Page 210 of Beautiful Venom
“What a shithole.” Jude grins. “Fitting, really. Rats do live in sewers after all.”
“What are your plans for this one?”
“Big. As usual.” He tilts his head in my direction. “Though it’ll be a challenge to make her life more miserable than the literal hell she lives in.”
“I doubt there’s a worse hell than you.”
“Won’t argue with that?—”
He purses his lips when a girl trudges down the street, her shoulders hunched. Her light hair is hidden in a hoodie as she quickens her steps, narrowly escaping the two fighting and throwing broken glass at each other.
It takes me a second to figure out she’s our target.
Violet Winters.
“That’s her,” I say. “Back from her late-night shift at some other hellhole.”
Jude says nothing.
His eyes narrow, and I think I catch a spark lighting up the dark brown before it flatlines to its usual deadliness.
“Another fucking one bites the dust,” he mutters, and even though it’s low, his voice is deeper.
His posture is straighter, his gaze more calculating than usual.
Violet stops by the sleeping homeless men no one notices, then she reaches into her plastic bag, pulls out two sandwiches, and puts them on their plates.
She rises to her full height, starts to walk, then halts, fishes a few bills from her pocket, sighs, and places them beneath the sandwiches, carefully hiding them from view.
Jude laughs, the sound low and sinister. “We have a fucking saint on our hands, Kane. The irony.”
“Not really irony. That day, she was the only one to call 911. She’s also the cleanest of the bunch. No matter how deep I dug, I couldn’t find any dirt on her.” I stare up at him. “Honestly, if you leave her to rot, her life will do the honors.”
“Her disgusting innocence will kill her, huh?”
“Possibly.”
“Too bad I don’t believe in innocence. No one from that day is fucking innocent.”
As she hurries toward the house where the landlord rents her and her sister the attic, Violet is swung back by her elbow.
By one of the swaying drunks. Oily haphazard hair, a beer belly, and slurring speech.
“Hi, beauuuutiful. Care for a ride?”
Her face goes red and she attempts to pull her arm away. “Please let me go, Dave.”
Too soft.
Too pleading.
What a lamb.
I’m surprised she’s lasted this long in this type of neighborhood.
“D-Dave, you’re hurting me…please…” She pulls herself free, but she doesn’t make it one step before he catches her from behind, his hands groping everywhere.
Jude takes a step forward.
