Page 162 of Craving Venom

Frank’s body jerks weakly and a guttural moan leaks from his ruined throat. He’s not even present anymore. He’s just a pile of flesh who is barely breathing.

Hands grab my shoulders, arms, and waist as barked orders hit the air. “Zane! Stand down! Now!” But they might as well be whispers. Threats don’t mean shit. Nothing they could do—not tasers, not beatings, not solitary—comes close to what he did. What Mark endured.

Nothing compares to the sound of Mark choking on a cock. The sight of blood on his thighs. The way he didn’t fight back.

“Let go of me!” My arms thrash, fists punching the air, trying to land one more blow.

I throw my weight to the side and almost knock one of them over. A baton slams into my shoulder. Someone punches me in the gut. My knees dip for a second, but I don’t go down.

I try again.

One of them grabs my wrist, twisting it behind my back. Cold steel bites in as cuffs slam shut. The other wrist follows. I thrash, but they’ve got leverage now, but not enough. I could pry myself out of the grip of five guards without even thinking. But then my eyes catch on Mark across the yard, and that split-second of hesitation is all they need. Someone sweeps my legs out from under me, cuffing my ankles before I can rive again.

They finally get me upright, shoving my spine so hard I stagger back into one of them. My chest heaves so hard it feels like I might vomit rage straight out of my ribs, I want nothing more than to kill Frank, but my eyes stay on Mark.

A guard’s got an arm under his shoulders, half-dragging, half-carrying him down the opposite corridor. His knees buckle every third step, and his face—fuck. It’s so blank, it looks like he’s already dead.

He mouths“thank you,”and I don’t even think he knows he’s doing it.

That’s when reality rams into me, hammering me right in the throat. Marks’s alive. He’s hurt, broken, and bleeding, but he’s still breathing.

And Frank?

He’s still coughing blood into the dirt.

It was worth it. Every fucking second.

The guards start dragging me toward the admin wing, pulling me in the opposite direction from where they’re taking Mark.

The door to the disciplinary hearing room slams open. There’s a long table. Plastic chairs. A clipboard sitting on achair. Two security supervisors. Some flunky from the legal unit. Clipboard guy in a cheap tie looks up, visibly flinching when they shove me inside.

“Wow,” I gripe, rolling my eyes as I let my head loll back just to annoy them, “everyone’s rallying to protect me from... well,me.”

“Sit,” someone barks.

I drop into the chair. The cuffs stay on. Of course.

Clipboard Boy clears his throat and gestures stiffly toward the paper in front of him. “This is an emergency disciplinary session. You’re being sanctioned under Code Seventeen for assault resulting in near-fatal injury of another inmate.”

I snort. “Near-fatal? Fuck. Guess I didn’t hit hard enough.”

“Zane.” The head of security slouches closer. “Shirley’s the only reason you’re not already in a black box. You want to test how far that protection goes?”

I slide back, dragging my cuffed wrists up and setting them on the table with a loud clack. “You gonna give Frank a medal while you’re at it?”

Clipboard Boy flicks through some notes. “You’re being offered a controlled resolution. No further charges filed—”

“Gee, thanks,” I bite out.

“—provided you comply with a seven-day restraint order,” Clipboard Boy drones, tapping the paper, thinking it’ll intimidate me. “You’ll remain cuffed at all times.”

“And here I thought you assholes were going to go all out.”

Clipboard Boy doesn’t meet my eyes.

“You’re lucky,” the guard on the right mutters. “Warden Shirley’s fond of you. She called off a full psych eval.”

The clipboard slides across the table toward me. A pen follows.

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