“Is it safe being here?” I asked.
“Somewhat. I made some modifications. Bullet proof glass, steel doors, reinforced concrete. Akeelah’s henchmen can’t attack from outside. I should have taken these precautions from the beginning.” He shook his head.
“So why can’t we just live here? We can make the car bulletproof!” Why hadn’t I thought of that? I pressed a finger to my temple, wondering if the lack of proper sleep had turned my brain to molasses.
“Like I said, they can’t attack from the outside.”
I knitted my eyebrows together, still slow to grasp his meaning. “But how are they going to get in?” My understanding was slow to come, but when it finally did, it made itself comfortable, sending a sharp fingernail down the length of my spine. “Oh, she can transport them inside,” I said with a squeak. The image of four greasy men, all holding serrated knifes, popped into my mind. They lumbered in my direction and grinned like inmates from an insane asylum, their grimy fingers twitching, while Akeelah cheered them on and called them “my pets.” I shivered.
“Don’t worry.” Faris pulled me into his arms. “Magic, at least, gives me a head start. There’s really no point in going somewhere else, anyway. She knows our location as soon as I use magic.”
“I see,” I murmured, understanding all-too-well that Akeelah could show up right this instant, if she wanted.
It was all so complicated. Every time I thought I had an answer, there was something to invalidate it. That monster really had us over a barrel. There seemed to be no foolproof solution to our situation. If only I’d seen reason in Faris’s offer last night. If only I’d thought things through before I let my temper flare. Now it was too late. I’d made Faris feel selfish and guilty for asking me to go away with him. Why had I thought I couldn’t abandon my life here? Only last year I would have jumped at the opportunity to leave New Orleans behind. Why had I been so stupid?!
Still in his arms, I inhaled his scent and pressed my body against his, tightening my trembling arms around his waist. He’d made my world better, helped me rediscover how wonderful life could be, made me happy.
Life without him? I couldn’t imagine it.
It hardly seemed worth it.
He pressed his warm cheek to my forehead. He’s still here, I thought, and that meant I could still make him see we needed to stay together. But what else could I do when crying, pleading, and anger hadn’t worked?
I opened my eyes to the sight of his cluttered desk. A thrill ran to me as I remembered him on top of me, lost in the passion of our heated bodies. He’d been fully mine then, and now he was about to slip through my fingers. If only my kisses were enough to keep him from leaving, to hold him at my side forever?
And what if they were?
I shifted gently, wondering, feeling terribly manipulative, but not caring. I laid a lingering kiss on his neck.
“We have to stay together,” I whispered against his skin.
He sighed heavily and seemed to sway in my direction, as if weak. I kissed him again, my lips silky against the hollow beneath his earlobe. My arms wrapped around his neck and held on tightly, as my kisses traced a feverish pattern along his jaw.
Faris placed his hands on my waist and feebly tried to push me away. I kissed him harder, pressed my body against his. When my lips brushed the corner of his mouth, his breath caught and he seized me in his arms.
Losing all composure, he kissed me desperately. I steered him toward the couch and pulled him down. We sat, perched at the very edge. His hands were at each side of my face, his anxious manner more worrisome than reassuring.
That’s when I realized he was kissing me goodbye.
A roiling sickness gripped my stomach. While I was trying to keep him from leaving, he was saying farewell.
I pulled away as tears threatened to spill onto my cheeks. Faris tried to stop me in place, just as feebly as he’d tried to push me away when I started kissing him.
Holding my breath, I stared into his dark eyes until he blinked in slow motion and switched his attention to a spot on the rug. The black fringe of his eyelashes hid his gaze. Still, his expression told me everything I needed to know.
He was leaving me. Really leaving me.
“Don’t,” I whispered.
Faris squared his shoulders and stood.
“So you’re going to leave just like that. It’s that easy, huh?” The instant the words left my mouth, I knew how unfair they were. This was anything but easy for either of us.
“Now that you ask . . .” Faris thought for a few seconds. “Yes. It’s that easy.”
The words felt like a blunt object slamming against my chest.
“When one does what is right, one finds strength in conviction.” His hands clenched at his sides. “If I stay with you, you will live in fear, away from those you love. You deserve better. You deserve a normal life and I have no right to take that away from you. Like right now, you should be back in class, learning all those languages you’ve always wanted to learn.”
“I don’t care about school. Besides, I would learn faster traveling with you.”
“But that’s not exactly what you want. There’s the college experience, a diploma you earn.”
I cursed inwardly, wishing I’d never told him those things, even if they were true.
“This is my fault,” he said, “and it’s been a long time coming. Akeelah is just . . . another way fate has found to get back at me.”
“Don’t say it’s easy.” I stood, ran a shaky hand across my eyes. “Say anything you like, but not that. I know it isn’t. I know.” My heart ached, and I couldn’t imagine it being any different for Faris. If his love was at least a fraction of the love I felt for him, it couldn’t be easy. No matter what.
He pressed his lips into a tight line.
I knew I’d pushed him to say this, pushed him into this decision. It was all my fault. My stupid temper and immaturity had done this. I squeezed my eyes shut and rifled through my mind for the right thing to say, the words that would make him stay. I searched desperately.
Nothing.
I’d tried everything. There was nothing else I could say. All I had left was . . . honesty.
“I did this,” I started. “It’s my fault you’ve decided to leave. When you asked me to go with you, I just reacted. I didn’t think things through. Now you think you see clearer. You think you understand what I want, but you’re not listening. I don’t want to live without you. I’ve had time to think, and I want to go with you. I want us to disappear and then I want you to tell me you love me. Do you understand?”
“I—I’ve thought about it, too. When you grow older, you may come to regret it, and I don’t want to be responsible for that. You shouldn’t be forced to choose this way. This isn’t how it’s meant to happen.” He shook his head. He looked confused, and it seemed his resolve might be wavering.
“We decide what is meant to be. No one else. I choose you. Djinn or human, you will always be the one I choose. And you will, without a doubt, be more than anything I could ever wish for.”
Faris looked up to the ceiling, clearly struggling with indecision. I felt the balance tip slightly in my favor. I bit my lower lip, unsure of whether to say more or remain quiet. If I uttered the wrong words, he might leave me. But what if I didn’t say enough?
“If I become human and she finds us . . .” Faris didn’t seem to know how to finish the sentence.
I seized his hands in mine. “She won’t. You said you would make it impossible for her to do that.”
“What about your father?”
“We’ll tell him everything. He’ll come with us.”
He took me by the shoulders and squeezed, his eyes a deep brown, drilling into mine with searing intensity. “Swear you won’t regret it later. Swear you won’t miss Maven, Abby, Javier, Anita, the nursery, New Orleans. Swear to me you won’t hold it against me when all your roots are gone and you have to build a new life. Swear!”
“I swear,” I said without hesitation. I didn’t want to give him any reason to doubt me. I could do this, even as intimidating as it seemed.
People started over all the time. Javier and Anita had left Mexico to come to the United States, and they had done so without any money or documentation. Faris and I had absolutely nothing to worry about. We had documents for multiple identities, plenty of money, and most importantly, we had each other.
He took my hands and gave me a small smile. “I need to be sure you’ve thought this through.” His expression looked strained, uncertain.
“I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life. I’d do anything to keep you.”
His gaze softened, and I almost crumpled in relief.
“Okay, let’s go get Dad,” I said, springing into action before he changed his mind.
11
Marielle
I blinked, confused.
Being transported by magic to a place I was familiar with was disorienting enough, but suddenly appearing somewhere I’d never visited—and in the dark to boot—was downright baffling.
“Where are we?” I whispered.
“Closet,” Faris said to my left. He cracked a door open. A sliver of light broke through, illuminating stacks of blue sheets on a metal shelf.
Feeling suddenly heavy and encumbered, I tugged at something under my shirt.
What in the world?
Faris pulled me out into a sterile, brightly lit hall. I walked forward, barely able to bend my knees for some reason. He shut the closet door behind us. I squirmed at the strange feeling constricting my ribs and, freeing my hand from Faris’s, patted my chest down.
“Kevlar,” he said when he noticed my confusion.
Kevlar? As in a bulletproof vest? Well, more like bulletproof armor. I could feel it wrapping around my entire body.
“C’mon, Robert’s room is this way.” He grabbed my hand again and pulled me along a few steps.
I yanked him to a stop. “Faris, this is too heavy. Couldn’t you just build a force field around us or something?”
“I already did. The Kevlar is backup.”
Two middle-aged men in white coats walked by. I smiled politely, leaned closer to Faris and whispered, “Backup? Why?”
“In case we get separated. I wouldn’t be able to keep it working if I’m too far from you.” He sounded a bit irritated, as if I should know this already. But when it came to his magic and exactly how it worked, there seemed to be something new every day.
“Normally people wear just a vest. Can you get rid of the stuff around my legs? I’m stiff. I’m walking like a robot.”
He frowned, not at all buying my idea of removing the full-body armor.
“Um, if I need to run for some reason, I won’t be able to,” I put in.
“Yeah, that’s true.”
Immediately, the heaviness around my legs disappeared. I breathed a sigh of relief and decided I could have never been a knight. Armor wasn’t for me. I wanted the vest gone too, but I can be reasonable sometimes.
With the stiffness gone from my legs, I marched down the corridor headed for the room at the end of the hall. Faris knocked, then pushed the door open. The room was tidy, the bed made.
“What the . . . ? Where is he?” I asked in a sudden panic.
Faris stood stone-still for a second, then blinked. “The computer records say he checked out early this morning.” There was no secure computer system with Faris around. Magic allowed him to connect to any nearby hotspot and retrieve whatever information he wanted.
“Checked out? But he was . . .”
“All better,” Faris put in. “He should be one hundred percent healed by now.”
“I’ll get a hold of him.” I pulled out my cell phone and dialed. After three rings Dad answered. “Where are you?” I asked without preamble.
“At the Treasure Chest Casino. I have that job interview, remember?” Dad said.
“What? You just left the hospital, and you decided to go to the interview?!” I knew about it. It was all he’d been talking about for days, how he wished he could get back into being a gaming surveillance manager, like when he was younger. But I never thought he would still go after what happened.
“Well, I feel great. I don’t see a reason to skip it. You know how hard it was to get it. Besides, we’ll need the extra money. The home insurance will pay next to nothing—mostly for the land, the house was so old and decrepit—and the nursery’s revenue won’t be enough to afford us a new house. We need this.” Dad sounded extremely gung ho for someone who’d just been through such an awful experience. Was this normal? Or was it some kind of post-traumatic stress?
“Um, don’t you think you should be resting? How did you even get there? You had no money.” He didn’t even have an ID. All he had left after the fire were his scorched pajamas.
“I called Javier. He brought me some clothes and money from the register. I had time to stop by the mall to buy a suit.” He gave a short laugh. “You should see me. I look sharp. I feel like I’ve been given yet another chance, and I’m ready to make the best of it.”
Dad’s enthusiasm was like a ray of sun shining through the eye of a storm, a storm that had turned my life upside down and would do the same for his. A twang of remorse ran through me. My plans would get in the way of Dad’s aspirations. In the past few days, he’d been very excited about his job search prospects. When I was little, he’d worked in gaming surveillance, a job he enjoyed and performed extremely well. He knew Javier and Anita could run the nursery without problems, and he was ready to do more than just “raise saplings.”
“You see,” he continued, “I’ve decided to make this a new beginning. It’s very sad what happened to Dad’s house. All those memories just gone.” The spark in his voice dimmed a little. “I can choose to let it bring me down. Or I can use it as the kick in the butt I’ve needed for a long time.”
A minute ago, the conversation I needed to have with Dad wouldn’t have been easy. Now, considering his excitement and ideas about a new beginning, I suspected it would be much worse.
“Sounds good, Dad. But listen, I need to talk to you. Now. It’s important.” I tried to make it sound as urgent as possible.
“I’m sure it can wait, kiddo.”
“No, Dad this is—”
“Look, they’re calling my name. I gotta go.”
“Dad, wait!”
“We’ll talk later. Meet me at the nursery after lunch.”
I pulled the phone away from my ear. “He hung up.”
“Where is he? We’ll go there,” Faris said.
“He’s at Treasure Chest Casino.”
“All right, we’ll find him.”
He took my hand. I blinked and everything changed.
An open blue sky shone brightly where a plain hospital wall had been. I took two deep breaths and looked around to regain my bearings. We were standing on a narrow deck, fenced in by a white, ornate railing overlooking a large expanse of water. I had to assume we were on board the Treasure Chest Casino, a gambling riverboat docked ashore Lake Pontchartrain. It never left the dock and had a permanent ramp attached to it so gamblers could get on and off.
“Let’s find him.” Faris hurried along the deck, turned the corner and walked to the entrance where a middle-aged attendant in a maroon vest and bow tie demanded our IDs. He eyed us up and down, clearly suspicious of our age.
“Sure thing,” Faris said, pulling out a wallet from his back pocket and giving me a suggestive glance to do the same.
I was days shy of nineteen and two years away from being able to legally enter a casino, but when I handed over my ID, I was only worried about being able to find Dad as quickly as possible. The identification would be no problem. I knew Faris had seen to that.
As I stood fidgeting on restless legs and tried to look past the door, the attendant looked back and forth from the photos to our faces. His thick mustache twitched. I willed him to hurry, my anxiety growing with every pas
sing second. It felt as if there was a ticking clock, counting down to Akeelah’s next attack.
The attendant handed back our IDs. “You two sure don’t look a day older than twenty. The older I get, the more everyone looks younger and younger.” He sighed and shook his head. “Welcome to the Treasure Chest Casino. Good luck.”
We hurried inside and had taken but a few steps when someone squeezed between us, headed in the opposite direction.
“Excuse me,” he said after bumping his shoulder against mine. He flashed a set of yellowed teeth and peered at me with an off-kilter, brown eye. He was short, bony thin, and in dire need of a touch up on his fake-blond hair, unless letting one’s roots show that much was the latest fashion.
“Didn’t mean to bump into you, sweetheart.” The way he said the last word made me want to slap him. He took a sleazy glance down the length of my body. I recoiled inwardly. “Good luck in there. I hope the numbers and stars align for you.”
Faris stepped forward protectively. “Thank you,” he said, though it sounded more like, “get the hell away.”
The guy cracked his neck, took an index finger to his eyebrow and made a dramatic military salute, flashing his heavily tattooed forearms in the process. Something in his saluting hand caught my eye, a small gadget with a few buttons on it. He grinned, whirled around and left.
Weirdo!
As we moved further into the casino, I tried to shake the creepy feeling the little guy had left in me. We walked past several aisles of slot machines, following the signs that led toward the office area, getting deeper into the large boat. We went as far as a large wooden door with an electronic card reader. The sign above the door read: Management.
“He’s behind this door,” Faris said. “I can hear him.”
“Okay, so what do we do?”
Trying not to look suspicious, I looked around and pulled Faris off to the side. We turned our backs on the door, making it look as if we were scoping out the casino floor.
“We could snatch him, take him to Quebec and explain everything there,” Faris offered.
“I guess that’s an option, but I doubt he’d be too happy about that.”
One Wish Away: Djinn Empire Complete Series Page 33