Will Choose: A Djinn Short

by Laura Catherine

  “What about Mia?” I asked. “You sent her home.”

  “Mia is a special case. Honestly, she’s never been fully committed to the Guardjinn. She skipped classes a lot and probably only stuck around to be close to you and Pyke. I often thought she would go into service.”

  “Really?” I couldn’t imagine Mia ever going into service. She always badmouthed the Guardjinn who didn’t fight.

  “She’s not as strong as you or Pyke, but she wants to be and that’s why she sticks around. She’s had it rough and I gave her some slack, but don’t ever tell her I did or she’ll pick a fight with me.” Jack smiled, but then it faded. “Anyway, being a Guardjinn means turning off your emotions and getting the job done. Protect the Djinn at all costs.”

  “If that’s true then why did you tell me to turn my ability off? Surely leaving it on made me a better Guardjinn.”

  “I wanted you to realise you weren’t invincible,” Jack said. “You needed to feel in order to know your limits. Does it make you a better Guardjinn? I don’t know, but you couldn’t keep going on the way you were or you’d have ended up dead.”

  Dead. Was he right? Before I had got into fights and hadn’t held back because I didn’t feel anything to stop me. If my arm was broken or skin burned, I kept on going until the job was done. I was an efficient Guardjinn. Now, I felt weaker, more vulnerable. Even though I could turn my ability on there was still that overwhelming urge to have it off again so I might feel the soft touch of someone’s skin against mine.

  It was dangerous.

  “We’ll organise a roster for you and I to check in on the Blooders,” Jack said. “And I’ll tell the Queen about your run-in with one of them. Right, now, let’s just do our jobs.”

  Chapter Ten

  Like a true stalker, I found myself hiding in Kyra’s bushes once again. I had been thinking about her for a few days, wondering if she was okay. I cursed myself for being there. I had been the one to tell Kyra it was impossible for us to be together and yet I was the one who couldn’t stay away. Kyra hadn’t come to see me. She was keeping her distance.

  She sat outside again, lying on the damp grass looking up at the sky. Keisuke rested his head on her stomach and there was a stillness in the air. Kellan was nowhere to be seen and a wave of pleasure rolled through me.

  I sat in the bush and tested my resolve with every moment I stayed. It would be so easy to walk out of the bush and take Kyra into my arms. She’d kiss me and the world would melt away and I’d feel the spark of blazing heat I craved.

  But I didn’t move. I stayed hidden, planted to the ground like the roots of the bush I hid in.

  Kellan eventually appeared in the doorway of the house. “Are you hungry?” he asked.

  “No,” Kyra replied, her voice hollow.

  “You need to eat something,” Kellan replied. “And you really shouldn’t be lying on the wet ground. You’ll get sick.”

  “I don’t care,” Kyra said, pulling up grass with her hand. “I like it here. Nothing but sky. I can almost pretend that nothing is wrong.”

  Kellan frowned. “Things will get better,” he said. “Just give them time. How about I make you pancakes? They’re your favourite, aren’t they?”

  Kyra sat up and a small smile flashed on her lips. “You know what my favourite food is?”

  “I heard you tell Mrs Greenwood once,” he replied. “So, what do you say?”

  “Okay, I’ll come inside and eat,” she said.

  Pancakes were Kyra’s favourite food? I hadn’t known that. How did Kellan know that and I didn’t? What did I actually know about Kyra anyway?

  A tree in the neighbouring yard rustled and I froze. Kyra was standing in the doorway, letting Keisuke past her. I focused on the tree. It was too cold now for birds. Another rustle and I saw him – a man crouched on one of the higher branches, dressed in black. There was no mistaking the outfit. A Blooder uniform.

  What was a Blooder still doing in the compound and, of all the places to be, why was he watching Kyra?

  I darted out of my bush and around the fence into the neighbours yard. The tree was on the fence line, part of it hanging over into the Greenwood’s backyard. I dashed for the tree, feet pumping up the trunk as I reached out and grabbed the Blooder’s ankle.

  I fell back down to the ground, pulling the Blooder with me. He tried to grip onto the branch but it was slick from the rain. We hit the ground hard and the Blooder groaned. There was a half-healed cut above the Blooder’s nose and his skin was filthy. He smelled like sewage and I wondered if he’d been hiding in a drainpipe.

  I rolled onto my stomach and was on my feet once more before the Blooder could even move. It seemed the wind had been knocked out of him because he grasped his stomach.

  I grabbed his top, picked him up and slammed him against the tree trunk, leaves falling around us. Thankfully, Kyra was inside her house and couldn’t hear us, plus we were on the other side of the fence and out of view.

  “What are you doing here?” I demanded, shaking the Blooder.

  “Nothing,” he replied. “Just looking for blood.”

  “Why did you come to this house?”

  The Blooder’s gaze turned to Kyra’s house and lingered. “I don’t know who lives here,” he said. “I just wanted blood.”

  The Blooder looked like he hadn’t had any food or water in a few days. Even in that state, his first thought was for Djinn blood instead of things that might actually keep him alive. There was something deeply wrong with Blooders.

  “You’re coming with me,” I said and twisted him around, pulling his hands behind his back.

  I needed to get him into the cells and tell Jack to organise a search of the drain pipes.

  “Are there any more of you?” I asked.

  “Just me,” he said. “I hid in a pipe for days and days. My powers left me and the cravings started.”

  He sounded weak, not like a fighter at all but a coward. I didn’t believe a word he said though.

  “What are you going to do with me?” he asked.

  “You can have a lovely stay in our cells and then we’re going to have another chat.”

  “No!” The Blooder twisted against my grip, trying to wriggle free. “I won’t be tortured,” he said. “I just need blood.”

  He thrashed about and I struggled to keep hold. I stepped back to get a better stance only to slip on some wet leaves. I fell backwards taking the Blooder down with me. Sticks poked into my back and slimy leaves stuck to my arms.

  The Blooder rolled off me and pulled a knife from my belt before I could react.

  “Put it down,” I said, springing into a crouching position. “Don’t make me hurt you.”

  “I won’t be tortured,” the Blooder said again and held the knife to his own throat.

  “What are you–”

  The Blooder pressed the knife in deep and cut across in a single motion. Blood flowed, he gurgled and fell to the ground, eyes wide open.

  Chapter Eleven

  I spent the rest of the afternoon at the palace with Queen Celeste and Jack explaining what had happened. I didn’t tell them the real reason I was at Kyra’s house and instead told them I was on my way to check on the prisoners when I spotted him.

  The Queen was grateful for my actions and Jack swore a lot over the fact we’d missed a Blooder. He’d ordered another sweep of the compound, but nothing had turned up so far. That Blooder must have been the only one who couldn’t make it out and so decided to hide instead of fight. He hadn’t seemed like the courageous type and only proved it more by taking his own life rather than be captured.

  Once the briefing was over Queen Celeste sent me home. I wandered the dark streets of the lower ring, not feeling very tired. I arrived home to a note on the kitchen bench from mother. She had gone to Lily’s house to give her food and asked that I come over too when I got home.

  I didn’t want to go, especially after the way I left things between Mia and I; she probably wouldn’t want t
o see me, but I owed it to go over and check on Pyke’s mother. I had to do it for Pyke.

  I changed into some clean clothes and walked to Lily’s house. Their place was a lot bigger than my house and probably made of better material. The Greenwoods had given Lily a lot of money when Grant, her husband, died, I suspected it was a gesture from Isabelle and not Ivan. It allowed Lily to have a pretty nice home by Guardjinn standards.

  I knocked on the metal door and was greeted by Lily’s tired face. She forced a smile when she saw me. She was a very skinny and tall woman with a pointed face like a mouse. Pyke got all his features from his father except his brown hair; that was Lily’s.

  “Will,” she said and wrapped her arms around my neck. “How are you?”

  “I’m fine,” I replied and gave Lily a quick hug.

  “Come in. Your mother has made a delicious pie for dinner. You must be hungry.”

  I followed Lily inside and was met with memories of my childhood. I hadn’t been to Pyke’s house in a long time, but when I was younger I spent a lot of my days there. Mia sat on a large sofa in the lounge, while my mother made herself at home in the kitchen.

  Pyke and I used to wrestle on the lounge floor, while Mia read books on the couch and yelled at us when we got too loud. The door to Pyke’s room was shut and I wondered if Lily or Mia had been in there since he died.

  “Take a seat.” Lily said, her long, straight brown hair swishing behind her back. She joined my mother in the kitchen.

  I wondered how hard she was taking Pyke’s death. Was it worse after losing her husband too or easier because she had experienced it before?

  I took a seat on the couch next to Mia and she flinched as my arm knocked hers.

  “Are you okay?” I whispered.

  “Fine,” she replied. Mia was placing cards in envelopes and she had a large stack already completed.

  “What are you doing?”

  Mia pulled a letter from the pile and handed it to me. “Invitations,’ she said. “To Pyke’s funeral. It’s next week. Lily wants you to say something.”

  The cards were black with white cursive writing in the centre and the outlines of flowers around the sides. I took the letter and placed it in my jacket pocket. “Sure,” I said, keeping my voice low as not to be overheard from the kitchen. “Listen, Mia, about the other day–”

  “Don’t,” she said, still working. “I don’t want to be reminded about what happened. I’m sorry I kissed you. I was feeling very emotional and lonely. I know you don’t feel the same way I feel about you.”

  Her fingers moved in jittery motions as she slipped the invitations into the envelopes.

  “You don’t feel things like everyone else. You’re very unemotional and I know it is partly because of your ability, but I guess I was just hoping maybe one day you’d change and actually feel something for someone. And you did. The problem was it was Kyra changed you, not me.”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “I don’t get why you like her or why Pyke did, but every time I think about her I get so mad. I’ve been in your lives from the beginning and you’ve only known her a few months and everything changed.”

  Mia put down the envelope she was holding and turned to me.

  “What I’m saying, Will, is that I can’t be around her. I blame her and I don’t want anything to do with Kyra Greenwood.”

  “What are you trying to say?” I asked.

  “I’m saying that if you keep seeing her, then … I don’t want to see you.”

  I remained silent and Mia turned back to her work. What was I supposed to say? She was making me choose between her and Kyra. I cared about both of them and both needed my protection.

  “Will,’ Lily called from the kitchen. “I have something I want to give you.”

  I left the couch and followed Lily into her bedroom. It was much larger than my room, with a double bed and sheets that actually matched. Lily walked over to her dresser and opened a hand carved wooden box.

  “I’ve been waiting to see you, so I could give you this,” she said, pulling a bracelet out of the box. It was silver with tiny charms around the edges in the shape of dogs.

  Lily sat on the end of her bed and I took a seat next to her. “This was Pyke’s,” she said.

  “I don’t think I ever saw him wear something like that,” I said.

  Lily laughed. “When I was pregnant with Pyke, Grant and I were sure he was going to be a girl. So Grant made this as a present. Turned out we were wrong and when I gave birth we realised he probably wasn’t going to want to wear it. Then Grant died and this bracelet was all Pyke had left of his father. He never wore it, but he cherished it. I’d catch him staring at it sometimes when he thought no one was looking.”

  Lily wiped a tear from her cheek.

  “I want you to have this,” she said and presented the bracelet to me.

  “I can’t,” I replied. “Mia should have it or you …”

  “Mia and I have our own keepsakes of Pyke,” she said, touching her throat where a necklace made from pasta that Pyke made when we were five hung. “He would want you to have something and he always thought of you as a brother. Please take it and remember my son.”

  I took the bracelet in my hand and ran a thumb over one of the tiny dogs. “I could never forget him,” I said and slipped the bracelet in my jacket pocket with the letter.

  “I have one more thing to say,” Lily said. “A favour to ask actually.”

  “What is it?”

  “Would you watch over Mia?” she asked.

  “Mia?”

  “She’s been taking Pyke’s death so hard and I can’t bear to see her hurting. I love her as if she were my own daughter. I always have. She’s all I have left now and I know she’ll keep fighting with the Guardjinn in memory of Pyke. I can’t bear to lose her, Will. I don’t know if I could go on if she …”

  I took Lily’s hands in mine and stared into her eyes. “I promise to watch out for her.” It was an easy promise to make because I knew Pyke would have asked the same thing. All the doubt I had just felt when Mia made her ultimatum was gone. I had to keep this promise. I wouldn’t watch another friend die.

  Chapter Twelve

  The repairs on the fence were complete so there was no longer any need to be outside the compound. We would patrol on the inside from now on. There hadn’t been any signs of Blooders in days and I figured they had realised we weren’t so crippled. We wouldn’t let our guard down again.

  I made my way to the palace and checked on the Blooder prisoners, giving them some food and water. They had both remained silent the last few times I’d visited and I wondered what they were thinking.

  I headed for the foyer of the palace when I crossed paths with two Guardjinn wheeling a stretcher with a body bag.

  “What are you doing?” I asked as wheels of the stretcher scraped along the stone floor.

  “Delivering this body to a funeral,” one Guardjinn said. “We’re storing the dead in the morgue until each funeral. Can’t have all of them at once or no one would be watching the compound.”

  I nodded at the Guardjinn and they continued on their way. They were storing the bodies, which meant Pyke’s body was down in the morgue. I wasn’t entirely sure why I wanted to see him, all I knew was I had to go.

  I made my way down a flight of stairs and entered a cold room, walled with white tiles. Two metal slabs stood in the centre of the room. The right side of the room was lined with metal cupboards and fridges. The left side was a wall of small metal doors.

  I checked a chart and found Pyke’s name. I pulled open his drawer and stared down at my friend’s body. His skin was blue and naked, so lifeless like a shell. His eyes were closed and his wounds sewn up. If it wasn’t for the colour of his skin perhaps I might have mistaken him for alive.

  What was I doing here? It seemed pointless. He was dead and there wasn’t anything that could change it. Jack had said talking about my problems might help, but I didn’t know
what to say.

  “Lily wants me to speak at your funeral,” I said. “I don’t know what to say. Mia should do the talking, she knows more about this emotional stuff.”

  I paused a moment, not because I was expecting him to reply, just that I didn’t know what to say next.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you,” I said. “I was supposed to have your back. You always watched mine. I don’t know what I could have done to change things. I don’t think anything would have changed. Your job was to save Kyra and that’s what you did.”

  I groaned and slammed my fist into the metal door.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you liked Kyra? Why didn’t you tell me to back off and forget about her? I don’t know if I would have listened anyway, but you always told me when I was being insensitive and stuff.”

  I pulled the dog bracelet from my pocket.

  “Lily gave me your bracelet. You never told me about this. I don’t think I deserve it. It should go to someone who would actually appreciate it. I was going to give it to Mia, but Lily says she has her own way of remembering you. I don’t need this to remember you. Everything reminds me of you. Every fight, when I’m with Mia, when I look at Kyra …

  “It’s like you’re haunting me and I want to feel more guilty or sad about you dying, but I don’t. And maybe it’s because you died doing your job. You were protecting Djinn. That’s our mission in life, right? You once told me you wanted to go out a hero just like your Dad and that’s exactly what you did. You were a hero. You did what your Dad was trying to do when he died. It’s like you fulfilled the mission he could never finish and you should be proud.”

  I stared at Pyke’s lifeless body and wondered what was more important to him – being alive or being remembered a hero. What would I prefer? Being a known and respected member of the Guardjinn had always seemed like the right path for me. Going out in a battle protecting my people seemed like the perfect ending for a Guardjinn and yet I wished Pyke was still alive. I would have preferred to have my best friend by my side than remembering him as a hero.