Smokeless Fire (17 page)

Ari threw her cell on her bed and glared at the Jinn who had taken up permanent residence in her life. True to The Red King’s word Jai lived like a human for the most part. He ate all her food and used up the hot water in her shower. Yes, he could magically conjure clean clothes but other than that he was like any houseguest.  Well… you know when he wasn’t padding around on four legs as a Great Dane when Derek was about. As for her dad he still wasn’t speaking to Ari. Adamantly not speaking to her. So much so he’d looked at Jai in Great Dane form and not even said a word. He hadn’t even asked why there wasn’t any dog food, or bowl, or bed. He was that pissed off.

He wasn’t the only one.

Ever since Charlie had walked away from her in the woods she’d been calling and leaving him messages but he still hadn’t responded. She tried to fight her growing fear by irritating the life out of Jai but despite first impressions he wasn’t easily irritated. He didn’t answer any personal questions and every time she asked him when the Aissawa Brotherhood would arrive he would just say ‘soon’ and return to reading. As far as stalkers went, Ari guessed he wasn’t so bad, although the less he told her, the more curious she grew about him.  Attempting to work out the mystery that was Jai was easier than attempting to work out all the relationships she’d messed up over the last few days. Not only was she in the bad books with her dad and Charlie but also with Rachel and Staci. They were furious at her for not providing a suitable reason for disappearing on them for two days. Rachel had yelled at her for fifteen minutes on the phone before hanging up. Thinking she might try to mend fences by contacting Staci she wasn’t surprised when her ten calls were ignored. Rachel had gotten to Staci before she could.

Great.

So now she was going stir crazy in a room with Jai, who only offered up an opinion on subject matters she had no wish to discuss with him. “Did I ask for your input?” she snapped.

He sighed, casually turning the page of his book. “Nope. But as a guy I can tell you the whole desperate thing would just be pushing me further away.”

Insulted, Ari threw a cushion at him only to watch it dissolve into ash before it even hit him. That was the second cushion he’d destroyed. Never mind it was her own fault for forgetting he was one of the damn Jinn. “I am not desperate,” she huffed.

“Stop calling him then. Be patient. You’re either going to lose him or not.”

“No.” She jumped off the bed, her heart crying out in outrage at the thought. “I have already lost my dad, my humanity, and my friends… I am
not
losing Charlie too.”

Jai sighed again. “What is it about this kid?”

Disgusted by his seeming callousness, Ari shot him a dirty look. “Don’t you have any friends, Jai?”

She was surprised when he actually glanced up to meet her eyes. “One.”

She stopped, frozen. “Yeah?” She smiled tentatively, amazed he had actually offered up something personal. “What’s he or she like?”

Jai rolled his eyes. “He’s… a friend.”

“Wow, you’re descriptive skills are outstanding. It must be all that reading you do.” When he ignored her teasing Ari blew out an impatient breath. “Oh come on, you tool. I’m bored. Tell me something. Tell me about your friend.”

“We grew up together. He’s a friend. End of.”

“You’re killing me.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not exactly a day at the beach.”

Deciding to ignore that, Ari flopped down at her computer desk and logged into her
Twitter
account. She scrolled through her friend’s tweets, her eyes narrowing at a certain comment.

Sometimes friendships are a one-way system. Sad but true. A hard lesson I learned this week.

“Bitch,” Ari hissed, clicking the unfollow button on Rachel’s profile. One guess as to who the little anal, straight-A, genie-hiring suckass was talking about.

“Was that directed at me? Because if so, it was completely uncalled for,” Jai muttered, pressing the corner on the page he was reading down before he shut the book. He looked up at her. “You’re bored.”

“And pissed off.”

He nodded. “Me too.”

She relaxed back on the chair, swiveling away from the laptop. “Yeah? What would you usually be doing now?” Ari knew it was a personal question but she was hoping he had reached the same level of boredom she had and would say or do anything to dispel it. Besides, there really was no arguing with it anymore. She was curious to know more about the hot guy who was sleeping on the floor at the end of her bed every night, making falling asleep incredibly difficult. He made her aware of everything. What she wore to her bed. If she snored… Oh god, she hoped she didn’t snore.

Jai sat up, drawing his knees up to his chest. “Training. Working. The Ginnaye are disguised as major personal security companies around the world. My father is the head of an LA company.”

“So you get paid to protect people?”

He nodded, his expression careful, not giving anything away. “When the Jinn hire us we put them first, but we make our living by not only training humans to be security officers but sometimes also doing human security jobs ourselves. It’s quite lucrative.”

“Must be pretty cool working with your dad.” Ari smiled wistfully, wishing her dad would start talking to her. What kind of dad didn’t question a random Great Dane in his house?

Instead of answering, Jai sat forward. “You know I could teach you things about the Jinn. That would pass time.”

The smile slid off Ari’s face and she looked away from him. “I don’t want to learn anything about them.”

“Ari, it’s my job to protect you. If I can teach you about different kinds of Jinn it could act as an early warning system if you ever encountered one.”

“No.”

“This is your heritage, Ari. Don’t you want to learn about your heritage?”

“No!” she snapped, jolting out of the chair, sending it careening across the floor. “I don’t know who or what I am, OK. Before this I didn’t know and I still don’t know. But the one thing I did know was that I was Charlie’s friend. That’s the only thing I have. So, I don’t want to talk about the Jinn. I don’t. I’m just going to sit here and wait for my friend to remember that that’s all I have and call me.”

Silence fell between them and Ari was certain Jai wasn’t going to comment.

She was wrong.

When he cleared his throat, she turned back to look at him expectantly. She was surprised to see he was angry. He shook his head at her. “You’re smarter than that. Don’t make out that who you are is dependent upon who you are to someone else. Being Charlie’s friend isn’t who you are. It’s a part of what makes you tick. But it’s not
who
you are. And sitting back on your ass while life happens to you… is that really who you are, Ari?” He tutted and grabbed his book up again, opening it to the placeholder. “I guess I was wrong about you.”

“He’s right, you know,” a new voice entered the fray and Ari’s head shot up in surprise to see Charlie standing in her doorway. He looked worn out and unsure. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Your dad let me in. I take it he doesn’t know about…” his eyes fell to Jai on the floor, Jai who kept reading his book as if nothing was going on, as if he hadn’t hurt her with his painful observations.

Ignoring him, Ari turned to Charlie, letting her heart thump at the sight of him standing there. Of his own accord. Relief blossomed across her chest. “He does the Great Dane thing when dad’s around.” She smiled crookedly. “You’re here?”

Eyes wide, Charlie nodded and stepped into the room, shutting the door carefully behind him. He heaved a sigh and turned around, leaning back against it. She saw a world of hurt in his eyes: trauma, shock, disbelief, relief, fury. Charlie had always felt so much and now she could see he was battling to control how overwhelming it all was. “I don’t blame you,” he whispered, those dark eyes searching her face for reassurance. “I’m sorry I made you think I blamed you I just… God… it was a lot, Ari.”

Afraid to scare him off or do anything to make him change his mind, Ari took a tentative step towards him. “I know. I know. Believe me I know.” She stopped at the pile of ash made from the cushion Jai had burned and tipped her toe into the pile nervously, moving it around. “So… you took some time to think about everything… How do you feel? I mean… how are you?”

Charlie shook his head. “Forget about me for a second. How are you?”

Ari smiled tremulously. “Coping.”

“I can’t believe all this is true. I mean I can because I saw it with my own two eyes but still… Jinn. Jinn are real. How freaking weird is that?”

She laughed at such a natural response and nodded, grateful when he returned her smile with one of his own lopsided ones. “It
is
weird.”

“So what are you going to do about it?” he asked, pushing up away from the door. Charlie glanced down at Jai who was still reading his book like they weren’t having this momentous conversation in front of him. “Are you going to learn, you know, to be Jinn?”

Scowling at the thought Ari shook her head violently. “Hell no. No. No way, I want nothing to do with any of it. Once I have a couple things sorted out I am going to continue my very human life like none of this ever happened.”

Charlie looked doubtful. “It’s not that easy, Ari.”

“Yes it is. I mean I can’t right away but I will. The Red King refuses to drop the protection so I’m stuck with Jai until I can figure out how to get rid of him.”

“Thanks,” Jai replied dryly without looking up from the book.

Charlie frowned down at him, clearly mystified by him. “So… that’s it? No Jinn stuff… nothing?”

His look of disappointment baffled Ari. She wanted to question him about his reaction but she was afraid of what’d he say, afraid it would spoil the tenuous thread they’d sewn in their torn friendship in the last few minutes. “No. Well… yeah. You remember I told you about Nick? How he’s possessed by one of the Jinn?”

“Jesus.” Charlie’s eyes widened. “After everything… I guess that part I kind of forgot.”

“Understandable under the circumstances. Jai and I are waiting for these Brotherhood guys—”

“Aissawa,” Jai interjected before yawning.

“Aissawa Brotherhood guys who specialize in exorcism.”

Charlie’s eyes lit up, such animation on his face so old and forgotten Ari gaped at him stupidly for a moment. “You’re doing an exorcism?”

“Yeah.” She nodded, so happy to see him
awake
. “Yeah we are. Once we figure out how to get Nick in a quiet, secluded place where we can, you know, depossess him.”

Jai snorted. “
Exorcise
him.”

“Whatever.” Ari rolled her eyes at him.

“I want in,” Charlie said, glancing up and down between the two of them.

“What do you mean you want in?” Jai lowered the book now, his rough voice all serious and antagonistic. Ari wanted to punch him.

“Just that. I want to help.”

“No wa—”

“Of course you can,” Ari cut off Jai’s obnoxious shut down. Charlie was actually offering to do something that didn’t involve sex, drinking or drugs. There was no way she was leaving him out of this. “I’ll call you when it’s time.”

He smiled at her. “Great. Look I have to go because Mom and I are you know… well… we’re actually talking so I said I’d be home for dinner…”

Warmth spread through her and Ari grinned happily at the news. “Charlie, that’s great news, that’s—”

“Yeah, yeah.” He stopped her, leaning down to press a kiss to her forehead. “We’ll talk soon, OK. Lots to discuss.” He winked at her and then turned, casting another puzzled and wary look at Jai before disappearing out of the door.

When Ari finally stopped mooning at the doorway, she looked down at Jai only to find him glaring at her. “What?”

“You invited Rehab to help with the exorcism?”

“Don’t call him that.”

“He’s not coming.”

“This is my exorcism. I say who goes.”

“You’re such a child,” he huffed.

Ari guffawed. “Excuse me? I am not the one that just nicknamed someone suffering from substance abuse Rehab.”

“Oh so you admit he has a problem.”

“
Had
,” she argued. “
Had
being the operative word. I haven’t seen Charlie that sober or that animated about anything in two years. If coming along to a freaky Jinn exorcism keeps him that way then fine by me.”

“Just be careful with him, OK. You don’t know what his agenda is.”

“You know, Jai, some people don’t have agendas. Some people are just… friends.”

“God, Ari,” he groaned.

Surprised by the entreaty in her guardian’s voice, Ari spun about to look down at him, blinking in confusion at the begrudging smile he wore on his lips. She snorted. “What?”

“You.” He thumped his head back against the wall wearily. “Your loyalty is exhausting.”

Ari flushed at the backhanded compliment, ignoring the flutter of butterfly wings in her stomach. At the feel of them, she suddenly grew irritated and confused. She shook her head at Jai in disbelief. “I am going to the bathroom and you better not follow me.”