Page 74 of A Love Like Venom

Once I find my breath and my heart returns to normal, I tell him, "You need to leave, Snake. I don't want you here."

He doesn't move, not even an inch. Just like in my thoughts the man won't leave.

"You want me to leave?" He asks incredulously, as if the idea itself baffles him.

"Yes, I want you to leave."

"You want me to leave and be stuck with him? Is that what you want?"

"Better the devil you know than the devil you don't," I bite out. His nostrils flare in response. It's the only reaction I get out of him.

"You'd rather choose death?"

"It's not much of a choice now, is it? I stay here and I belong to Razor. I leave and I belong to you!" I shout at him with all the anger I have suppressed towards him.

"That sounds like a fucking choice to me, Alice."

"But it isn't!" I shout at him. My anger finally getting the best of me. "You're both the same. And you're right, Razor might one day kill me, but I'd rather be dead than look in those eyes filled with pure hatred."

He closes the gap between us again.

When he raises his hand I automatically flinch. Now his jaw ticks. Keeping his hand raised he slowly brings it down to cup my neck.

Electricity ignites from his touch. A live wire that courses through my veins.

And I hate it him for it.

I hate how he is the only man my flesh hums to.

I hate how my skin comes alive for him when I know that man I used to love is dead inside.

I hate how his touch soothes the pain.

"I didn't come here to hurt you, Alice.” His voice is low. Looking in his eyes I see the conflict in there. Emotions battling with each other. "I came here to finally hear the truth. Your truth," he tells me.

"What are you talking about?" I ask him confused. This man has me going through mental whiplash. I can't decide if I hate him and want him to go or if I'm curious and want him to stay.

"About what happened that night. When you were seventeen. What we promised each other. I need to know if you kept your word."

"Are you fucking serious? You've been treating me like absolute shit, and you want to know if I broke our promise?" My voice rises with anger. I pull myself away from him and storm into the kitchen. I can hear him following me by the sounds of his steel toed boots.

"Alice-" He begins but I cut him off.

"No. You don't get to come back in my life making it a living hell and then have the audacity to ask me if I broke our promise!" My throat hurts from the yelling but I don't care. When I turn back to him my eyes are filled with tears. Seeing them there has him snapping his head back like I slapped him.

He needs to see the damage he's causing me.

"How could you ask me that when you were the only one to ever break a promise?"

"You made me break it!" He points his finger at me accusingly. "You broke our promise first. And I heard what you said, Alice. I heard what you really thought about me. I only returned the favor."

My mouth falls open with shock. For a good minute I'm too stunned to speak. To stunned to even think.

But for him not to believe me. For him to think that I would ever betray him. Well, that breaks a part of my heart that I thought couldn't be more broken. In fact, it breaks my soul. It tears it apart. Because I always thought that we shared a connection. One that no one else could possibly understand. But for him to even think that I would tell someone, then did we ever have that connection at all? Or was it all a lie?

“What did I say that made you seek revenge? What have I ever done to you to make you like this?”

His face twists with pain as he swears under his breath. “I heard what you said about me, Alice. Caitlin told me what you really thought about me and I had to know for myself. I had to know of she was just bullshitting. I had just found her cheating on me, which you knew about.” He narrows his eyes and I harden mine. “I thought she was talking out of her ass. But a small part of me believed her. Because in all of the years we had known each other we never went a night without talking to one another. And my greatest fear was of you being afraid of me. Of not accepting who I am. And then I overheard you talking to Caitlin about the murder. And you killed me.”

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