Page 119 of Running from Drac

“It’s bad, isn’t it?” I whisper.

She turns it toward me. TheFive of Cups. A dark, mournful card with three chalices overturned and bleeding onto the earth, while two stand behind a cloaked figure who refuses to see them.

Her voice is hushed, almost reverent. “This card indicates loss and regret. You’re clinging to what’s spilled instead of what remains behind you. The five? It speaks of time, Eddie. Five cycles. Five years, perhaps. It says she won’t be gone forever, but it will definitely feel like it.”

Though her words wound me deeply, she persists. She draws another card, slower this time. TheWheel of Fortune.

She stares at it for a long moment. “Change is coming whether you want it or not. What’s been broken can return, but it won’t be the same. It’s because fate will continue to turn without her. It’ll feel like it’s dragging you in circles, repeating the same path over and over until it finally stops.”

Another card slides free beneath her shaking hand.The Loversin reverse. She exhales sharply, almost refusing to show me. “This is the fracture. Choices were made in haste. Misaligned hearts battering each other for control. You and Amber… your paths are tangled, but not walking side by side.Reconciliation is written in the stars, but only if you survive the waiting.”

Her hands hover again, plucking a fourth card,The Star. It’s the same card she pulled for me before. Taunting me as always with its positive glow shining beneath the worn artwork of a woman pouring water beneath a night sky.

Mom’s lips tremble. “The Staris here again. It follows you. It brings with it hope and renewal. A healing after destruction. It’s not over, Eddie. Not forever. But the cards are clear… you’ll walk through heavy shadows before you see her face again.”

I stare at the spread, fury and desperation twist in my chest. “So, I’m supposed to wait five years? Bleeding out for half a decade while she forgets me?”

Mom’s eyes glisten with unshed tears. “Or you learn to heal first. That’s what the cards say. That’s what they’ve always said.”

“Then to hell with the cards.” I slam my fist against the table, rattling the deck. A single card somehow dislodges from the rest, falling lazily to the ground until it’s on its back, the artwork silencing the room.

She carefully picks it up, hands violently shaking, tears already pricking her eyes.

“What is it?” My voice is sharp and demanding.

She hesitates, fingers clutching the card so tightly I think it might tear. When she finally turns it, the artwork makes my stomach twist.Death.The skeletal rider looms across the card, trampling kings and peasants alike underneath his white steed. In his hand, a white flower flag is raised as the sun struggles to rise on a new horizon, refusing to bring light to the death and carnage that spread below him.

I bark out a humorless laugh. “Perfect. Just perfect. So now I’m supposed to die too?”

Mom shakes her head quickly—too quickly. “It doesn’t always mean death. It means endings. Change. Transformation.” But her voice falters, betraying her.

“Don’t bullshit me, Mom. I see your face. What does it mean?”

Her lips tremble as she sets the card down beside the others, as though laying down a weapon. “It’s not just one ending, Eddie. The presence of theFive of Cups, theLoversreversed, and nowDeath…” She swallows hard. “It warns of more than one loss. More than one soul leaving this world tied to your path. Multiple deaths… each one carving something from you until there’s almost nothing left.”

The room seems to shrink around me, the air suffocating. For a moment, I can hear nothing but the blood rushing in my ears. Is she talking about my death? Amber’s? Wesley’s? Could it be someone else close to me? Not just death, but multiple deaths in my future. What the fuck? If all this shit wasn’t bad enough, now I’m going to have death breathing down my neck as well? The world spins, and I launch myself into a chair at the table, making sure I don’t hit the ground.

Mom tries to soften the blow, her hand reaching for mine. “But endings aren’t final. Death clears the ground so that something new can grow. It doesn’t mean your story is finished.”

I yank my hand back, glaring at the spread. “Tell that to the graves I’ll be standing over.”

Her eyes glisten, but she doesn’t argue. And that silence is worse than any prophecy she could’ve spoken aloud.

But my gaze lingers on that death card. And no matter how hard I want to deny it, something deep in my gut whispers that she’s right. Someone close to me is going to die.

I pull my phone from my pocket again. A photo of Amber smiling like I’m her whole world stares back at me. It’s fromour first date—the night she stole my heart and never gave it back.

I press call.

One ring.

Two.

Straight to voicemail I go.

I hang up before the beep.

Rich clears his throat. “Maybe she just needs space, man?”