Slots & Sticks (Venom Next Gen #5)

Prologue

Dot

Fifteen Years Ago…

The paint marker squeaks as I trace over the “E” for the third time. It’s still not right. It’s leaning, like it’s trying to fall asleep on the “M” next to it.

“Dot, it’s fine,” Vanessa says. “We’ve been out here forever.”

“It’s crooked.” I wipe my forehead, smearing a little glitter paint. “It looks like I don’t know how to write.”

Vanessa plops down on the curb beside me. “You’re literally the smartest person I know. Now stop messing with that sign and help me put the ice in the cooler before it melts.”

I glance at our setup: a folding card table from my dad’s garage, two mismatched chairs, and a lopsided umbrella from the backyard. A plastic pitcher of lemonade sweats beside a stack of solo cups. The “Dot & Vee’s Lemonade Palace” sign hangs from the front of the table.

Still. It’s ours.

We clink plastic cups and take a test sip.

“Too tart,” I mutter.

“Too bad,” Vanessa says. “Let’s make a million dollars. Or at least enough to get that new lip gloss from Target.”

We giggle in sync, and for the briefest second, I believe this could be fun. Summer sun, best friend, sugar, and lemon slices shaped like smiles.

Then I see them.

Three boys. Older. From the next neighborhood over. I don’t know their names, but I know their eyes—mean, hungry, too old for their faces.

Vanessa’s still chatting, but I stop hearing her.

The tallest one grins. “Hey, stripper spawn! Got any discounts?”

My throat closes.

Another snorts. “Bet your mom taught you how to squeeze those lemons real good.”

They’re laughing. Hands grab at our cups. One slaps the pitcher, lemonade arcing through the air before crashing onto the sidewalk. The ice hits with a crack, scattering across the grass.

Vanessa yells. I don’t.

I can’t.

One boy tips the jar. Our seed coins clatter into his palm. “Thanks for the donation.”

I stare at the mess. Yellow puddle. Wilted sign. All our hard work for nothing. My chest tightens like it’s trying to crush me from the inside.

I’m going to have to ask my dad for more money so my jar doesn’t look empty.

They walk off like they didn’t just ruin the best part of my summer.

Vanessa is shaking. I’m frozen.

“I hate the internet,” I whisper.

She doesn’t ask why.

She knows. Her mom is a manic pixie dream girl who owns a quirky bookstore that everyone loves. Her nickname is literally “Little Tater Tot.”

I refuse to repeat what my mom’s nicknames are. There are too many of them anyway.

The next day, I haul out the table again. Fewer glitter tubes this time, more duct tape. I tell myself it’s about pride, but really, I just need to prove I can build something that’s mine.

I tape the new sign across the front of the table. Dot’s Lemonade Reboot. It’s dumb, and maybe not all that marketable, but I like it.

I’ve just finished pouring the first cup when I hear them again.

Laughter. That thick, jeering kind that slides between your ribs.

I freeze.

There are three of them again. Same boys. Same sneers.

“Show us your tits, and we won’t steal your money.”

My ten-year-old face heats as another one laughs and says, “Oh, that’s right. You’re flat as a piece of moldy cardboard.”

I stay still, eyes on the lemonade as if I don’t move, they’ll get bored.

One of them walks right up and slaps the cup from my hand.

It shatters against the pavement—plastic cracking, lemon and ice spraying my legs. I flinch but don’t run. Running makes it worse.

“Should’ve brought a pole to dance on,” another says. “Bet you’d make more tips.”

They laugh. One pops a wheelie on his bike and says, “She’s so ugly, she’d look better dancing on a broomstick. Bet you’d be good at those upside-down splits, freak.”

The tall one crouches next to my coin jar like it’s a prize. He doesn’t even have to steal it—he just takes it. Like it was always his.

My throat burns. I can’t yell. I can’t move. I don’t even cry.

I just stand there, heart pounding.

Then something changes.

The air feels different.

I turn my head, and a boy is standing at the edge of the sidewalk.

Not one of them.

He’s skinny. Rumpled. His shirt is two sizes too big, and his hair looks like it hasn’t been cut in months. His sneakers are worn in as if he’s walked miles in them. One’s got a stain on the toe.

He doesn’t say anything.

He just walks up—calm, like he belongs there—and stops between me and the boys.

Like a wall.

“What’s this?” The tall one laughs. “You bring backup?”

The new kid doesn’t answer.

The smallest of the three high school boys steps forward, puffed up like he wants a fight. “You deaf or just stupid?”

Still no answer.

Just… stillness.

It’s unnerving. Even to them. I see it. They don’t know what to do with someone who doesn’t flinch, doesn’t yell, doesn’t run.

The boy takes one step forward.

They back off. One throws the jar down. “Whatever. Keep it, freaks.”

They stalk off, muttering.

As silence rushes in behind them, my breath feels too big for my body. Then—him. A shadow at the edge of the sidewalk. Skinny, but steady. Not one of them. Not even close.

The boy turns and meets my eyes for half a second.

Then he sits on the curb.

Like that’s all he came to do.

He doesn’t talk.

Not that day. Not the next.

The kid shows up around the same time every afternoon, quiet as cloud cover, and takes his spot on the curb. Like he’s got nowhere better to be but right here. Watching. Guarding.

Protecting.

I don’t even know his name. Where he lives. Who he belongs to.

The first time I offered him lemonade, he didn’t even blink.

So now I leave it beside him. A cup with a lemon wedge on the rim, sweating in the heat. Sometimes he drinks it. Sometimes he doesn’t. Either way, I keep setting one down.

He hasn’t missed a day.

He’s always in the some worn T-shirt, always with the name of a faraway place embroidered on the front. His skin is tan, like he lives outside, and he’s got a scar across one eyebrow that makes him look kind of dangerous, even though he hasn’t said a single word.

He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t blink, but I can feel him noticing. Not just the bullies. Me. Like he’s mapping out the way I fall apart, so he can be the one who holds the pieces.

Vanessa asked me about him when she came back. “Who’s the silent bodyguard? You hire him off Craigslist or something?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “He just… came.”

She rolled her eyes like it was weird—which, okay, it is—but she didn’t push. Vanessa’s cool like that. And she stopped asking questions once she saw the look I gave her when she said he was probably some weirdo creeper.

Because he’s not.

I don’t know how I know that. I just… do.

One time, I tried to sit beside him. Not right next to him, but close enough to say thanks. He didn’t move. Didn’t freak out or tell me to go away. But he went so still, it was like the universe hit pause.

So I backed off. Sat at the table. Let him have his curb.

He needs the silence. I can tell.

Me? I need him.

Not because I’m scared the boys will come back. I mean, yeah, I am. But it’s more than that. It’s the way I feel when he’s here. Like I can take up space again. Like I’m not someone’s punchline or someone’s daughter or someone’s target.

I don’t even know his name.

But he keeps coming back.

Every afternoon, at the same time. He shows up like clockwork, cutting across the yard and dropping down onto the curb with that same worn-out silence.

I never ask why.

Instead, I talk.

At first, it’s murmurs under my breath. A few words here, a dumb comment there. But then the quiet gets too loud, and the things I keep locked in my chest start to slip out between customer hellos.

“Did you know lemon rinds are supposed to keep bugs away? It’s a lie.”

Or—

“My mom says glitter is a personality. I think it’s just mess disguised as fun.”

Or—

“I don’t get the jokes most people get. Like, I want to. I laugh, even. But sometimes I have to look them up later to figure out why they were funny.”

He doesn’t laugh. Doesn’t react.

But he doesn’t leave, either.

So I keep going.

About school and the smell of dry-erase markers. About how loud the cafeteria gets. About how my brain hums like a hive. About my mom’s songs and my dad’s hockey. Everything I don’t say out loud to anyone else spills out here, into the quiet he gives me.

I talk about everything.

Because he listens.

Not with nods or noises. But with that quiet stillness that makes me feel like I’m not invisible. Or too much. Or some freak show kid who inherited all the wrong things. He doesn’t talk. I talk too much. But somehow, we both understand the silence better than the noise.

By August, we’ve got a system. He sits. I talk.

The last day before school feels heavier than the rest.

The sun’s blazing, but the shadows are longer. The sidewalk feels quieter, like the whole street’s holding its breath before school starts and everything gets loud and hard again.

And hockey season starts. That’s a big deal around here.

I pack up the lemonade stand slowly, like if I stall long enough, the seasons won’t change. The table’s sticky. The sign’s curling at the edges. Our coin jar isn’t even halfway full, but I don’t care.

He shows up like always—quiet and steady.

Only this time, he doesn’t sit.

He stands on the curb, watching me. Just watching.

I feel it in my chest, that weightless flutter I only get when something matters. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know why it is. I just know this is different.

I walk over to him, anxiety building in my throat.

“Hey,” I say, voice small.

He glances at me. It’s not a full look, not a stare. Just a flicker. A recognition. A yes, I see you.

“I’m packing it up for the summer.”

He nods once. It’s such a small movement, but it steadies everything in me. Like the moment before the puck drops—quiet, loaded, waiting.

I shift my weight, feel the silence between us stretch like a string. “You’ve been coming here every day.”

Another nod.

“You don’t talk much.”

He shrugs one shoulder. But there’s the hint of a smile, barely there.

I reach into my pocket and pull out a folded scrap of paper. It’s the last lemonade punch card we made—Vanessa laminated it, of course—and all the circles are filled in with glitter stickers.

I hand it to him. “For loyalty.”

When I hand him the glittery punch card, he actually looks at me. Not past me. Not through me. At me. Like I matter. Then he tucks it into his pocket without a word.

We start walking, side by side, down the cracked sidewalk toward my front steps. My backpack’s on the porch, already packed for school tomorrow. My mom’s guitar is propped inside the screen door, like it always is when she’s working on a new song.

We reach the bottom step.

I turn toward him. “What’s your name?”

He hesitates for a second.

Then he says, “Camden.”

I stare. “Camden Beck? You’re my neighbor. You’ve been gone for years. Last time I saw you, we were little.”

He nods. “Yup. We’re back for good. At least me and my dad are. My mom wanted me to go to private school in Vegas, and my dad wants me to play hockey.”

These are the first words he’s spoken to me.

I smile. It feels like a sunrise behind my ribs. “I’m Dot.”

He nods like he already knew.

“I’m glad you came,” I say softly. “Even if I don’t know why”

He just stands there, quiet and steady.

And that’s enough.

I watch him walk down the street, hands in his pockets, that same slow, grounded pace. No hurry. No apology.

I don’t know why he’s dressed like that when his parents are rich. Maybe because he’s been living in other countries.

I don’t know if he’ll come back tomorrow.

I don’t know what school will be like or how bad the year’s going to suck.

But I know this: that summer, a stranger sat on my curb and made the world less cruel. Even if he never comes back, I’ll save him a cup. Just in case. Because he’s already given me the bravest thing he has.

His silence.