Venom Read Online Free PDF Page A

laughed off her friend’s stories.
    Now, however, they didn’t seem so funny.
    The light from the lantern wavered, and Cass realized her fingers were shaking. She took a deep breath to steady her hands and her heart. The exit gate seemed miles away. Cass backtracked a few steps and nearly stumbled upon a patch of dead grass, glowing white against the darkness of the night. She stopped. Turned back. Shewas being ridiculous. She had never been scared of the graveyard before.
    Insects hummed in the shrubbery, and leaves brushed against one another, filling the air with a constant whispering sound. Cass ran her fingers across the walls of each tomb as she made her way to Liviana’s crypt. The rough stone against her skin was comforting.
    And then she froze. From yards away, Cass could make out the huge gray stone angel perched at the top of the monument, wings wide. But that wasn’t what made her stop. Her eyes were riveted to the front of the crypt, to the thin rectangle of blackness that made it look as though the door was open.
    Impossible. The tombs were always locked up tight. It was the moonlight playing tricks on her. It had to be. Cass navigated her way around a pair of underground graves. She focused her eyes on the door to Livi’s tomb, expecting what she saw to be just an illusion, expecting any minute to see that the large iron door was shut and locked as it should be.
    But no. There was definitely a tiny slice of darkness there. And on the ground lay a broken padlock, partly obscured in a tuft of grass. Cass paused a few feet from the tomb, torn between the desire to shut the door and flee, and sneaking inside to make sure everything was okay.
    She had never been inside a crypt.
    A sharp scrabbling noise made the decision for her. She backed away, nearly dropping her lantern. Suddenly, she was certain that if she dared go near, even just to close the door, a ghost would pull her inside and trap her there.
    The scratching sounds continued, like fingernails on stone. Cass realized her own nails were digging deep crescent moon impressionsinto her palm. More scratching. Grating. Frantic. Like someone or something trying to escape.
    What if Liviana really
had
been buried alive? Siena’s sister, Feliciana, had once told Cass a story about a woman who was buried alive in Florence. The greedy graveyard caretaker had broken into her crypt to steal her diamond rings from her cold, dead fingers. But the rings were stuck, and when the caretaker sliced through the first finger with a rusty old machete, the woman had awakened with a shriek as if never dead.
    Maybe Livi wasn’t dead. Maybe the doctors had made a mistake. What if the poor girl was in there, terrified, clawing at the stone lid above her head? Those lids weighed as much as she did. There was no way she would be able to escape without help.
    Holding her lantern out in front of her, and trying to control the frantic drumming of her heart, Cass shoved the crypt door open all the way to let in as much light as possible. The contessa’s coffin lay at floor level, below the shelves that supported the coffins of her grandparents and ancestors. Carvings of angels and doves decorated the outside of the stone box that held Livi’s body. Someone or something had disturbed the lid, just slightly. Shaking, Cass maneuvered her lantern so she could see more clearly…just as a huge brown rat skittered past her.
    Cass squealed and jumped back. The rat disappeared into a dark corner, its naked tail leaving a serpentine trail in the dust. She leaned against the wall of the tomb, taking deep breaths, grateful that no one was around to witness her stupidity.
    Ghosts. Buried alive. What a bunch of nonsense. Luca had always teased Cass about reading too many scary stories. Maybe he was right.
    She turned to leave, then stopped. The least she could do was try to slide the coffin’s stone cover back in place so her friend could rest without being invaded by vermin.
    Cass placed her