Page 77 of The Vipers and Their Venom

I’ll make her fall for us, and then I’ll show her she’s nothing.

40

ZANE

When I get to Saint’s room, I’m breathing hard. These fuckers better not still be fighting. I don’t know what the hell has gotten into the twins lately. Well, I think, I do—the same thing that’s gotten into me. A poison working its way into the bloodstream of our lives. Decadent and delicious, she’ll get us hooked, and then she’ll take her presence away and leave us with nothing.

But only if we let her. I can’t decide whether I want to break her so she can’t break us, or just keep her. Never let her go.

When I’m touching Vani, the screaming pain in my throat quietens, the anger zinging in my blood settles from a roar to a hum, and the feeling I want to crawl out of my own skin subsides. She’s like my own personal Xanax.

Xanax makes you addicted, and it makes you weak. Will she do that to me?

I push open the door and see her there, waiting, pale-faced and big-eyed. While some girls might have just rolled their eyes and stormed out after finding the twins like this, she’s taken it to heart. She takes life seriously, and I think that’s what I like best about her. She seems to experience everything so intensely. The pain she feels all the time, as if she’s walking around withoutskin, fascinates me. What made her so thin-skinned that the world merely existing seems to make her sad much of the time?

“Do you know how beautiful your sorrow is?” I’d say to her if I could speak. It’s probably a good thing I can’t. I’ll be writing fucking sonnets next, and then I might as well cut my balls off and offer them to her on a silver platter.

What the fuck? I sign at the twins.

His fault, not mine, Saint signs back, pointing at Lex.

Then I see it. The smashed up painting.

Why?I sign at Lex.

“That’s not who she is. Not to him.”

I frown, confused as fuck.Makes no sense,I sign.

“He stole the way I see her,” Lex says.

I stare at him and can’t think of a coherent answer, because fuck me, doesn’t he realize how insane that is?

“See?” Saint sighs. “Lex has lost it. It’s all this little witch’s fault.” He walks over to Vani and runs his hand down her spine, making her shiver.

“You put a spell on us, Venom, and I think you need to atone for that sin. What will you offer us as your gods? What will be your apology? Your sacrifice?”

Lex seems to have forgotten his momentary lunacy because he walks over to his twin and Vani, stopping in front of her. “What she always offers. Her body.”

“No,” she says.

“No?” Saint asks, raising his eyebrows. “Why not?”

“I liked that painting, and he destroyed it.”

“I’ll paint it again, but better this time.” Saint smiles at her. “I promise. You’ll look like a goddess.”

“I already did,” she says sadly. “In that painting, at least.”

“I’ll paint you as if you belong on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel,” Saint purrs, “because you do. You know, when I call you all the names I do, it’s my form of worship.”

He lies as easily as he breathes, because it most definitely isn’t worship. Although, from what I can see of the torn and broken canvas, there is a part of Saint that worships Vani, and maybe that’s what made Lex lose his shit.

I’m half hard as I watch Saint and Lex pet Vani as if she’s a skittish cat that might run at any moment, so I decide to lay on the charm, too.

I sign at Saint, knowing she won’t understand.This time, cut the…. I search for a word I can sign, as degradation isn’t in our limited bastardized version of sign language,bad talk, is what I end with.

He gets it because he gives a subtle nod of his head.

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