Page 276 of Darling Venom
He pulled out his most recent AA chip and winked, flashing it at me.
Five months.
I guess a leopard could change its spots.
“The good news is,” he pressed the token into my palm, “it’s never too late to change.”
Maybe it’s your turn, Tate.
I headed to bed, pausing in the hallway in front of Kel’s room. That boulder that normally fell to the pit of my stomach at the sight of it had disappeared. Whatever he’d left didn’t intimidate me as much as Darling Venom once did.
My foot slid forward.
I took a step.
And another.
Creaked his door open.
Approached the desk.
Stuck the key into the slot and turned, holding my breath.
A plume of dust assaulted my nostrils. I inventoried the drawer.
Two pennies.
A single gold-dusted frame.
The metal felt cold and heavy in my hands. A picture was tucked beneath the glass. One of Kel and me on his sixteenth birthday. I had my head thrown back in laughter while he tried and failed to scale the ruins of Renwick Smallpox Hospital.
I’d thought there were no more pictures of us, but I shouldn’t have been surprised. Memories are like long-distance relationships. The farther you travel, the weaker they become.
I collected the coins, brought them to my room, and set them and the vintage frame on my nightstand, right beside the photo Mom took.
Falling back onto my mattress, I palmed my phone and toggled to the voicemail.
It was time to hear what Kel had to say to me.
Hey, Tate.
It’s Kel.
I still think you’re an asshole, but you’re an asshole I need a favor from. There’s this girl I know. Her name is Charlotte Richards.
She’s strong. Stronger than she thinks she is. Made of the toughest stuff. Like the coating on an old-as-fuck Nokia phone. Or the shit they use to launch rockets into space.
Tough as hell, Dicks is.
But I worry about her, ya know?
I’m going some place far, and I need you to make sure she’s okay. Look over her every now and then. Check that she has a pulse. That she’s not taking shit from that sister of hers. We both have assholes for siblings, FYI.
If you do that for me, it’ll make you a little less of an asshole in my book, which is an offer you may wanna take me up on, because I seem like the type that would come back as a poltergeist.
So, yeah.
That’s my favor.
