He had no idea what she was talking about. “I have very good papers.”
“Papers?”
He shot her a grin. “The best money can buy. No memory, remember? No birth certificate, no social security number.”
Her gray eyes were clear and solemn. “It can’t have been easy creating an identity on your own.”
“You do what you need to do to survive.” He wasn’t proud of it. When he jumped ship on the New Jersey docks, he’d been a kid, exact age unknown, without money, education, or prospects. For a couple of years, he’d done any work that was offered, legal or not. “Anyway, as long as the police aren’t searching for me, I’m good to go.”
“Not police. But there could be . . . people looking for you.”
8 6
V i r g i n i a K a n t r a
He didn’t like that ominous little pause.
“Why?”
“Because of who you are.” She moistened her lips.
“What you are. What you did during that fight.”
Fuck. “Did I kil somebody?”
He couldn’t go to jail. Being locked up again would kil him.
She shook her head, her gaze dropping to her lap.
He got a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. “So, these guys who are after me . . . What do they want? Turf?
Revenge?”
“They believe you are one of us.”
“Why would they think that?”
“Because they felt your power. They wil guess that I was searching for you.”
Searching for . . . Shit.
His head hurt. Her scent swam in his senses. He couldn’t think.
“You picked me up.”
She nodded.
“I thought you were slumming,” he said.
“I was Cal ed to find you.”
“You left me.” He remembered that much. “For the ponytail.”
She winced. “I’m sorry. You were not what I expected.”
His mind scrambled back to their first meeting. “You knew I wasn’t some rich guy with a boat. I told you that up front.”
“It’s not that. I thought you would be like us. But you’re different.”
“Not . . . nephilim.”
“Not nephilim,” she agreed. She waited a beat and added,
“And not human.”
F o r g o t t e n s e a 87
Not
Another flash of memory, voices talking over his head.
The room wobbled. He took a breath—soap and Lara—
and held it until everything steadied inside. So his feet weren’t exactly like everybody else’s. Big fucking deal.
“Bul shit,” he said.
For seven years, he’d lived hand to mouth and moment to moment. He survived by not thinking any further than his next meal, his next job.
He wrenched his thoughts away. He didn’t dwel on the past. Or his dreams.
Or his damn feet.
“You have power,” Lara said. “Enough for Simon to consider you a threat.”
He shot her a look. “I wasn’t a threat until he locked me in his basement. Now I’m pissed off.”
“I’m sorry.” She frowned at her hands in her lap. Her towel had parted above her knee, along her thigh. Her cheeks flushed with earnestness. “You have to believe me.
I didn’t think . . . I thought they would help you. I wanted to help.”
