Veiled (Ada Palomino 1)

“Then this is a dream, dad,” I tell him gently. “Go back to bed. She won’t be there. You’ll wake up in the morning.”

I’m not sure how much of that he can believe but still he gets up, tells me he loves me, and leaves the room.

I wait with my breath held, wondering if I’ll hear him talking to her. If he’ll cry or scream. But there is no sound. I have no doubt she was there but she’s gone now.

I lie back down and close my eyes. I want to think about what it all means but I’m exhausted and, more than that, I’m horribly sad. My chest feels like it’s being crushed from the inside out.

I shed bloodless tears and sleep.

CHAPTER TEN

By the time I’m up the next morning, the sun is slanting in through the window, which means I’ve been in bed for way too long.

But to be honest, I don’t care. I could sleep all day. I didn’t have any dreams (after the main one, of course) and with that in mind, I want to just cocoon myself in the covers and pretend that nothing is wrong. I want to sink into deep oblivion, mindless and dark, and stay there for a long time. Nothing is bad. Nothing can hurt me.

I don’t want to think about last night. Not one bit.

A knock at my door nearly makes me scream. Apparently my subconscious has no chill.

“Come in,” I say, assuming it’s my dad.

The door opens.

I suck in my breath.

Definitely not my dad.

Jay stands, large and in charge in the doorway, my mug that says Coffee First, World Domination Later is in his hand.

“What . . . what?” I ask and then realize I’m sitting in bed in just my bare camisole (holy nipple city). I grab the covers, hauling them up to my shoulders. “The fuck?”

“Nothing I haven’t already seen,” he comments mildly as he eyes the blanket, stepping inside the room. “Brought you some coffee.”

“How did you get in here?” I cry out, still so fucking confused. “Did you teleport in?”

He shakes his head, placing the coffee on the bedside table. “Knocked on the door. No one was home. Your dad left a note saying he’d be back later. Coffee pot was still warm.”

Now that he’s closer to me, I can smell that distinctive scent of his, the spiciness that gives me a jolt of warmth. He’s dressed in all black again—boots, jeans, a thermal shirt that clings to every inch of muscle. I’m both vaguely thrilled, nearly turned-on, from him being in my room beside me like this, and totally annoyed he’s here at all.

I eye the coffee, even though it looks amazing and promises to fix what ails me. “So is this a Jacob thing, to just waltz into people’s homes uninvited?”

He crosses his arms over his broad chest and casts an inquisitive eye over all the clothes piled in the room. “It’s a Jay thing. So this is where you used to sleep. Did it always look like an outlet store?”

“An outlet store?” I practically hiss at him. I’m not sure if he’s trying to be insulting or not but I’m not taking any chances.

The fact that he’s hard to read doesn’t help.

He stands over me expectantly and eyes the coffee.

“Have a drink,” he tells me. “Clear your thoughts. And let’s discuss last night.”

“Last night?” I repeat.

He nods at the coffee.

I sigh and pick up the mug. It’s like he knows I’m mostly incoherent unless I have caffeine in my blood.

Somehow the coffee is perfectly hot, tasting a million times better than what my dad usually makes. Though he’s Italian, his taste in coffee sucks.

“What happened in your dream?” he asks me once I’ve had a few sips.

“You tell me,” I say. “Dream interpretation is your specialty.”

“I couldn’t see you,” he says, frowning. “I tried but you put up a wall. To keep me out.”

I raise my brow and take another sip, hoping things will make more sense when I get to the bottom of the mug. “I didn’t put up anything. I was dreaming. You weren’t there. It would have been nice if you were.” I trail off, the gruesome image of my mother being sliced in half flashing through my mind.

“What happened in it?”

I swallow thickly, staring down into the coffee for a moment, gathering up my wits before I tell him what happened. It’s impossible not to hear that disturbing song ringing through my ears, the feel of Michael speaking to me from the inside, the nebulous matter of the dark.

When I’m done, he’s staring at me just as he was before, a bit of indifference, a lot of nothing.

“So what do you believe?” he asks calmly.

“Well I believed it was a dream,” I tell him. “Until my father comes into my room moments after, telling me my mother has visited him in his bed. And I know my father…it took guts to admit that. This was the first time.” When Jay doesn’t say anything, I continue. “He saw her. Then he saw her dead. Just like in my dream. Repeating just what was said in my dream.”