Chapter Text
“AH!” was the scream that woke up Veronika Grenbenishchikova from her nap on the couch, because even though it had been only three hours since she had successfully drugged and knocked Ace Markey and Arturo Giles out in the dorm rooms, dragged Ace to her dorm, got married to Arturo, brought him back to her dorm, and then chained both them to her wall. Veronika insisted that she wasn’t an evil girl and hadn’t come to their rooms for her own, selfish purposes, but like she does every time she pays either of the two a visit: she lies and drags them into one of her interesting schemes.
Veronika knew already that the victim of hers that was screaming was Ace, and it was only confirmed once she had rubbed her eyes and picked her head up that it was certainly Ace Markey as a blurry blob (her vision was blurry, she hadn’t regained her focus yet,) of reddish orange was shaking in his stance. Thankfully, years of listening to music on full volume, packed movie theaters, and horror movies themselves, Veronika could turn out screams.
Veronika cheered and then rushed over to Arturo on the left of her, too impatient to let him keep sleeping. Once Veronika had made her way over, she crouched down, raised her right hand, and smacked it against Arturo’s right cheek. Ace started screaming louder, and the grin on Veronika’s face only widened and brightened.
“Uh!” Arturo Giles jolted, or well tried to jolt in his seat, but the chains weighed him down. Veronika giggled as she sprung up, and went back to the couch that she was sitting on.
“Yay, my two best friends are up from their slumber!” Veronika’s voice rang loud with excitement to enraged ears, “I have a special activity planned for you both today!” Ace was still screaming and Arturo looked terrified, but Veronika just happily went on that and picked her box of tarot cards off the table, and then slammed it back on for what she would call “a cool effect”.
“Veronika Grebenischikova, I’ve had enough of your games,” Arturo declared, giving her a half rageful, half mortified look. He then tried his best to angrily point his finger at Veronika, but the weight chain made his arm shake, “if you don’t let me go this instant, I’ll be calling my lawyer, suing you for everything you own, and then filing a restraining order against you!”
“Oh, you’re funny Arturo!” Veronika jokingly complimented, covering her giggle with her hand, “It’s just so funny, because I’m already lawyered-up. And he’s one of the best talents this school has to offer!”
Ace’s mouth dropped, and Arturo firely shouted back at Veronika, “You’re lying! David Chiem is not your lawyer! No way… doesn’t he just do divorce court!?”
“Yes!” Veronika evilly smirked, “you can have a fun time saying you were too drugged up to know that you were marrying me in the courthouse, about..” Veronika quickly glanced at the clock to her left, and then back at Arturo, “30 minutes ago! So, if you want to get out of here and still want to try to file a restraining order on me, you’ve gotta get past this tarot reading.”
“Get me the fuck out of here, you damn bitch!” Ace Markey angrily cried as he slumped himself against the wall, “I’m not doing witchcraft card bullshit, and I’m certainly not feeding into your little desire to torture me as much as fucking humanly possible!”
Veronika gives an innocently curious cock of her head to her left, “Well that’s unfortunate for you, because I can’t let you go without doing my reading.” Veronika then stood up straight and pointed to a piece of paper to her left, hanging on the wall, “that’s my reminder: Do Not Let Ace Markey or Arturo Giles Out Of Your Sight Until You Do A Tarot Card Reading on Them. So I can’t just ‘let you go’ that easily!”
“If you do this damn shit on me, you better promise to get a schizophrenia evaluation, you fucking psycho!” Ace yelled from his seat, too winded from screaming to even maintain good posture anymore.
“Looks like we have our first willing participant!” Veronika cheered and grabbed the box of cards, running over to sit in front of Ace. She did some jazz hands to announce her presence, then crouched down, took a seat on the floor, and the set the box down infront of her.
“Now,” Veronika tried to speak in her most calm and soothing voice, but her face remained stern, “You can scream, you can thrash, you can even try to curse out the cards if you want, but you may not touch the cards. If you touch someone else’s tarot cards, you will be cursed with bad luck.
“Ah!” Ace yelped in fear, “Get them away from me! I don’t need one accidentally falling on me!”
Per Ace’s request, Veronika shifted back a few feet. Ace still looked tense and anxious, but he wasn’t about to start screaming and crying this instant, so that was a win.
Veronika hurriedly opened the box, took the deck of cards out and then placed the empty box right next to her. Veronika started shuffling the cards for Ace, and immediately, a card fell out within an instant! Ace scooted back until his back hit the wall to avoid the card coming at him, but it landed about three feet in front of him anyway. Veronika placed the upside down card to her left, and in that moment, she decided that she wanted to do a past, present and future reading. The card that had just dropped would represent Ace’s past, the next being present, and the third being future.
It was surprisingly quickly that another card fell out basically as soon as she picked up the deck, and then again a card came out the second she shuffled. Veronika considered herself a great shuffler and not very clumsy, so she decided the universe must have something it needed to tell Ace Markey as soon as possible.
Veronika aligned the other two cards and then flipped them up, quickly being in awe of them, “Oh wow Ace.. it looks like all your fortune is pretty negative! I mean, all of your cards are upside-down!”
“Wh-what!?” Ace yelped again, kicking his feet back, “What does that even mean!?”
“Oh!” Veronika lit up, “I forgot to tell you, we’re doing a past, present and future reading. Meaning this card,” Veronika pointed to the card on her left, “is your past, the middle one is your present,” Veronika then pointed to the card on her right, “and this one represents your future!”
Ace rolled his eyes, “You’re seriously just saying I’ve had a shitty life, and I’m going to continue to have a shitty life? Thanks, Captain Obvious.”
“I wouldn’t necessarily say that you know,” Veronika rebutted, crossing her arms, “some of it is bad fortune, sure, but mostly it’s obstacles to overcome. And, if you can change your ways, you might just be able to change your fate.”
“Whatever,” Ace scolded, “just give it to me.”
“Whatever you want, Ace!” Veronika chirped and uncrossed her arms, a beaming smile on her face. She then looked at the first (past) card, “Oooohh… The Fool! That’s real interesting, since it’s the first card in the deck!”
Ace sat up fiercely, trying to get a good luck at the card, “Are you just doing this to fuck with me!? To call me names, huh!?”
Ace then lunged to touch the card, to see what it really said, and Veronika started cackling as she pushed his hand away, “I already told you that you cannot touch these, if you touch them, it’s bad luck, Ace!”
Ace quickly retracted his hand from Veronika’s grasp.
“Anyways!” Veronika perked up and sat up straight as Ace still leaned forward and tried to get a better look at the card, “Have you ever been taken advantage of or abandoned?”
“No!” Ace yelled out, shunning his angrily embarrassed face from Veronika’s eyes, “And even if I did, why the fuck would I tell you out of all people!?”
“Something tells me you’re not telling the truth,” Veronika snickered, then went back to explaining, “and if you want to move forward from that, you’ve got to start healing yourself and your emotional wounds.”
Ace tried to give the most stern death-stare he could to Veronika, but it was coming out very poorly, “Cut the crap, and hurry this up.”
“Very impatient today I see, more than usual,” Veronika commented before looking at the next card, “Ahh…. Wheel of Fortune, you’re getting some pretty big name cards here! Right now, you’re clinging to any control you can have over your life, and bad luck is following you. The only way to break this, and what you’re soon going to do, is to learn a lesson you should've learned long ago.”
“What’s the lesson?” Ace asked slightly eagerly, “I’d need to be out of this mess!”
Veronika stifled a laugh, “That’s the thing… you’re going to have to figure that out on your own.”
“Can’t your bullshit cards read the future and tell me what the fuck it’s gonna be, or whatever?” Ace skeptically asked, having a gut feeling the answer would be no, but it was worth it to at least give it a shot and have another reason to be mad at Veronika.
“Nope! Next card,” Veronika grinned, “King of Wands…”
“Oh boy,” Ace groaned.
“Well I’m basically a broken record at this point, these cards are basically all saying the same thing,” Veronika summarized, “King of Wands in reverse means that you’re stuck in a cycle of anger, impulsiveness and recklessness, and many other negative emotions.”
“And?” Ace, who was very annoyed at this point, called out.
“And,” Veronika went on bitterly, “The only way you can get out of this mess is to heal your past, learn a huge lesson, and ultimately, become a better person.”
“You’re saying I’m not a good person!?” Ace yelled, stiffening up in his chains.
“Yes.” Veronika said, giving him a smirk.
“Wait..!” Ace grinned, “You finished your little occult ritual on me! I'm free to go, right!?”
Veronika gave Ace her saddest puppy-dog eyes, “You don’t want to spend any more time with me?”
“Fuck no,” Ace scoffed, “Get me the hell out of this torture dungeon.”
Veronika sighed and stood up, walking back to her table infront of her couch. She leaned down, reaching underneath the table with her right hand, and a few seconds later she pulled out a pair of pliers. She walked back over to Ace and behind him, abd plied open the master link, letting Ace free.
Without hesitation, Ace ran to the door and ran out into the hallway, screaming, “Veronika kidnapped me! She’s a crazy son of a bitch!”
Veronika laughed to herself, and then went over to Arturo, who was staring longingly at the door.
“Do my reading quick.” Arturo begged, “I’ve had enough of listening to you talk.”
Veronika then laughed a real belly laugh, taking at least thirty seconds to recover. As soon as she’s done wheezing, she looks at Arturo in the eyes with the creepiest smile she could muster, “I’ll let you go. But let me lock the door first.”
“What do you mean!?” Arturo yelled desperately, “You’re going to lock me in here!?”
Veronika chuckled one last time as she got up, grabbed the key from her pocket, and went on over to lock the door, “We haven’t had our honeymoon yet, Arty.”