Page 73

Great. Woo her with flattery. Just what she needs.

“Yes, please.” She smiles, offering her hand.

The man reaches behind him, grabbing a small dagger from the top of a felted pillow. Its blade waves like the ocean, coming to a sharp point at the tip. Before she has time to react, he cuts a small slice into her palm, bringing the blade to his lips and across the fresh crimson coating it.

Sumner gasps, probably in pain, mostly in shock.

“Ahh,” the lizard starts, smacking his mouth open and closed a few times for show. “There is a secret surrounding you, though it is not one of your own. When you learn the truth, you will react in one of two ways. One ends in heartbreak greater than any you’ve ever known, and the other, freedom, but perhaps not in the way you wish.”

Sumner stares down at her hand in wonderment, seeming so amazed at how he could get all that from a few drops of blood. Here’s the trick: he can’t.

“What’s the secret?” she asks, intrigued.

The man looks to me, then back at her. “That I cannot see.”

“Can you see anything else?”

He takes the blade, jabbing her again. Sumner sucks in air through her teeth, watching the red pool above her skin at the new laceration. This time, she tries to take her hand back. He holds it firmly in place, repeating the process of licking what he stole from her off the cool metal.

“Trust the one you don’t, cut ties with those they do. Not everything is as it seems, and there are some who wish you harm.”

He releases her and she brings her hand to her chest, holding onto it like she’s worried he may try to stab her a third time.

“Your turn,” she says to me.

I shake my head. “I’m not wasting crescents on a scummy fortune teller. Everything that spills from this guy’s mouth is complete bullshit.”

The lizard reaches for me, slicing my palm before I have a chance to react. I hiss, narrowing my eyes on the asshole. Sumner places her hand on my shoulder, smiling up at me before turning her attention back on him. I just roll my eyes, ready for him to say whatever he needs to so we can leave.

“Mmm,” the lizard moans, closing his eyes as he licks the blade. “The girl must be your pet. I taste her blood absorbed in your own.”

To this, I look at Sumner, smirking. She frowns, shaking her head with disapproval.

“You are far more complicated to read,” he continues. “Two worlds have collided and you’re stuck between them. Your head and your heart don’t align. Soon, you will deviate from your path.” He cuts me again, sweeping his long, forked tongue across the knife. “You will put claim on the one you set to hurt. This path will lead to her destruction.”

I rip my hand out of his grip, done with his false speculations, then grab Sumner’s wrist and pull her away.

“The thing you hold dearest will be taken from you, fed to the shadows while you watch,” the man continues. “When it is fated, it cannot be un-so. Try and try you will, but the Reaper always claims what’s his.”

My back tenses at that last part.

“Happy?” I ask, still dragging Sumner forward. “Now he won’t shut up.”

The call of the chameleon grows quieter as we disappear farther down the road until his raspy voice is finally out of reach.

I might heed his words, if they weren’t laced in bullshit.

I choose my own future.

At least…I will. Once I figure out how to escape the one already written for me.

Sumner stays by my side, following me the whole way home even though she wasn’t asked. Or wanted. I can’t even say I wouldn’t have minded the company, we were already on our way home together anyway, except right now, I’m still fuming. Who the hell is that guy to think he knows so much about me? To say what he did? But he got it wrong. There is nothing I hold dear. I have no one else to lose.

“I wonder what the secret he was talking about is?” Sumner queries. She’s been talking nearly the entire trip back. “Any ideas?”

Yes, actually.

“Nope.” I push through my front door, advancing to the fridge, looking for something to distract me as she leans against the counter.