THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE
"This Key stands for the perpetual motion of a fluid universe and for the flux of human life within it."
—Eden Gray, The Complete Guide to the Tarot
Divinatory Meaning: Success, unexpected turn of luck, change of fortune for the better, new conditions. Creative evolution within the laws of chance.
Reversed: Failure of an enterprise, setbacks. New conditions require courage. You will reap as you have sown.
—Joan Bunning, Learning the Tarot
— — —
TICK
TOCK
They weren't going to make it.
Thirty-two seconds… thirty-one seconds…
Alice jumped over a creek and stumbled slightly as she misjudged her landing. Her knee quivered beneath her weight and the sudden wobbling forced her to lose half of her momentum. Alice gritted her teeth, tightened her hold on her brother, and rocketed forward again.
Twenty-eight… twenty-seven…
Alice's joints screamed as she ran, her legs moving faster than they should have been capable of, but not fast enough. She was not moving fast enough and at this rate—at this damned pace—they were never going to make it to the dip in the distance that would promise them seven entire extra seconds. These potential seconds were vital; for every three seconds that passed in real time, they lost one second of their head-start.
Members of Esteban's congregation were already in hot pursuit. For some reason Alice could not see as easily as she had been able to while they'd been in the dilapidated house—it was that Volturi man, Rohit; she knew it was his doing—but she could see enough that she knew they were in grave danger.
Only nine of the over four dozen bodies that Esteban possessed were following her, but that was enough to guarantee their demise. Emmett's death and her capture were two certainties staring her down, and Alice was almost at the end of the line.
The drag of Emmett's body alone, as they flew through the woods, was enough to slow her already aching body down several more miles per hour. Alice had calculated the best angle to hold him—she clung to him with both arms, his torso flung across her tiny shoulder, being held still by her grip alone—she had thought about the wind resistance his prone form would bring—her math had been off slightly on that end—but what she hadn't thought about was the way his added weight would affect her injuries.
Stupid, stupid, stupid…
Alice knew that, on her own, she would barely be blinking at the pain. She weighed little enough that once her feet began to move, she would've only had to worry about keeping up her momentum.
The same was true now, to an extent. But Emmett's bulk pressed more weight down onto her still-healing ankles and her knee that had healed just slightly crooked. Whenever his head or elbows knocked against her back she wanted to scream.
Alice gritted her teeth and sprinted across the wet earth. Thick snowflakes fell around them, tiny blurry specs in her periphery as she bolted through the pitch-dark Colorado foothills. Emmett's venom was slowly dripping its way down her shoulder and into her open wounds, and it was just as painful as Esteban's final blow had been before he'd stalked out of the room, off to release anger and give her the precise amount of time she needed for this escape.
Twenty-two… Twenty-one…
Alice's bare feet almost slipped across a slick patch of leaves. Thankfully she caught herself before the stumble and continued to push her throbbing legs faster and faster. For a moment, she had placed them both half of a second ahead of their previous time—now for every second that passed, their pursuers only gained two and a half seconds on them.
Then, Emmett let out a cough, expelling both air and venom as something inside of him shifted back into the right spot. The venom sprayed across the jagged, open flesh of her back, causing her to flinch, groan, and stumble, all in a fraction of a second.
Then, the half second they'd gained vanished into thin air, and she was struggling to keep them at that vital three-second mark.
Seventeen… Sixteen…
Alice didn't know if she could do it. She knew she would run until someone forced her down and that she would not let Emmett go unless someone ripped her arms from her sockets, but somehow, deep in her heart and soul, she knew that her family was not going to find them in time.
She still could not see them. Whatever radius Esteban had under his strange protection was unknown to her. She could see him in flickers, but only barely now. One of the flickers had shown her the faint profile of a girl who did not look like Ness, but that had been the last glimpse she'd received of her.
Esteban had looked furious in the vision, as if he'd already realized her escape.
It was impossible—it had barely been five minutes since she'd killed their captors, grabbed Emmett, and made a break for it—but she knew better than to trust her stupid visions anymore. Alice tried not to think about Emmett on her shoulder, and the view she had finally received of him with her own two eyes after she'd killed his lingering captor.
He was almost unrecognizable.
Alice pushed the images of Emmett's injuries out of her mind. She couldn't think about that; she couldn't afford to think about anything except for their escape and how they'd be able to somehow help him. There would be a way. There had to be a way.
She pushed her naked legs further, harder, faster, wanting more than anything for her big brother to make it out of this alive, her own life be damned. It was her fucking fault he was like this.
Suddenly, the reminder of Alec's ability made her chest constrict and her body feel as cold as the fallen snow around her. What if he expelled his ability forth again? At what speed could he perform such a feat? It would be just her luck to make it to the dip only to lose all sense of self, lost in a black, senseless abyss. If she woke up back in their custody, she did not know what she'd do.
Eleven… ten…
The distant roar of feet steadily closing in on them was thunderous in her ears. Alice kept moving. If she stopped, they were dead. If she stumbled or hesitated or flinched again, they were dead. If Alec could rip away their senses, they were dead.
Their only hope was a miracle, and Alice could not, after everything she had been through tonight, bring herself to pray.
As they rocketed southbound, still half-a-mile out from the dip, Alice realized her visions were about to disappear. There was a blackness staring her down—a void that promised absolutely nothing beyond it. No visions, no guidance, no hope. In seven seconds, she would be blind, or dead, or both.
Her family would not find her. They would not make it in time.
The panic fueled her speed and she rocketed forward faster and faster, unable to think too hard about what that inevitable blindness meant. Alice ran another hundred yards, diving headfirst into the line of tress that she could not see herself traveling past, and when she burst past that invisible line, a vision overtook her.
Alice stumbled over her own two feet with a cry. Her legs buckled beneath the combined weight of two wounded bodies and she could do nothing but cling to Emmett with all of her failing strength as they slid across the slick, frozen earth.
When rough hands seized her, she bit her tongue and retreated into her mind.
