Page 146 of Savage Saint
Instead of answering, he reaches into his breast pocket—the one he's been guarding all morning—and pulls out a small piece of paper. It's yellowed with age, worn soft at the edges like it's been handled countless times. A fortune from a fortune cookie.
"This is going to sound completely insane," he says, his voice uncharacteristically uncertain. "This was the last fortune my mother gave to me."
I take the paper from his fingers, unfolding it carefully. The text is faded but still legible, written in that generic fortune cookie font:
Flames can burn. Flames can heal. Her red flames will make you kneel.
12.12
I blink at it, reading it twice to make sure I'm seeing it correctly. Then I look up at Angelo, who's watching me with an expression caught between hope and mortification.
"Your mother got this from a fortune cookie?" I ask.
He nods, his cheeks actually colouring slightly. "The day she died. She was in the hospital, barely conscious, but she insisted on having Chinese takeout one last time. This was in her cookie. She gave it to me and said..." He swallows hard. "She said it was meant for me. That I'd understand it someday."
I read it again, my mind working through the implications. "And you think this is about me because...?"
"Because of the date," he says quietly. "12.12. December twelfth."
My breath catches. "My birthday."
"Your birthday," he confirms. "The same day my mother died. And the red flames..." He gestures vaguely at my hair, then at me in general. "When you walked out of Jerzy's compound, wreathed in fire and smoke like some ancient goddess of vengeance, it was like watching a prophecy come to life."
I stare at the paper, then at him, then back at the paper. The rational part of my brain is cataloguing all the reasons this is ridiculous. Coincidence. Confirmation bias. The human tendency to find patterns where none exist.
But there's another part of me, a deeper part, that feels the rightness of it settling into my bones.
"Angelo," I say slowly, "this sounds like the plot of the world's cheesiest romance novel."
He winces. "I know how it sounds—"
"No, no, hear me out." I hold up the fortune, grinning despite myself. "The universe planned our love story through a Chinese takeaway fortune? 'Her red flames will make you kneel'? What fortune cookie writer comes up with that?"
Angelo starts to smile, caught between embarrassment and amusement. "When you put it like that..."
"It's completely ridiculous," I continue, warming to the theme. "Like something they'd make into a Lifetime movie. 'Fortune Cookie of Love: A Mafia Romance.'"
"With terrible acting and even worse dialogue," he adds, his tension finally breaking.
"And dramatic zoom-ins every time someone mentions the fortune." I affect a breathy voice: "'But what does it mean, Angelo? What does it MEAN?'"
We're both laughing now, the absurdity of it hitting us in waves. But as our laughter dies down, something changes. The silence that follows isn't mocking, it's reverent.
Because despite how ridiculous it sounds, despite how impossible it should be, we both feel the truth of it.
"It's probably just a coincidence," Angelo says, but his voice lacks any conviction.
"Complete coincidence," I agree, though my heart knows better. "I mean, fortune cookies aren't even traditionally Chinese. They were invented in California."
"Probably by some guy in a factory who never expected his random words to mess with people's lives decades later."
"With no mystical powers whatsoever."
"None at all."
I look down at the fortune again, at those faded words that somehow describe exactly what happened between us. He did kneel, not in defeat, but in something far more powerful. In choice. In love. And I did heal him, just like he healed me.
"Angelo," I say softly, still staring at the paper. "This is completely crazy."
