Sweet Venom by Tera Lynn Childs Page A

want to know what’s going on. You obviously know a lot more than I do.”
    â€œIt would be hard not to,” Gretchen says, pulling an energy drink out of the giant silver fridge. “Want one?”
    â€œNo. I want answers.”
    â€œFine,” she says with a sigh. She pulls the tab on the energy drink and throws back half the can before continuing. “Here’s what I know. I’m a descendant of the Gorgon Medusa, and—”
    â€œMedusa?” I gasp. I don’t have to think hard to remember that character from mythology. “The snake-haired monster who turned people to stone with her eyes?”
    â€œSame one.” She finishes off her energy drink and tosses the can into a recycling bin. “That’s not the real story, though.”
    She acts like that’s the end of it, like that’s all the info I’m going to get. I jab my hands onto my hips and give her my best scowl.
    Finally, she sighs and says, “Medusa was a guardian, not a monster. Along with her two immortal sisters, she kept monsters from terrorizing the human world.”
    My arms drop. The human world . The earth tilts a little beneath my feet. Why do I feel like, from this moment on, that’s going to have a slightly different meaning?
    â€œAnd the eyes-to-stone thing?” I force the question out around my shock.
    â€œPure myth.” Gretchen starts to rub her neck and then winces with pain. “Her eyes had the power to hypnotize—temporarily. Totally harmless.”
    â€œWow, that’s—”
    If it weren’t for everything I’ve seen in the last twenty-four hours, I would think she’s lying. I shake my head, realizing that everything I thought I knew—about myth, about Medusa, about whether monsters might really exist—is wrong.
    â€œHow—” I begin again. I have to swallow before I can finish. “How did that happen?” I ask. “How did the real story get so twisted?”
    â€œUrsula, my mentor, says it began with Athena’s jealousy.” Gretchen shrugs as if it’s no big deal. “She thought Medusa seduced Poseidon, and she wanted revenge.”
    More mythology lessons resurface. “That’s why she helped Perseus kill Medusa, right?”
    Gretchen nods, and I feel a little surge of pride.
    â€œEver since her assassination it’s been up to her descendants to keep the monster population in check,” she explains. “Something I’ve been doing for the past four years.”
    Four years? That’s a long time, a quarter of my life. I wonder if it’s been a quarter of her life too. As much as I might want to believe she’s my long-lost sister, just because we look alike and see the same monsters doesn’t necessarily make it true.
    But I have to ask.
    â€œAnd do you think . . . ?” I can’t bring myself to finish the question.
    In truth, I’m not sure what I want the answer to be. There are pros and cons either way. If it’s yes, then I’m some kind of mythological monster hunter, destined to fight the disgusting creatures I’ve been seeing for two days. If it’s no, then Gretchen isn’t my twin and that empty spot in my heart stays wretchedly empty.
    â€œThat you’re one too?” she finishes for me. “I guess it’s possible.”
    As I look at the girl who might be my sister, I realize the cons don’t matter. Blood matters. Family matters.
    â€œI’m adopted,” I blurt, suddenly wanting everything to be true. Needing it to be true, needing Gretchen to be my real flesh and blood, even knowing what that means. As much as I love Mom and Dad and Thane, we don’t share any genes. It’s not the same. “I don’t know anything about my birth parents.”
    Gretchen hesitates, freezing like a statue. I try to tune in, to sense some kind of twin connection. But she’s like a brick wall. Finally,