Veiled (Ada Palomino 1)

And what had he said? That he knows how I like him? He knows I’m attracted to him and doesn’t care?

Typical fucking guy.

He comes back with the drinks in hand. The barista had called out my name wrong as I thought.

“You must get that a lot,” he says, sliding me the cup. “Ada is a pretty name though. Do you know what it means?”

“Nobility,” I tell him, removing the lid and taking a good hard whiff of all the sugar and caffeine. “My mother was sure to remind me of that often.”

“It suits you,” he comments.

I take a sip, eyeing him. “Thanks.” I’m not sure how to take his compliment. I have a feeling he doesn’t dole them out often. I clear my throat, letting the sugar flow through my system, calming me. “So. Did you pick the name Jay or did you just wake up with it?”

He palms his cup of coffee, staring at me over it. He waits a beat. “I woke up with it.”

“And you don’t remember the name of who you were before?”

He shakes his head.

“Do you know at least where you came from? The century? How old you were when . . .”

“Jacob says I am, I was, in my late twenties.”

“Too old for me then,” I comment dryly.

He just stares at me.

I manage a smile. “And that’s all you know?”

He nods slowly before taking a tepid sip of his coffee. He sits back against the chair, eyes going to the window.

“There is a wall in my head,” he tells me, voice low. “There is a door. It’s black. Heavy. It’s locked. And I don’t want to know what’s on the other side.” He pauses. “It doesn’t make a difference what’s there. I am Jay, now. Who I was before doesn’t matter.”

I feel like he’s trying to convince himself of this.

“But aren’t you curious?” I tell him. “What if who you were could influence the way you are? What if the way you act isn’t just instinct from being a human being, it’s from being a specific human being?”

His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat as he swallows and he gazes at me with cold eyes.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says again. “The past is the past.”

“The past makes us who we are,” I tell him.

“As a human, yes,” he says, looking around to see if anyone is listening. Thankfully the coffee shop is pretty loud. “In case you need a reminder, I am not like you. I may look like I am but I assure you I’m not. And even if that were the case, the past doesn’t define us. It’s what we do here and now, today, that does. This world was built on second chances.”

His eyes go to the street, a strange flash of clarity coming over them. If I wasn’t watching him so closely, I wouldn’t have noticed. His brows come together, his hands tightening on his cup. Then it’s gone and his gaze is back to being cool and opaque, indifferent to the world. I wonder, if just for a second, he was tempted to try and unlock that black door inside his head.

I swallow thickly. “You’re a strange date.”

He nearly smiles at that. “I suppose you’re right.” He looks back out to the street again and stiffens noticeably.

I follow his gaze. For a moment I think I see a person, a long, shadowy black figure with no face, just an ever-widening hole, standing by the entrance to a laundromat. But when I blink I realize it’s just my eyes playing tricks on me. It’s only a shadow of the building and a black crow hopping about, pecking garbage up from the ground.

“Do you see that?” Jay asks quietly.

“The crow?” I ask.

“Did you see anything else?”

“I . . . I thought I saw a man. Or a creature. Like a living shadow. But it was just a trick of the light.” But even my voice sounds weak, like I can’t be convinced of it myself.

“That’s how they’re starting to appear to you. How you start to see them. It’s not a trick of the light. What you saw was real.”

Another sickening chill runs down my spine. In this heat of summer, I’m starting to think I need a sweater on me at all times. “Where is it now?” I whisper.

Jay nods at the crow. “Animals are perfect conduits.”

I think back to the raven I saw the other night outside my window.

“So what am I supposed to do?” I keep my voice low, not because I’m afraid someone will overhear me and think I’m crazy, but because I can’t muster the strength. “What would have happened if you weren’t here?”

“Probably nothing,” he says.

“Nothing?” I repeat. “You said they are hunting me.”

“They are,” he says, staring down into his coffee like he’s facing the abyss. “And like many hunters, they study their prey first. Find their weaknesses. They come after you because they sense what you have. But they don’t know how you’ll use it. They fear you and want you at the same time.”