Page 1 of Riot House

Prologue

I can’t move.

Not even an inch.

The foul smell of rot seeping through the tiny holes in front of my face makes me gag. I’ve thrown up four times in—I don’t know how long it’s been—and but that isn’t even the worst part of this nightmare.

The worst part is the terror of not knowing when he’s coming back.

Night turns into day, turns into night, turns into day.

My knees, and my hips, and my shoulders scream, constricted and long dead from lack of blood flow.

I think, perhaps, that I might die.

Dying would be preferable to this.

But I don’t. I keep on breathing, my mind spiraling away from me until my thoughts are unrecognizable noise.

And all I can do is kneel here.

All I can do is wait.

1

ELODIE

Thank fuck it’s dark.

Nothing could be worse that arriving at a new school in broad daylight.

The Lincoln Town Car jolts as it hits a dip in the road, and a wave of panic lights me up—an immediate, unfortunate response to the last two years that I’ve spent living in a war zone. And no, I’m not talking about the fact that my previous home in Israel occasionallyfeltlike a war zone. I’m referring to the fact that I was living under the same roof as my father, Colonel Stillwater, whose idea of a relaxing weekend was beating me black and blue during our Krav Maga training sessions.

I still flinch every time I hear someone politely clear their throat. When Daddy Dearest clearshisthroat, it usually means I’m about to endure humiliation at his hands. Or some form of embarrassment. Or both.

“Looks like they left the lights on for you, Miss Elodie,” the driver says through the open privacy window. This is the first thing he’s mumbled to me since he collected me at the airport, bundled me into the back of this gleaming black monstrosity, gunned the engine, and headed north for the town of Mountain Lakes, New Hampshire.

Up ahead, a building looms like a proud, ominous sentinel out of the dark, all sharp, tall spires and turrets. Looks like something out of the pages of a Victorian Penny Dreadful. I avoid peering out of the window at the stately structure for too long; I glared at the academic pamphlet Colonel Stillwater shoved at me when he unceremoniously informed me that I’d be relocating Stateside without him for long enough that the academy’s imposing façade is already burned into my memory in intricate detail.

Tennis courts.

Swimming pool.

Fencing studio.

Debate lounge.

A library, commemorated by George Washington himself in 1793.

It all looked great in print. Only the height of luxury for a Stillwater, that’s what my father said gruffly, as he threw my single small suitcase into the back of the cab that would whisk me away from my life in Tel Aviv. I saw straight through the building’s state of the art facilities and it’s well-heeled, old-money veneer, though. This place isn’t a regular school for regular kids. It’s a jail cell dressed up as a place of learning, where army officers who can’t be bothered dealing with their own kids dump them without a second thought, knowing that they’ll be watched over with a military-like focus.

Wolf Hall.

Jesus.

Even the name sounds like it belongs to a fucking prison.

Mentally, I’m backing up, moving further away from the place with every passing second. By the time the car pulls up in front of the sweeping marble steps that lead to the academy’s daunting front entrance, I’m back on the road behind me, three miles away, fleeing my new reality. At least that’s where I would be, if I had absolutely any choice in this whatsoever.