Page 77 of Heavensent & Hellbent

I killed whoever got in my path, our path. I didn’t care whose blood I had to spill to protect Zain.

Sometimes, though, like with Gol, I was good. I nursed people back to health; I lived a regular life. My jinn family were simple: They managed their powers, were both good and bad, like every human.

And Armeen…He was evil. Rabiya knew that, but her love for him was so deep that she thought she could change him. She believed that some of Zain’s goodness would emerge from her son. While she didn’t care about being a good person, even she saw that Armeen lacked any morality, even among hisown kind. He was a black hole, and she kept that realization close to her chest.

I couldn’t breathe now. I tried to intake breath, but air wouldn’t enter my lungs. Zain must have finally been taken out of whatever haze he was in. I could hear him calling my name, panic rising in his throat. But I couldn’t see him, because my vision had blurred, shapes moving around me until I blacked out.

33

I awoke in a room I didn’t recognize. It was dark, the only light coming from the cracks in the curtains to the right of me. I tried to sit up, but my chest was too weighty, head swimming. I scanned the room, finding Zain perched on a desk chair across from me. He straightened up, like he had been sleeping there before I woke.

“Where are we?” I managed to say, throat scratchy.

He crossed the room to hand me a glass of water from beside the bed. I drained the entire glass in one long gulp. It cooled some fire within me—and yet, I still felt Rabiya’s defensiveness, her guard, even now. I tried to temper it with difficulty.

As my eyes adjusted to the dark, the circles under Zain’s eyes showed. He scratched his stubbled jaw; he looked exhausted. “What time is it?” I asked.

“Four a.m., and we’re in my room.” He reached to switchon the lamp on his bedside table. Despite everything that had happened, a familiar panic rose within me.

“My dad is going to kill me,” I said, scrambling to get out of bed and ignoring the way my head spun.

Zain put his hands on my shoulders to still me as my feet hung over the edge of the bed. “Steady,” he murmured.

I didn’t even remember coming here. I remembered nothing since being at Heaven Forbid and all my past selves’ memories flooding my consciousness.

“Why do you seem fine?” I asked.

He moved to sit next to me at the edge of the bed. “Marissa told me it affects those of fire more because their past selves are more…passionate.”

I couldn’t look at him when I said, “Rabiya did bad things.” The words came out like a breath, so quiet I didn’t know if he heard me. “But she loved you. They all did.”

“I know,” he said just as quietly, his voice rough around the edges.

“What happened at Heaven Forbid?”

“You got sick and then blacked out. Marissa was…let’s say less than impressed.” His voice held a smile while I wanted to crawl into a dark hole and cease to exist. I looked down to find I was wearing one of his football jerseys that was so big it went down to my thighs. I wasn’t wearing any trousers. The realization that I must have been sick on myself and therefore had to be changed by Zain made me wish for more than a dark hole, a cave in which to end my sorry existence.

“I want to die,” I said.

Zain chuckled, and I felt his eyes commanding mine to meet his. “It’s fine,” he said. “I like seeing you in my jersey.”

“Are you not…freaked out by everything we learned? I can literally feel my past selves within me now, humming under my skin.”

Zain dipped his head low, to the base of my neck. I stilled, the simple touch of his nose caressing my exposed skin sending my nerves into a frenzy.

“I can sense them,” he murmured against me before moving his head back.

“I need to go home,” I forced myself to say. “My dad will be wondering where I am.”

“I handled it,” he said, his eyes heavy like he was intoxicated—but I knew he wasn’t. It was the Zal in him, that version of him that would do anything for Rabiya, and she the same for him. They were too close to us now, taking over. I wanted to say that, but the look in his eyes made my body go both taut and loose at the same time, and I struggled to find words.

Moments passed, and neither of us said anything, until I forced out, “What do you mean you handled it?”

He blinked, and the lust in his eyes dampened ever so slightly, like he was forcing himself to focus. “I texted him from your phone and said you were staying at Cleo’s house because her mom is out of town, and she needed company.”

I raised an eyebrow and scoffed. “And he accepted that?”

Zain reached across the bed and handed me my phone. I saw my dad’s terse reply.