Page 267 of Craving Venom

I dig my nails harder into my thigh through the hoodie. Zane hasn’t moved. He’s just sitting there, waiting for me to catch up to what he already knows. What he’s probably known for months.

“Why me?”

I hear his heartbeat pounding too loud in the silence between us. As if the thought of me anywhere near them is too much for him to bear. As if just imagining it is tearing something loose inside him.

“D.O.M. targets girls who’ve been through something,” he says. “They look for trauma they can mold. Pain that hasn’t healed right. Grief. Abandonment. Sexual assault. Domestic abuse. Suicidal ideation.”

Every word sounds like it’s scraped through his throat.

“They analyze every public record. Every social media post, therapy intake form, academic file. They pull data like it’s currency. Build psychological profiles from the digital crumbs we all leave behind.”

His eyes lock onto mine.

“And then they find the one who looks like she might fall without needing a push.”

Jason’s death. My withdrawal must’ve been enough to make them think I was broken. That I’d be easy to take.

“You think I would’ve gone with Trevor?” I ask, wrapping my hands around my knees. “I would’ve never gone with him.”

“It wouldn’t have been your choice, baby.”

“You can’t force someone into a cult,” I argue.

“You don’t have to,” he says. “You just have to convince them they’re safer inside than they ever were outside.”

I want him to stop.

But I need him to keep going.

He does.

“They isolate you first. One friend stops replying. A TA gives you a failing grade so you feel helpless. Someone starts a rumor, and no one corrects it. You stop going out because you think everyone’s staring. You stop answering calls because no one really checks in anymore.”

He tilts my chin up, and his eyes are fire.

“That’s how it begins.”

I can’t breathe.

“Then they send someone in. Someone charming. Someone who listens. Someone who makes it feel like only he sees you. He feeds you hope, one compliment at a time. He fills the silence. Becomes the only voice that matters. And when you’re alone enough… when you start believing he’s all you have left… you’ll follow him anywhere. Even to hell.”

I crawl across the bed slowly and reach for Zane. My palm presses flat to his chest, right over his heart. His skin is hot beneath my touch, and the way he tenses under my hand makes my pulse skip.

I don’t pull away.

“If I’m already on their list…” My thumb brushes along the curve of one tattoo sprawling over his ribs. I feel the tightness of the muscle underneath. The restraint. The grief, “then I deserve to know what happens behind that door.”

Zane grits his jaw.

“You don’t want to see that.”

“I think I already have.”

He looks at me and leans close, until our foreheads nearly touch.

“You step into that room,” he says, “and I can’t promise I’ll protect your soul.”

I smile, but it doesn’t reach my eyes.

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