Page 57 of Heavensent & Hellbent

“I don’t believe how we’re made is reflective of how good we are. I know you. I trust you. And anyway, it’s you, Gol—nothing else matters,” he said, eyes intense and dark. “I would do anything for you.” He dropped my hands to cup my face. The kiss he planted on my lips was deep and hungry.

I found myself on the driver’s side, my legs on either side of Majid’s body as we kissed. My skirt rode all the way to the top of my thighs. He began kissing my neck, moving from my lips to the sensitive spot just below my ear. One of his hands lightly gripped my backside, the other gently caressing my cheek. I shivered into him, saying his name into the night.

Majid paused for breath.

“I thought you wanted to wait until you could ask my father for my hand?” I said as I impatiently unbuttoned his jacket. I threw it onto the back seat. “Which, if he knew what you were, he’d never agree to.”

Underneath his uniform, he wore a white undershirt, and I ran my hand along his chest and then down his arms, feeling his strength. The way this Zain studied me in this moment was like I was his salvation, his lips parted and red, bruised from our kissing. This soldier completely undone by our kiss.

“Do you want to wait?” he asked.

“No, but I’m curious about your change of heart.”

He exhaled. “You drive me mad, that’s why. It’s hard to push for waiting when you make me feel this way.”

I smiled at his words. “Good, that’s good.”

Slowly—much slower than I with him—he unbuttoned my dress. We eventually found ourselves in the back seat, and he hovered over me while I lay beneath him.

“Are you sure about this?” he whispered.

“Yes,” I said with certainty. I was not sure of much, other than that this was what I wanted, right now, no matter the consequences.

24

Birds sang, chirping a familiar six a.m. tune as the sun rose, the house otherwise still. I could no longer ignore my suspicions; I knew what I needed to do.

My hands wrapped around the smooth metal lighter. Sitting crossed-legged on the floor, I gazed at my drawings of Zal and Rabiya. I had printed them from my iPad using my dad’s work printer and scattered them on the floor in what I suspected was chronological order. I lingered on the image of Zal’s pained face watching mine amid flames. I feared fire, I thought because of the way it stole my and Rabiya’s breath, burning our bones to char. But what if my fear was also because being near fire made me confront a part of myself that I wanted hidden? I had kept Rabiya’s fireball a secret from Zain, and subconsciously I think it was to preserve myself. Hearing that my mum knew about jinn, and not only that but was in adispute with div…the explanation was so painfully obvious. I wanted to be proved wrong, but first I needed to test my theory.

I weakly considered my actions as I raised the lighter to my eyeline, opened the cap, and flicked it. Nothing, and then—

Bright light. So bright it seared the room, and me within it. Sharp, shooting pain jolted through my entire body in a wave, the shock of it ice cold on my skin, penetrating deep within my bones. My brain gripped tightly by the pain, squeezing, squeezing in a vise of white light. I couldn’t open my eyes, couldn’t yell, my lungs incapable of receiving air. Wave after wave of agony crashed through my body. It was my mind, though, that was most unbearable. I wondered if my brain would explode within me, whether blood vessels would pop and pop, leaving me dead. Time stretched on endlessly. I wanted, so badly, to be knocked out. To die, even. And when I felt my body weakening, giving up consciousness, I embraced it. Darkness encased me.

—

“Roxana, the shipment has arrived!” Dad yelled from outside my door before I heard his footsteps retreating downstairs.

I woke with a start, sprawled on the floor, face smashed against my printed art. According to the time on my phone, I had been knocked out for over an hour. The lighter lay on the floor, innocuous, like it hadn’t almost killed me. I collected the drawings and shoved them under my bed.

How could I even care about the shipment—the clothes I had complained I needed—with what I knew now?

I was a jinn.

At least, that was where all the signs pointed. Zain himself said humans wouldn’t be affected by the light.

I left my room in a daze, moving on autopilot as I showered. If I was a jinn, did that mean my Dad was, too? And if so, why had he kept it a secret from us?

Then, brushing my teeth until my gums bled, I couldn’t help but wonder: Why didn’t Ifeellike a jinn? I didn’t feel evil. I felt normal—most of the time, anyway.

I wore the same jeans I had yesterday and a different T-shirt; I had no brain space to think about outfits. And then, feigning normalcy, I went downstairs and was greeted by box upon box littering the hallway. Two men continued to drop off more of our things, the front door wide open and a huge delivery truck on the street.

I needed to get out of here.

Dad poked his head out from the kitchen, the boxes blocking him from leaving. The movers’ method of unloading our belongings was inefficient, but I didn’t have the energy to say anything. Dad’s eyebrows furrowed, telling me he felt exactly the same. “I’m going to have to work from home today,” he told me, clearly not pleased about this fact. “Can you go out and get us something for breakfast?”

I nodded too enthusiastically. Ehsan called that he’d like a pain au chocolat, which would normally have made me roll my eyes, but instead I muttered, “Yeah, sure.”

Dad’s eyes narrowed. I wondered if he could see that I finally knew what we were, what we all were, including Ehsan. Sweet Ehsan, who wouldn’t hurt a fly…What was it Zain had said about jinn?They’re pure evil.I found that hard to believe now. Jamshid himself had suggested that not all jinn were bad—but was he saying that because he was one himself?