Page 10 of Venomous Games

“Carrie, you know better than to treat my shoes like this,” I yell. When she doesn’t answer me back, I move deeper into the apartment, and something in the air shifts. It’s subtle at first, a quiet wrongness. The kind you feel before you understand it. My stomach dips, a slow, sinking pull, and my steps falter as I reach her bedroom door. It’s closed. That alone is enough to worry me. I hesitate for half a second, my hand hovering near the handle.

I don’t knock; I never have. I push it open slowly and then stop.

Everything in me goes still.

Carrie is in her bed, under the covers.

But the sheets…

Blood.

Too much of it.

My pulse spikes, heart slamming hard against my ribs. Adrenaline floods my system so fast it almost makes me dizzy, and my fingers tighten around the shoes in my hands without me realizing it, the leather creaking under the pressure.

“Carrie,” I say, but it comes out quieter than I expected. I take another step forward, then another. Each movement feels forced. Like I’m pushing through something thick and invisible. My gaze takes in the dark splotch spreading across the sheets, and the way her chest rises and falls, barely.

“Carrie.” She stirs at the sound of my voice, and the sight has me releasing a breath I wasn’t aware I was holding. As soon as I’m within reach, I pull the covers back, only to find her passed out with blood dripping from her nose. Her hands look like they’ve been in a battle, the knuckles red and raw. She’s still wearing the same dress from last night, though it’s slightly torn.

I grab her shoulders and try to shake her awake.

“Go away,” she whines.

“Carrie, what the fuck happened?” I demand, looking her over to make sure she isn’t hurt anywhere else.

“Oh, shit, that hurts,” she says as I press a hand to her stomach.

“Why is there so much blood?” I ask frantically. I know my voice is raised, but I don’t care.

“Don’t worry about it. I sorted it,” she states as she pushes the blanket off completely and then stands.

“Sorted what?”

Huffing out a breath, she goes to the mirror next to her bed and touches her nose, avoiding eye contact with me. “Nothing, honestly.”

I shake my head. “You’re refusing to tell me,” I accuse, crossing my arms over my chest. “Why?”

“I’m not doing any such thing,” she says, and winces when I step closer and poke her in the stomach.

“What happened?” I ask again. “This time, if you don’t tell me the truth, I will hunt everyone down from that party last night and kill them,” I add with a smile.

She knows I’m not joking. “Things got out of hand, and, as I said, I handled it. Don’t you do anything. That room was full of connections.”

I gasp at her response, the sound sharp in the space between us. My fingers curl at my sides, tension creeping up my arms. “We don’t need all the connections, Carrie. We do fine on our own,” I remind her, my voice tighter than I intended.

“About that…” She bites her bottom lip, hard enough that I see it blanch. Her gaze drops to the floor, and her shoulders pull in like she’s trying to make herself smaller. One hand drifts to cover the other, rubbing over her bruised knuckles like she can erase what happened.

Something in my chest tightens.

“What?”

“I’ve lost all the money.” The words don’t land all at once. They hang there, heavy, wrong.

I blink. Once. Twice. “What do you mean you lost all the money?” The words come out slower now, quieter, but there’s something under them, something building. My pulse starts to pick up, thudding in my ears, each beat louder than the last.

She doesn’t look at me.

She wipes at a smear of dried blood on her face, but it doesn’t come off. Her hand lingers there for a second too long before dropping.