2. Mina

Isigh when I read Brian's note. I mean, I know a groundhog can't actually predict the weather, but for a forest creature to tell us to abandon all hope of an early spring… it's just too much for me right now.

There's no sign of Brian, so I assume he's living his life above ground right now. Usually if he's punishing someone in the dungeon, I can hear the screams. It's probably best that I don't think too hard about why that doesn't upset me as much as it probably should. I do try to protect the girls, but if they can't gain some of their own self-preservation instincts, there's only so much emotional energy I have available to care about that.

They all basically get an orientation on the Brian situation when they arrive now—partly to avoid another Shannon situation. But even with the safety precautions, not everyone can be saved.

Maybe I've grown colder, and it isn't just the weather. Brian makes it so easy to not care. I stand completely outside the social order with him now, and the temptation to go fully wild is there every day. I don't know if the wild will ever take me as it has taken Brian, but it's an easy fall when you know the one person who matters to you will never judge you for anything the rest of society would.

I'm a free range kitty in more ways than one. There's freedom in that, but also danger. How far until I don't recognize myself at all?

I still haven't managed to pull myself out of bed. Instead I lean over the side and slide out a sleek black box from underneath. Then I panic for a moment, thinking I'm stuck this way. But I grab the headboard bars with one hand and hoist myself back to the safety of snuggly warmth.

Sometimes I worry Brian will come in here while I'm doing this—not the acrobatics, the thing in the box. I don't know why I keep it a secret. He won't judge me for doing evil things, but he might judge me for divination—his groundhog fixation notwithstanding. He just seems too rational for something like this. I don't think he'd really understand.

I lift the intricately carved black lid and pull out the tarot cards wrapped in gray silk. I bought the silk and the box. The cards are the trophy I lifted when we killed the owner of the costume store on Christmas Eve. I was relieved to find none of the cards were missing or left behind. I'd worried about that the whole way back to the house.

When I scooped them up that night as the back room went up in flames, I somehow thankfully managed to get them all.

Most of them were undamaged and clean, but a few had blood spatter from Benjamin. I cleaned them up as well as I could, but there isn't a lot you can do to get blood off of tarot cards. I hope it doesn't affect my readings. At least with the black backgrounds it's not that noticeable, and the few damaged cards don't impact the overall beauty of the deck.

If Brian knew I took these cards and they have blood on them, he'd probably be proud of the high-quality trophy I managed to acquire—as long as they were only a trophy. But I've been learning to read them. I'm not sure if I'm a believer in all this, but the reading from Christmas Eve still hangs over me, a dark rain cloud full of dread and doom.

The Lovers. The Devil. The Tower.

The lovers are us—me and Brian. Obviously. The Devil could be either or both of our darker sides. Temptation. Vices. You name it. I'm not sure I can assume it's Brian. He isn't the only devil here anymore. The card that troubles me most is The Tower. I've stared at that card a thousand times, willing it to tell me more. It's all so vague. But it's something big, and it's something bad.

Chaos. Destruction.

Again, if I even believe in all this woo.

Is it metaphorical? Literal? There's no way to know. I don't have enough experience to spot the patterns.

I shuffle the deck. I've been doing a one card draw every day since Christmas and recording it in a small notebook which I also keep inside the box with a pencil. I don't want to risk a pen leaking out onto the cards. Blood is enough.

I cut the deck, and my breath catches when I flip over the death card.

Again.

I know the death card doesn't always mean death, and not just because Benjamin Barker was frantically screaming as much just before Brian jammed a ritual knife in his throat. Every source I've consulted says the same. It's a card of transformation and usually has to do with a big change. But I think it would be foolish not to acknowledge the elephant in the room: Death is a big change.

My hand shakes as I pull out the notebook and pencil to record today's card. Then I go through the list and count the number of times I've drawn the death card since Christmas.

Thirteen times. I take a deep breath as I let this sink in. I've drawn the thirteenth card… thirteen times. Maybe I do believe in woo. After all, what are the odds of someone drawing one card out of seventy-eight options, thirteen times out of forty draws?

I'd put the odds somewhere between unicorn and Santa Claus.

I stare again at the card as if it might float off the bed and start talking to me. Half the skull is stained with Benjamin's blood. Is he haunting me from beyond the grave? Does this mean something? Or is it all coincidence? I just can't shake the feeling that the card is a warning.

I hear footsteps approaching, and I rush to put the cards back, but before I can get them all the door swings open. I lose my grip on them and the cards spill out of my hands, scattering across the bed.

"Sorry, I didn't know you were still down here," Gabe says. He averts his eyes.

I sleep naked.

I pull the sheet up to cover myself...for his sake, not mine. I really don't care about nudity anymore. Besides, Gabe would never hurt me. And if I'm wrong about that, well, I'd just have to slit his throat and sadly end his and Brian's Bromance.

It's fascinating to me the list of things that no longer create any emotional reaction. I probably should be more worried about it.

"I'm covered now."

He looks up, and I swear he blushes. Such a sweet boy.

"H-have you seen Brian?"

"Nope. And you know, maybe you shouldn't just burst in without knocking. We could have been doing anything down here."

"I don't even want to know." He glances down and his eyes widen when he takes in the tarot cards in a chaotic mess on the bed in front of me.

"Don't tell Brian," I say.

He puts his hands up in the air. "Not my business."

When he leaves, I carefully gather and wrap the cards in the silk, put them back in the box, and slide it under the bed.

I get up and stretch like a cat and stare at myself in the full length mirror. I turn to look at the word "Mine" that Brian carved into my back almost a year ago. I don't like how much the scars have faded. They're still very visible, but not like after he first did it.

I take a quick shower and dress like I'm going out on a kill. I'm not—at least I don't think so—but I feel like black leather today.

When I get upstairs, the breakfast buffet is still up. It's fruit and cinnamon rolls day. There's also sausage for some reason. Maybe she's trying to offset the sugar and protect us all from diabetes. That's Phyllis, always looking out for us. If it weren't for the strict gym routines around here, I would have gained fifty pounds.

I pour a black coffee and grab a piece of sausage, a bowl of blueberries, and a cinnamon roll. I sit at a table near the sliding glass door where I can look out at the back patio. Once winter really hit, the pretense of keeping the pool heated was gone. Nobody is getting out in this frigid weather to swim. Even if the pool was warm, the water would freeze into solid form on your skin as soon as you got out.

You'd think they'd cover the pool, or drain it, but nope. It's a frozen sheet of ice. It probably isn't frozen that deep. Definitely not enough to ice skate on, which would almost make this dystopian icy hellscape worth waking up to every morning.

I briefly think of ice skates and fantasize about how I could work that into a kill. I'm clearly getting an odd brand of cabin fever.

The other girls are looking forlornly out the window at the frozen pool, too. Birds keep landing on it and slipping and sliding on the ice. I feel the chill in the room before I turn to see Brian across the cafeteria. I always feel him before I see him, and I'm not the only one. His sleek dark energy enters a room well before he does. He loads up a plate with nothing but sausage.

Mmmm, sausage. I stare at his ass as he pours his coffee, then he joins me at the table.

"Got enough sausage there?" I ask.

"Oh, I've got plenty of sausage here," he says, the innuendo thick in his voice.

I laugh. "Don't tease me. It's not even ten a.m. yet. I thought you would have had breakfast by now."

"I did. I had a hard work out. Just loading up on protein."

He stares at my cinnamon roll, and I suddenly realize, he wants it. Brian usually has saintly self-control when it comes to sugar. I tear a piece of the cinnamon roll off, the warm icing dripping down my finger.

His pupils dilate as he watches me put it in my mouth and lick off the icing. Then I pull off another piece and offer it to him.

"I really shouldn't…"

"Come on… live dangerously for once."

He smirks and opens his mouth to let me feed him. I gasp as his warm tongue swirls around and sucks on my finger to take the last bits of icing.

"Now don't you feel better?" I ask.

His gaze drops to my cleavage. "Not even a little."

"What are your plans for the day?"

"I'm wide open," he says.

"Hmmm. Meet me in our room in thirty minutes. And don't be late. You know how I hate that."

I take my plate and coffee and leave him staring after me. I feel the eyes of the other girls on me as well. My relationship with Brian is the topic of endless gossip and speculation at the house, but I'm sure our table is far enough away from the others that no one but us heard our conversation. Though it's possible they could still detect something—something that might make me seem less than the "Good Girl" I supposedly am with Brian.

He may have refused my initial offer around the holidays to take control in private. Maybe it just felt too big, too formal. What are the rules? What are the boundaries? What if it's too much? What if it's too little? What if we can't go back?

Since then we've slowly shifted into a softer version of my original offer. It just happened. It just evolved.

A lot of things seem to be evolving.