Riot Act (Crooked Sinners)

by Callie Hart

Wren’s been a total buzzkill ever since he got himself a girlfriend. He’s whipped. His girl says jump and Wren isn’t just asking how high. He’s asking how many times, and for how goddamn long. My friend’s balls are no longer hanging between his legs; they’re dangling from Elodie Stillwater’s keychain.

See that's why i love Wren. He's a changed man now

Ever the worrier, Dad proceeds to worry even more. “How can you be fine, sweetheart? You just lost a friend. And your mother’s upped and relocated to the other side of the world—”

FINALLY!!! A character with an actual good dad.

I’ve been bleeding out, one way or another, my entire fucking life. What’s another cut? What’s another drop?

Damn im real invested in him now

Honestly, I forget that I’m still human sometimes. Seems the yawning pit of nothingness that exists right beneath my solar plexus should have consumed any biological, functional part of me and rendered me null by now.

I wait for the panic. If I’d found myself in this position a month ago, I would have thrown up on myself and fled the scene like a common criminal. The panic doesn’t come.

Gosh the new Pres is just so fierce I LOVE IT

“I wanted to see if I was still afraid of you,”

I love this new Pres. She RULES

Standing on the stairs today, I’m nothing but calm. I’d go so far as to say I’m almost…entertained? My confidence spills out of me when I say, “You could try, but I’m pretty sure my fear of you has been permanently cured, Pax Davis.”

I love this sooo much. Finally a girl who doesn't give a fuck, comes off really confident even tho she's really attracted to him. She's the one getting him all worked up and Im living for it

Now that I’m looking properly, there are photographs everywhere, tacked to the walls, too. Most of the images are of inanimate objects. Cars. Birds. Ruined buildings. Some of them are of the forest that surrounds Wolf Hall. Some are of the academy itself, captured expertly in all its gothic glory. Others, many others, are of Dash and Wren. The other Riot House boys are everywhere in this room, laughing, sprawled out on sofas, staring at their laptops, faces lit up in the dark. They’re reading, and working, and eating, and running, and they look so normal and carefree that for a second I think of them as real people.

I knew he had a heart somewhere in there

I leash the smirk that wants to form on my face,

I love that Pres is smirking. Cuz somehow it means that she has the upperhand and i've been wanting to read about a girl like that since day 1

He glares at me—straight through me—a series of tiny muscles flexing in his jaw. He releases a frustrated blast of air down his nose, nostrils flared, and then lifts the camera to his face. He snaps off another photo of me, his eyebrows banking together as he lowers the Canon from his face again.

Him taking a photo of her is so meaningful in my opinion. I reckon he doesn't take a lot of portraits.

I stand with my back to the window, rolling my shoulders back, tilting my head and raising my chin…and I meet Pax’s blank stare with a burning defiance that originates somewhere deep down in the very center of me.

Ohhhhhh my gosh oh my gosh im literaly fangirling over her. She is wicked cool!!! This. THIS RIGHT HERE will be the end of me. I'm gonna worship the new Presley

On the short ride up the mountain to the academy, everything is back to normal. We bait each other and rile each other up, pushing as many of each other’s buttons as possible before we hit the school’s extra-long, narrow driveway. Once we pull up in front of the grand, gothic masterpiece of a building, everything changes. Elodie and Carrie are waiting for us at the top of the school’s steps. Both of them. They look so happy to see my friends that a body-wide shudder travels from the soles of my feet to the crown of my head. I’ve never seen anything so pathetic in all of my life. Wren smiles when he gets out of the backseat and Elodie jumps into his arms. Sitting next to me in the front passenger seat, Dash has the sense not to do or say anything that might make me puke all over myself…until he gets out of the car and Carrie folds herself neatly into his arms. He kisses the top of her head,

This will be commited to memory FOREVER

Wrelodie and Cash

AHHHHHHhhh ladies and gentlemen. We have the official fandom names!!!! All aboard to ship WRELODIE AND CASH!!!!

“I’m not the one playing games. I’m not targeting her for shit. She’s the one messing with me. Just…fuck off and mind your business.”

FINALLY!!!!! Bruh i've been screaming on top of my lungs wanting and needing the girl to mess with the boy and FINALLY WE GOT IT!!!! Im crying hapyy tears. Now we got the girl playing the upperhand

Once upon a time, Dash used to concoct the most reprehensible plans to fuck with the girls at the academy. He could look at a girl across a hallway and make her shrink down to half her size with nothing more than a cold, assessing glare and a narrowing of his eyes. As a distant member of the English royal family, he was born with the God-given ability to look at someone and make them feel worthless. Now that he’s with Carina, after a long stint of pining and denying his feelings, he doesn’t even have the time to look anymore. He only sees Mendoza.

I believe in happily ever after now

This is the way of it, isn’t it? We are observers. We look out at the world and we feel. We want what we don’t have. To be Wren, to be anyone else for that matter, even for a few short seconds, seems like it would be such a release. Because, for those brief and fleeting moments, I wouldn’t have to be me.

Gosh he is deep

“Hell’s teeth, woman! Forget it. Talking to you is like voluntarily smashing my own face into a wall!”

Ahahalol

We're alike, me and this girl. I look at her now and I feel the same way that I felt this afternoon, looking at that self-portrait that half developed in my makeshift dark room. I feel like I'm looking into the void, and people in possession of souls like ours don't sleep easily, I've found. Not at night. We prefer to sleep during the day, when the darkness can’t seep into our dreams.

He's surpisingly deep and smart

I crouch down, so that I'm hovering right beside her, and I blow the smoke I've been holding in my chest—there’s barely any of it left really—right into her face. It's supposed to be an insult, of course, but quick as lightning Chase grabs the back of my head and pulls me close, bringing her mouth so that it's an inch away from mine, and sucks the smoke into her lungs.

Im literally blowing up in lava. THATS SO HOTT

“You’re like the world’s most beautiful apple. Bright, and shiny, and glossy. Everyone wants to take a bite out of you. But the moment you break the surface of that appealing exterior, there’s only rot and decay inside. You’re foul, Pax Davis. The pretty, appealing façade is nowhere near enough to temper the bad taste you leave in people’s mouths.”

The writing here is so poetic im gonna gobble this shit up

“But that's the thing, Pax. When all a person has ever known is misery...it's what they come to expect. Soon, they feed on it, because it's the only sustenance they know. Eventually, their misery becomes their strength. They can endure so much more than anyone else. You'll be surprised by what I can endure now. And once the surprise has worn off, you'll see that you're powerless to hurt me. I told you the truth in the dining hall. There really is nothing left of me to hurt.”

I've never told anyone about the dream. Like Theseus, that maze used to be my own personal hell. I was stalked down its dank, winding pathways every night, chased and captured by hellish monsters, each of which were more terrifying than the last. They would always catch me. They would steal a piece of me and swallow it down, eating away at me night after night. They did it until there was nothing of me left. Then, and only then, did the night terrors stop.

Above me, a swell of loud, thrashing music erupts as a door opens and Pax leans out over the side of the bannister. He’s shirtless, tattoos blacker than black, taking up most of his skin. The look on his face is ominous to say the least. “You’re late.”

This is such a vibe. The picture Im painting in my head is so cool its giving me chills

And, surprisingly, I never thought I’d say this, but I do like having Dash around. He’s nothing like I expected him to be. He’s actually funny, and he loves Carina so much. I can see it pouring out of him, quietly, in small ways I would have overlooked before I knew him. He’s understated, but when you begin to understand him, the way he touches Carina, and the way he looks at her, and talks to her, the way he just is around her, you realize just how much he worships her.

This is one of the best news

“Hey, what the hell do you have tied around your wrist?” “What?” He points. “You are wearing a friendship bracelet.” “I am not.” “What’s that, then?” I shove my whole arm behind my back. “None of your damn business is what it is.”

Awwwwnn he still has the bracelet on

I get her email at midnight. On the dot. Like she fucking timed it or something. The message contains her chapter of the story. She was probably sitting on her bed, toying with those Tarot cards of hers, biding her time until the witching hour struck to send it. I’ve decided that’s what Chase is now: a witch.

Pres is literally the embodiment of who i want to be. She's so cool. She's nonchalant, is into witchy stuffs and has the upperhand with Pax? *slams credit card* Take it. TAKE IT ALL

There’s a girl waiting for the boy at the mouth of the maze. She’s naked, covered in bruises. Her lip’s split open, the wound oozing blood down her chin. She doesn’t say anything. She takes the boy by the hand and leads him through a dark, impenetrable forest. He thinks many times that the girl has lost her way and lured him into the woods in order to hurt him. Soon, the trees thin out, though, and the dark becomes less ominous. Eventually, the loamy, springy moss beneath their feet turns to sand. The girl leads the boy out of the forest and onto a pristine, beautiful beach. They’re alone. In the blossoming dawn, the boy and the girl sit on top of a dune, listening to the waves crash.

The chapter ends with the girl holding her hand out to the boy again and saying, “I am Genesis, the beginning. You are Omega, the end.”

Im literally speechless!!!

“I mean it, Presley. I swear to God. I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you. I’ll come back and I’ll kill you.”

OH MY GOSH THIS IS FUCKED UP

He glances over to Chase, something nasty and hungry flashing across his face. “Just remember our agreement, Presley. I wouldn’t want t—” I grab him by the face, wrenching his gaze away from her. “You don’t look at her. You look at me. You don’t talk to her. You talk to me.”

Mammaaaaa MY OVARIES EXPLODED

“I’m not some neanderthal jock who thinks girls are weak. You guys literally push ten-pound babies out of your vaginas. Feed me another line. A missed breakfast isn’t going to make you pass out.”

I LOVE PAX. I would let him tear me open

Taking a glass bowl out of a cupboard, he cracks an unholy amount of eggs into it, adds a bunch of milk, a slab of butter, and whisks the living shit out the mixture with a fork, glowing with rage.

He's so cute. I want him for myself

He pops the last of his burrito into his mouth and picks up his plate, taking it over to the kitchen sink. I’m left to stare at his broad back while he washes the dish and places it in the drying wrack.

This Pax has all of my heart

“Change into that. You’ll be more comfortable. You can get into the bed, or you can sit by the window or read or whatever. I’m gonna go grab Dash. He needs a ride. When I get back, I’ll make sure not to disturb you.”

Okay this is a serious statement Im about to make but i think the name Pax Davis is going right beside Aaron Warner .

She’s sleeping when I get back, curled up into a little ball. I take a photo of her, suspending the lens directly over her where she lies, tucked into the fetal position, and I know innately that it will be my favorite photo of all time; it could come out blurry as hell and super under exposed and I’ll never take a better one. I turn on the TV and load up Call of Duty; I connect the sound to my headphones, so the rattle of gunfire won’t wake Chase, but then I sit on the sofa underneath the window with the headphones hanging around my neck, just…watching her.

Bruhhh stop cuz im actually crying cuz i want him sooo bad

I saw this happening. I fucking felt it. I told myself it wasn’t real. That I could outrun it. Escape it. I told myself that I wouldn’t fall victim to the same bullshit human condition as my friends, but damn. I’ve been such a stupid cunt. Arrogant. To think I was bigger than this.

He's in LOVE

She doesn’t come to the house. Again. I knew she wouldn’t, which is why I’m the one scaling the drainpipe that leads up to her bedroom window at precisely eight o’clock on the dot.

Oh my gosh i love this!!!!

I can only say, “I’m being…me.” She has no idea how monumental that is. How long I’ve done everything in my power to not be me.

Bruh Pax just hits different

“I play video games ’cause I have intrusive thoughts when my mind isn’t constantly engaged.” I’ve never told this to anyone. “I start thinking about all of these different things. I start…fixating on things that are out of my control.”

He's actually really self aware and smart

I shrug. “I don’t know. I fixate on fucking climate change, and how shit the world’s gonna be in thirty years. I start thinking about kids starving in Africa, and how my friends don’t need me the way I need them, and how I’m probably going to be a terrible father, and how I’ll probably never be able to open up to anyone the way I’m opening up to you right now.”

He's a real well thought out man

“When I’m around you. I don’t need the distraction of a video game or a camera in my hand. My head is quiet.”

The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.

Rufus, Meredith’s business partner at her law firm arrives and gets me out on bail. He promises he’ll take care of the assault charge in less than twenty-four hours, and I believe him. Rufus isn’t a fucking amateur; there’s a reason why his retainer is two hundred thousand and he bills three thousand dollars an hour.

Excuse me? $3000/hour?? *faints*

“I’m proud of you, y’know?” She turns her head to face me, the sun catching at her hair and making it glow like spun gold. I used to love her hair when I was little. Loved stroking my hands over the thickness of it, wrapping her curls around my fingers. I thought she was so beautiful, like a fairy. I was sure she was made of magic when I was five. People’s flaws are much easier to overlook when you’re that age, though.

Remember the video where the kid calls his mother "blessing" ? I just decided that I'm going to adopt kids when i grow old. I don't want to get married or be chained to a guy. I want to be free and happy with my kids. I want to soar through the sky and fly. And train my little birdies how to fly and be with them every step of the way. I want to be single and live out my life with my kids.

Principal Harcourt cups her hand around her mouth and calls out, “He’s joking! Haha, of course he’s joking!” Which I quickly follow up with, “I’m totally not joking. Dumping your children in a boarding school in the middle of nowhere, at the top of a mountain, might seem like a great idea when you can’t be fucked to raise them, but it’s a sure-fire way of winding up with a bunch of sociopaths on your hands. So.” I shrug. “Bad fucking form, you guys. Do better.”

Oh, and by the way…” I shove my ‘speech’ into my pocket, rubbing at the back of my neck. “The path of least resistance doesn’t always mean taking the easiest option. Sometimes…it means that your soul finds its way home, toward something it loves, after you’ve held it back for too fucking long. So…do with that what you will, I guess.”

I- I really can't describe how much I love him. Gosh I want him in my veins

“Go on, Presley Maria. Before I change my mind. He’s rough around the edges, but I know he’s gonna look after you, at least.”

Pax sits in the leather chair by the window, six feet from the bed, watching me. His face is still a little bruised from his run-in with Jonah. He’s wearing a black button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His jeans are black, as always. His feet are bare. Dressed in shadows, his head resting on the back of the chair, his expression so very serious, he looks like…he looks perfectly like himself.

“Yes,” he says. “Both. I want to fight with you and get mad at you. I want to finish our fucking book together, and I want to fall out with you over it. And then I want to make up afterwards. I want to hold you. I want to protect you. I want to feel your head on my chest every night when we fall asleep. And I’m cut up on the inside because of that. I’m not supposed to want any of that. I don’t know how to fucking deal with wanting that. But…is any of that what you want? If I put down my weapons here, do you think you can put down yours?”

Ohh my gosh im actually crying. I love you

“I welcome the day I lose my mind, Chase. At least then, when I’ve truly lost it, I’ll be oblivious to the fact. I’ll just be crazy. Nothing in the world will matter anymore. I want you to be mine. I—I’m fucking in love with you, Chase. I want to learn how to show you that. I want to make you fucking believe it. ”

I can die happy now. My gravestone: Here lies Thinzar. Happy to welcome death armed with the confession from Pax Davis