The box sat on my kitchen counter for two days before I opened it.
Alexander had texted: *Got you something. Hope you like it.*
I pulled the ribbon. Lifted the lid. White tissue paper, carefully arranged. I pushed it aside.
The shoes were beautiful—burgundy leather, pointed toe, the kind I'd shown him on my phone three months ago. I lifted one out. Something moved beneath the tissue at the bottom of the box.
I saw the pattern first. Diamond scales, brown and cream. Then the head, small and triangular, tongue flicking.
I dropped the shoe. Stepped back. The snake coiled tighter, then struck at the cardboard edge. Its teeth caught my ankle just above the bone.
The pain was immediate. Sharp, then burning. I grabbed the counter. Looked down. Two puncture marks. Blood welling up. The snake disappeared back into the tissue paper.
I didn't scream. That surprised me later. I just stood there watching my ankle swell, the skin going tight and discolored, purple spreading like spilled ink.
Then I called Alexander.
He answered on the third ring. "Yeah?"
"There was a snake in the box." My voice sounded far away. "It bit me. I need to go to the ER."
A pause. "What?"
"A snake. In the shoe box you sent. It bit my ankle."
"Jesus—okay. Okay. I'm coming. Don't move."
He arrived twenty minutes later. I was sitting on the floor with my leg elevated on a chair, the way the 911 operator had told me to do while I waited. Alexander looked at my ankle. His face went pale.
"Christ, Camila."
He helped me to the car. I leaned against him, hopping on one foot. The ankle felt like it was filled with hot sand. He buckled me in. Started driving.
I gripped the door handle. The streetlights blurred past. My hands were shaking but I couldn't make them stop. Alexander's jaw was tight. He kept glancing at my ankle, then back at the road.
We were fifteen minutes out when his phone lit up on the dashboard mount.
Karina's name. Her photo—the one where she's laughing, head tilted back, hair catching sunlight.
Alexander glanced at it. Then at me. Then he answered. Put it on speaker.
"Alex?" Her voice filled the car. Soft. Trembling. "Alex, you promised you'd come tonight. You said you'd be here by eight."
"I can't right now," he said. "Something came up."
"Something always comes up." Her voice cracked. "You always choose her over me. I can't keep doing this. I can't keep being second."
I looked at Alexander. He was staring straight ahead at the highway. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel.
"Karina—"
"I need you," she said. "I've been sitting here alone for two hours. You promised, Alex."
The car slowed. Alexander's eyes flicked to the rearview mirror, then to the shoulder of the road. We were on a dark stretch outside the city—no buildings, just trees and the occasional distant headlight.
He pulled over.
The car stopped. Engine still running. Hazard lights clicking in the silence.
I turned to look at him. My ankle was throbbing. The purple had spread halfway to my knee. I could feel my pulse in the swelling.
"Alex?" Karina's voice again. "Are you still there?"
Alexander reached across me. Opened the passenger door. Cold air rushed in.
"I need to handle this," he said. He wasn't looking at me. "You can call an ambulance. It's probably not that serious—you're still talking fine, right? They'll come get you."
He waited.
I looked at his face. At the open door. At the dark highway beyond.
Something inside me went very still. Very quiet. Like a window closing.
I unbuckled my seatbelt. Grabbed my purse. Slid out of the car. My ankle screamed when I put weight on it. I leaned against the side of the car, breathing through my teeth.
Alexander was already pulling the door shut. "I'll call you later. Make sure you're okay."
The car pulled away. Taillights shrinking. Then gone.
I stood on the shoulder of the highway in the dark. Cars passed every thirty seconds or so, too fast to stop. The air smelled like asphalt and cold dirt. My ankle felt like it was splitting open from the inside.
I pulled out my phone. Dialed 911.
"911, what's your emergency?"
"I was bitten by a snake," I said. "I'm on Route 87, about two miles past the exit for Greenwood. My ankle is swollen. I need an ambulance."
My voice didn't shake. That surprised me too.
The ambulance took eighteen minutes. The paramedics were efficient and kind. They elevated my leg. Started an IV. Asked if anyone was with me.
"No," I said.
At the hospital, the attending physician was a tired-looking woman in her fifties. She examined the bite. Asked about the snake. I described it.
"Non-venomous," she said. "Probably a common garter snake or a rat snake. Painful, but not dangerous. You'll be fine."
A nurse came in while the doctor was setting up the anti-inflammatory IV. She looked at the intake form.
"It says here the snake was in a gift box?" She glanced up at me. "Honey, that's not an accident."
I didn't answer.
I already knew.
I knew whose hands had arranged that tissue paper. Whose idea it had been. Whose spare key had let her into the building to intercept the delivery.
The IV drip was cold going into my arm. I lay back against the thin pillow and stared at the ceiling tiles. Counted them. Forty-two in this room.
I pulled out my phone. Opened the jewelry store app.
Added two gold beads to my cart.
515. 516.
Paid for same-day courier delivery.
The confirmation email arrived while the nurse was checking my vitals. I closed my eyes. My hands had finally stopped shaking.
Something else had gone quiet instead.
