The Seven Kings of Jinn

Throwing her shoulders back, Ari gulped down the nausea brought on by her grief. She looked right through Staci and replied in a monotone, “Don’t bother.”

Staci’s eyes glistened with shocked tears before a little puff of disbelief escaped her lips. She spun around and marched out the room after Rachel.

Ari sagged and a sob caught in the back of her throat as she leaned on her dad's bed for support.

A hand slid across her back, a spicy, familiar cologne tickled her senses. “You okay?” Jai asked.

Frustrated at everything, Ari jerked away from his comforting touch and felt him retreat. She shot him a look over her shoulder and found him gazing blankly at her. Ari wished he cared enough to be mad, to be hurt by her. She wanted someone to be as mad and as hurt as she was. “What do you think?” she bit out. “How would you feel if you had to cut Trey out of your life?”

He shrugged uncomfortably, shoving his hands into his jeans’ pockets. He seemed like a scolded little boy.

Ari scoffed. “God, you and Charlie are so similar.”

“No, we're not,” he vehemently disagreed.

"Well, you both have made an art out of hiding your feelings.”

Jai shrugged. “We’re just guys.”

Ari shook her head, hating everyone and everything. “You’re asshats.”

Chapter 20

I don’t want this heart

it’s split in two

Sunlight poured in through the kitchen window like an ineffective interrogation spotlight. Ari turned her head this way and that, catching the beams of fiery light on her face, and felt nothing but the temperate tingle of its touch.

She missed the heat.

She missed... her dad. Her friends. It was weird, but she’d spent half her time complaining they weren’t really there for her. As it turned out, they were there enough for their absence to leave behind a hollowness. Charlie and Jai sat behind her at the kitchen table. Charlie had gone out to the store and gotten some eggs. Jai had cooked omelets. They existed together in a strained state of peace, for Ari’s sake. Ari felt as tense around them as they did around one another.

Feeling the way she did. About them both.

It wasn’t enough to worry constantly that the Red King hadn’t contacted them in three days, or that Rachel and Staci were no longer in her life (and were so easily driven off—it was a little insulting), or that she was exhausted from using her jinn magic twenty-four hours a day. Who knew that conjuring random crap out of thin air could grow boring? But it did. Ari could see why Jai lived like a human, fetching glasses of soda and cooking omelets. Not that she talked to him about it. Since the hospital, she'd been distant with Jai and Charlie. There was just too much to think about. Too much to feel and right now she was just...

Angry.

At her dad, at the White King, at the Red King, at Azazil, at Rachel and Staci, at Charlie, and at Jai for making her feel a certain way about him and then treating her like someone he couldn’t wait to be rid of. More than anyone, she was furious with herself. Surely she could cope with all of it better than this? She should be strong enough to protect the people she loved rather than push them away. She should be smart enough to find some way around the White King’s plans for her rather than playing directly into his hands; and she shouldn’t fall for a guy when she was supposed to be in love with someone else.

She pressed her nose against the windowpane. Life sucks.

Ari was close to giving up on feeling the heat through the glass when Jai’s steely voice cut through the room. “I think it’s time we test your other powers.”

Nervous little cretins awoke in her stomach.

Ari knew what Jai meant when he said ‘other powers’.

Stealing herself, she turned around. Charlie watched her carefully, a forkful of egg inches from his mouth as he waited for her answer. Jai crossed his arms over his chest and his biceps flexed.

“Why now?” she asked, afraid.

“Because the Red King is taking longer than I expected. I don’t know what that means, but I do know that time is running out. I think we should use what time we have sensibly. It makes sense we test the powers of the seal.” His eyes narrowed at her petulant expression. “Hey, I’m not happy about it either. The only way to test those abilities is to test it on the jinn. The only jinn we have in our midst? Yours truly. I’m putting a lot of trust in you not to command me to do something asinine.”

Ari snorted. “Asinine?”

“Ari…” he warned, standing up.

Charlie grinned. “Do I get to choose what she commands you to do? Come on, let me, it’ll be fun.”