Tryst Six Venom by Penelope Douglas

minimum to get what she wants but nothing more.”
I open my mouth to retort, but I clamp it shut again and turn my eyes out
the window.
We don’t speak again, and he drops me off at the school a little after
seven thirty. I see my truck still in the parking lot, and I head up the stairs in
a kind of daze, my head still back in the cab of the truck with him.
He’s wrong. I’ll sacrifice what I have to in order to keep her mouth on
mine. The alternative is too hard to consider.
I run my fingers through my hair, untangling what the wind did to it and
dig in my bag for some lip gloss. Smoothing out my hair and brushing my
hands down my clothes, I enter the theater, hearing voices immediately.
“Let me be taken, let me be put to death!” someone cries.
I stand at the back of the theater, in the dark, and I can’t help but smile at
the scene on the stage. The set looks like a wintery New York evening if New
York had royalty and a strictly black option for clothing. Cathedral arches
adorn the backdrop along with silver skyscrapers reaching up into the night.
Clouds float past the full moon, and a stone mansion in ruins sits in the
middle.
Liv is dressed in a long, black coat, fitted at the waist, her face chalk
white and her hair in a wild ponytail. Smoky black surrounds her eyes, and I
grip the back of a chair, because she’s so beautiful my knees feel weak.
“I am content, so thou wilt have it so, I’ll say yon grey is not the
morning’s eye, ‘Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia’s brow,” Romeo drones on,
played by Clarke Tillerson in a way that I know I’d be asleep if I didn’t have
Liv to look at.
Snow falls from above, and this must be one of the final dress rehearsals.
Or they’re working on a scene that needs extra time, because I’m pretty sure
Mercutio’s understudy isn’t in the bedroom scene.
“Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat.”
“Stop!”
Lambert comes up, the actors turning to receive direction, and Liv turns
my way. I raise my hand to wave, but she keeps turning, not seeing me.
I put my hand down as she crosses her arms, and I don’t like the tension I
see in her body. What’s wrong?
Ms. Lambert speaks quietly and closely to Clarke as Juliet sits on the bed,
hugging her knees to her body and inspecting her fingernails. Everyone looks
worn out. Some pace, some look bored as hell, and some are slouched in the