Page 53 of This Blood That Breaks Us

“For this reading, you will each get two cards.”She pulled out a deck of cards with a deep purple on the backing.

I might as well have been scratching a lottery ticket. It meant nothing to me. Cards were a kid game, but it made Ashley happy, so I didn’t complain. She closed her eyes, and a silence settled between us. Luke and I shared a shrug. The girls were pressed together between us. Sarah had her brows scrunched, but Ashley had a calming hand on my knee.

The old woman placed two cards in front of me and flipped the first card. It appeared to be some building being struck by lightning. Ashley squeezed my knee.

“The tower. A great change is coming in your life. I see danger. Sadness. Something shifts, and you will not see it coming.”

Typical.

She flipped over the next card, revealing two skeletons embracing.

“The lover. I feel something that you’re connected to. Something dark. It calls to you.”She looked over at my brother.“And you.”

She didn’t wait this time as she shuffled the deck and drew Luke’s cards. His card revealed the same sad little building and dead lovers.

“Interesting. Your fates are set on a similar path. You have a deep connection with each other . . . and another.”

I swallowed. No way this lady knew what the hell she was talking about.

We watched as she shuffled her deck and drew for Ashley. Her first card was different— death, but the second was the same. The tower. I sighed. None of this was any fun.

“How often does that happen in readings?”Luke chewed his lip.

“It’s rare,”the woman said.

She shuffled the deck but stopped before pulling.

“I’m sensing a powerful force here with us.”

I had to fight an eyeroll.

“Powerful and malevolent.”She squeezed her eyes shut.“It sees us here. It’s watching. Observing. Waiting.”

“We’re waiting,” I said, and Ashley kicked me under the table.

“Yes, yes,” the old woman said quickly. She placed two cards in front of Sarah. A dead man with ten swords piercing his back, and we waited for the flip of the last, and sure enough, the tower stared back at us.

“We all drew the tower card?”Ash’s tone had shifted.

“Your fates are all intertwined very closely right now. I’d step lightly in the coming weeks.”Her eyes panned over to Sarah, and she rested her hand on the back of the cards.“Especiallyyou, dear. I don’t want to startle you, but I see something life altering happening in your future.”

I scoffed. It was all bullshit.

The woman looked up at me with eyes full of sadness.“Darkness follows you.”

I wondered if I’d taken it seriously if I could have avoided the future that came after. That was the last time we were all happy together. A week later, Sarah was missing and our worlds crumbled. I’d never be able to forget the hell that followed Sarah’s disappearance or Ashley’s words to me.

“She could still be out there,”I’d said.

I hadn’t known what to think about her disappearance at the time. I’d been too focused on keeping Luke’s head above water and dealing with the backlash. Like Sarah’s father busting into our house and asking Luke and me for answers we didn’t have. I was so angry back then. Everyone thought it was us. Sarah’s dad even asked the police to investigate us. I’d felt betrayed then, but they were right. It was us the darkness followed.

“You and I both know that’s not likely.”Ashley didn’t waste time on false hope for anything, even her best friend.

I went to comfort her, but she stopped me.

“It doesn’t make sense. There is no reason that it was her. She was smart. No one would hurt her. The only thing that connects her to anything bad is . . . you and Luke.”

“What? You think I did this?”I remember the stab in my stomach when she’d said it. I didn’t understand how she could accuse me.