Page 104 of Veil of Death and Shadow

The corners of Aidan’s eyes pinched. “No. Jo ran by the diner, hoping to catch one of you, but it was closed.” He must’ve seen the guilt etched across my expression because he added, “He was only awake for a few minutes from what I understand, so even if Jo was able to reach you guys, I think you still would have missed him. By the time I went to check on him, he was asleep. Vitals were good though, and Jo told me he was in good spirits.”

A wave of guilt rolled over me. “Still no idea what’s wrong? How The Undoing transformed his illness?”

Aidan shook his head. “I’m sorry. I did hear word from a small clinic across town that they’ve heard of a couple of similar cases. They’ve promised to reach out if they have any more information.” He reached across the table and placed his hand over mine, squeezing gently. “We’ll get to the bottom of it, Mareena. I’m sure of it. Jo’s got an in with the compounds—they might have something for us soon. We’re not giving up hope. Until then, he doesn’t seem to be in pain and his numbers are stable, which are good signs.”

My eyes glazed over with the threat of tears. Blinking them back, I nodded.

“Thank you,” I said, offering his hand a soft squeeze in return. “I can’t even begin to tell you how much Sora and I appreciate everything you’ve done for him. For all of us.”

He threaded his fingers through mine and smiled. “Least I can do. You two help us keep the place running. You know,” he grunted, then shook his head, “before everything happened, I considered dropping out of med school. Going a new path altogether.”

“Really?” He was so good with the patients, with everyone, I couldn’t imagine him doing anything else. Aidan was one ofthose people who seemed to thrive in this new world. Every day that I saw him, he was alive with purpose, like it flooded him.

“Yeah, I thought about going into tech or accounting or something else. I don’t know, there was just so much more bureaucracy in the medical field than I imagined there being when I was younger, you know? Took away some of the magic of the whole idea. It was only a passing thought at the time.” He grinned, his eyes darting to mine, almost shy. “Obviously now, I love what I do, and the people I get to work with, so I’m very happy I stuck it out.”

“So am I,” I said. I caught sight of Kieran from the corner of my eyes and jumped.

He’d been so uncharacteristically silent that I’d almost forgotten he was here.

“You okay?” Aidan asked, his thumb gently stroking the back of my hand.

“Like I said before, Dr. Mediocre wants to fuck you,” Kieran said, his tone laced half with teasing, half with a dark edge. “Surely, you can see that now, Agony? But I can’t fathom why you’d let him.”

I choked out a cough and tried to cover my shock with another large gulp of wine.

“I mean, it’s not that I care or anything.” Kieran scrunched his nose in disgust. “It’s not my job to pass judgment on the lives of the living. But it’s just that you can do so much better.”

That sounded like the definition of passing judgment to me.

At some point during the conversation, Kieran had abandoned his irreverent posture from before.

More notable perhaps was the fact that he’d abandoned his passive spot in the audience entirely—and was sitting instead in the chair to my left.

At our table.

He was also clearly no longer bored, though his expression was otherwise unreadable.

A muscle ticked in his jaw as his stare snagged on the spot where Aidan’s hand touched mine.

“Yeah.” I pulled my hand back, though I wasn’t entirely sure why. We hadn’t done anything wrong. We were two friends offering each other comfort. And if it became more than that, was that so bad?

Aidan was a good guy. Kind. Thoughtful. Smart.

Alive.

Aidan’s kind smile dipped for a fraction of a second, and I grabbed my fork, as if I’d only meant to scarf down another bite of my dinner and not recoil from his touch.

Wasn’t this what Kieran had been on about earlier? That I needed to make connections, stop shielding myself? Wasn’t that exactly what I was doing? But then why did I suddenly feel flushed and guilty, like I’d just been busted for something unseemly. And why did Kieran now look even less like a guardian angel than usual, and more like someone who very much wanted to remove Aidan’s head from his spine?

More importantly, why the fuck did one look at Kieran tie my stomach into more knots than Aidan’s lingering touch had.

Fucking traitorous brain. The bitch was never on my side.

“Mareena?” Aidan’s brows pinched with concern.

“Yeah,” I cleared my throat and noticed that my forkful of food was chilling somewhere between the plate and my mouth, as if my brain had forgotten the performance midway through the task. Setting it back down, I tore my focus away from my stalker and back to my date. No. Not date. My friend. But maybe it should be a date? Maybe this was how I could prove that my life was on track, how I could get rid of my stalker for good? But did I really want to get rid of him? I shoved the thought away before I had the chance to dissect it any further and offeredAidan a tight smile. “Sorry. I’m fine. It’s just been a bit of an off week. Must be catching up with me.”

The rest of the meal went as smoothly as the first half of the evening.

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