Tryst Six Venom by Penelope Douglas

why hide anything else as if that would help?
“I sneak into Wind House sometimes,” she whispers.
I blink. The funeral home?
“Why?” I ask.
She’s quiet for a moment and then says, “To watch, at first.”
Thunder rolls overhead, the rain growing harder on the windows, and we
both lie on our sides, eye to eye.
“When Henry…” She swallows. “When he died, my parents called the
funeral director and let them know which hospital to pick him up at,” she tells
me, keeping her voice just between us. “My mother was shattered, and Mrs.
Gates held her hand and said, “‘I will be very careful with him.’”
Mrs. Gates is the funeral director. It’s a hard enough job, I can’t imagine
having to prepare children for burial.
“She puts people back together,” Clay tells me. “She’s started to teach me
how to put people back together.”
I stare at her, barely able to see her face in the darkness, but I keep
listening, because I don’t think anyone else knows this.
“I needed to know what happens when we’re gone,” she says. “That
night, I just couldn’t get it out of my head. How he was alone.”
The kid was only ten.
“They wouldn’t think that he was cold or scared,” she continued, “so I
went to him. Broke the basement window and climbed through and stayed
with him.”
I tuck my hands under my cheek, and she does the same, taking her time.
“Mrs. Gates found me the next morning.” I watch her. “Asleep against the
wall outside his locker. She tried to send me home. Almost called my parents,
but I refused to leave. I wanted to see. I needed to see what happens after we
die. Where my brother went.”
I’ll bet she put up a fight. No one says no to Clay. I almost smile,
imagining the tantrum she probably threw. She was only fourteen.
“She was so frantic.” I hear the amusement in Clay’s voice. “She didn’t
know what to do. My parents would’ve killed her if they’d ever found out
that she let me watch.” She paused and then continued. “Johnny Caesar came
in that morning. You remember him?”
A local rock star about seven or eight years older than us. Made a couple
of albums with a small label who screwed him out of rights and royalties, but
he got out from under it. Got a big record deal and was about to hit it big.