Circle of Jinn (6 page)

As much as I don't want to feel Laila's emotions, I need to feel them. I need to know if I've finally succeeded in doing what my moody, mopey, egocentric self had been trying to do for years: push sweet, kind, loyal Laila away. And I need to find out if I have any shot at pulling her back.

“Ooh,” Chelsea shrieks. “This.”

I spin around to see her holding up a see-through lacy black shirt with a push-up bra sewn inside.

Groaning, I snatch it out of her hand and stick the hanger back on the rack. “You said no more black.”

She frowns and scoops it back up again. “Not for you. For me.”

The concrete's barely set on this newly paved road of friendship Chelsea and I seem to be on, so I don't know if telling her she needs to stop acting—and dressing—like someone I'm slowly discovering she's not will cause a sinkhole.

With a click of metal against metal, Chelsea puts the shirt back.

“Not your size?” I ask.

“It is,” she says. “I'm just not sure it's really me.”

Wait, what?
That's close—almost bull's-eye close—to what I was thinking. I squish down my involuntarily rising eyebrows.
Was that … did I … can I …
Let's try it again.

Selecting a floral cardigan with a lace collar that somehow seems to match Chelsea's muffin-baking personality, I hold it up, and like Zak's been saying, I stop thinking and start doing.

Instead of simply thinking of words in my mind that I want Chelsea to say or do, I picture her saying or doing those things. I picture
her
picturing her saying and doing them. I feel how she'd feel while saying and doing those things. The patterns in her brain that tie into thought and speech and muscle movement all require energy. I need to make that energy work for me, to draw on nature and connect with her. To tune myself to the tiny electrical signals that race along the neurons in her brain and power them myself. We need to move in sync, like award-winning tango dancers.

At first nothing happens. And then it does.

Chelsea stands in front of me, reaching out to touch the cardigan, fingering the lace, pausing, and studying. “Do you mind?” She takes the hanger out of my hand. “I kinda think this might be more me.”

It worked.
Fireworks rock my insides and I'm about to explode.

Suddenly Chelsea starts jumping up and down.

Oops, we're still connected.
My deep breath works to extinguish the sparklers alit inside me. One final hop and Chelsea's feet remain on the ground while I concentrate on breaking our link.

Back under her own control, she covers her mouth with her hand and squeaks out an embarrassed giggle. “I guess I love this even more than I thought.”

Zak's going to flip when I tell him.

Zak?
That's my first thought? Not the wish I can finally grant and the curse I can finally end?

Chelsea leads us toward the now even longer line for the dressing room. My buzzing butt makes me crash into the redheaded girl in front of us. The fifteen hangers she had been so perfectly balancing fly from her grip and skid across the floor.

“Clumsy much?” she says with a scowl.

Before I can open my mouth, Chelsea flings herself between us, standing on top of the pile of strewn clothes. This gives her an extra half an inch, maybe. The other girl looms over her, but that doesn't stop Chelsea's flaming red lips.

“Rude much?” Chelsea rustles the pile of clothes with her platform sandal and snickers. “We're actually doing you a favor. You might as well scoot right out of line, honey, because you…” She raises one eyebrow. “You can't pull off any of this.
Any
of this.”

She sweeps the whole lot aside, grabs me with one hand and Megan with the other, and moves us all up in line.

“Damn,” Megan says.

I can't reprimand her. That's the only word that fits.

“Skank,” Chelsea hisses at the redhead.

“Chelsea!” Her I have to reprimand.

She rounds her shoulders and clutches her floral cardigan to her chest. “Sorry.”

Megan and I devolve into giggles when my butt vibrates again.

Seriously, Zak?
Except now that I have actual news to report, I'm equally as anxious to connect with him. Since snails move faster than this line, he'll have to come to me. I pull out my phone and text Zak with the name of the store we're in, telling him I'm heading for the door.

I'm about to make an excuse (that has more than a nugget of truth in it) about needing some non-hairsprayed air so I can wait for Zak by the entrance when Laila comes up beside me.

I forget all about breathing.

Once only blond, her soft waves cascade past her shoulders in a hue that's a delicate mix of butterscotch, honey, and apricot. Her eyes shine the traditional Jinn gold but tiny speckles of her original powder blue remain. She's no longer the tiny Laila, always shorter than the rest of us, but she's not nearly as tall as Yasmin and I. My eyes float down to her bursting cleavage. I can't help but smile, remembering how eager she was to inherit the ample bustline that runs in her family. She must be thrilled.

Out of my mouth spills, “I miss you. I'm sorry. And you're every bit as gorgeous as I knew you would be.”

I clasp a hand over my mouth and feel everyone's eyes on me: Chelsea, Megan, Laila, and Yasmin. Yasmin, whose uncharacteristically pale skin against her raven-black hair makes her look like she's aged years since the last time I saw her on the night of our Zar initiation. I know from both Megan and Nate that losing a parent will do that to you.

And then, in strides Zak. In his conjured designer jeans, tight black T-shirt, and slightly crooked sunglasses (guess he's still having trouble conjuring metals). Like Henry, he's also discovered gel.

He approaches from the other side, coming to a halt when his eyes focus on Laila.

Speech eludes all of us. Except, of course, Chelsea. “Talk about every bit as—”

“Gorgeous,” Laila finishes in a whisper.

Zak?

I spin my head around and see he's about to remove his lopsided sunglasses. But he can't. His eyes. Yasmin and Laila would see. Laila's preoccupation with his sprayed-on tee suggests the meaning might not register for her. But Yasmin, she'd know with one look at Zak's copper eyes that he's a Jinn.

And I can't have that. Too many questions whose answers put them in too much danger.

“Come on, Zak,” I say, grabbing the hem of his so-soft-I-don't-know-how-he-could-have-possibly-conjured-it T-shirt.

“Not so fast.” Yasmin flips my sunglasses to the top of my head and peers into my eyes. “Aren't you going to introduce us, Azra?”

My tongue goes limp.

Zak places his hand over his heart.

Oh, no, he better not do that weird speechy thing he did to me when we first met.

“I'm Zakaria, Azra's cousin.”

Yasmin's almond-shaped eyes grow wide. “Really?” She pulls Laila toward her. “Because so are we.”

Again, all eyes on Azra.
To avoid confusion, in the outside world, my Zar sisters and I have always called one another “cousin.” Though Zak couldn't have known this, why didn't he just say “friend”?

With a shrug, I say, “Different sides of the family.”

The ticking of this time bomb is way too loud. And so even though it's the last thing I want to do now that I'm finally face-to-face with Laila, I take Zak's hand and walk away.

 

6

“What were you thinking coming inside?” I move to a bench opposite the store window, staring at a mannequin dressed in a sequined skirt, silk zebra-stripe tank, and camouflage backpack. Perfect first day of school outfit. School for what, I don't want to know. “Didn't we talk about low profile?”

Bent almost in two to get a last glimpse of Laila through the mannequin's plastic legs, Zak forces himself to straighten and turn toward me. “I thought you were in trouble.”

“Trouble? What would make you think that?” I ask this instead of “what kind” because we both know what kind he'd be afraid of.

“What would make me—” He throws his hands in the air. “
Rahmah!
Mercy, Azra. I don't know, maybe the fact that you didn't answer any of my messages all day and then when you do, it's to tell me you're heading for doom? Doom? That wasn't supposed to light my lantern?”

More bizarre colloquialisms. I refrain from my usual teasing because my heart stings at being so close to Laila and yet remaining so far from fixing things between us.

Instead, I shake my head. “What do you mean, ‘doom'?”

“Doom. Your text.” He fishes his phone out of his jeans. Which takes a while since they're so tight. When he manages to extract it, he flips to the texts and holds the phone in front of my face.

Heading for doom
.

Door. It was supposed to say “door.”

The door that Laila and Yasmin are strolling through right now. The constant din of the mall—music spilling out of stores, toddlers shrieking, elevators dinging, kiosk hucksters huckstering—seems to hush as my two stunning Zar sisters glide toward the ladies' room.

Perfect spot to apport home from. How many sets of eyes will be fixated on the dingy metal door, waiting for them to return? And for how long?

How long would Zak wait?

We're not the first female Jinn he's seen, but we may be the first female Jinn he's seen within twenty years of his own age. Females transition into Janna after their job—raising us genie daughters—is complete. Which means Janna is filled with teenage male Jinn and cougars. Guess I can't blame him for looking. Though he's never looked at me the way he's looking at Laila and Yasmin. No, not “and.” Just Laila.

His back is to me again. He can't see me. He can't see the heavily made-up woman in stilettos either. She's aiming the bottle of perfume she's selling at shoppers, who all duck, bob, and weave to avoid a squirt.

If I tell Zak about my use of mind control—dragooning—that'd probably get his attention. But why tell when you can show?

And that is how Zak winds up smelling like passion fruit.

*   *   *

I don't want to go. But I no longer have a reason to stay.

Nate and Megan and George and Goldie. Yes, George and Goldie too. When on a mind-control roll, it's difficult to put on the brakes.

After successfully getting the perfume lady to douse Zak with eau de fruity drinks and then talking with her for an interminable ten minutes about oils and essence and her Chia Pet collection (don't ask), I knew I had accomplished dragooning without inflicting brain damage (despite the deviation into Chia Pet territory; it made sense at the time).

Wearing her newly purchased, multicolored chandelier earrings, Chelsea drove me and Megan home. Zak soon followed. I bought myself some alone time by suggesting (not via dragooning … at least I'm pretty sure it wasn't via dragooning) that Goldie make one of her specialties for dinner: handmade corn tortilla tacos. Knowing my lack of kitchen skills would exempt me, I ventured into the woods while Megan helped Goldie roll out the masa dough. Zak was waiting for me, having set up an obstacle course worthy of a military exercise. Rabbit, snake, and pig wound their way through on the first try at my command.

Zak insisted I was ready. I was and I wasn't. I wanted to ease Nate's and Megan's pain, but I was still terrified of hurting them. My risk with the perfume lady paid off, but what I needed to do with Nate and Megan was much more complex than shooting liquid at Zak's neck. I wanted more test subjects. More human test subjects. But what were we going to do? Nab someone off the street? It wouldn't be right. It wouldn't be fair to them.

Part of me didn't care. Hurt Megan and Nate or a complete stranger? Easy choice. Well, not easy, but the only one I could ever make. Just like my mother, who would always put those she loves—especially me—first.

The way she did the day Jenny fell from the swing in our backyard. She used her powers to try to save my nine-year-old best friend's life. But she was seen. Mrs. Seyfreth, our other next-door neighbor, witnessed my mother using magic. I now know all the horrible things that could have happened if the Afrit had found out. Which is why my mother did what she did. To protect us, she made Mrs. Seyfreth forget.

Since my mother's not of the Afrit bloodline, she can't do mind control the way the Afrit—the way
we
—can. But her magical talent allows her to come close using spells. Unfortunately, my mother's spell wound up hurting Mrs. Seyfreth, damaging her brain and accelerating the dementia that was just beginning to show. My mother has never forgiven herself. She insists what she did was wrong and that she wouldn't do it again. I don't believe her. I know she'd do whatever she had to in order to protect me.

Which is why, fair or not, when I returned to the woods after a break to check in on Megan and thought I saw Zak talking to someone, I was relieved. I thought he really had found a random stranger for me to practice on one last time.

He hadn't. It was just a neighbor whose dog had freed itself from its leash. There would be no more practicing. It was time.

And so, one after the next, I made their memories of Mr. Reese heavier on the sweet than the bitter. I made their fears about Mrs. Reese's recovery less than their hopes. I made their hurt less. I didn't take it all away. Even if I could, it wouldn't be right. It wouldn't be the best way to honor Mr. Reese's memory.

The weight that comes when remembering someone who's gone gives that someone weight. It makes them real. It makes them—their past and their future absence—a part of who we are and who we will become. And that's not something anyone—even me—should be messing with, no matter how good the intentions.