Page 52 of This Blood That Breaks Us

“No. But they do. They all believe it more than anything. It fulfills itself. They’ll make sure they come to ensure the prophecy is complete. And that’s great news because we won’t be here when they get here. We can help them fight. In the meantime, let’s focus on staying alive and finding our opening. Zach thinks the harbor is our best bet for getting everyone out. I’ve heard there are tunnels in the city. I want to check them out.”

“How do we know the opening?” Will said.

“I’ll feel it.”

Fourteen

Zach

Nights were hell on earth. One downside of training was the need to sleep to heal.

The nightmares left me feeling like a zombie when I woke up. I never dreamed of Sarah, but that didn’t mean she didn’t haunt me in the daytime. I couldn’t stop remembering those days. A time when I was almost happy. One memory I thought of every morning the moment I opened my eyes was the last time Ashley, Sarah, Luke, and I were ever together at the same time.

“Let’s go in there! We should get readings for our first week at college.”Ashley pointed to a house across the park. A muted-pink two-story house with a neon sign in the window that readTarot Card Readings.

Ashley and Sarah were prepped and ready for their time together at the university. They walked arm in arm between Luke and me.

I remember thinking how perfect it was.

“My dad told me to steer clear of that stuff,”Sarah muttered.

“It’s nothing scary. I do readings all the time.”Ash was already steering us toward the building. Once she had her mind set on something, we usually went along with it.

Luke and I weren’t religious or spiritual in any sense. Mom tried to get us to go to church with her, but we’d end up in the back playing in the pews.

Luke rubbed Sarah’s back.“We don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

Ashley shot him a glare.“It’s not dangerous. I wouldn’t suggest it if it was.”

“We can try it,”Sarah agreed.

We walked up the concrete steps. The door squeaked and a bell rang. An old woman who looked like someone I’d want to party with greeted us. Her arms were covered in tattoos, and she had long catlike nails.

She scanned us over but stopped when she saw Luke and me. Her eyes lingered and shone with some kind of recollection I thought nothing of at the time.

“We want a reading because we’re starting classes next week.”Ashley squeezed Sarah close to her.

She would always pull Sarah to her like a comfort teddy bear.

“Lovely. Come this way and we’ll get started.”

She ushered us to a small table covered in green velvet in a room that smelled of old incense. I hated that smell. The walls were full of frilly things like doilies and pink-striped wallpaper.

“You’re both . . . ”She panned over Luke and me as she took her seat.“Trouble.”

“That’s an understatement.”Ashley giggled.

“Geminis. Twins.”

“Uh, yeah,” Luke coughed out.

“Are you a psychic medium too?” Ashley asked.

“Yes, I have been since I was a young girl. Is it you two girls that want the reading, not the four of you?”

Ashley’s eyes lit up as she turned around in her chair, so I said, “We didn’t plan on it. But we can.”

“Please sit. All of you.”