Page 238 of Craving Venom

My thumb slides over the screen.

The Criminal Archives screen lights up, the last chat thread I opened glowing at the top with Zane’s name still sitting there.

Harmless. That’s what I thought when we first started talking. When he typed like he had too much time and not enough humanity. When I’d ask him about blood patterns and he’d answer like it was poetry.

“The veins in the thighs pop first. It’s almost beautiful.”

I thought he was full of shit.

Thought it was bravado. Persona. A caged wolf pretending to be something bigger.

But that’s just bullshit, right?

You can’t ever label someone like Zane as harmless.

I scroll through the chat history.

My messages are so naive I want to delete them just to stop feeling secondhand embarrassment. Asking him if he believes in redemption. Telling him how people can be changed. Laughing when he told me not to test him.

I tested him.

And now I know.

Zane doesn’t just carry violence.

Heisviolence.

I drop the phone onto the sheets and roll onto my back. My thighs rub and I feel that familiar ache again, right between my legs, the one that makes my breath stutter and my shame spike. I could touch myself. It wouldn’t take much. Just one memory. Just the image of his mouth against my breast or the way he gripped my hair when I tried to pull away.

But I don’t.

Because if I come thinking about him again, I won’t be able to pretend it was not my choice.

I don’t register the front door opening until I hear the scream.

“Jesus, Faith—!”

I jolt upright as my heart slams into my ribs. My blanket tangles around my legs as I scramble halfway off the bed.

A pissed Tria stands in the doorway, holding her phone in one hand and the fake key she swore she’d never use in the other.

My throat locks up. “What the fuck—how did you—?”

She tosses the key on the desk as if it’s proof I’m the criminal. “You’ve ignored forty-eight calls. I thought you were dead. Turns out you’re just hiding in a fucking cave.”

I rub a hand over my face, trying to will the blood back into my veins. “I’m not... I’m just not feeling myself, okay?”

“No shit you’re not,” Tria snaps, pacing like she’s trying not to throw something. “You haven’t been yourself since Halloween.”

“Tria, I swear—”

She cuts me off. “Is it because of that shadowy figure?”

My stomach flips.

“What?” I blink. “What shadowy figure?”

“Don’t play dumb. You think I don’t see things? I’ve been coming by almost every night. Trying to catch you in person since you won’t answer shit.”

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