Riot Rules

by Callie Hart

  No one’s going to yell at her for causing all of this trouble. No one will tell her off for all of this panic and confusion. She’ll get away with all of it, and I’ll still be reeling from the anxiety of being grilled so harshly by the cops. This is my worst fucking nightmare. All it will take is one slip of the tongue, one wrong thing that doesn’t correspond to my paperwork coming out of my mouth, and I will be officially fucked.

  I miraculously make it through my session with the police without incident, though. When I come out of the dining hall, which the cops sequestered as a temporary interrogation area, there’s Dash, propping up the wall, dressed like he’s about to go to a job interview. Or a funeral. The second he sees me, he beelines for me, running a hand anxiously through his hair. He glances around, checking for god only knows what as he takes me by the arm and leads me away from the press of bodies that have congregated there—students, gossiping and theorizing about what kind of scandalous bullshit Mara could have gotten herself into now. He pulls me away, slightly down the hall, away from prying eyes.

  “Fuck, Stella. Christ. What a mess.” He makes sure no one’s looking, and then runs his hands down my arms and cups my face quickly, his eyes skipping over my features one at a time.

  “Hey, I’m fine,” I tell him. “I’m okay. Don’t freak out. I’m tired and pissed off, not hurt.”

  He acts as though I’m keeping some awful malady from him, though. “Did something happen after I dropped you off last night? The cops came to the house. They said someone was missing and I immediately thought it was you.”

  “No. No, nothing happened. Well, wait. I ran into Pax, actually. I was about to go in and he appeared out of nowhere. He saw you kissing me. I tried to talk to him, but he stormed off.”

  The worry is plain to see on Dash’s face. He looks like he’s sinking somehow, though he’s still standing straight-backed. He closes his eyes, releasing a strained breath—

  “You two took some finding.”

  Shit! I step away from Dash, my heart jumping. It’s Fitz, and he does not look happy. He’s wearing a Wu Tang Clan t-shirt and grey sweatpants that make him look so young. Sometimes the twelve-year age gap between him and us feels like a vast eternity. At other times, that gap feels pretty fucking narrow.

  “Where’s Wren,” Fitz demands.

  Beside me, Dash tenses, his eyes blazing. “Busy.”

  “Well, you’d better tell him to pick up his fucking phone. I need to talk to him.”

  “Better for you if I don’t. He’s currently being interrogated by the cops because your girlfriend has gone missing.”

  Fitz’s calm exterior slips. For a horrible moment, the fuming, ugly rage that’s simmering beneath it is visible. He opens a hand, like he might reach out and grab hold of Dash by his shirt, but then he stops himself. The hand closes into a fist. “She’s not my girlfriend. She’s my student. Let’s get that straight right now.” His nostrils flare. “And fine. If Wren can’t talk to me, then you’re gonna have to pass a message on to him for me. He’d better not tell the police that I was at that party last night. You’d better not, either. All you little fucks had better forget you saw me within the walls of that house, or things are gonna start looking really fucking bad for you.” Anyone walking by would see Fitz’s concerned smile and his furrowed brow and assume that the English teacher was merely checking in on the welfare of his students, during a tough and worrying time. Providing they didn’t hear the vitriol in his voice, that is.

  “You really think you’ve got anything to leverage against us with a threat like that?” Dash says.

  Fitz licks his lips. “Actually, yeah, I do. Are you guys missing anything back at the house per chance?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “A little wooden box maybe? With a mandala engraved on the lid?”

  I have no clue what the hell Fitz is referring to, Dashiell clearly does; realization dawns on his face “You motherfucker,” he hisses.

  “Play ball and you’ll be fine. Fail to keep your mouths shut and that thing’s gonna wind up in the hands of the police. And I’m betting that it’s got Riot House DNA all over it. Wren’s DNA in the very least.”

  Dash glowers like a burning hot coal. The roles are reversed now; it looks like he’s going to grab Fitz. “What the hell is wrong with you, man? I thought you cared about him.”

  Fitz lets out a weary sigh. He looks off to the right, flashing a wave and a tight, professional smile at one of the cops standing in front of the dining hall. “I do,” he says under his breath. “But he’s been a very bad boy, Dashiell. He deserves to suffer a little for his behavior. He’ll be fine. They can’t pin anything on him. Nothing that’ll stick. Mara’s flighty. It’s hardly surprising that she’s taken off without saying a word to anyone. Wren’ll have to sweat this out for a little while, but it’ll pass. When it’s all over and the heat’s died down, he can apologize to me and things can go back to normal. In the meantime, keep my name out of those police reports. You know what’ll happen if you don’t.”

  “There were two hundred people at that party, Fitz,” Dash snaps. “How the fuck are we supposed to make sure no one says anything?”

  Fitz shrugs, placing a hand on his shoulder and gives it a hard squeeze. “That isn’t my problem anymore. You’ll figure it out, Lovett. I have every faith in you. You’re a resourceful guy.”

  I step forward, blocking Fitz’s path. “If we do this for you, you promise that’ll be it? You’ll leave us all alone? That box will never see the light of day, and you’ll never interfere or bother any of us, ever again?”

  He smiles a ruinous smile. “Of course, Miss Mendoza. I swear it on my life.”

  30

  DASH

  “We should put him in the fucking ground.”

  Pax is seething. He’s already punched a hole in the living room wall, which will have to be patched up. Wren just sat there and watched him do it. Didn’t scream. Didn’t shout. Didn’t give him a black eye. He literally did nothing. He’s been staring at the damage to the wall like it’s a newly formed black hole that might be a portal to another universe and he’s wondering how he’ll fit through.

  “What a piece of fucking work. He has the gall to come to our party, steals our drugs, and then blackmails us with them when his girlfriend goes missing? That’s beyond fucked.”

  Wren blinks.

  Pax and I discussed it before he came back from his interview with the cops, and we’ve decided to stick to our guns. Or rather our silence. Wren still hasn’t admitted his relationship with Fitz, and at this point we can’t say anything about it without making this whole thing even fucking worse. We just have to wait it out until he’s ready to say something. Which I’m beginning to think he never will. I have no interest in forcing him to confess to something that he doesn’t want to talk about, and neither does Pax, so we’re sticking to the line that Fitz is just concerned over being connected to Mara’s disappearance.

  After a long time staring at the hole that Pax made in the wall, Wren says, “So…Mercy. Mercy did this. She told Fitz I was screwing Mara. Even though she knew I wasn’t.”

  I shoot Pax an uncomfortable look. “I wasn’t there, man. I don’t know what was said.”

  Pax throws his hands up. “Don’t fucking ask me. I was getting my dick sucked in the upstairs bathroom.”

  That’s a topic for another time, I think. Wren’s eyes look really glassy. “She’s dead to me. Fucking dead.”

  “Come on, dude. Mara’s going to show up tomorrow. All of this will blow over. Mercy will apologize like she always does, and all of this will be forgotten by Christmas.” I sound convincing enough. I don’t believe a word I’m saying, but I have to do something to try and diffuse the tension that’s gathering like a storm cloud around our friend. Something very bad is going to happen if I don’t.

  He just huffs. “I’m going to bed.”

  Once he’s disappeared upstairs, Pax locks me in a dark stare that pie
rces through skin, muscle and bone. “Well?” he says.

  “Well what?”

  “You know what,” he growls.

  I’ve been waiting for this. Dreading it. Carina said he told her he wasn’t going to say anything, but I’ve lived with Pax for quite some time now. And after all the bullshit we’ve been through today, and all the other shit we can’t talk to Wren about, I knew he was going to bring this up. It’s probably been eating at him all day. I sigh. “What do you wanna know?”

  “How long? And why lie about it?”

  “Two months.” I wait for the fireworks. When they don’t come, I take a deep breath and attempt to tackle his second question. “And I lied about it because I like her, Pax. Really like her. And I didn’t wanna make a game out of breaking her fucking heart. Is that so bad?”

  Pax never talks about his tattoos. He didn’t have any when we first came to Wolf Hall, back when we were skinny fourteen-year-olds. About a year ago, he told us he was going home to New York for the weekend, got into his car, and drove off. When he came back, he had the outline of his first sleeve on his right arm. Wren arched an eyebrow at the fresh ink in that very Wren-like way of his. I shook my head, sighed, but didn’t say a word. Pax isn’t a sharer. None of us are. We don’t probe into each other’s shit and we don’t ask questions. Pax’s ink has slowly crept across the expanse of his body over the past twelve months, and now it’s begun to creep up his neck. It hits me, looking at him across the living room, that he isn’t the same person I met when school started. He’s undergone some sort of transformation, a metamorphosis, and I know absolutely nothing about it.

  It’s fucking stupid. All of this is fucking stupid.

  “I shouldn’t have kept it a secret. I should have told you guys. You’re right. Wren shouldn’t be keeping his shit with Fitz a secret. And you? Fuck knows what you’re not telling us. Maybe it’s time for us all to put our cards on the table. I wanna be with Carina. There. I fucking said it. I’m gonna be with Carina, and I swear to God, I’ll break your fucking neck if you so much as look sideways at her, bro. I’m not fucking kidding.”

  Pax doesn’t say anything. He folds his arms across his chest, glaring at me.

  “Well? What? Is this where you call me an asshole and tell me that I’m jeopardizing our friendship? Putting a girl before the house?” I’m ready for these arguments. I’m prepared to defend myself against them. What I am not prepared for is:

  “My dad died. Last winter. Just…dropped down dead in the middle of dinner. Mom said it was like something out of a comedy sketch. His head bounced off the table. Almost landed in his fucking soup.”

  “What?”

  He scratches his chin. “Pulmonary embolism. They said it was because he was flying all the time. A blood clot formed in his leg or some shit and traveled up through his body. Lodged in his lungs. Something went wrong, and he just…” He snaps his fingers. “Died.”

  Pax’s relationship with his parents has always been rocky. His mother in particular. We give him shit about her all the time, but only because we know he secretly cares about her. His dad, though? His dad rarely comes up in conversation. And now…he’s dead? He’s been dead for a long fucking time! “I’m sorry, man. I don’t—I don’t know what to say.”

  “You don’t need to say anything. The guy’s gone. Nothing to be done about it. That’s life.”

  “Why are you telling me, then?” I’m still stunned by this revelation.

  “I know something about you. You know something about me. We’re even, Lovett. Keep your mouth shut and don’t say anything to Jacobi about it. I’ll do the same.”

  He stalks toward the stairs and climbs them without another word. I watch him go with my head aching at my temples. He gave me collateral against him. Fucking collateral—information that he didn’t want to share. That was not the point I was trying to make, and it wasn’t done in the spirit of change. This piece of information he’s given to me has only caused the nooses we’ve all made for ourselves to pull tighter around our necks. For a second there, I thought that maybe the time for secrets was done, and the relief was huge. No more hiding. No more lying. No more worrying about what could happen if I’m not careful. Now, I have one more hurt to carry. Another truth that can be wielded as a weapon. Knowing that Pax’s father died hasn’t made me feel any better about Pax knowing my secret. It’s made me feel fucking worse. And it’s proven just how broken things have become in our household.

  31

  CARRIE

  I’m the one to receive the note.

  Not before they comb the woods, though. Not before I lose three nights of sleep and go half out of my fucking mind worrying about her. On the front of the envelope, the return address is a low rent motel in Los Angeles. On cheap, thin paper, Mara’s loopy handwriting tells me that she’s fine. That she just needed a change of scene. That she was sick and tired of how small and pathetic her life was at Wolf Hall, and how she’s already enjoying herself so much more now that she’s free and living by her own rules in Hollywood.

  I read it, and I’m filled with such rage that I screw the notepaper up into a ball before I realize that the cops are going to want to see it and I have to press it out flat against my desk again.

  I’m numb as Harcourt reads the note. Numb as the police come to collect it. Numb as the Principal calls everyone to an assembly and explains that Mara hasn’t been found, but we do know that she’s safe.

  This is so typical of Mara. So selfish and so self-absorbed. The drama of the most epic Irish goodbye of all time appealed to her, I bet. Did she think the cops would get involved? Did she think that I’d worry myself sick, imagining all the things that could have happened to her? And her parents? Her poor mom and dad put out an appeal on local television, asking for help in finding their daughter. Her mother had looked grief-stricken and pale under the studio lights. Did Mara consider what her little stunt was going to do to her parents when she vanished herself? I don’t think she did.

  See, Mara’s not a bad person. But she’s just careless. Thoughtless. The consequences of her actions don’t occur to her until it’s too late and the damage has already been done. So long as she’s doing whatever she wants to do, then Mara Bancroft is oblivious to the rest of the world and how her actions affect it.

  I get my phone back from Harcourt. Presley, who has been so upset over Mara’s disappearance that she hasn’t been eating or sleeping, is checked out of Wolf Hall for the rest of the semester by her over-protective mother. Life stumbles forward. The only reprieve from the fallout of Mara’s departure is the moment when I turn out my bedroom light at night and hear the soft creak-click of my bedroom door opening and closing in the dark. Dash comes every night. No conversation or invitation is required anymore. I know he wants to come to me, and he knows how badly I need him to. He’s the anchor in the storm. The only bright point of light amidst a very dark storm, guiding me away from the rocks, keeping me safe.

  Tonight, I’m sitting on the edge of the bed that he bought for me, staring up at the observatory, lost in thoughts of the stars when he creeps silently into my room. I nearly yelp in fright when I feel the gentle caress over my shoulder blades.

  “Lost in the blue again, Stellaluna?” His voice is rough-edged and sumptuous—a carefully crafted whisper that makes my toes curl into the blankets on the bed. I’ve been lost in the blue for years. More so since he came along. When I look up at the night sky now, it’s hard to see the stars anymore. All I see is him. All I feel is him. His hands on me. His mouth on mine. The addictive weight of him on top of me, urging my legs open, and then the hardness of him thrusting inside me, bringing the world into bright, sharp focus. I’ve lost my very soul to this boy under a blanket of stars every night, and I’ve savored every single second of it.

  “You’re late,” I tell him, trying not to smile.

  The bed dips as Dash positions himself behind me; he arranges his legs so that I’m sitting between them, between his thighs, and the warmth
and the heat of him makes my muscles ease. I didn’t even know I’d been so tense until my body melts into the security of him. “You’re mistaken. I’m right on time. I’m never late. My father would flay me alive if I committed such a heinous breach in etiquette.” He wraps his arms around me, holding onto me tightly, so that my back is flush with his chest. I can feel the steady, solid thump, thump, thump of his heart beating out a rhythm against my spine.

  “How would your father ever know?”

  “He knows everything,” he whispers into my hair. He nuzzles his face into the crook of my neck and kisses me; the heat of his mouth on my skin makes me feel like I’ve just lost my footing and plummeted off the edge of a cliff. “Harcourt’s probably keeping tabs on us and reporting back to the fucker.”

  I laugh; the sound turns into a breathy moan when his fingertips skip up my torso, climbing my ribcage like a ladder. He brushes his thumbs against the underside of my breasts, resting the weight of them on the backs of his hands, and he growls deep and low into the shell of my ear. “I love when you wear nothing but a t-shirt for me,” he rumbles. Turning his hands over, he cups my breasts in his palms through the material of my thin NASA shirt, rubbing gently at my nipples so that my breath quickens.

  We haven’t had sex since the party. Both of us have been too worried and caught up in what’s been going on to think about touching each other. But now that Mara’s safe, off having some adventure by herself in L.A., and Fitz has calmed down, the pressure valve needs to be released between us.

  I was wound so taught earlier that I could barely keep still. I let my head rock back so that it rests against Dashiell’s collar bone. Slowly, he slides one hand down my body while still massaging a breast with the other. When his fingers dip below the waistband of my panties and strokes the soft, sensitive flesh between my thighs, both of us let out a ragged sigh.

  “Anything you wanna tell me?” Dash murmurs. “You’re so fucking wet. Did you touch yourself while you were waiting for me?”