The Fortune-Teller's Warning: I Saw My Sister's Betrayal

I was born with a gift for reading fortunesluck and disasterbefore they come, and because of that I've turned down more opportunities than I can count.

But in the eyes of my sister, who has to win at everything, that just made me a fake saint.

When a teacher picked me to be class president, I said no, and Candice Fox's hand shot up before anyone else could move.

That same day the class fund went missing, and she was the one left holding the blame.

Our mother only got one spot in an elite prep program. I wouldn't go, so she sneered and swore she'd study her way to the top and grind me under her heel.

The next day the classroom was surrounded by police. The lecturer standing up front was nothing but a con man.

By the time we got to college, every time a boy confessed to me, she made it her mission to turn him into her boyfriend.

Because if it was something she'd snatched away from me, then in her eyes it had to be the best.

She got cheated on, got played for money, and nearly caught a disease out of it.

I meant well when I told her this wasn't good for her.

She just gave a cold little laugh. "You're a fake saint, that's all. Deep down you're jealous enough to die, aren't you?"

"You won't fight for anything yourself, so you can just eat my leftovers!"

At our graduation ceremony, our advisor introduced a job opening at a startup.

And our mother had set a reward: whoever landed a job first would get a house bought in their name.

Candice signed the application form without a second thought, then turned to mock me. "An opportunity this good and you won't even grab it. You planning to lie around rotting for the rest of your life?"

But just now, when I did the reading, the great opportunity coming out of her mouth was actually an omen of catastrophe.

...

"Aileen Fox, do you really want to live off Mom forever? Come to this company with me, right now!"

She yanked out a fresh application form and slapped it down in front of me.

Her voice was startlingly loud, and everyone around us turned to look at me like something was wrong with me.

That only made her more excited, and she started venting to the parents and classmates nearby.

"You have no idea how much of a fake saint my little sister is! A perfectly good opportunity right in front of her, and she still won't look for a job!"

I raised my hand and reckoned it on my fingers, running the reading one more time.

The worst possible hexagram. Catastrophe.

It meant going to this company wouldn't just cost her a layer of skin. At worst, it could cost her life.

Out of plain human decency, I still tugged at her sleeve and lowered my voice.

"Maybe we shouldn't go. I just don't think this company is right."

She shoved me hard, knocked me to the floor, and rolled her eyes at me with a cold laugh.

"Aileen Fox, you're the one playing the fake saint and turning down every opportunity that lands in your lap. Why do you have to drag me down with you?"

"This is the kind of world where you fight and you grab! When it's an opportunity, you hold onto it!"

"You're going today whether you like it or not! Is it wrong for me to look out for you like this?"

Fighting and grabbing for things isn't wrong.

But my sister could never stand to watch me refuse. She always had to drag me into it too.

She became class president, then ordered me to be her deputy, and when money went missing, I was the one who had to pay it back.

She went to the elite training program and made me wait outside for her class to end, and I ended up hauled off by the police right along with her.

Worse still, when the boyfriend she'd fought so hard to win started showing signs of a contagious infection, she bundled herself up head to toe and registered at the campus clinic under my name.

For three years now, people have pointed and whispered at me, and my reputation is in ruins.

I'd read every one of those bad omens, but there was no stopping Candice from charging headfirst into the pit.

This company has the heaviest ill fortune I've read to this day. If she wants to throw her life away, I'm not going with her.

I rubbed my bruised, swollen arm and flatly refused to fill out the form. "I'm not going!"

She still wanted to force me, but the person in charge walked over and clapped her on the shoulder.

"Our company has plenty of room to move up and great benefits, but the bar is high too. It's not really suited to someone like your sister!"

At that, Candice let out a cold snort.

She stopped pushing me, but the look in her eyes stayed ugly.

She mouthed the words at me. "Your fake sainthood won't last much longer. Today I'll have you crying your way out to go job hunting!"

Whether I cry is anyone's guess, but she's the one about to run into serious trouble today.

By my reading, because she accepted this company's offer, she was certain to face bloodshed before the day was out.

I pursed my lips and muttered back, "You'd better worry about yourself first!"

Once the graduation ceremony ended, we'd barely gotten home.

Candice immediately complained to our mother. "Our advisor shoved this opportunity right in our faces today, and Aileen absolutely refused to take it!"

The words had barely left her mouth when our mother, who worships elite education and dotes on Candice, swung her hand at me.

I'd felt it coming and twisted away, so the slap landed square on Candice's face, right behind me.

"Aileen Fox!"

Before Candice could even blow up, she cracked into the entryway cabinet and hit the floor hard.

That company hadn't even interviewed her. They let her start the moment she filled out the form. The bad luck was already wrapped around her!

Faced with her fury, I only spread my hands.

"I told you that company would bring you nothing but trouble. You didn't want to believe me."

Candice's mouth curled with contempt. "You're just jealous of me!"

"And Mom said she's taking me to buy a house tomorrow. The deed goes in my name, and the loan goes in yours!"

As if to back up what Candice had said, my mother nodded.

"I knew it yesterday. Candi found the company first, and the loan she took out using your info already came through!"

Candice picked up right where she left off.

"This is to punish your fake modesty! To finally give you a reason to get out there and prove yourself!"

"If you won't compete, you might as well be dead. I can't stand people like you who don't grab a chance when it's handed to them!"

I had nothing to say.

Here we go again.

Candice fought and grabbed for everything, and every single time, I got dragged into it.

And this time was no different. She wanted me at that startup as her backdrop, doing her work for her.

Sure enough, a second later, Candice pulled out the startup's application form again.

"This company pays even interns eight thousand base. If you fill it out now, there's still time!"

"Otherwise, with over half a million in down-payment debt, let's see how you pay it back!"

I drew a slow breath and answered, my patience already thin.

"Who told you I hadn't found a job?"

"I got my offer before Candice did. Do neither of you ever read the group chat?"

Whoever found a job first got the new place. Who wouldn't want that?

I wasn't putting on some fake, holier-than-thou act. I just knew how to read fortune and steer clear of trouble.

I took out my phone and pulled up the offer email.

The company was the classic small-but-good kind. Modest in size, mid-range pay, but genuinely humane in how it treated people.

"I posted it in the group yesterday, Candice. Why are you so set on forcing me into the same company as you?"

"A place that starts you at eight thousand a month and doesn't even interview you. Doesn't that strike you as absurd?"

Candice snatched my phone in an instant, trying to cancel my offer.

"What's so absurd about it? You just think the company isn't famous enough!"

"If I don't keep an eye on you, you'll pull that fake modesty again, tick off your coworkers, and blow every shot at promotion!"

Keep an eye on me. As if. She just wanted to use me to show off how superior she was.

I didn't bother with her. I turned to my mother instead.

"By the rules, the place should be mine now. It was Candice who paid off the loan, wasn't it?"

She was stuck for a moment, then forced the words out.

"Your salary isn't as high as your sister's, and your job isn't as good as hers. The place shouldn't be yours!"

Fine.

Keep piling up wrongs and you dig your own grave.

I couldn't be bothered to argue with them.

It wouldn't be long before Candice found out just how dangerous that garbage job of hers was.

I grabbed my phone back and walked to my room without looking back, leaving the two of them cursing away in the living room.

The next day, I'd barely reached the office when a video call came through from Candice.

She flaunted it to me. "Titles here go by order of hire. The second I walked in, I was made director!"

"You must be dying of jealousy. That company of yours has no future to speak of anyway!"

I didn't answer her. I just put my head down and worked.

On the side, I'd found a lawyer, getting ready to challenge the half million my mother had borrowed in my name, without my consent, off some shady website.

But something kept gnawing at me.

The reading came out the same. Today's fortune was a bad draw.

Sure enough, at five that afternoon, my boss called me into his office.

His brow was tight, and he let out a helpless sigh.

He turned the computer toward me.

Someone had sent him a report email.

It said I had a bad reputation on campus, that I was lazy and negative, and that I'd even been written up for theft.

It said if he didn't fire me, they'd post online that the company had hired an employee with such rotten character.

Even chanting go with the flow in my head, I couldn't keep the anger from flaring.

This was obviously Candice stirring up trouble again.

The theft was hers. To pad her grades and her GPA, she'd stolen the school's exam papers.

Then, when it came out, she'd pinned it on me.

Because the two of us looked alike, and because my mother had chimed in to say I'd had a habit of stealing since I was little.

So the advisor slapped a formal write-up straight onto my record.

My boss spread his hands, helpless, and I told him I understood.

The moment I got home, I meant to confront Candice with the termination notice in hand.

Instead, I saw her arm in a cast.

When a company reads as great misfortune, it has done plenty of rotten things.

And the people who work there are helping the wicked do their harm.

I knew Candice would get what was coming to her. I just didn't expect it so soon.

"Aileen, this injury is your fault!"

"If I hadn't gone to print your resume just so you could get hired at our company, I never would have been hit by that heavy load a coworker was carrying!"

Candice glared at me, her voice pure command.

"You've been fired anyway, and I've already cleared it with the President. Tomorrow you're coming to work with me!"

I looked at her right arm, completely immobilized.

"You're still going in to work with an injury like that?"

She sneered instantly, contempt all over her face.

"I'm not you!"

"If I took time off every time I got hurt, what happens when a coworker grabs my project?"

"Our company doesn't just have domestic projects, we have overseas ones too. That means company-paid travel, seeing the world, broadening your horizons!"

Overseas?

My stomach tightened.

I thought back to the reading, the killing energy gathering in the southeast.

Candice wasn't much of a person most days, but she was still my sister, so I gave her a warning one last time.

"Something really is off about your company. What company makes someone a director on day one? There's got to be a reason behind it. You'd better"

Before I could finish, she rolled her eyes and cut me off. "I know you think you're above everyone, that it's just some startup, that it's beneath you!"

"Then you found out I got promoted, realized you'd thrown away your chance, and now you're jealous and trying to talk me out of it!"

"But I'm beautiful and kind, and now that you're joining the company, I can even take you on the overseas trips!"

Good Lord above.

I was trying to save her, and she was trying to get me killed.

I'm no saint, and since she wouldn't listen, I stopped trying.

So while she couldn't move, I tore up the resume and application form she'd printed for me, right there on the table.

"I'm just not going!"

Candice shot up from her chair, furious, and called toward Mom's bedroom.

"Mom! I told you she hasn't changed one bit!"

"Get them out here and have her hauled off to be properly reformed!"

When a group of men in black rushed out, I finally understood what she and Mom had arranged.

If I agreed to go to the company, everything would be fine.

If I refused, then I had a psychological problem, a fake-saint superiority complex, and needed to be sent to the reform school for correction.

I meant to scream for help, draw the neighbors' attention, and slip away in the chaos.

Instead I realized being taken to that school was actually great fortune.

In that instant I froze where I stood, not moving a muscle.

"If you come to your senses right now and join the company with me, I'll send these people away!"

Candice was so sure I'd be terrified.

Sure I'd panic and agree to take the job, then work myself to the bone doing all her grunt work at the company.

With a personality like hers, she'd definitely taken on a pile of tasks.

And now she was injured, in desperate need of someone to finish all of it for her.

Hearing that, I actually started rushing the men who'd come to grab me.

"Can you move a little faster? I can't wait to get to that school!"

Candice, who'd been so certain I'd fall in line, ground her back teeth to pieces.

"Aileen, you're going to regret this!"

"Someday you'll be begging me for a chance, and I won't give you a single one!"

Whether I'd regret it, I don't know.

My mother definitely regretted it.

Because the moment we reached the school gate, we ran into plainclothes police.

They quickly took the school staff into custody.

And uncovered the fact that students here were being abused.

Everyone involved, including the parents who'd dropped their kids off, had to go to the police station to give statements.

And me, well, I slipped up and let the whole thing about my mom's illegal loan spill right out...

That same day the whole thing hit the trending lists: a daughter saddled with a half-million-dollar debt, then packed off to a reform school.

There was nothing I could do about it. I just have good luck.

There'd been no proof of anything. It was only because my mother and Candice were so worked up over what they called my fake saintliness.

To make the school's principal grasp exactly how serious my case was, they'd dumped every recent detail out in one breath.

And the principal's office had audio surveillance running.

No wonder the reading came back as great fortune.

Now not only had my mother lost her job, Candice had taken a hit too.

Social media was full of people ripping her apart for using her own sister as a stepping stone in her endless grabbing and clawing.

And of course I no longer had to pay back that loan.

Because it was the police who had brought me home, and they'd promised to keep an eye on me for a while, Candice and my mother didn't dare make a scene.

Still, her anger only lasted a day.

By the next morning she was at the table, laughing in high spirits.

"The company didn't just keep me on, they think I represent the whole company culture!"

"This is exactly how you handle things, exactly how you come down hard on people playing the fake saint!"

"So they handed me an overseas project straight off, said once I finish it and come back they'll give me a ten-thousand raise!"

Here it comes.

I quickly worked the reckoning on my fingers.

In my eyes Candice turned wreathed in black, a dead man's air hanging over her.

That very day my mother helped Candice pack, throwing quiet little jabs at me the whole time.

"See how useful your sister's personality is? Not even a month in and look how much her pay's jumped!"

Candice shrugged, all mock helplessness.

"What can you do, some people just insist on suffering for nothing, always burrowing into companies with lousy pay, never willing to stick with a startup and ride it to the top!"

Whatever I said, Candice wouldn't believe it anyway.

She'd probably just decide I was trying to hold back her career.

So I kept my mouth shut and quietly made plans to move out of this house as soon as I could.

I didn't expect Candice to drop another bombshell.

"Aileen, I really am too good to you as a sister. I applied for benefits for you and Mom too!"

"The group chat said you can bring family on the trip, and whoever signs up first gets their family's overseas costs reimbursed!"

"So hurry up and get ready, come abroad with me!"

I honestly could have keeled over.

Why did she have to drag me into everything?

I shook my head again. "I'm not going!"

For once my mother turned down Candice's invitation too. "This is all Aileen's fault, me losing my job. I've got a few interviews lined up soon!"

"Candi, you go on your own this time. As your mother, I can't go embarrassing you as some unemployed drifter!"

Candice clicked her tongue.

"Aileen, this isn't some handout tossed your way. I poured myself into getting this for you!"

"I really won't give you another chance after this! You can go rot in the mud your whole life for all I care!"

I was practically begging her to stop handing me chances to get myself killed.

"Not going means not going!"

I shook my head, flat and final, and got a cold snort from Candice for it.

She told my mother again and again to make sure I found a job, then walked out without a backward glance.

And that was it, she was gone for a month.

For that whole month, the messages she sent at first came thick and fast, all bragging, then mocking me for being a frog at the bottom of a well.

Later the messages grew fewer and fewer, but my mother explained it away. "That's your sister being busy with work! Nothing like you, so leisurely, so free!"

I did a reading with the three coins.

The life had already left Candice. In all likelihood she'd already met with something terrible.

I sighed. She'd brought it on herself.

But the next day, the Candice who should have been dead came knocking at our door.

Standing right in front of us, alive and breathing...