Page 40 of Secrets

This is his favorite part. When they're so scared, they look like they're going to piss or shit themselves. It's the poison before the kill, which is how he got his nickname.

Unzipping his pants, Venom pulls out his own cock. "First, this is what a man's dick looks like. Not that child-sized version you've got going on. Second, open your fucking mouth."

"No-"

He presses the gun to his forehead. "Open your goddamned mouth."

Shaking, Chuck does as he's told, opening his mouth wide as tears stream down his face.

"Not a fun little experience, is it?"

He shakes his head and closes his eyes as he waits.

"Close your mouth. I'm not letting you fuck any part of me. But I wanted you to know what you did to her, the fear you put her through, before I kill you."

Venom puts himself back in his jeans, and Chuck starts to scream. Venom bashes the butt of his gun on his face, silencing him, and he pulls the silencer out of his pocket and twists it onto the barrel.

"Wait, you don't have to kill me. You got your payback. You gave me a taste of my own medicine, and I've learned my lesson. You destroyed the only video I have of what her father did, and I won't tell anyone about this."

He tilts his head and smirks. "Here's the thing, Chucky. I don't trust you. And I sure as shit don't trust you'll never do anything like this to someone else. I'll be damned if I give you another opportunity to ever do this to Marnie again. Open your mouth."

"No."

"Okay, then," he says and aims his gun at Chuck's groin, shooting three nearly silent shots.

Chuck's eyes widen, and his mouth opens in a cry, giving Venom the opportunity to place the metal in his mouth and pull the trigger two more times, letting the man fall back and onto the ground behind the dumpster.

Looking at the body, Venom groans. "Fuck. Now I have to go and buy a fucking industrial meat grinder."

Chapter Sixteen

Summerville

Sutton

Sutton steps into her mother's house and finds her way to the makeshift office in the corner of the living room. It's interesting her mother thinks of it as an office, considering she barely finds a way to make bill payments on time. Not because of lack of money but because of lack of any sense of organization or responsibility. Sutton can't remember the number of times various things were shut off when she was growing up, like electricity and water.

This place never really felt like home even though she grew up here. It's not like her dad's place. If she'd had a choice, she'd have lived with him. Ten times over. But her mother made it clear there would be nothing like that happening. It was eitherher or Cannon would be out of their lives forever. Now that she's older, she's not really sure how that would have worked. What magic her mother thought she had.

Growing up, Sutton always wished for a sibling or two. The biggest reason, besides someone else to talk to apart from her mom, was to allow her mother to focus on someone other than Sutton. Grace Lawson can best be described as smothering rather than mothering. The day she turned eighteen, she left. The last place she ever wants to live again is under her mother's roof.

The other reason she wanted siblings was to allow someone else to take care of her mom. Grace was never good at keeping a man longer than a few months, and anything she fell short on, Sutton was to pick up and run with. Like now.

Her mother went to into emergency surgery two days ago after being brought in by ambulance due to pain and lethargy. Sutton thought her mother was faking it until she got the call this morning that she was headed into surgery again. A surgery that may or may not save her life, and now Sutton has to sort through this mess to find her insurance information as well as the end-of-life document Grace swears is packed away with everything else.

"How is this my life right now?" Sutton asks herself as she finishes sorting through the useless papers on the desk. "I'm only twenty-three. I don't even know what the hell an end-of-life document looks like. I'm not even sure I'll know if I find it."

Sitting down, she works on creating neat piles of everything. Bills that have been paid in one pile. Bills that have been unpaid in the second pile. And bills that state it's the last notice in another pile.

"She's going to whoop and holler at me for ruining her precious method. Because her system clearly works. Assuming she makes it out of this surgery to help fix her kidneys," she says.

Opening the filing cabinet, she groans as she finds unlabeled file folders filled with random assortments of documents. "Shoot me now."

The first file has Sutton's birth certificate, an article from the newspaper from ten years ago of nothing noteworthy, and a random list of names. Taking the birth certificate, she folds it and puts it in her purse. "I have no desire to try and find this again down the road."

The second file has old bills, a picture of her great-grandparents, and three years' worth of electricity bills from a house Grace hasn't lived in since Sutton was born.

"I feel like this would be found on an episode ofHoarders. Like, what the hell are you keeping this for, Mom?"

---