Page 32 of A Love Like Venom

But the worst part about it?

This didn't feed my demons. Not in the fucking slightest. They're ravenous and demanding. Maybe if I unleash them on the one who caused them then maybe they'll be sated.

Oak speaks first, it's a warning, showing that even after our brutal fight he still cares. "You have to control yourself."

"And why should I?"

He blows out a breath and then grimaces. "I understand you to a point, Snake. I'd like to think I understand you better than anyone here. But this shit isn't going to go well with everyone else. You can't hurt them and expect them to take it like me."

"I'm not planning on hurting them," I tell him honestly. Fuck, that's not even on my mind.

There is only one person I plan on hurting. A mental warfare that has just begun. And I plan to do as much damage as she did to me.

Alice

Ialways imagined it in my head. Played out all the scenarios. I dreamt about it, too. I had such high hopes. Great expectations for meeting each other once again after all these years. Because even though I am wounded from the pain he inflicted upon leaving, I had always thought he would be the one to help mend it. To fix the damage he caused. Never would I have thought that he would be the one to rub salt on it. For him to leave me feeling more lost and hurt than I was before.

Then I was imagining what it would be like to see Reed Carter once again. The boy who stole my heart when I first saw those magical eyes at the age of seven. The one who I couldn't breathe without. Growing up Reed Carter was the only one who made my miserable life worth living.

The man I met last night . . . the man I met last night seems to only want to make my life a living hell.

I saw it in his eyes. A blinding rage. A vicious hatred. It felt like I was being swallowed into a dark void.

It was more painful than I thought it would be. More damaging than when he left without a word. At least before I could play the scenarios out in my head and give it a happy ending.

Dreams are always far better than reality. Except Reed Carter made the reality better than a dream. Or at least he did before.

Maybe he was right all those years ago when he told me dreaming in Hollows Point won't get you far, that's why you should wish upon the stars. Endless possibilities with millions of stars to wish on. Dreams get killed but wishes, wishes always have the chance of coming true.

I knew then when I was seven, he had experienced tragedy, that a darkness was in his soul. Yet still I was attracted to it. With all the darkness he possessed there was still light. He showed it to me when he held out his hand. He let it show more when he told me the stars were now his and I to share.

His kindness was such a precious gift. Quickly, he became someone who I couldn't see living life without.

For as dark as he was, he exploded bold vivid colors in my bleak world.

And I had thought I did the same for him.

I thought I was enough. Foolishly I believed I could be everything to him like he was to me.

I was proved wrong when he started shifting those magical eyes from me to my sister.

Caitlin lured him in. Quite the seductress she satisfied all the carnal desires I couldn't fulfill. She was masterful in her trap. One big great illusion with charm and deception. It didn't matter if I had warned Reed about her or not. He was then hooked, and my words would've fell on deaf ears.

My one big crime was allowing Reed to fall in love with my sister when I knew she was poisoning him the entire time.

But it's hard. It's hard not being someone's else world when they are yours.

At the age of fifteen him choosing her over me, wanting to be with her, have a relationship with her . . .

It only proved how true what my mother and sister had been telling me all along.

I wasn't enough.

I wasn't enough for my father to stay. I wasn't enough for my mother to love. I wasn't enough for my sister to care.

At the end of the day, I wasn't enough.

Then I met Reed Carter. And he looked at me like there was something worth looking at. He made me believe that I was more than what my family told me.

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