Jinni's Wish (Kingdom, #4)

Paz stood by the foot of the bed, wondering when that strange man would return. After their introduction, he’d smiled and then vanished. A cold chill swept her, tugged at something deep in her soul, made her yearn for more.

Restless, she started to pace. Transfixed by the sight of her unmoving body lying in that cold, hard bed. She hated hospitals. Always had. Ever since the day she and Richard had walked out of the emergency room of Chicago medical center, doors swooshing shut behind them with the stark reality that their parents wouldn’t leave there alive.

It’d been cold, sleeting, and miserable. Paz had an art exhibition on the campus. She’d pleaded with her parents to stay home, that it was okay, she really wouldn’t feel bad if they didn’t show up.

But they’d known she’d lied. She never could keep the truth from creeping into her voice--the wistful ache to have her parents share in her first “real” show. They’d gotten into the car, and from what the police records had said … it’d been quick and painless. They’d never seen it coming.

She’d always held fast to that belief. That knowledge that they hadn’t known their lives were over.

And yet… maybe they had, because she was still here.

The walls of this sterile room were white, tubes ran the length of her body, a whir and beeping sound (she knew) were the only things still keeping her alive.

Or at least the shell of her. Because somehow, she was still here. The real her. The soul her. She glanced at her arms. They weren’t as pale a blue as the man she’d fallen through yesterday.

Had it been yesterday?

She frowned as her thoughts turned fuzzy. Time ran so differently here. A perpetual wheel of motion that she could trace, but never follow.

Sighing, she dropped her arms. She couldn’t leave the hospital. She’d already tried. Dozens of times, she’d walk down to the end of the corridor, but then some inexplicable urge to run back consumed her. Overwhelmed her, made her ache with a need to vomit or scream. The second she’d turn around, she’d feel better.

Where was that blue man?

Jinni? Was that his name?

She rubbed her cold forehead. How long would she have to stay here? Stuck in limbo?

In her twenty-seven years she’d gone to mass only a handful of times, but she’d always scoffed at the notion of a purgatory. A place where sinners went to work off their sins before they were clean enough to enter through the pearly gates.

Was this her punishment?

Floating toward the edge of the bed, she concentrated all her energy on lifting the hem of the white sheet tucked around her, (no, the body lying there wasn’t her. It was just a body and she couldn’t think of it as her anymore) the body’s feet.

A rush of fiery energy-- like the sensation of a numb limb suddenly burning as it filled with blood-- gathered in her fingertips. Clenching her teeth, sweating profusely, she willed the sheet higher and higher, with a final flicker of energy she untucked it and tossed it aside. Gasping hard for breath, feeling as though she’d just run a marathon.

It was getting harder. Yesterday she’d been able to do it easier.

Had it been yesterday?

Why couldn’t she remember anymore?

She bit her lip as the ugly truth of the body was exposed. Blood soaked bandages covered a leg so swollen it looked three times the size it’d been before. The toes were a deep crimson, the toenails gone.

The purple and silver rhinestone studded pedicure that’d cost her a small fortune, forever lost somewhere in the deep woods.

A bad smell emanated from the leg. Every time the nurses came in they couldn’t hide their grimace, or the worry scrawled across thin eyebrows.

With a shudder, Paz turned her gaze aside, but the sight of the body’s face was even worse. Clear tubes ran up the nose, a red snake looking thing was in the mouth, and the eyes were puffy. The skin that’d once been a healthy bronze was now a waxy yellow.

She swallowed hard and looked up when chatter disturbed her macabre thoughts.

The nurse, wearing a colorful smock and pants, stopped in the door with a swift frown. She flipped through the file and then shrugged. Swiftly she walked to the side of the bed, peered at the monitor behind the body, and then tsked.

“Well, Paz, good morning to you.”

Morning?

Paz looked over her shoulder at the window. A faint pink cloud crept along the horizon. When had it turned night?

“And how are you this fine morning?”

“Fine,” she said, wishing like hell the nurse would look her (not the body, but her) in the eye.

The nurse smiled, never glancing up as she patted the body’s cheek. “You know, doc says you’re in a coma.”

Really?

Paz nibbled her lip. Weren’t comas bad?

“But I don’t think,” the nurse smiled again, “you are. Because you see, for the past two mornings, you’ve kicked your sheets off, and I know comatose patients can’t do that.”

The young blonde nurse fiddled with a clear bag of fluid.