I choke and slam a hand to my chest to dislodge the knot of spaghetti. “What did you say?”
“I need to read your cards together.” Her merciless eyes land on me.
I always knew Glory was a con. Knew she had to have a dead heart to exploit people the way she does. But to mix things up between me and Scarlett with the knowledge of how we used to be tight and then how we aren’t—that’s subzero.
Pieces of Scarlett’s long black hair fall over her shoulder as she risks a peek at me. She’s not happy either, and that only increases my rage at Glory. Why can’t she leave the two of us alone?
The fork clanks loudly against the china when I drop the plate onto the wooden floor. Scarlett sags in her chair as I sink into the seat left empty by her demonic friend.
I go to stretch out my legs, but my boots hit the table, so instead I bend my knees. My jeans come in contact with Scarlett’s warm thigh and electricity shoots through me. I jump, and Scarlett straightens as if I shocked her with a Taser.
She tries to scoot her chair to the side, but it hits the base of one of the towering bookcases. Because this room is the size of a refrigerator box, there’s nowhere for either of us to go, nowhere for either of us to put ourselves without touching the other.
I resettle so my leg is a fraction of an inch from hers. Even though we aren’t touching, I can still feel her heat. Scarlett is the most gorgeous girl at our school. I know that. Every male who has been in a one-mile radius knows that. I’ve had to work hard to keep from staring at her like the other idiots at school and that just pisses me off more. Scarlett and I aren’t friends anymore, and I shouldn’t find her attractive.
Glory watches us with an amused glint in her eyes, and too angry for a decent comeback, I cross my arms and glare.
Scarlett angles her feet in the direction of the door and tucks her hair behind her ear. “While I greatly appreciate you offering to do a free reading, I think I’ll skip it, but I would highly appreciate it if you could give me the ride home. Now.”
Straight to the point with some salt at the end. Nice to see some things about Scarlett haven’t changed. When we were friends, she would have never hung out with the likes of Camila: social climber, soul sucker, eternal self-appointed judge to the entire school. Now the two of them are as thick as thieves.
Being Glory, she ignores the direct request and places the stacked deck in between me and Scarlett. “Whoever feels led should cut the deck. The other should shuffle. And, Scarlett, this reading was a direct request from Suzanne before she died. She knew it had been on my mind, but I never felt pushed to act on it until today.”
If looks could kill, Glory would be withering on the floor taking her last breaths. But because Glory doesn’t die, Scarlett cuts the deck, slapping her half of it next to me with enough anger the table shakes.
“Guess I’m shuffling the cards,” I say.
“Guess you are,” Scarlett shoots back without looking at me.
This should be fun, like having my fingernails ripped off. I gather both piles, do a sloppy slip of a few cards from one position to another, then slide the cards back to Glory so they topple over in a waterfall. If that pissed her off, she doesn’t show it as she gathers them in her hands and starts placing them in complicated patterns.
As Glory flips one of the cards onto the table, Scarlett jerks.
“Are you okay?” Glory asks.
Scarlett slightly quakes, like a light aftershock. “Just a chill.”
Glory looks pleased—the type of pleased a hyena has when a gazelle takes a nap in front of him. She points at the card she laid down. “Does the Chariot mean anything to you?”
The Chariot is this kingly-warrior-looking guy being pulled around in—surprisingly enough—a chariot. Unlike most of the other cards, it’s faced away from Glory.
“It’s a card,” Scarlett says.
“And it’s in reverse,” Glory says, like that proves some sort of point.
“I’d really like to go home now,” Scarlett says, and if we were friends, I’d offer her a fist bump, but we aren’t so I go back to ignoring her like she’s ignoring me.
“Soon.” Glory finishes laying out the cards then studies them before speaking again. “You both have very clear and specific goals, and you are both determined to succeed.”
On cue I slump in my seat. Wow—another earth-shattering statement.
“You feel as if you’ve lost control of your lives. You feel stuck, like there is no forward momentum. You also both understand pain, more than someone your age should. Scarlett, your pain and secrets are such that I highly advise you to carry obsidian at all times.”
Scarlett flinches. I glance at her, trying to figure out if that was real or a glitch in my brain. I can’t tell. She sits there, all perfect, as if nothing could or would phase her. This girl is nothing like the Tink I remember.
Our freshman year, Scarlett became a replica of her mother: perfect posture, manicured nails, and hands folded in her lap like a princess. She even inherited the uncanny ability, with a subtle flick of her eyes, to look down upon me and my friends.
Glory starts into some nonsense about how this will be a trying year, but a defining year—a year that we will both look back upon and have fond emotions for—and I can’t help the sense of pride that washes through me as Scarlett arches a brow in disbelief. That’s the girl I remember. The one who had no problem calling me or anyone else out on their crap.
“You both have secrets,” Glory says. “Secrets that unless you figure out how to bring them to the surface and confront, then you’ll never find happiness.”
“Can you be anymore vague?” I ask, and Scarlett smirks. The edges of my own mouth move up. It’s been a long time since the two of us were on the same side of anything.
“Would you like me to be more specific?” Glory asks with a taunt. My smile falls. Anything Glory knows about me isn’t because of magical cards. It’s because my grandmother trusted her when she shouldn’t have.
“Why don’t we wrap this up,” Scarlett says.
“Tell me what you want to know,” Glory says to Scarlett, and I find myself curious for her answer. Scarlett has everything. Her father owns the lone manufacturing plant in the county, their family is loaded and whatever she or her mother wants appears out of the air with a snap of their fingers. Scarlett has never had to struggle.
“Will I do it?” she asks. “Will I reach my goal?”
Glory scoops up the cards, shuffles them again and says aloud, “Will Scarlett and Jesse reach their goals?”
Once again, she lays out the cards in an elaborate pattern and her eyes flicker from one card to the next. “There are many obstacles in your paths, and you both will be tested.”
My fingers tap against my still-crossed arms. Glory is like one of Gran’s records that’s been scratched and plays the same section of music over and over again.
“I can’t one hundred percent say if either of you will succeed.”
“Of course you can’t,” I mumble.
“I can see that if the two of you work together, there will be a clearer path of success.”
“If we work together?” Scarlett balks. “Please.”
Glory looks straight at me, and I see more than I want. See a truth that twists my gut. I had been hoping that Glory was wrong. That after Scarlett left, Glory would tell me she had made a mistake, Scarlett wasn’t one of the tribunal and Glory would be offering me excuses as to why her psychic powers had been out of whack.
But this. . . . I take my cap off and run a hand over my head in an attempt to recover. Screw me, Scarlett really is the third vote in the tribunal.
“Are you kidding me?” I say, and the contempt in my tone tastes bitter.
“No,” Glory says. “The two of you must definitely work together.”