Page 107 of Beautiful Venom
“Sir. Your phone.” Samuel stands by the side of the tub and hands it over.
But he doesn’t leave.
I wrap my blue-tinted fingers around the device. “What is it?”
“Your mother wants to see you.”
“No. Keep her away. I’ll leave in half an hour.”
“Noted.”
He exits the bathroom, the huge ornate door closing behind him.
I lean back against the bathtub and open my phone.
Countless notifications pop onto the screen, and I’m about to delete them all when I notice a few texts.
I straighten up, the water sloshing around me.
Dahlia
I know you lost for the first time this season, but you did your best.
You’re kind of a control freak, so you’re probably taking this personally, but you shouldn’t. If anything, Preston needs to feel bad and ask for forgiveness on his knees. God, he was such a joke, especially in the third period. What a useless piece of shit.
Anyway, you’re the reason the Vipers didn’t get wiped out. Silver linings, right?
I throw my head back and laugh.
Jesus fucking Christ.
Without thinking, I stand up, dry myself, and get dressed.
Then I drive all the way to the town center and to Graystone General Hospital, where she spends most of her nights.
The head nurse and the staff bow upon seeing me, but I pay them no attention as I take the elevator up and walk to the room at the end of the hall.
Sure enough, Dahlia’s sleeping in a chair, her head awkwardly lolling on the bed next to a pale-faced comatose woman. Her laptop is open and a few textbooks are scattered chaotically on either side of her.
The steadybeep, beep, beepof the machines is the only sound that echoes in the room.
I walk to her as if she’s ensnaring me with an invisible rope.
As I approach, I cast a look at the laptop screen.
A school project, countless research-related tabs…
What do we have here?
A tab with an article about tonight’s game is minimized at the bottom of the screen. I click on it and enlarge it.
“The Vipers Are Crushed by the Wolves in a Sensational Night.”
I scroll to find that she has an account and her username is—I kid you not—ColdAsKane. And this alter ego has already posted numerous comments.
“Oh, fuck off. Crushed. You sound like a fucking child who’s yapping for attention and clicks. There was no crushing, and the Vipers would’ve held out just fine if it weren’t for that bitch Armstrong.”
“Sensational? More like pathetic. The Wolves couldn’t ‘crush’ anything if they didn’t have the refs in their pockets.”
