Vera watched as he leaned back, completely unbothered, like he had all the time in the world. His golden eyes flicked to Connielia, amusement barely there, but definitely present.
"I thought to introduce myself," he repeated smoothly.
Connielia, never one for patience, raised an eyebrow. "And?"
The guy smirked, slow and deliberate. "And yet… I haven't."
Oh, for fuck's sake.
Vera resisted the urge to groan. Why does she always attract the cryptic ones?
Connielia, however, had no such restraint. "Great. A walking riddle. Love that," she deadpanned, turning back to Vera. "Seriously, who is this?"
Vera sighed, stirring her now lukewarm coffee with the straw. "No clue. He just sat down and started acting all mysterious."
"That's a red flag," Connielia declared immediately.
The guy chuckled, tapping a finger against his coffee cup. "Harsh."
"I call it like I see it," Connielia shot back. "And what I see is a guy who could've picked literally any other table but decided to be weird instead."
Vera bit back a grin. This is why Connielia was her favourite.
The guy, unfazed as ever, took another slow sip of his coffee before finally relenting.
"Aurelius."
Vera blinked. "Huh?"
"My name." He set his cup down. "Since you are so eager to know."
Connielia snorted. "Yeah, pretty sure nobody was dying to know."
Aurelius only shrugs. "Still. Now you do."
Vera rolled her eyes. Aurelius. It sounded old.
And then there was the fact that the ghosts were still nowhere in sight.
It was unsettling. Not that she wanted them to show up, but it felt wrong for them to just… vanish.
"Something wrong?"
Vera hesitated.
Should she say it? That for the first time in years, she wasn't being followed by flickering shadows, even outside the cafe? That the creeping, suffocating weight of their presence had lifted the moment he walked in?
That would sound paranoid as hell.
So she shrugs instead, taking another sip of her coffee. "Nope."
Aurelius watches her for a moment longer before looking away.
Vera ignored the way her pulse kicked up at the look in his eyes.
~~~~~~~
Aurelius' POV :
Interesting.
She lied.
Aurelius don't blame her. If he is in her position, haunted, paranoid, watching shadows creeping at the edges of her vision, he wouldn't trust a stranger either.
Especially not someone like him.
He drums his fingers against his coffee cup, watching as Vera and Connielia bickering like this is just another normal day. Like Vera isn't a walking target. Like something isn't hunting her for years.
She has no idea how close she come to slipping through the cracks.
The ghosts, they should be here. He knows their patterns, the way they latches onto a presence, gnawing at it like starving dogs. But today, they were absent.
Because of him.
Aurelius exhaled quietly, shifting his gaze back to Vera.
She doesn't know it yet, but he is the reason she is still breathing.
Connielia is still side-eyeing him, suspicion plain as day on her face. She is sharp in a way that had nothing to do with supernatural instincts. Just a girl who had learned, through trial and error, how to spot bullshit from a mile away.
"Alright, Aurelius. What's your deal?"
He tilted his head slightly, pretending to consider. "What do you mean?"
Connielia gave him a look. "You show up out of nowhere, sit at Vera's table, and expect me to believe that's just a coincidence?"
Vera rolls her eyes. "Connie."
"What? You think it's normal?" Connielia shot back. "Because I don't. Guy looks like he walked out of a gothic novel and smells like.. " she squinted, sniffing, "I don't even know. Expensive cologne and bad decisions?"
Aurelius smirked. She's not entirely wrong.
"I like her," he said, taking another sip of his coffee.
Connielia scoffed. "Yeah? I don't like you."
Vera groaned, dragging a hand down her face. "Jesus Christ. Can we not do this?"
Aurelius just hummed, gaze flicking to the church across the street. The weight of its presence pressed against him, not enough to repel him, but enough to remind him he didn't belong here.
Not entirely, anyway.
Vera followed his gaze, her expression unreadable. She knows something is off.
Good. She should.
This wasn't over.
Not even close.