Her dad jerked back, the confusion on his face crumbling Ari’s resolve a little. “Michelle?”
“Your girlfriend that I said hit me.”
His eyes lit up with recognition. “Michelle.”
“You really liked her. I knew that even then. And you hadn’t liked anyone so much before. I got scared. I didn’t want a mom and I didn’t want to share you. So I lied. She didn’t slap me.” Ari exhaled shakily. “I’m sorry. But I lied. A horrible lie I didn’t fully understand the consequences of. I just didn’t want another mom abandoning us. I didn’t want you abandoning me.” She laughed humorlessly. “And that is just such a joke because you abandoned me, anyway.”
The silence between them was so thick, but so fragile. Ari waited, tense, her whole body frozen as she waited for him to respond.
Finally, Derek lifted his head, his features hard, his skin stretched taut across his face. His dark blue eyes blazed at her as if he didn’t recognize her. Without another word, he rose to his feet and walked past her. The front door slammed and Ari jumped at the noise, staring blindly down at the armchair he’d vacated.
Well, you wanted to push. You wanted to punish. Someone. Anyone.
Ignoring the ache in her chest, Ari turned slowly around, only to come face to face with Jai as he entered the living room. He stared at her, expression somewhat unfathomable, but she noted a softening in his features that hadn’t been there before. She dropped her gaze, not wanting his sympathy.
The shrill call of the phone broke the awkward moment, and Ari reached over to answer it.
“Ari?” Charlie’s warm voice asked in disbelief and relief.
“Yeah.”
“Yeah? That’s all you’ve got to say. Ari, I’ve been going out of my mind. What the hell happened the other night?”
She glanced out at the darkening day and sighed. “I’ll tell you in a minute. You at home?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll be there in ten.”
This was not at all what Jai had imagined would be his assignment. One, the actual assignment — the girl — was a bigger situation than even he could have anticipated. And two, she differed from what he’d thought she’d be. Usually importants were surrounded by people, had busy lives, were focused and driven. But then Ari wasn’t exactly an important. Not precisely. Jai watched her as she grabbed her keys and shoved her feet into white flats. She turned back to him, her long hair sliding like dark chocolate across her back.
“We’re walking. I feel like walking.”
Jai shrugged. Walking worked for him. It was just the destination that bothered him.
For over a week now, he’d been following Ari, protecting her. It had surprised him how lonely she was, how abandoned she was by even the people who were supposed to love her. Her dad was an idiot, Jai thought so even more now after overhearing their argument. Her friends were typical teens too wrapped up in their own lives to see Ari was drowning, and her so-called best friend, Charlie, who she talked about all the time (even with that damn ifrit who’d tried to bar him from the house) wasn’t there for her. He seemed to come in and out of Ari’s life, playing with her feelings, pulling her in, pushing her out. Jai thought the kid needed his head dunked in a tub of cold water, but part of him also got where the guy was coming from. Anger, especially over the death of a loved one, wasn’t easy to relinquish. Whereas some wanted an escape from it anyway they could, others, like Jai, channeled it into something productive. He guessed it all came down to how you were wired. Still, it bothered Jai, for some inexplicable reason, that the first person Ari wanted to run to after all that she’d been through was Charlie. Charlie who was too messed up to give her any kind of support.
He shot a look at her as she breezed down the sidewalk, her long legs working to get away from him. She better not think about telling that kid any of this stuff. Jai sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. He shouldn’t care what she did with her personal life. That wasn’t part of the assignment. But something about her had drawn him in since they had charged him with following her. He understood what it was like to be all alone. And Ari was a nice girl. She was. Contrary to how she was reacting to him (but hey he was used to that), she was a nice girl.
With eyes a guy could drown in.
Jai frowned at that. Ari had jinn eyes, clearly inherited from her mother. Those were powerful eyes, indistinct, but startling. She shot him a sideways glance, checking him out, and Jai hid a smile. She was only eighteen (and a virgin, according to her friend Rachel). She came from a small town in Ohio and she didn’t really know herself. Jai sighed inwardly. She was an innocent. In every way, his thoughts suddenly depressed, darkened. It was unfair. The Red King should have armed her with the truth. Given her a chance to prepare.