36
Atlas
Itold myself I was only standing there to make sure she was safe.Even though I knew that was a lie.I knew with everything in me that the tarot reader was possibly the one true friend Neve had, and she would never do anything to hurt her.
I pressed against the outside of her bedroom door like a sinner begging at a confessional, my jaw clenched so hard my teeth ached.I should have walked away.I should have let her have her moment with her friend.
But the second she squealed—squealed—and ran into that woman’s arms, something in me knotted tight and refused to let go.She had sounded alive.Happy.Untouched by fear for the first time since I’d found her.And it wrecked me in a way a bullet never could.
I shifted my weight when I heard the bed creak beneath them.My fingertips brushed the doorframe.I shouldn’t have listened.But the moment Zelda shuffled the cards, something in my blood went still.
Tarot.Fate.A crossroads.A door begging to be opened.
I didn’t give a damn about superstitions, but the second she pulled the first card, her voice carried clear.
“The Tower.”
Destruction.Trauma.
Yeah.That one was mine.My chest tightened, and a sour heat climbed my throat.She was talking about Neve—about the destruction that had found her, almost ending her.
I should have left.But I didn’t.
A card slid.Paper rustled.
“The Emperor.”
A man, she told me.A powerful one.
The temperature in the hallway dropped.I knew what that card meant.I knew exactly the type of man she was describing.
My hands curled into fists at my sides.
Then the next card hit the bed.
“The Devil.”
I almost choked.
Obsession.Possession.Something wrong, but inevitable.
My heartbeat hammered under my ribs like it was trying to break out.There was a thick, dark coil in my gut—something primal, something territorial—that surged up and sank its teeth into my sanity.
Because she flustered.I could hear it in her voice, soft and shaky, like the truth was peeling out of her piece by piece.And her friend… her friend got bolder.
“Is there a man here I don’t know about?”
Neve stammered out a denial so weak it made my jaw twitch.
The heat between us—door or not—crackled.
I breathed in through my nose and exhaled slow.If I didn’t, I would have opened the damn door and dragged her into my arms just to hear her heartbeat instead of her lies.
Another card.Another verdict.
“The Knight of Swords.”
A warrior.He saved you.