step foot in the science department until tomorrow morning.

  Pax and Wren are nowhere to be seen. They both headed out of the building, talking animatedly as they slipped out of Wolf Hall’s main exit. It’s like they didn’t even notice that Dash wasn’t with them, and he didn’t make a point of saying goodbye. He just…splintered off and began shouldering his way through the stream of students, stalking northward with the grim determination of someone with a purpose, headed somewhere specific.

  I’m expected back at my room. Mara’s going to show up there any minute, gushing over Wren, or maybe even Doctor Fitzpatrick now that he showed her some attention in class, and I’m not going to be there. For better or for worse (definitely worse, I’ve clearly lost my fucking mind) I’m following a sharp-tongued Riot House boy across the academy campus like a goddamn fangirl. What the fuck is wrong with me?

  Dashiell doesn’t look back once. For a brief moment, I think he’s heading toward the orchestra room. But then, no. He
walks right past the entrance to the music department, passes the science labs, too, and turns the corner, which is when I realize where he’s going. He’s going outside. The emergency exit’s door is still slowly swinging closed when I turn the corner after him. I think I catch a glimpse of sunlight bouncing off bright blond hair.

  Go back to your room, kid. I’m not joking. This is willful insubordination. Why flout the rules when everything’s been going so well?

  Good old Alderman, chiming in just when I need a dose of common sense. Shame he’s not here to enforce his command, isn’t it? I want to know what the hell all that was just about with Harcourt. Did Wren and Pax really screw that kid’s mother? Seems unlikely, but I did see Wren coming down those stairs, and he was wiping something red from his hand. Above all else, I want to know if Dash touched that kid’s mom. Harcourt said the description of the two boys didn’t match Dashiell, but there’s this gross, awkward, tight feeling in my stomach and I won’t be able to rest until he’s looked me in the eye and given me an answer.

  Why does it matter? It doesn’t, I suppose. It’s not like I’ll be kissing Dash again. He made it pretty fucking clear that he has zero interest in me.

  “And just like that, the mystery is gone.”

  I won’t be forgetting those words or the scathing expression he wore when he said them any time soon. They cut so deep, they hit bone and sank down to the marrow. So why can’t I just leave this alone?

  I fought tooth and nail to come here. Since my very first day at Wolf Hall, I’ve done everything in my power to avoid trouble. I’ve avoided any sort of behavior that would lead to me being noticed in any way. It’s the way it’s had to be. When you’re outrunning your past, sometimes the present needs to be minimized for it to be safe. Getting involved in anything remotely Riot House related is a bad, bad call, and equates to sheer insanity. I need to wash my hands of Dashiell Lovett and run in the opposite direction like I’m being stalked by a swarm of killer bees, but…

  Godddamn that but.

  I hate that but.

  It’s the root of all my issues.

  I can’t wash my hands and run away, because there’s something about Lord Dashiell Lovett the Fourth that makes my heart beat faster. When he sits at that piano, he’s a different person altogether. I’m searching for that Dashiell, I’ve been searching for him for a long time, and I can’t seem to let him go. And avoiding trouble, heartbreak and unwanted attention has its benefits, but it also makes for a very dull existence. And that’s precisely what I’ve been doing. Existing. Just getting by. Making it from one day to the next, congratulating myself when I accomplish such a small feat without hiccup. Living like that? Making myself so inconsequential? A piece of me withers and dies with every day that I observe the rules and play it safe. I’ve begun to wonder how long it will be before there’s nothing of me left. I like listening to him play. I like the heat in the pit of my stomach when I look at him. I like the way the world feels like it’s burning when our eyes meet.

  I know what Alderman would say. He’d look at me in that very serious way of his, and he’d pose me a question. “Since when has a world on fire been a good thing? He makes you feel like everything’s bright and burning, kid? Run for the fucking hills.” He’s said it before. He sat me down at the dining table in the penthouse back in Seattle and fixed me in a sad but firm gaze. “Better to have a steady, comfortable, easy life than mess with any of that. Believe me. I made the same sacrifice twenty years ago, and I’ve never looked back.”

  Twice, I’ve asked him what happened twenty years ago. Both times, he clamped his mouth shut and got so mad that he sank into a sullen silence that roared through the quiet spaces of our home and echoed off the walls for days afterward. I quickly realized that he was never going to tell me his secret, even though he knows mine, and pushing him wasn’t going to get me anywhere.

  I follow Dashiell out of the emergency exit, praying under my breath that he hasn’t already slipped inside the maze. If he has, then he’s in the wind. No way in hell am I going into that thing. I got lost wandering the narrow, hedged pathways during my first week at Wolf Hall, and it took me two hours to get out. There isn’t enough money in the state of New Hampshire to entice me back in there.

  At first, I think he has gone inside—I can’t see him anywhere—but then I catch the gold of his hair again, like fish’s scales flashing brilliantly beneath the surface of still water, and I turn just in time to see him disappearing down the slope, toward the old, ruined chapel.

  There isn’t much left of the building anymore—just the crumbling foundations of what was once reportedly a very grand building. At their highest, the chapel’s walls only reach my mid-thigh. There are small, weird artifacts to be found amongst the rubble sometimes—an old, weather-beaten book, a pair of ancient reading glasses, a candlestick—but most of the students leave the abandoned trinkets amongst the overgrown grass, half-buried and forgotten. For starters, the chapel is ‘Out of Bounds’ in the strictest sense of the term. The last thing Principal Harcourt needs is the son of a Navy General messing around and getting pinned beneath a slab of old ass brickwork. The settlement required to satisfy a lawsuit like that would bankrupt the school in no time. Secondly, this place is eerie as fuck. The wind moans through the trees oddly here. The air always feels a couple of degrees cooler than anywhere else on Wolf Hall’s grounds.

  I’m hoping that Dash will skirt around the chapel site and keep on walking, down to the man-made lake at the border of the forest, but he doesn’t. He walks straight through the footprint of the chapel, taking large strides to clear the jagged walls, and doesn’t stop until he reaches the graveyard.

  How many people have to be buried in one place before a place can officially be called a graveyard? Not something I’ve ever really wondered before. There are only eight headstones in Wolf Hall’s cemetery, which doesn’t seem like a lot at first. Not until you consider that this place has always been a school, and surely it’s not normal for people to die at a school and remain buried there.

  Dashiell stops in front of one of the headstones and looks down at it. He’s chosen the most elaborate headstone, all carved scrollwork and flowers. The weather’s eaten at the marble; what was once white is now a dingy shade of yellow, with a hint of lichen green in the cracks and crevices of its worn-smooth surface.

  I haven’t decided how I’m going to broach the question of the party. I don’t even know how I’m going to break the silence and let him know I’m behind him, but—

  “Nineteen twenty-three. Wild, huh?” Dash says out loud.

  I freeze. Umm… Is he talking to me?

  “She was seventeen. Our age. Eliza Monroe Bishop-Quarterstaff.” He whistles. “Fuck me. And I thought I had a pretentious name.”

  So, he knows I’m behind him; his voice is too loud for him to be talking to himself. I’m annoyed that he’s one-upped me, but also relieved that I don’t need to interrupt him. The ground’s still muddy from the downpour we had last week; I dump my bag onto the grass and use it as an improvised seat. “What did she die of?” I ask.

  Dashiell still hasn’t turned around to face me. “Boredom, probably. No cell phones. No laptops. Imagine being stuck here without WIFI.”

  When the hell is he going to turn around? He looks down at something in his hands, his head inclined to the side like he’s listening behind him. I can’t stop staring at the back of his neck—at his tensed shoulders and the closely shaved hair at the base of his skull.

  “Is there something specific I can help you with, Miss Mendoza? Or were you suddenly gripped by the paralyzing need to know the names of the dead folk buried in our backyard?”

  Fucker. Does he have to be so obtuse? “I came to find out what happened at that party. Half the school’s talking about it.”

  “Well…” He clears his throat and raises whatever he’s holding in his hands to his mouth. Sunlight bounces off the scuffed surface of a silver hipflask as he drinks from it. Grrrreat. I
t’s eleven in the morning and he’s drinking. At long last, he turns around, and his cheeks are flushed. His eyes are wild and furious, his expression harrowed, and it’s all I can do to stand my ground in the face of such sudden emotion. “They can all go fuck themselves,” he continues. His tone implies that I can do the same.

  Clouds swell on the horizon over the treetops, weighty, angry, the color of steel, promising rain. A weak gust of wind sighs across the little glen behind the chapel, ruffling Dash’s hair. It blows the long strands into his eyes, obscuring them from view, but I can still feel the pressure of his sharp gaze on me. I’d feel a look like that in the dark and still have the common sense to be afraid. And let’s be real. I am afraid of this boy. He has the power to do such terrible damage. I already know he will. So why the hell, then, do I ask, “What’s wrong with you? What happened?”

  His mouth adopts a petulant twist. Brushing his hair out of his face, he slides his hip flask back into his pocket and then very slowly goes to work, rolling up the sleeves of his shirt to his elbows. “We chatted outside a party for ten minutes, Carina. I’m not required to share every intimate detail of my life with you. My thoughts are not now public domain.”

  The thing about Dash is that he’s very intelligent. Scarily so. He can take a look at a person, open his mouth, and have them feeling like shit in under ten seconds. Well, fuck him. I will not be cowed by him. I make sure to meet his gaze and hold it. “We did more than that.”