Page 9 of Craving Venom

The kid doesn’t know what to do with his hands. They hover between the edge of the table and his lap, fidgeting like they’re waiting for instructions from a brain that’s taken the day off. I let him stew in his awkward silence, flipping a page in the book without reading a single word. It’s fun to watch him squirm.

“You gonna sit there all day, or are you going to tell me why you’re here?” I ask, dragging my gaze up from the page.

“I—uh—” He clears his throat like it’ll somehow fix the squeak in his voice. “My name’s Marcus. But, uh… people call me Mark.”

I close the book with a snap, leaning forward on the table. The movement makes him flinch, and I bite back a smirk.

“Well, Mario, here’s a little advice. You don’t sit at my table unless you’ve got something to say. So, what the fuck do you want?”

“I just…” He hesitates. “I just wanted to know how things work around here.”

I laugh. It’s not a friendly sound. “You mean, no one gave you the grand orientation tour when you got dropped into this shithole?”

“No, I just thought—”

“There’s your first mistake,” I cut him off. “Thinking. That doesn’t get you far in here, kid. Survival’s about instinct, not brainpower. Unless you’re planning to outsmart someone bigger and meaner than you, which”—I gesture at his hulking frame—” I doubt you’ve got the skills for.”

“I’m not stupid, you know.”

“No?” I smirk. “Then why the fuck are you sitting here asking me how to survive? You’ve got enough muscle to scare off half the yard, and yet here you are, looking like a kicked puppy. You’re practically begging for someone to shove a shank between your ribs.”

“I’m trying to figure it out,” he snaps. “Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do? Learn how things work?”

“Sure, if you’re planning to live long enough for it to matter. But here’s the thing, Mason. Nobody’s going to hold your hand. You either keep your head down and stay the fuck out of the way, or you pick a side and hope you picked right. Everything else is just noise.”

He stands abruptly, the chair scraping against the floor with a loud screech. For a moment, I think he might try to take a swing at me, and I almost hope he does. But before he can say anything, another voice cuts through the room.

“Yo!”

I glance over my shoulder as a wiry guy with a face like a rat and a permanent sneer saunters into the room. The name doesn’t come to me right away. I know I’ve seen him before, but what the fuck was his name? Tony? No, too Italian for this guy. Travis? Nah. Todd? Hell, no. Fuck it. I decide on Trent. He looks like a Trent. Anyway, he’s out of breath and his shirt is stained with something that looks suspiciously like blood.

“Jared’s dead,” Trent—or Not-Trent—announces.

“Who the fuck is Jared?” A bigger guy calls out from a table near the center.

Trent doesn’t answer right away, instead throws himself into the nearest chair. A guy sitting across from him answers in his place.

“The creep with the bad skin. The one who was always hacking up a lung and looked like one sneeze would shatter him into pieces?”

The big guy frowns. “The one with the lesions? Shit, wasn’t he contagious?”

“Relax,” Trent says with a laugh. “Doc said it wasn’t airborne or some shit. But yeah, the dude had something nasty as his skin was peeling off like old paint, and his eyes? Fuck, they were bloodshot as hell. He looked like a goddamn zombie.”

“Wait,” another inmate pipes up from across the room. “Wasn’t that the guy tagging along with Zane?”

All eyes turn to me.

Mark’s gaze is the heaviest. His eyes are a mix of confusion and… was that fear? Cute.

I lean back in my chair, letting the weight of the stares wash over me like a warm breeze.

“Want a tour, kid?”

CHAPTER THREE

THE BEAUTY

With Tria fully absorbed in her bagel, I take the chance to quietly reopen my laptop and pull up the Write a Criminal website again. My fingers move on autopilot, clicking back to Zane Valehart’s profile. The screen lights up and for a second, I wonder what I’m even doing.

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