Page 164 of Craving Venom
But something in my gut won’t let me walk away.
I lift one hand and knock.
Inside, he doesn’t turn. He’s slumped on the floor with his back against the concrete wall, his knees bent and his arms draped over them as his eyes stay locked on nothing.
“Since when do you knock? Did getting a beatdown from a human punching bag actually put some manners in you?”
I squint at him. “Well, you know, sometimes even I need a change of pace. Keeps life interesting.”
I walk inside and lower myself onto the floor beside him, groaning a little as my shoulders scream. My knuckles rest against my thigh. Time passes with no clock to mark it, just the buzzing light overhead and the quiet hum of everything left unsaid.
“She lied, y’know.” The words barely move his lips. “He didn’t force her.”
I don’t need to ask who she is.
“She told me the guy hurt her. Said he held her down, came inside her while she screamed.”
His hand wavers on his thigh. “Turns out she just regretted sleeping with him and couldn’t admit it, so she called it rape. And I killed a man because of it.”
I rub my jaw, trying to process the weight pressing down on my chest. It’s not guilt or anger, it’s just fucking heavy.
“I didn’t even hesitate,” he breathes. “I didn’t wait for proof or ask any questions. I just saw his face, and I snapped.” He swallows. “I thought I was saving her. Thought I was the good guy.”
He lets out a laugh.
“She stopped visiting after the trial and couldn’t even look me in the eye at sentencing. The last words she ever said to me were, “I didn’t ask you to kill him.’”
Every muscle in my face tightens until it hurts to breathe. I want to say something, but there’s no magic line that fixes this.
Mark stops speaking. He just... stills. His whole body vibrates, as if something is tearing itself loose beneath his skin, and when it no longer makes sense to him why he did what he did, he turns on me.
“You’re doing the same thing.” The words are being choked out of him. “That girl, Faith. You’re forcing her. Just like Frank did.”
The words land like fists, but I don’t let them get to me. I just sit there with my fists resting loosely on my thighs.
“You want her afraid,” Mark snaps. “That’s the only way guys like you get off, right? You break something. You watch it bleed. That’s what gets your dick hard.”
Still, I don’t say a thing.
“You’re no better than Frank. You cornered her. You got in her head. You fucked her up and called it love.”
“You think I resemble Frank?” I crack my neck slow. “You think I held her down? Shoved my cock in while she cried?”
“Why not?” he throws back. “You’ve got the power. She’s scared. You’re violent. You already admitted you fucked her head up. So what makes you different?”
“She is scared, but not for the reasons you’re hoping.”
He scoffs. “Bullshit.”
I snap.
“Iwatch, Mark.”
I rise to my feet so fast the motion jangles through the room. My shoulders bunch as I pace once, twice, then crouch back down, closer this time.
“If there’d been even one second, just one fucking ripple in her eyes that looked like you,” I growl, jabbing a finger toward him, “if I saw that hollowed-out emptiness, that dead-behind-the-eyes look you’re walking around with? I’d have let her go.”
“But that’s not what I saw.”
