Page 22 of Heavensent & Hellbent

“Well, what would you say if I told you that you’d seen one.” His eyes stayed on me, watching. When I didn’t react in the way he imagined, his brow furrowed. “Why are you not surprised?”

I didn’t say anything for a moment, deciding whether to be honest or lie. I settled for a half lie. “Well, it’s not the first time I’ve seen a jinn.”

He sat back in his chair, his dark eyes boring into mine. “Really?”

“Yes.” I copied him, leaning back, creating even more distance between us. You have to be confident when making accusations. If something is true, the face of the accused often gives them away. I knew this from when Nic accused our former best friend of talking about us behind our backs—it was a hunch, but she admitted it, proving that you have to say it with your whole chest to find out the truth. It was all this that led me to say, more quickly than I had intended, “Because you’re one, too, right?”

How else had he penetrated my dreams? It somewhat made sense. I watched his face closely to see how he’d react.

His expression was stony, unreadable—annoyingly so.

The air between us lay still, the noise from the café’s radio low. I glanced away from Zain’s eyes to the marks on the white table and then back at him. I don’t know what I expected from him, but when he burst out laughing, I knew it wasn’t that.

He proceeded to laugh for longer than I considered necessary.

“I’m not ajinn,” he finally said once he’d stopped, a glimmer of a smile still tracing his lips.

“Well, what are you, then? A jinn killer? Like Buffy or something?”

He scoffed.

“Not aBuffyfan?” I asked, flabbergasted. I loved that show. For one, the fashion in the nineties was impeccable.

“The way it portrays vampires is too unrealistic for me,” he said. “They’re much less dignified.” His nose turned up.

“You’re joking,” I choked out.

“That’s beside the point.” There was that faint smile again, like he was laughing at me. I got the distinct sense that he wasn’t kidding, but rather he found my reaction to his words amusing.

I thought I was absorbing this information pretty well, all things considered. “Okay, then, let’s get back to the point. You snapped a person’s neck—”

“Ajinn’sneck,” he corrected me.

“Okay, snapping ajinn’sneck isn’t something a normal person can do. So that begs the question: Whatareyou?”

He inched forward again, his brown eyes smoldering, so much so that I forgot what I had asked him until he said, “You know about jinn. But what have you heard about angels?”

9

“Angels?” I repeated back to Zain. “Like, with wings?”

Zain’s once-narrowed eyes were now blazing. “You don’t believe me?” The fact that he asked this, when moments before he was toying with me while he spoke about vampires, was not lost on me. So I decided to play his game.

“I mean, if I told you I was a fairy, would you believe me?”

“Maybe.” His eyes widened, twinkling; then his features grew serious. “Show me your ears.”

“This isn’t funny.”

“I didn’t say it was, Roxana.” Hearing my name on his lips did something strange to the pit of my stomach.

“You’re really being serious? You’re saying you’re an…” I couldn’t finish the sentence.

“Angel,” he finished for me.

“Okay, well, this is…” Ridiculous? A prank? Or something else: Real? Why was it so much easier to believe he was ajinn than an angel? I let out a small yet mighty sigh. This was not a question I thought I would be asking myself a week ago. “Say I believe you,” I began, moving my hands onto the table, spreading my fingers out on the top.

“Yes?” Zain encouraged, his mood changing, his lips quirked up. He reached over for his drink and took a long sip. Realizing I hadn’t touched mine, I did so, too. Sweet and milky. I smacked my lips before continuing.