Jinni's Wish (Kingdom, #4)

“And if you can hear me in there,” she peered straight at the body’s face with thinned lips, “you wake up, sweetie. We’re all pulling for ya.” With a nod she turned on her heels and made for the exit.

Paz’s heart sank. “But I’m right here. I do hear you.”

She trailed the nurse, trying to tap her, hoping in some way to make a connection to another soul.

“Oh, before I forget,” the nurse clapped the door frame, “we’ve found your brother. Says he’s headed here tomorrow! Exciting, huh?”

Then she was gone and her smell of vanilla went with her.

Suddenly cold, depressed, Paz hugged her middle.

“Where are you, Jinni?”

She didn’t know him. But he’d seen her. She’d seen him.

“I need you.” A solitary tear tracked like a cool pinprick of ice down her cheek.

A loud beeping sound blared through the busy corridor. Suddenly an explosion of bodies ran toward a room two doors down from hers. Curious, Paz glided to the doorway, shivering each time a body walked through her.

“Damn air’s too low again,” someone muttered, but never glanced back. Never stopped to think they’d walked right through her.

Her nurse was at the head of a bed. A very small body lay hidden within the deep folds of the blankets. Flowers were strewn all across the room, get well cards bedecked the walls. Children’s pictures graced every square inch of the place.

Hands were ripping the sheets off.

“Code Blue. Code Blue,” was repeated over and over and over, until the room seemed crammed with bodies desperately trying to revive the child.

Squeezing her eyes shut, Paz walked away. She couldn’t watch this. Death wasn’t as painful as she’d always feared (if this even was death), but watching a child transition from there to here wasn’t something she relished either.

She moved away, not really paying any mind to where she walked. So long as she stayed away from the end of the corridor she was fine.

She’d already seen a few bodies not make it. But not once had she seen someone else like her. Except for Jinni, and he hadn’t returned since she’d talked to him last.

Suddenly she stopped, gripped with a desperate desire to turn around. Heart thundering, or at least the memory of that emotion, flickered like a bright flame inside her. She turned and frowned.

A body lay in there. But this one wasn’t bruised, swollen, or dead looking. Without realizing it, somehow she’d found her way to his side, and stared at the face that she’d almost forgotten.

“My Todd,” she whispered, feeling the first faint echo of a smile tug at her lips.

She traced his face, hissing at the warmth of it, reveling in the texture of firm skin for as long as she possibly could before she became too tired and had to pull away.

“You are so beautiful.” The words spilled from the depths of her soul.

Thick black brows shaded a pair of eyes that were closed, but that when opened sparkled deep whiskey brown. His strong nose and square jaw covered in bristle made her pulse flutter for the merest second in time.

“Look at me,” she pleaded, feeling a hard lump work its way up her throat when he failed to do so. “Please, look at me. I’m so lonely.”

An awareness of something reached out-- like the gentle touch of a lover’s hand-- across the nape of her neck. Paz turned and then smiled a huge, wide grin.

“Where have you been?!” she demanded, uncaring that she sounded like a jealous girlfriend. Jinni was back, staring at her with his soulful black eyes, liquid blue face creased with a gentle frown. She rushed to meet him. “Why did you leave me?”

He stared at her, only stared. And for a moment she worried that he could no longer hear her either. Fear gnawed at her gut, but then pleasure blossomed like a rose opening up to morning dew when he shrugged.

“I did not know if you would want me around. I did not wish to bother you.”

The lyrical inflections of his voice did strange things to her spirit. She tingled, every inch of her. Even her lips burned, as if she’d been kissed, and kissed thoroughly.

“Why would you think that? You’re the only one who can see me. The only one who knows I even exist.”

Everywhere his eyes touched her face, it was like a feather light caress.

“I am sorry, Paz. I just did not know what to do.”

She swallowed, glancing down at her bare toes. In this form she still had her toenails, though they were no longer painted. The hospital gown draped across her body, flapping as she walked like a ghost moving through a still graveyard at night.

She laughed.

He frowned. “What is so funny?”

Shaking her head, she threw up her hands. “I was just comparing my hospital gown to a ghost. Which is ironic, right? All things considered.”

It took a second, but a flicker of emotion ticked swiftly across his brow. Then his lips curved at the very corners and she knew he smiled with her. “Ironic indeed,” he drawled.

She sighed. “You have such a nice voice.”

He did smile then. A fully fleshed out one and she couldn’t help but return it.

“So do you,” his deep voice made her breath hitch.