Beautiful Venom

“Yes, he’s handsome […] And yet…his blue eyes are so pale, so blank, they’re akin to those of an arctic wolf instead of a human. They’re piercing, cold, and unreadable. Despite his outward calm, there’s a flicker of danger lurking just beneath the surface. And yet he’s the only safe option on the team.”

Dahlia Thorne’s first impression of Kane Davenport establishes their enemies-to-lovers dynamic, a romance genre trope. Dahlia uses diction like “pale,” “blank,” “arctic,” “piercing,” “cold,” and “unreadable” to convey Kane’s steely exterior and seemingly impenetrable facade. Dahlia perceives him as a “danger” to her but decides to get involved with him anyway, seeing him as the “only safe option.”

“Kids like us don’t get nice things. Some of us become druggies, others sell their bodies, and many die in freak accidents. Nobody cares about the nameless corpse by the side of the road. We’re just statistics that feed the machine. The few who make it, like me, are still treated like outsiders and discriminated against, no matter how book-smart or street-smart we learn to become.”

The way Dahlia describes her childhood conveys how her trauma has impacted how she sees herself. She is telling Kane about living in foster homes and all the abuse she survived in these circumstances. Her openness about her past conveys her willingness to be vulnerable. She is a self-aware character who is beginning to understand The Importance of Human Connection in Healing From Trauma. Claiming her past is one step towards overcoming her lingering emotional pain.

“Knights in shining armor don’t exist outside of fiction. Luck has never been on my side and never will be. The psychological torture repeats in a cycle of despair that erodes my sanity. I stop feeling my limbs as the shadows of the past stretch and contrast, turning into new cruel whispers each time the scene replays.”

Dahlia is triggered when the Vencor members play footage of her parents’ deaths during her alleged initiation. The footage is meant to psychologically test Dahlia. She uses language like “torture,” “despair,” “erodes,” “shadows,” and “cruel” to convey the intensity of this experience, but she doesn’t give up and abandon the test, providing insight into Dahlia’s fraught past and underscoring her strength of character.