Veiled (27 page)

All but Jay.

His are still frozen to where I was.

And they’re wavering, like something is about to break out of him.

He knows. In this instant I know he knows something is wrong and he’s trying to get to me.

But what exactly is this?

Oh my girl.

I stop where I am, in between tables, as this monstrous, disembodied voice descends on me from all directions.

You think you’re so clever
, it hisses, seeping into my bones like cancer.
I know exactly what you’re going to do.

I make eye contact with the waiter nearest me, espresso on his tray, still as a frozen lake. His eyes are murderous.

But I don’t say a thing to the voice. I have nothing to say.

I see you,
it says. It feels like something you might find at the bottom of the sea, something that lives in immense blackness, otherworldly, not meant for ours.
I see the both of you. Keep at it girl. Keep at it.

Then it laughs, a laugh that makes me gasp for breath, my lungs grinding like they’re stuffed with steel wool.

See you tomorrow.

A shadow slides into my field of vision and I watch as it glides toward the kitchen before it opens the swinging door and disappears inside.

Blood trickles out from underneath the door, as steady as a stream as it builds and builds, flowing into the restaurant and splashing along the legs of the tables like waves against a pier.

It’s not real
, I tell myself.
This isn’t real.

Even though the eyes are still on me, each soul unmoved, I go back to my seat.

Sit back down.

Pick up my fork and close my eyes, counting down from
ten.

Nine.

Eight.

Seven.

The pressure ends with a sonic boom.

My eyes blast open, ears popping.

The blood is gone and the restaurant is back at full volume, everyone chatting with each other, drinking, eating, paying attention to everything else except me. Absolutely unaware of what just happened.

Everyone but Jay, who is staring at me in horror, a look that chills me.

“Excuse me, I need some fresh air,” I say to Rebecca, immediately getting back up and heading out the door. I can hear Jay’s chair being pushed back, feel Perry’s concerned gaze but I don’t turn around until I’m on the street.

It’s busy out here with traffic and pedestrians and the night air is hot as fuck, but still I’m shivering like I’ve just come out of the deep freeze.

I turn around at the sound of the door opening, relief flooding me when I see Jay.

I immediately collapse into his arms, not caring if anyone inside the restaurant can see me. He holds me tight, kissing the top of my head.

“You’re freezing,” he tells me, then pulls away and takes me by the hand around the corner where the garish glow of the streetlights can’t reach us. To be honest, I need everything bright and garish right now because I can’t banish the darkness inside me.

“Something happened,” I whisper when he doesn’t say anything.

“I know.” He’s holding onto my hand, looking down the street, his jaw stiff. “I saw. I couldn’t do anything.” He nearly grinds out those last words. “I felt them.”

Them. The term makes my heart drop. “Them who?”

“Legion,” he says. “He is many. And he was there.”

Legion. The demon of many demons. The one that even Jay can’t defeat. Inside the restaurant with me.

“Why didn’t he take me?” I question, voice trembling.

“I don’t know,” he says. He looks at me sharply. “He could have. And he shouldn’t have been able to. I should have been able to move, to protect you.” He throws his head back, stares up at the night sky which is filled with light pollution from the city across Lake Union. “I don’t know what’s happening.”

My stomach churns, acidic. I don’t want to see Jay like this. Remorseful. Confused.

“He said, he’ll see me tomorrow,” I say quietly.

Jay closes his eyes. “This is going to be harder than I thought.”

“You thought going to Hell would be a piece of cake? You were the one scaring the pants off me earlier telling me what to expect.”

He tips his head down to look at me. “My god, it’s been impossible not to touch you tonight.” He steps forward and runs his fingers down my cheekbone.

I immediately surrender to his touch. Powerless. Completely aware that I’m nothing but clay his hands, surrendering to his whim, and being completely okay with it. Old Ada would kill me.

His fingers slip down my cheek. Gently trace my jaw. Back and forth. So soft. His hands trail down my neck. He grips me there, gently, like he’s ready to strangle me, his thumb against my windpipe, his fingers holding the back of my neck. He does this sometimes before he kisses me and my eyes start fluttering in anticipation.

“Sometimes I look at you and I wonder,” he says, his voice taking on a strange quality, like it’s being filtered, muffled, “what power your blood could bring.”

It’s not what he says at the end there that makes my blood run cold.

And it’s not the Irish accent that he says it in.

It’s that when I look at his eyes, I don’t see Jay anymore.

I see someone else entirely.

Stare into the abyss and the abyss stares right back.

Silas Black.

“Ada!”

Perry’s shrill voice slices through the mounting horror.

I immediately pull back from Jay, as if we’ve been caught doing something, but the fact is I’m afraid, my gut feeling like it’s coated in black tar. I refuse to look at him, too afraid to still see Silas there, and run over to her.

“What happened? You sick?” she asks, looking between me and Jay.

But the last thing I want is for her to suspect him even more.

“Yeah,” I tell her and I’m amazed I’m able to fake a bored voice. “I don’t know what was in that pasta but it did not agree with me. Thought I was going to puke everywhere.”

Perry stares over my shoulder at Jay. “Are you all right?” she asks and at that I turn around to look.

Jay is staring into space, blinking, his chest heaving like he’s been running for miles. Finally he realizes we’re staring at him, his head swiveling in our direction.

“Jay?” I say loudly.

His eyes snap to mine, widen. Then he swallows, bites his lip. Runs his hand through his hair. Beyond agitated. “I’m fine,” he croaks.

I know Perry’s looking at this situation like we were just having a lover’s spat but she couldn’t be further from the truth.

“Jay,” she says, waving him over. “Why don’t you go back inside? I’d like a word with my sister.”

Jay nods and strides past us, doesn’t even look in my direction once. When he’s gone around the corner I feel the connection between us sever, for better or for worse.

Perry turns to me. “Okay, spill. Tell me everything. Now.”

“What?”

“Don’t play dumb. Do you want me in your head or not?”

“You said it didn’t work that way!”

She smirks. “We evolve.”

I push at her forehead. “I’ll let you in if you just stay out.”

“Then tell me what the hell is happening! Are you sleeping with him?”

Point blank. Wouldn’t have expected any less from her.

And there’s no point lying.

“Yes.”

“Ada!” she shrieks, smacking my arm hard. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

I rub at my arm, frowning at her. “Don’t judge me or I’ll judge you.”

“Judge me for what?”

“I dunno, sleeping with Dex when he had a girlfriend?”

Ah, the look of death. I used to shrink from it. Not anymore. “That was different.”

“How was that okay and this isn’t?”

“
Ada
,” she practically yells. I know she’s trying not to smack me upside the head. “Oh my god. Are you hearing yourself? How is it okay? Um, gee, for one thing he’s not even a fucking human.”

“He was a human,” I eke out, remembering his words, his look, when he became someone else. “His body is human.”

“Do you hear your justification right now? I mean, seriously. Do you? Look, you can’t sleep with your Jacob. How in the hell could that ever turn out okay? He’s fucking immortal!”

I’m starting to feel small. Very small. Very young. Very over my head.

And I can’t explain it except in the lamest ways possible.

I feel fated for him.

We’re meant for each other.

I was blind and now I see.

But I don’t know what I see now.

“You don’t understand,” is all I can muster.

She sighs, turning her back to me, as if drawing strength from the street. When she turns back, her face has softened. “I know you’re going through a tough time right now. I know that. And I know he’s there to help you. But you have to understand that this can never end well. You know that, don’t you? And if you don’t . . . you need to talk to Rose.”

I frown. Rose sounds familiar.

She goes on, fiddling with the anchor bracelet around her wrist. “Rose was, is, just like me, like you. She needed a Jacob to fight the demons. That was her
plight.
Her destiny. She had one. His name was Maximus.”

I suck in my breath, knowing exactly where this is going.

“Maximus trained Rose,” she says. “They worked together as a team, banishing the demons or whatever back to where they came. But over time, or maybe it was in the blink of an eye, I don’t know, Rose and Maximus fell in love. He went rogue for her. Gave up his immortality, his abilities, so he could live the normal life with her. All for her.” She pauses, leveling me with her gaze. “Then she broke up with him. Broke his heart. And he eventually died. The end.”

“Jesus Perry,” I swear. “The other version of this story was a lot better.”

“This is the cold hard truth version reserved for my sister. Do you want that to happen to you and Jay? Do you want him to give up everything for you, so he can die too? No, you don’t. And then what happens? How do you have a normal relationship with someone who can’t die? How do you explain to dad when you’re sixty and he still looks thirty that he just has good genes? He’d be a damn test subject in a matter of seconds, absconded by the government.”

I look away, knowing everything she’s saying is true but I hadn’t let myself think that far ahead. “He makes me feel good,” I admit quietly. “Better than good. You have no idea. It’s like . . .”

“A missing puzzle piece,” she supplies swiftly. “Or a magnet. Your heart to his. Yeah. I get that. But in a case like yours, you have to think long term. Because living in the here and now with our lives doesn’t work. You may be attracted to Jay because he’s good-looking. And maybe he has some bond with you that I never had with my Jacob. But the fact is that you don’t know him, he doesn’t know himself, and you’re just latching onto him because he’s there. He understands you like no one else can.”

But isn’t that worth holding onto?

“You need to talk to Rose,” she goes on. “I can put you in touch with her.”

“That’s Maximus and Rose,” I tell her. “That’s not Ada and Jay. And it’s not Dex and Perry. Every single one of our situations is different, every single soul is different.”

“Except for those who don’t have one.”

I still, my heart rejecting her words. “Jay
has
a soul.”

“Whose soul does he have then?”

“I can’t deal with this right now,” I tell her, pushing past and storming back to the restaurant. I have enough on my plate as it is, I don’t want to doubt Jay any more than I have to.

Back inside I avoid Jay’s eyes and make excuses over the pasta. I pass on the espresso being served after dinner and manage to stealthily drink Rebecca’s shot of Sambuca she had second thoughts on.

But from the restaurant and all the way back to their apartment, all I can think about is Jay. And he sits right beside me, like a ghost, locked in his own head and haunting himself.

Fat Rabbit greets us like he did before—excited wiggles for me, barking at Jay. This time Jay seems to take it to heart. I’d never seen his face crumble, like the dog was hurling violent insults his way.

We retire to bed. Dex and Perry scoop up the pooch and take him into their bedroom. Jay takes the couch. I go into the guest bedroom.

I’m lying here now, knowing that Jay’s eyes followed me as I came in here. I could almost feel him flinch when I shut the door. I can feel him even now, this living breathing extension of myself. He calls to me whether he means to or not, the promise of our bodies fusing together, erasing our cares. I want to be back in that hotel room, where his pleasure was the only thing I had to care about.

That’s the effect of sleeping with him
, my brain pipes up.
That’s the consequence. Losing yourself in him as he loses himself in you.