“Let go of me,” I cried out, hoping to call someone’s attention.
“No one can hear you. I made sure of that.” He twirled a finger. Something around us shimmered. “Soundproof,” he announced.
Possessed by some wild instinct, I jammed the heel of my hand into Maven’s nose and managed to free my wrist.
“Damn it,” he growled as I turned and ran.
I didn’t get far, though, because something came out of nowhere and tripped me. I hit the pavement, knees first. A growl of pain squeezed past my clenched teeth.
Maven loomed over me. “You’re a lot of fun, you know?”
“Faris,” I said the name like an accusation, grasping at straws, trying to understand. But somehow I knew this wasn’t Faris. This aura was different, like that of the crows, the presence in the woods, the Cheshire nightmare!
“Call your precious Faris.” He laughed. “I’m dying to see him again. Come out, come out,” he said as he stepped on my hand with viciousness.
Bone-crushing pain shot up my arm. I cried out, but the scream echoed as if I was inside an empty room. No one could hear me. He twisted his foot from side to side as if my hand was a cockroach and he intended to make it very dead.
I let out another scream, throaty and agonizing. “Faris.” The name was a supplication.
“He has abandoned you when you’re in dire need.” Maven raised his head and laughed in extreme delight.
Then a blast resounded under my dome of silence. My ears rang with a painful, high-pitched sound. I pressed my hands to the side of my head. Maven staggered backward, a hand pressed to his middle. He looked surprised for just a second, then began to laugh like a lunatic again.
“You finally honor us with your presence, my dear Faris,” he said after a sharp intake of breath.
Rolling to my side, I put my broken hand between my legs and whimpered. I searched around, eyes swiveling, almost rolling to the back of my head with pain. Still, I looked for him.
For Faris.
He was standing a few feet away, looking at Maven—or whoever this monster was—with a mixture of rage and incredulity.
“Zet?” Faris said the name with a sneer, head shaking in denial. “Is that you? Show yourself!”
“Yes, big brother. It is I.” Zet said the last word in a hiss, baring his teeth like an animal.
Maven’s frame shimmered and, slowly, another figure solidified in its place. This new someone was slender and tan, much like Faris. I blinked. My vision cleared as welled up tears of pain spilled out. Seeing his features more clearly now, I decided they looked nothing alike, but for their build and complexion. This man’s nose was too wide, his eyes too close together.
“Being inside that stone for so long has made you slow and stupid,” Zet continued. “If it wasn’t for your clever little master.” He looked down at me, mocking, hateful. “And for the fact that I’ve grown tired of this game, you’d still be clueless.”
“I knew something wasn’t right, but . . . you? What are you doing here?” Faris looked beyond puzzled.
“My unimaginative brother.” Zet tsk-tsked. “Still playing by the rules and hoping against all hope. Well I, for my part, am doing something more satisfying with my existence than granting petty wishes every few centuries. And now, here I am, ready to make your life a living hell, from now to all eternity.”
Without warning, I flew upright, my feet dangling above the pavement. I kicked and screamed, eyes swiveling about, looking at Faris. Zet waved his outstretched hand from side to side. My body whipped back and forth like a rag doll.
“Put her down. Leave her out of this!” Faris ordered.
“You bastard,” I growled. “Let me go!”
“And what? Miss all the fun? I don’t think so.” He shook me harder while Faris bit his lip, weighed down by indecision. “She’s a pretty little thing, isn’t she? Could very well do the trick, big brother.”
Faris took a deep breath, then seemed to decide on a course of action.
“Zet, you coward. Still afraid of me, I see. Will you hide behind a woman like before? It’s clear you haven’t changed. You’re still the same as when we were children,” Faris’s tone was mocking, his expression knowing and superior.
Zet snarled like an injured dog. I hit the blacktop, my body’s full weight plummeting onto a bent knee. A yelp died halfway up my throat, as the impact knocked the breath out of my lungs. I shut my eyes and brought my throbbing knee to my chest.
A deafening growl sent raw, primal fear through my body. Adrenaline flooded me. My eyes sprang open. Pitted asphalt pressed against my cheek, scratching, piercing. Several yards away, two jet-black bodies collided in midair, then rolled and slammed against the large tire of Zet’s truck. The pavement, the night, the bodies were all dark. I wasn’t sure what was happening, wasn’t ready to accept that those wild snarls belonged to what my eyes suggested.
Two black panthers!
A flash of white fangs and yellow eyes confirmed my fears.
The animals rolled, biting, clawing savagely. I sat up and scooted backward, pushing with my good leg. The panthers stopped rolling. The one on top roared and opened its jaws wide, ready to bite. Was that one Faris? Or Zet? If the latter, I was dead. I fought to stand and stumbled. Leaving my bag on the ground, I finally managed to get to my feet and headed for the theater’s front door, limping.
Where was everyone? Couldn’t they see it was a friggin’ zoo out here?!
I bit my lip through the pain and pushed forward, looking back over my shoulder. The beast on top seemed to be mauling the other one, then—in an instant—the animal below disappeared. I pressed forward, calling out for help that wasn’t coming. The truck came alive, revved up and gave chase. The remaining panther went up in smoke as the truck plowed forward, trying to run over it.
As I hobbled, the truck shifted directions. Its headlights shone on the glass doors ahead of me. God, I wasn’t going to make it!
I urged my body on, but there was no way I could sprint on an injured knee. The engine rumbled behind me. I didn’t look back, didn’t want to see death approaching, but I caught a reflection on the doors . . . my body trapped between two bright headlights.
I felt the heat from the truck’s radiator on the back of my legs—the imminent, deadly force that would ram through me. Then I was off my feet, glass and twisted metal flying by me. Yet nothing touched me. I passed as if through an invisible tunnel and watched—in slow motion—as the wreckage revolved outside the unseen passage. Nothing pierced its surface.
An invisible hand deposited me on padded carpet. The truck rushed past and smashed into the snack bar. Popcorn burst out and rained on the truck’s broken windshield. The driver seat was empty. After two heartbeats, the door flew open and out sprang the black panther, eyes trained on me. A skinny guy wearing an auburn vest peeked from behind the soda machine.
“What the hell?!” he exclaimed. He took a good look at the panther, then at me. The animal stalked in my direction, head low, each step faster than the last. “Run,” the skinny guy yelled before he himself turned tail and headed toward a marked exit.
I followed, dragging my leg. I didn’t look back when a strangled roar reached my ears. I just hoped it was Faris, obstructing the beast. When I reached outside, the skinny guy was nowhere to be seen. I limped onto the street and searched the ground desperately as I went. Where was my phone? Sweat blurred my vision. I couldn’t see anything.
The exit door I’d just used opened and closed. I looked back.
No one.
Nothing was there. A greater fear than if I’d seen somebody took hold of me. I tried to run, but my knee gave out, and I fell. Wrapping my arms around my head, I started muttering.
“Get up, get up. There’s nothing back there. Nothing. Nothing.” But I didn’t believe my own words.
“Get in. Now!” Faris’s voice to one side, urgent.
I looked up. A car’s open door invited me in. Where had he come from? I hadn�
��t heard the engine approach. I recognized the luxurious interior. The Bugatti.
“C’mon, hurry!”
I got onto my knees, saw Faris at the steering wheel. But was it really him?
“Oh, for God’s sake,” he said.
In the next instant, I sat inside the car, strapped in and speeding down the empty lot across painted yellow lines. The Bugatti zoomed like a jet, taking us away at an impossible speed. After running two red lights, my stomach did a flip. I held a hand to my mouth in an effort to keep the popcorn down.
“Slow down . . . unless you want me to . . . redecorate your car,” I muttered.
“I can’t slow down. We need to get away by non-magical means, so he can’t catch up,” he said, going faster still, which a second ago would have seemed impossible. “What do you mean redecorate? Ugh . . . ah, that’s what you meant. Not to worry.”
I covered my eyes with my good hand and tried to avoid looking at the mess I’d made.
“It’s clean now. Don’t fret.” He put a hand on my shoulder and gave a reassuring squeeze. I peered at the clean floor and marveled at his efficiency.
I shrugged my shoulder. “Keep your hands on the wheel. You’re gonna get us killed.”
“I can handle this, Marielle. And technically only you would get killed. I’d just go missing for a few years.”
“How can you joke at a time like this?”
I moaned involuntarily, nausea getting the best of me. But it wasn’t the insane speed or the possibility of running into a wall. It was my hand and knee, and the awful pain in both. I clasped my wrist and squeezed as if I could strangle the pain. The adrenaline was wearing off.
“Let me see that,” he commanded.
“Keep your hands on the wheel,” I said.
“And I said I can handle it. Give me that.” He seized my wrist and, after examining the broken bones, inhaled sharply. “How did he do this? And your knee, too. I can’t let you be in pain. I have to fix it.” He touched my hand with tenderness. I held my breath.
In the blink of an eye the pain—in both hand and knee—disappeared. I pulled away and flexed my fingers. “Wow.”
He pressed the car to an insane speed and snaked through several streets. “There. Even if he traces that bit of magic, it still won’t be easy for him to find us.” After a few more miles, he pulled into a vacant lot and parked.
“Does your hand work properly?” He seized my wrist again and inspected it.
A shiver assaulted me as he ran a finger across the rough spots on my palm. Before, I would have been embarrassed about my calluses but, after all that had happened, I didn’t care. Still, I used them as an excuse to shy from his touch.
I clenched my fist. “It’s just from working at the nursery.”
“What is?”
“You know, the . . .” I looked down. The calluses were gone!
Unexpectedly, he took my hand to his mouth and kissed the open palm right in the middle. He pressed his face against it, relief pouring out in a hot breath. My fingers touched his soft eyelid, the golden skin of his warm cheek. I shivered.
“You’re all right,” he said. “Thank God, you’re all right.”
19
“W-what are you doing?” My own words choked me. I pulled my hand away from Faris’s mouth and laid it on my thumping chest. A kiss, a simple brush of full lips on my open palm and I felt weak, sweaty, trapped in this impossibly small car.
After Dad’s revelation about Mom, I didn’t know how to deal with this surge of feelings. I’d done better with black panthers and trucks exploding through doors. A way out, I needed a way out of this awful, awful closeness. My brain reeled for something to end the angst.
“Brother?” I blurted out, confusion morphing into resentment, but of what I didn’t know. “Why did he call you brother? And what was that about being children? Djinn aren’t ever children, are they? Y’all are like . . . angels or friggin’ demons is more like it. What the hell was that all about?” I’d worked myself into hysterics. “He was trying to kill me! Why? Was he even for real? Or did you make him up?”
He listened in silence, eyes downcast.
“Why would he do something like that? What is going on? I have a right to know.” I paused to inhale, took good notice of his dismayed expression and relented.
After a long pause, he exhaled. “You have a right to know, and I want you to know. Everything. I will try again, but I may need your help.” He looked at me pleadingly. “Okay?”
I nodded.
“Zet is my brother.” He spoke every word tentatively as if he expected it to be the last. “A long time ago, Persepolis was our home. Cyrus the Great our King. Our father was a wealthy noble, bidding for the King’s favor. Cyrus never seemed content with the size of his empire, just as our father was never content with the size of his fortune. All things within Father’s reach were mere instruments in a blind quest for power and more wealth. Even his sons. Being the eldest, Father had big hopes for me, which included ma—” Something cut him off. Fists clenched, he tried again. “He wanted me to mar—” His body quivered as if the words were bees trapped inside his chest. Frustrated, he hit the wheel with open palms.
“What stops you, Faris?” I asked.
“I’m unable to tell you that as well.” He leaned forward and pressed his forehead against the back of his hands as he gripped the wheel.
It felt ridiculous to say what I was about to say, but I had to, I had wanted to ask ever since the first time he had choked on his words. But how much more ridiculous could things get? What the heck.
“Is it like a . . . curse?” I asked.
Like a loaded spring, he straightened and stared at me. His mouth opened to form words, but nothing came out. He blinked in slow motion.
“Okaaay, I take that as a yes?”
“This is hopeless,” he growled in frustration.
“Well, that’s stating the obvious.”
He chuckled sadly. I smiled.
“So why is Zet so mad at you?” I asked.
“That’s what I was just trying to explain, but . . .”
“Seems like we won’t get anywhere on this train of thought. So what do we do now? Are we safe? Can’t you like vanish Zet to the moon or something? ‘Cause I can’t have him randomly busting through my life in some stunt extraordinaire,” I said cynically.
“We can’t hurt each other, Marielle. Not really. His magic is as good as mine. It’s just a game of outsmarting each other, nothing more. But he shouldn’t be able to hurt you,” he said, staring out the windshield as if a puzzle lay in front of the car. I could sense his bafflement like a third passenger. “It’s one of the rules. Djinn can’t hurt humans, even if they want to. And somehow . . . he did. Then there’s his presence here. It is a great coincidence for his release to occur at the same time as mine.”
“His release?”
Faris nodded with difficulty. “Yes. We share the same fate . . . a stone. Maybe he broke free, somehow.” He sounded far away as if he’d forgotten I was there. “Yet, he remains the same. The way he was able to talk about the—”
“Curse?” I finished for him. I tried to remember what Zet had said, but it was a haze. There was one thing that had stuck, though. “What did he mean when he said I could do the trick for you?”
He looked ashen with his inability to speak. And maybe with something else. Shame?
“You can’t tell me because of the curse, right?” I rolled my eyes. “This is getting old.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Well, we have to figure something out.”
“Your safety is the most important thing. Maybe if I’m gone, he’ll leave you alone.” He looked defeated, sad beyond measure. “Maybe you should make your final wish.” His jaw twitched. It was clear how hard it was for him to make this offer.
I was touched but also shocked. “Are you crazy? Maybe if you’re gone. Maybe? You’ll stake my life on a maybe? I don’t think so. And don’t look so ple
ased with yourself, I know you’ve been trying to keep me from sending you back where you belong.”
He put a hand to his heart. “You truly think that’s where I belong?” A self-satisfied smile played on his lips.
“Don’t push it or I’ll send you back. There’s still that thing about my mom, which I’m not sure I want to ever know about.”
“All right, all right.” He held his hands up in a sort of apology.
“It’s late,” I said. “Robert might be freakin’ out. And my phone, my whole bag, I lost everything.”
He reached in the back seat. “It’s here.”
“Oh, thank you, thank you.” I hugged the bag and then dug inside for my phone. “Two missed calls.”
“Let’s get you home,” Faris said.
“Is it safe?”
“I’ll make it safe.”
***
“Wake up,” A terribly sweet, smooth whisper.
I hugged my pillow tighter and decided to slip further into the delicious dream.
“Wake up, sleepy head.”
I opened my eyes and found Faris, kneeling by the side of the bed, his face barely inches away from mine. I covered my mouth. “It’s Saturday.” I rolled over. “I sleep in on the weekend. Go away.” After Zet’s attack and Robert’s questions about my late “date,” I at least deserved a full morning of sleep.
“I have to go, and I can’t leave you here alone. You have to come with me.”
“Don’t go, then. Let me sleep,” I whined.
“I have to. It’s your fault, anyway. It’s about that second wish of yours.”
I sat up, fully awake now. “What do you mean I have to go with you?”
“It’s not safe for you to be alone, and the wish can’t wait. It has to occur according to your stipulations. That’s how it works. So, you have to come with me.”
“To Mexico?”
“Yes, to Mexico.”
“But—”
“Sorry, it’s time.”
One instant I was in my bed, and the next I stood in a rundown, disheveled neighborhood. My pajamas were gone, replaced by jeans, yellow rain boots, and a matching waterproof jacket. I looked around. We were in a narrow street in front of a dilapidated stucco house painted bright blue. A puddle rippled as water dripped from the tin roof. Faris knocked on the rickety door. He looked like my twin, dressed in similar clothes.
One Wish Away (Djinn Empire Book 1) Page 14
