Page 47 of Veil of Death and Shadow

My head swam as I fought to find words, to understand what the hell he was talking about.

By the time I opened my mouth to say something, I was alone in the dark alley.

He was gone.

7

MAREENA

Approximately Nine Years Ago, Three Years Before The Undoing

Aman walked into Frank’s.

He was my age—maybe a year or two older—white, tall, and carved with lean muscle that caught my attention long enough that my stare was probably noticeable. Dark wavy hair curled across his forehead, landing just above his eyes. It was thick and just a bit crumpled—sticking up in odd directions, like he’d been running his hands through it in frustration. His dark gray eyes latched onto mine for a moment and my stomach tightened under their attention.

There was something unreadable—unreachable—in that look; a darkness, almost, that resonated deep inside of my chest and lingered there, a fishhook refusing to catch and release.

It felt almost like staring into a haunted mirror. One that I usually did my best to avoid.

He sat down on one of the barstools at the counter, just a few feet from me, spinning around until he faced the mess of potsand pans Frank hadn’t gotten around to cleaning since the lunch rush.

For a moment, my gaze lingered on his back, his shoulder blades and lines of lean muscle visible through a thin black T-shirt that left little to the imagination—though my traitorous brain had no problem filling in the gaps. There was a menu in front of him, but he didn’t bother looking. Instead, he buried his head in his hands, elbows perched on the counter.

I felt a strange urge to reach out and comfort him, something I’d usually never do for a stranger. Or even a non-stranger.

“You haven’t touched your food.”

I jumped, nearly upending the glass of water on the laptop in front of me—one that would have had little chance of surviving the spill.

Which would’ve been extra bad because the laptop wasn’t mine.

"Sorry?" I blinked at the screen a few times as the lawyer-speak masked as a rental application came back into focus. Without thought or hunger, I shoved the wilted BLT into my mouth, before peering up at Frank with chipmunk cheeks. "I have. See."

The sandwich was dry, and I'd taken way too big of a bite. I chugged a few desperate gulps of water, in an effort not to choke, while he grunted and turned back to the man who’d come in, leaving me to my work.

With more effort than it should’ve taken, I dragged my attention from the man and back to the screen.

Now that I was eighteen, Sora and I could officially get out of the studio apartment we'd been living in, and into a proper apartment. Maybe even one roomy enough for two beds. Dream big, right?

That’s what we’d been hoping for anyway.

I glanced at the bottom of the application, where the monthly cost of the one-bedroom was listed in bold print. Maybe not.

This was the most affordable option we’d found so far, but the obscene price tag still made me queasy. It didn't even include utilities or Wi-Fi.

I swallowed the obnoxious lump of sandwich and groaned, snapping Frank's refurbished laptop closed.

How the hell were people supposed to survive in this city, let alone furnish an entire apartment? At this rate, I'd need to work twice as many shifts to make ends meet. That, or we'd have to finally give in and move out to the suburbs . . . which would mean a two-hour bus commute each way to work. Not ideal.

But honestly, as much as I loved Seattle, moving out of it was better than spending another month in Oleg's shitty garage. A few years in that shithole was already more than I could stomach.

When Sora and I piled off the train three years ago, bleary eyed, broke, and trying like hell to leave our pasts back in southern Oregon, we'd been desperate.

Technically, we were wards of the state, on the run, and without a responsible adult to cosign for us—let alone vouch for our existence. If we wanted to stand even the smallest chance at staying together and moving on from everything we’d been through in our own way, we had to essentially disappear—from school, from social media, from everywhere—until we were eighteen and could legally live on our own.

For a chance at starting over? We gave it all up. Happily.

That first week had been . . . bad. And our options of where to go from there had been even more bleak. But desperate times called for desperate choices, and we just had to suck it up and suffer through if we wanted to make this new life work somehow. That, or give up, go back, and face what we'd left—something neither of us was willing to do.

---