The Snake Venom

STIX

'WHAT HAVE I done? Why didn’t I warn her? What will they think of me when they find out what I’ve done?′ The questions plagued my mind as I was escorted out of the underground cells in the Kelsey Order by two guards.

‘If I don’t do this,’ my brain tried to reason, ’they’ll all die.′

“Riley Gideon Willows,” a voice spoke loudly with a deep echo, “as we enter the streets of Lady Shannon Kelsey, you are to keep your head down until you take to the pedestal where you will take your final breaths. This execution will be done publicly to set an example for the people of the Lady,” the voice explained as we made our way into the streets, away from the underground cells.

I could hear the sudden whispers of a crowd that began to form as the voice continued speaking, “Riley Gideon Willows,” he announced my full name a second time for the crowd, “you have been accused and convicted of the crime of thievery. The items you took from our people were that of great value. You shall repay this debt with your life,” the voice boomed.

I couldn’t breathe, and all my emotions were shot. I felt numb. I wasn’t scared, but I also wasn’t looking forward to it. I was, however, hoping that after I was gone, everyone that I loved and cared about would be safe from another tyrannical episode. I wanted them to live peacefully and normal for once in their lives—even if they had to live it without me.

I knew Lix would get over it quickly. He wasn’t the type to hang onto things, and he had someone other than me. He had Max. When I was gone, I knew in my heart that Lix would adopt Max into his life—make him a substitute for me. It’d be like he never had a twin at all.

Truthfully, that’s how I wanted it. I wanted my brother to forget me, so he would never have to deal with the coward I’d become, but there was a part of me that understood it wasn’t that simple. Lix wasn’t simple. He was one of the most complex people I’d ever come to know, and he was my brother.

‘Please,’ my mind held a tired plea, ’please, let Lix forget me. He has enough on his shoulders to begin with. Make him hate me, but don’t make him feel guilty about it even if I am his brother. It’s a waste.’

“Stix!” I heard Wes call out, and it snapped me out of my begging and rationalizing.

I wanted to yell at him—tell him that I was getting what I deserved for being a coward. I wanted him to keep Alice away from my death along with everyone else. I didn’t want any of them sticking up for me. I wanted them all to disappear—to track down Ghost who was chained up in a cell underground.

I was helpless, and if I blurted out everything I wanted to tell them, their deaths and mine were destined to be instant. I tried not to look at any of them. In fact, I made it a point to keep my head as low as I could tolerate it, because I felt like I didn’t have the right to look them in the eyes without the truth.

I stepped up onto the pedestal with my head and shoulders hung low.

‘You deserve this.’ The thought was cold and dark.

Someone grabbed a handful of my hair from behind, and the angle forced me to look at them. Wes stood with Jack, Cole, Desmond, Baxter, Seth, and Scott. I tried to wince away—squint my eyes just enough to make them blurry—but I couldn’t do it. Their stares sank into my soul as I stared back at them.

Cole and Jack stared at me with plain faces. There was nothing to read from them, though I was sure Jack was pissed. Wes looked terrified. Desmond was trying his best to shield Baxter’s eyes from the impending, violent scene, and Seth and Scott looked angry.

I wanted to scream it out to them. I yearned for the opportunity to admit my guilt and set Ghost free, but the words refused to form on my tongue.

’Ghost is here. I know where she is. Just say it!’ the voice hissed.

“I can’t,” I whispered it so discreetly to myself that my lips hardly moved.

The voice of the announcer boomed again out toward the crowd, “This should be a warning to those of you who seek sanctuary in our home. We do not tolerate the delinquencies committed within the walls of Lord Titus Royal’s Order. Here, we thrive on the idea of a true peace. These crimes are a form of disorder and disruption to our cause. For that, the Straggler before you shall suffer his consequences.”

‘Little do you know,’ the voice in my head mumbled, ‘I’d suffer worse if you’d decided to keep me alive.’

Suddenly, a cold breeze made me shiver as my head was forced backwards. The tendons in my neck tensed and sent a tingling heat down my spine in protest at the sharp movement. The icy metal of a knife brushed my throat, and I bit my lip until I tasted copper. Tears leaked out of my eyes as I felt the tip of the knife touch the nape of my neck. It taunted me horribly, and the seconds began to tick in my head with a torturously slow pace.

“In the name of Lady Kelsey,” the voice came again, only this time it was next to me, “I condemn you to death.”

The knife dug into my throat, and as it did, I knew I was ready to die. I didn’t deserve anything other than the pain of the knife being yanked across my throat.

‘They will move on,’ I thought, ‘but more importantly, Lix will move on, especially when he finds out I’m the reason she’s gone. With me dead, he’d be able to track her down and move on. I wouldn’t be around for him to look at or deal with.’

“Now, boys!” a girl’s voice ordered behind my head as she strangled the one who held the knife.

On command, three arrows and a bullet flew past me. I looked around out of shock. First, the bullet took out a guard off to the side of the pedestal. Then, one of the arrows pierced a guard’s heart, and his death was instant. Another sank into the announcer’s throat menacingly. Lastly, there was the final arrow.

It pierced a guard’s shoulder, but the flesh around it was beginning to erode. Muscle tissue was bursting through the tendons, but it, too, began to melt away as it touched the section of the body that had been affected. The guard twisted and writhed in agony until the erosion made its way deep enough to create a hole through his body and into the concrete. The area around the wound that hadn’t dissolved leaked and oozed an absurd amount of a mysterious bodily fluid.

‘Acid,’ my mind concluded, ‘which means…’ I looked around frantically to find the only person I knew that possessed such destructive power behind his shot.

The crowd stared in awful horror as they watched the acid melt and blister the skin of the fallen guard. There were gasps, wails, and screams. I swore to myself that I heard someone throw up in the back of the mass of people. I stood frozen, paralyzed by my spared life.

‘This wasn’t how it was supposed to be,’ the voice in my head almost pleaded.

My eyes stayed wide, and my heart raced so fast that the inner parts of my ears were pulsating. The voices and screams of petrified citizens of the Kelsey Order were muted by it.

‘This wasn’t supposed to go this way. They weren’t supposed to save me.’

“Stix,” the girl’s voice came in my direction, “you good?” It was smooth, but still held a stern roughness to it.

I looked at her. Her blonde hair and hazel eyes made me shake my head in disbelief.

“You’re still you.” She said with a roll of her eyes, and shoved me off the pedestal, “Let’s go. Get it moving. You’re standing here like you want to be slaughtered.” She was beginning to show a sincere amount of annoyance by my lack of movement.

I allowed her to continue pushing me until we stepped in front of Jack. I swallowed hard as I looked at him. Something about him always frightened me, but due to certain circumstances, I was intimidated by his stone-cold jawline, and hard, emotionless eyes. Like my brother, Jack was difficult to read when he didn’t want anyone to know what he was thinking.

“It’s good to see you’re still in one piece.” Cole’s cheerful laugh granted me the relief of looking away from Jack.

“Where’s Ghost?” Jack asked with a sharpness that forced me to look at him.

“The last thing I remember,” I paused, “is we’d been talking outside of the shack,” I lied.

‘This was your opportunity to tell the truth and make things right before everything got too outta hand, idiot. You’re practically digging your own grave,’ I cursed myself.

“So, you’re saying,” Cole’s eyebrows rose in worry with light suspicion, “she isn’t with you?”

I shook my head.

‘No, but I could tell you exactly where she is,’ my mind prompted.

“Son of a bitch,” my brother spat from behind me, and his natural hostility made me flinch.

With Lix, Alice was to his right with her rifle, Max was to his left carrying his old bow, and trailing behind them was Leo with a bow he’d made himself.

They all stared at me, and even though all their expressions held extreme emotional differences, their eyes scared me equally. I fought the urge to chew on my bottom lip when Alice spoke with her gentle optimism.

“Well,” Alice smiled, “at least you’re okay.”

I faked a smile in return. However, my feelings were quite the opposite. I wished to be dead. I wished that they’d left me.

“So, Ghost? You don’t the slightest clue as to where she might be—not even a hint, little brother?” Lix was irritated and full of skepticism.

‘Damn,’ my inner voice panicked, ‘he’s a human lie detector.’

“No,” I responded simply and forced myself not to break eye contact. If I broke away from his gaze, it was over for me.

“That’s it? I find that very hard to believe.” He was cynical.

I wanted to hide away from him. I felt like he could see right through me like newly cleaned glass.

“There wasn’t anything off or weird to you? Everything was fucking peachy?” his voice lowered. It gave him a threatening tone and demeanor like a snake that was giving a warning hiss before its deadly strike.

I nodded.

“Then,” Lix approached me with his fists at his sides, “why are you so bruised?”

He was pushing me, and I knew it, because I could see the violent distrust in his eyes. That look was a look I knew very well, but he never shot it at me until that moment. It hurt me, but I kept him from seeing it. He was right to feel suspicious. His instincts were almost animalistic. He could smell guilt on someone from miles away, and I knew I had the scent.

“I mean, you saw me nearly get my throat slit, so—”

“Save it,” Lix snapped over my words.

I bit the inside of my lip.

“Hey, asshole,” the girl grabbed Lix’s attention. “Lay off. He just had a dagger held to his throat.” She was leaning on Cole, her left elbow propped up on his shoulder examining the fingernails on her right hand as she crossed her right ankle over her left. Her facial expression was smooth like we were boring her.

Lix growled but didn’t retaliate. He stepped away from me.

“No comeback?” the girl looked up from her hand as she directed her question toward Lix. “That’s disappointing.” A snide smile curled its way across her lips.

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” Lix narrowed his eyes while he threw the question at her nastily. “You know… Somewhere else?”

She uncrossed her ankles and looked up for two seconds before pretending to think. The intentions of pissing my brother off were clear as she continued to look for answers among the clouds.

Then she looked at Lix again. “Nope.”

“Could you go find somewhere else to be?”

“Aw, come on, Lixy,” the girl pushed off Cole’s shoulder, still smiling, “don’t be like that.” She laughed, “You know you missed me.”

My brother rolled his eyes, but he offered her his own snide grin. “’Miss’ is a strong word.”

“Sorry,” she continued, “you loathed my leaving. You were drowning in despair over my absence. Better?” The sarcasm in her voice made Lix’s mouth twitch.

“Those were stronger words, but they were not the ones I would’ve picked,” the arrogance he mocked her with eased as he let his natural charm slip through.

That was one thing that always confused me about my brother. He showed everyone a cold and unforgiving bastard most of the time, but he did it with such a charm that it made him both someone to fear, and someone who was easy to like.

“I’ll take what I can get.” She shrugged.

“You always have, Graham.” He grinned out of satisfaction at the look she’d given him in response to her nickname.

“Alright,” Jack’s voice startled me, “enough with the small talk. Lacey,” he looked at the girl, “go scout. See if any of the boys around here saw anything suspicious.”

Without speaking, she ran off.

“Kiss ass,” Lix muttered to himself under his breath and ignored the dirty look Cole gave him for it.

“What do you want us to do, Boss?” Cole looked at Jack.

There was a thirst for excitement clear in his eyes. He was never one to wait things out—always eager to prove himself. It was almost childish. However, he wasn’t impulsive the way Lix was. He had more of a human head on his shoulders.

In my eyes, Cole was easily excited by action and adventure, but he did not pursue it without a purpose or methodical strategy. He processed things and weighed them whereas my brother was uncaring. Lix jumped into anything and everything, especially if the stakes were high. I always carried the suspicion that his homicidal tendencies doubled as suicidal motives, but I never found any proof.

“I want my shooters,” he looked at my brother who was standing with Alice, Leo, and Max, “to go high. Get as high as you can, pick a spot, and stay there.”

“You got it.” Lix nodded and began leading the other three away from the rest of us.

“My swordsmen,” he looked at Desmond and Baxter, “head North.”

They, too, nodded and ran off.

“Wes, Seth, and Scott,” he looked at them individually, “cover them.”

“Roger that.” Seth grinned before taking off with Scott and Wes.

“You two,” he shifted his gaze between Cole and me, “you’re staying with me.”

“What are we doing?” I asked, the nerves nearly crept into my tone, and I tried to clear my throat as a disguise.

“We’re gonna go pay Lady Kelsey a visit,” he responded roughly and headed in the direction of her quarters.

I bit into my lip as I watched Cole follow behind him. Fear rose in my chest as the violent possibilities of their deaths consumed me.

‘It wasn’t supposed to be like this,’ the voice came again. ‘I was supposed to die. They weren’t supposed to get involved. But now, I’ve dug myself in too deep.’

It started to argue, ‘If I tell them what I did, they wouldn’t give me enough time to explain why I did it. To them, it wouldn’t matter why I did it. The fact that it was done is enough for them to kill me. If I don’t, they could all die, and I would follow behind them shortly, because I was supposed to be executed. Either way,’ the voice in my head finalized, ‘I’m a dead man walking.’

“Stix,” Cole’s voice rattled me, “let’s go.”

I wasn’t sure if he was frustrated by my falling behind, or if he was annoyed at the stall of his excitement. I stayed still and stared.

“Come on!” It was an order.

Reluctantly, I moved forward to catch up as sweat started to drench my forehead. I was more afraid of the Lady outing my actions to the two of them as revenge for not getting her way. If that happened, my wish for death would be granted, but not in the way I’d hoped.

‘Lix,’ the thought was tired and sad, ‘Lix, you’ll hate me for this forever and always if you find out. We may never be brothers again, but I hope you’ll understand that what I did was to keep everyone else safe, especially you.’