Page 10 of Angel of Water & Shadow

I’d never slapped someone before—but it felt damn good to release that rage.

In the aftermath, I swore the stars flickered in my honor, the wind caressed my hot palm, and the silence, it actually gasped. Words hung in the air, and wouldn’t this have been a moment, if the Voices decided to show—for a second, it felt like I could command them to with the sudden flare of power that thrummed through my veins.

Seconds that felt like hours passed before someone decided to speak. Chet.

“Enjoy your dinner, bitch.” He motioned to the building behind him. “You do love those sausages in your mouth.”

“Well, they’re bigger than yours.” I grabbed Javi’s hand and dragged him towards our destination. Unable to resist, I added over my shoulder, “By a long shot!”

“You. Are. My. Hero!” Javi exclaimed as we got in line to order, the bro horde howling—one sulking—away. I didn’t listen to what he was saying, didn’t so much as flinch when the person in front of us stumbled into me, their sparkly nylon wings leaving a trail of glitter on my arm.

A hollow feeling growled inside me, one separate from my hunger.

Two corn dogs and a basket of fries later, we took our next course to go and moved west with the sun, the funnel cake so fresh and crispy that the dough still burned our tongues.

Wrapped in my world of fried food luxury, I almost walked right next to the water ride with my piping hot dessert—a rookie move. Javi yanked me away to dodge an overhead wave from Logger’s Revenge just in time, the group next to us not quite as lucky.

“There are two types of people,” he commented as we settled along the outskirts of the chlorinated puddles to watch. “People who enjoy the splash zone and people who avoid it all costs.”

I frowned. “And people who slap others?—”

“Who stand up for themselves and don’t let the bad guys win,” he corrected. “Are you okay?”

I sighed, ignoring his question. “I think we know where we fit in.” I looked over at him, sticky battle wounds from our epic meal speckling his face. “Ah, you’ve grown out your sugar-stache, I see.”

“My facial hair regenerates faster than Wolverine.” He licked his thumb, using it to try—and ultimately fail—to get the powdered sugar off his upper lip. “Dang it, I forgot a napkin.”

“Here.” I removed one from the stack I had pressed into the bottom of my plate. His stare burned into me as I wiped the side of his mouth.

“You get it?” Had he even taken a breath?

“Yeah.” I shoved the crumpled napkin into my dress pocket, fidgeting with it longer than needed—it seemed like the best place to avert my eyes because his gaze hadn’t left me yet.

And then he blurted out, “Want to get our fortunes read?”

“What?” My brain stumbled for a connection.

He pointed behind me. “That lady over there in the corner—there’s no line at her booth.”

I followed his finger and sure enough, nestled beneath the dripping log ride, near the creepy Cave Train, sat an eccentric older woman in a knotted headband and matching robe with an intricate celestial pattern. Her hand-written advertisement looked as pathetic as the discolored, collapsible furniture she sat in. The whole booth—and Javi was being generous when he called it that—appeared to morph out of the attraction’s faded underbelly.

My stomach plunged with the riders free-falling on the Double Shot in the distance.

A psychic. That’s what he’d been staring at. Not me. My emotions must still be running high. I hadn’t seen his attention flicker anywhere else, but the abrupt change in subject was all the proof I needed.

“Fortunes by Madame Myrian.” I managed to read the peeling vinyl words on the banner loosely draped across the front of the table, its corners pinned down by rugged, sky-blue crystals. My nostrils flared. I think I caught a hint of sewage. “Looks like a bad omen.”

Javi pretended to think hard on it. “Obviously let’s do it.”

Without any time for consideration, he grabbed my hand, the soles of my feet skidding on the sidewalk as he power walked us over.

The fortune teller remained unmoved as we barreled towards her, resembling more of a wax figure than a real person. Her skin could have been crafted out of leather—aged and etched with the most symmetrical frown lines. Her fishbowl glasses magnified her pupils so they were all that filled the lenses. Her brows indented in concentration and if I didn’t know any better, I’d say she was using her mental strength to reel us in.

There wasn’t so much as a blink from her until we reached her display.

Her fingers, adorned in thin silver chains that cascaded from the bangles on her wrist, were the first to move, reaching for the deck of tarot cards in the center of the table. The rest of her slowly came to motion, as if the energy flowed from her hands: pointy elbows reset against the astral tablecloth, narrow shoulders rolled and arched. Her jaw protruded forward, the gears revving each muscle until her entire body became animated with life.

“Hello.” Javi crept closer, as if the psychic were a stray cat he didn’t want to frighten away. “How much for a reading?”

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