Page 53 of The Venom We Bleed

I swivel to gape at him. “You could’ve fooled me.” Sarcasm and rage drip from my words. “Your girlfriend is still after me.”

Gio’s amusement fades in an instant. “I don’t have girlfriends,” is all he says.

I’d feel bad for Megan except … I don’t. She’s a fucking bitch. I stop fighting against Lex’s hold—it’s getting me nowhere.

“Fine,” I grit out. “Then your fuck buddy—I don’t care what you call her. The fact remains, you haven’t exactly made my life easier since I transferred to Silverwood Public. You’ll forgive me if I don’t necessarily trust you enough to tell you about my life.”

“I’m not asking about your life,” Lex says, drawing my attention back to him. The lock he has on my wrist remains ironclad.

“No?” I laugh, but the sound is a dry, ugly thing. “Then what are you doing?” I flex my fingers against his chest, feeling the throb in my palm from the splinter there.

He lifts my palm, dragging it up with his hold. The press of muscles covered by fabric under my hand distracts me just long enough for him to pull my hand all the way to his mouth. I hiss out a breath as his tongue touches the exact placement of the sliver of wood embedded there. I jerk back, a pained noise escaping my throat.

“What’s wrong?” Gio is there, his big body pressing against my side as he forces me closer into Lex.

“Nothing, it’s just a—” A gasp interrupts my words as Lex’s teeth bite down. The shard of bark shifts and I realize a split second later that Lex isn’t biting me but the splinter. With careful ministrations, he pulls my hand straight down as he extracts the painful little piece of wood from my palm in a practiced fashion. More heat pours into me, lava flooding my stomach and sinking lower to the place between my legs.Damn them.

“That hurts.” My complaint falls flat both because it’s no longer true and because of the breathless sound of my own voice.

“It shouldn’t anymore.” Gio’s voice is a quiet weapon. Sinking into me just as much as the warmth from both of their bodies.

“Why are you doing this?” It doesn’t make sense.

In places like Silverwood—where the rich and poor can be separated by little more than a series of train tracks separating the rich from the poor and the luck of birth—the reality is simple. Power goes to either those who are born with it or those who will do anything to achieve it.

For men like the Scorpion Kings, power isn’t a byproduct of birth. Power is in their blood, sweat, and sacrifices. They may not have money, but they have everything else—strength, brotherhood, and respect. People fear them as much as they envy them. Women want to fuck them. Men want tobethem.

Not me.

“Why can’t you let someone help you without complaining?” Gio asks, ignoring my question.

A low snarl erupts from me and I try to pull myself back from them. In response, Lex and Gio step closer, forcing me between them—crushing me with their fire and strength.

“We’re not friends,” I snap back.

Lex moves closer and for some reason—some insane illogical sense that he won’t cause me harm at this moment—I don’t flinch away from him. “Do you want to be my friend, Juliet?” he asks.

The sensation of familiarity at those words niggles at the back of my head, an old memory cropping up.Do you want to be my friend, Juliet?

“Juliet?” Lex’s questioning tone brings me back to the present and I shake my head, warding off the strangest sense that I’ve heard him ask that before.

“No,” I say, not sure if I'm telling the truth. “No, I don’t want a friend.” What I want is freedom. I want to get away from this place, from this godforsaken town, from the destruction my family caused. I want to go somewhere else where I can start anew and be someone else, find out who I am without the past haunting me and turning me into someone else.

I close my eyes and inhale deeply, trying to stave off the worst of my rage lest it completely overwhelm me. When I reopen them, it’s to find that both Lex and Gio have released me. A cold autumn wind cuts through the trees and fills me up, a balm to my overheated flesh.

“Give me your phone,” Lex demands.

I blink up at him. “I don’t have one.”

Now it’s his turn to blink. “What?” His voice takes on a new pitch, rising in shock. “What the hell do you mean you don’t have a cell phone? You have to have one.”

I shrug even as my voice comes out defensive. “Not sure if you’re aware of this, but cell phones cost money and I don’t have any.” Humiliation burns a hot wave of acid through my stomach at my admission. I’dhada phone months ago and it went the same way as my life—to shit.

“You have a job,” Gio points out. “How does your work get a hold of you?”

I look away from eyes that, even in this darkness, see too much. “I still have a laptop,” I answer. “There are programs and shit you can get to make it look like you have a phone number. It’ll record a voicemail and send those and texts to your email. I usually check it a couple of times a day when I’m at home.” In my lone studio apartment with the barest necessities.

My, my, how the mighty have fallen.

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