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CHAPTER10

“Dick hedges, Lola!”Carmen had to restrain herself from kicking the door to the conference room open. Anger was a hot, stinging rage taking over her brain and body.

Fortune, sitting at the head of the conference table, was a blur of gray hair and colorful fabrics. Everything around Carmen was a watery haze. Everything except a singular point of interest.

In front of her, Lola was in 8K Ultra HD. Zeroing in on her satisfied smirk, Carmen’s rage whistled in her ears.

“Carmen, what’s happened?” Fortune’s voice was lost to her racing heart thrumming in her body and propelling her forward.

“The city already fined me for your insane game! Do you know much I had to pay to have someone agree to work all night to rip that shit out?” Carmen seethed. “You’re going to know because I’m going to sue the shit out of you!” Resisting the urge to lunge at Lola, Carmen flattened her hands against the table and leaned forward.

Lola’s shit-eating grin was a permanent fixture on her face. It was accelerant poured over Carmen’s volcanic core.

“You’re so fucking extra. How do you even know where I live? Are you stalking me? Should I get a restraining order?”

Finally, Lola’s mask faltered. She lost the curve in her lips, the light in her eyes flickering awake.

Shooting to her feet, Lola met her at eye level. “A stupid fine? That’s nothing. You almost cost me my job with your little flower bomb tactic.” The vein in her neck throbbed, alive with and pulsing to the beat of Carmen’s own racing heart.

“I’m sensing a deep current of animosity.” Fortune’s hand on her back was a jolt. “Your soul flames are magnetically polarized. I can see that now. There are desperate measures to reverse that polarity. To bring harmony.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Lola snapped at Fortune, but her fiery gaze never left Carmen.

“There’s something I can do to clear this physic conflict. I was hoping not to have to resort to such extremes, but embarrassingly, I didn’t appreciate the depth of your acrimony.” She closed her eyes and threw her head back as if communing with some higher power. “You have lived many lives together.” The strange softness in her voice pulled Carmen’s attention off Lola and to her side. “You have opposed each other.” She nodded as if learning some new great secret. “Life cycle after life cycle. Across battlefields and oceans. Great feuds and small.” She opened her eyes, a small smile on her thin lips. “But there is always resolution in the end.”

“Lady, you’ve lost whatever you had left of your mind. Maybe you should stop freebasing sage, or whatever has scrambled your brain cells.” Lola crossed her arms over her chest, the universal sign forhard no.

Confidence emanated from Fortune’s being. “I will make a wager. Humor me tonight, and I will release you from the remaining classes.”

“Yeah, right,” Lola scoffed.

“You have my word,” she promised with a tip of her head. “This is something of a cosmic hyper-dose. A broad-spectrum approach to obliterate this ancient strife.”

A moment later, Lola and Carmen were standing in a closet the size of a shower stall. Inches away from her, the anger that had been dulled by Fortune’s weirdness roared to life like a hungry fire searching for oxygen.

Standing in the closet’s doorway, Fortune rummaged through her large tapestry bag, pulling out one piece of junk after the other.

“First, a cleansing ritual to open things up,” Fortune declared, something on her shawl jingling like coins clanging together.

She lit a bundle of sage, wafting the surrounding smoke while chanting in a lilting language. Carmen coughed as the pungent aroma filled the small space.

“It’s already working,” Fortune professed when Lola swatted the smoke out of her face.

Next, Fortune produced a crystal pendulum, letting it swing back and forth as she closed her eyes in concentration.

“Your chakras are misaligned,” she muttered, as if she’d confirmed her diagnosis with a real medical instrument. “This really is the only way to make progress.”

She pulled out a bowl of salt, sprinkling it around them in a circle while ringing a tiny bell. Carmen shifted awkwardly as granules landed on her shoes.

Fortune produced a huge black candle and placed it between them. When it was lit, it flicked shadows over the windowless walls. The flames danced as she waved an ornate feather fan over their heads, still chanting melodically.

When the moment couldn’t get any more absurd, Fortune held up a vial of oil. “This is a very rare oil from an isolated shrine in the Cambodian wilderness. It will open your minds.”

She dotted each of their foreheads with what Carmen was sure Fortune had crafted in her bathroom rather than some far-flung place. The clove-like scent mingled with the lingering sage, irritating Carmen’s sinuses.

“You are ready,” Fortune proclaimed, eyes gleaming mysteriously in the candlelight before she bent over and picked up the candle. “Let your true feelings flow freely, allow the light back in,” she said before dramatically blowing out the flame.

“How long do we have to stay in here?” Lola barked when Fortune was apparently finished with her pantomime.