Page 18 of Off the Rails

But this bleach blonde pistol was something else.

Shaking the thought, I snarled as I came to a standstill at the round intersection at the very center of Feverpoint.

I wasn’t going to get attached. She was a new plaything. That’s all.

Two hundred acres stretched out beyond this point. And she could have chosen anywhere.

But all of us knew where she’d go first.

To that hole in the fence, the one Blade had offered to patch up before we let her loose in our little game.

I’d told her to leave it. A test of sorts.

Who could blame her for wanting to run away?

I caught a glimpse of my stitched mask in the broken reflection of a funhouse mirror. We were fucking nuts. And she’d be fucking stupid to stick around.

But our captive had a fire in her. One I recognized.

The Prophecy promised her return.

With my free hand, I reached for the raised skin on the back of my neck.

The Three of Swords.

But I rubbed the stubbly hair on top of my head, setting my eyes forward.

It wasn’t her. How could it be?

I would have recognized her.

Pulling me from my mind, Nash reached into her pockets and rested her mallet — named Trixie — on her hip.

She pulled out a metal tin, pulling off the lid and revealing the stack of cards. Holding them out toward me, she nodded.

But I shook my head, wanting Nash’s touch on the draw.

“Let the cards speak.” Nash let out a deep breath as she lifted the deck from the box. Delicate, Nash shuffled the cards in her hands.

My heart raced in my chest, willing the cards to send me to her.

With the blacked out tip of her middle finger, Nash pulled three cards, passing one to each of us.

She flipped hers first, “Hermit.” Rolling her eyes, I could see the annoyance on Nash’s face. Off to Noir Nights. At least for the first six hours of the hunt.

Blade was next. Moving quickly, hardly bothering to look at the image, Blade laughed. “Ha, Three of Cups. Get fucked.”

Fucker.

That’s where the hole in the fence was. Which meant Blade was almost guaranteed to find her. It wasn’t the only card that could lead to the carnival section.

But the cards had a funny way of playing tricks on me. They loved to favor the non-believer. Always punishing me for trusting them.

Clenching my jaw, I flipped my card. “Temperance.” At the center of the old, faded image was a person with angel's wings, pouring one cup of water into another. The cups balanced above a calm lake below.

“Fucking Rapid Rush.” A defunct old waterpark at the opposite edge of the park from our captive’s likely exit.

Blade winced. “Ooh, better luck next time.” Twirling her twin axes in her hands, Blade winked and zipped off into the park.