Page 81 of Heavensent & Hellbent

I was made of fire, and flames ran through me.

Our eyes dropped to the dagger that lay on the ground.

I lunged for it, but they were faster than me, using whatever powers they had to move with speed. The man collected it, while the woman clutched at her wrist, her eyes betraying a hint of fear. They must deal with jinn all the time—it confused me why she looked at me like she didn’t expect a fight.

“You knew she’d have powers,” the man hissed at his partner.

“Strength, not whateverthatwas,” she muttered back, straightening her back. “She’s higher level.”

“Of course she is,” the man shot back before looking at me. “Normally, we like to break the necks of our jinn, tradition and all, but seeing as you’re playing unfairly…” He took a handgun out of his pocket. He raised it high in the air, aiming for my head. As he pulled the trigger, I ducked and ran toward them, narrowly dodging the gunshot. It hit one of the stalls. I raised both my hands to their chests and pressed hard. They yelled and attempted to push me off them, but I clung on.

Eventually, they fell to the ground, and I stumbled, almost joining them. They were breathless, their shirts burnt through. I let go, grabbing the gun from the floor quickly, and as I watched them try to gather themselves, I felt…happy. Elated, even. In this lifetime,Iwas the victor, not the victim.

Rabiya pulsed through me. She laughed at the terror on their faces, at their bloodied bodies.

I could have left them there. We probably could have gotten away, but wouldn’t they just try again? And what if other hunters thought we were weak because I didn’t kill them? What if they thought this version of Rabiya was much easier prey? They would keep coming after us. Rabiya practically screamed within me that it was either us or them.

I don’t remember what happened next—it was like she had taken over my body. Distantly, I heard their screams, and afterward they were just a mess of blood on the floor that I couldhardly look at. Much like jinn, their bodies disappeared after a moment, disappearing into some unknown. Convenient, I supposed, for me.

I washed my hands thoroughly and stared at myself in the beaten-up mirror. My hair was messy, and there was that brightness to my eyes that I saw last night, which had emerged again today. I tried to smooth my hair and splashed water on my face, drying it with the front of my shirt, which, I realized, was covered in blood.

Maybe I could pretend the last ten minutes had never happened. As the thought came, someone tried to enter the bathroom, the handle moving before they pounded on the door.

“Rox!” Zain called. I stepped forward and opened the door, my eyes adjusting to the sunlight.

Zain’s eyebrows were knitted together as he took in my ashen face; then his gaze traveled to my bloodied top. He gripped me. “Rox, are you okay?”

I shook my head and quietly said, “It’s not my blood.”

He looked beyond my shoulder to the blood on the floor, though there were no bodies.

“Whose…” He stepped around me and locked the door, surveying the mess. “A jinn was here?”

I couldn’t say anything, couldn’t correct him, didn’t want him to know what I did. So I just nodded.

I did it for us. I had to remember that.

“Shit.” He was gripping the ends of his hair. “I’m so sorry. I was so close but I didn’t hear them…If they hurt you…” He grabbed me, squeezing me tight.

“I’m okay,” I murmured, though I swear I wasn’t speaking. I swore it was Rabiya, smoothly taking over, urging me to act normal when I had just murdered two people. No, angels—jinn hunters. They had families, they had beating hearts, once. I should care more about what I had done, and yet what scared me the most was that I didn’t. Round and round, a simple fact circled in my mind: They deserved it.

Maybe I was more jinn than I thought.

35

With my body submerged in the warm water of the bath, my muscles loosened, and I couldn’t stop the groan that left my lips. It was eleven a.m. I had a Sunday-afternoon shift, and I wasn’t sure how I would be able to stack books and joke with Cleo as if the hands shelving novels hadn’t just killed two people.

I could have stopped at incapacitating them. I knew that—and in the moment I relished the sizzle of their skin, breaking into their bones. Now, the memory made me retch.

Zain was reluctant to let me out of his sight—berating himself for not being there to help me against the “jinn.” But he needed to be with his charge, and speak with Castiel, so I somehow convinced him I’d be fine, that I could handle myself for the few hours he was busy. He said he’d drop by the shop later.

The sound of the show Ehsan was watching downstairsfaintly traveled up the stairs. The walls in this house were thick, so he must have had it up at an ungodly volume. It had been difficult to speak to Dad when I got home. I had avoided his eyes, murmuring that I was exhausted because Cleo snored when she slept. I didn’t know if he believed me; didn’t know if I could care either way. He left soon after I got home to go to a baseball game with one of his new colleagues. A small part of me was happy for him, that he had already begun making a life for himself here. Even if everything I knew about my own was crumbling with each passing day.

I sank deeper into the bath until the only part of me not submerged was my head, my chin skimming the surface of the water.

The faucet dripped, the sound echoing in the bathroom. I tried to close the tap properly with my foot, but I couldn’t gain enough friction. I was too spent to move, so I accepted it as background noise. Under the guise of daylight being safe, I let my eyes flutter shut.

“I’m sorry to be coming to you at this moment,” the gravelly voice said. My eyes snapped open. I blinked repeatedly, searching for the speaker.