Page 240 of Craving Venom

Tria narrows her eyes. “No, see, now I think you’re being serious and I want to vomit.”

“I don’t know who it is,” I say again, but my stomach’s turning and I know I’m lying—not to her. To myself.

Because some part of me does know.

Or suspects.

Or wants to pretend I don’t know that someone could slip in and out without a trace. Someone who already had his hands around my throat. Someone who watched me sleep and didn’t kill me because he didn’t want to.

“Are you scared?” Tria asks quietly.

I hesitate.

Then nod.

“Yeah. But I think the worst part is… I’m scared of how not scared I am.”

“What does that even mean, Faith?”

I drop onto the bed as if my legs forgot how to hold guilt. My mouth opens, then closes. My fingers twist in the blanket as if that’s going to keep the shame down.

“You remember Zane Valehart?” I ask quietly.

“You fucked him?”

I cover my face with both hands and groan like I can actually fold myself out of existence. “Yes. Okay. Yes. I fucked him. I fucking fucked him. And it was… really fucking good and now I think he’s maybe watching me while I sleep and possibly color-coding my pens, I don’t know.”

The silence that follows is somehow worse than judgment. I peek through my fingers.

Tria’s staring, but not with horror.

More like she’s buffering.

“Okay,” she says slowly.

I stare.

That’s it?

No gasping? No “Oh my God, Faith, he’s a murderer?”

“Okay?”

“Yeah. Okay.” She sits on the edge of the bed. “I mean, he’s hot. Intense. Terrifying. But hot.”

“Tria.”

“What?”

“I literally fucked a convict.”

She shrugs. “You’re not a child. He’s not your teacher. You didn’t break the law, you broke your back.”

“Tria!”

She laughs.

I cover my face again. “Why aren’t you disgusted?”

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