Jai shrugged. “I’ll just step into the Cloak.”
“The Cloak?”
“The enchantment we use to be invisible.”
The thought of him in the living room listening to her argument with her dad and her knowing he was there but her dad not knowing was too creepy. “No way. I’ve already had one Jinn floating around my home invisible, I’m not having another one.”
“Well, what do you suggest?”
“Uh… you leaving.”
“Uh… not going to happen.”
Exhausted and so not up to a fight, Ari threw up her hands. “Fine. You can stay. But you’ll hide in my room.”
~9~
I’m Right Here. Where Are You?
Jai grudgingly made his way upstairs to Ari’s room and she watched from the bottom of the stairs, her heart thumping in her chest. Ari’s whole body felt jittery and wired and it suddenly occurred to her that she must be running on pure adrenaline after everything that had happened, after all that had been revealed. Sure that Jai was safe upstairs, Ari made her way into the living room to wait for Derek. Her knee bounced up and down of its own accord and her teeth chattered together as she waited, her palms slick with cold sweat. Now that she had a moment alone all she could do was think about what had happened. Funny, it wasn’t really the whole supernatural element to the truth that was getting her. Maybe it was her genetic makeup but she had always dealt with stuff like that with ease. She thought of how easily she had taken to Ms. Maggie, how it never freaked her out to believe there was a friendly poltergeist living with her even though it freaked everyone else out, including her dad. No, what she was struggling with was the whole parent thing. It was bad enough that Derek wasn’t really her father but to know that her real father was such a… monster…
And now she had to face a good man who had been duped into thinking that he had a familial obligation to her. Ari loved her dad. But she was suddenly terrified that he would no longer love her if he knew the truth. It wasn’t a stupid fear. He hadn’t exactly been there for her these last few years. He’d let her make her own way through her teen years and where had it gotten her? She was going to a college she didn’t want to go to. She had friends she couldn’t really talk to. And she was in love with a boy who didn’t want to be loved.
But I’m going to fix that, she thought. That’s the one thing I can fix.
To Ari, then, it wasn’t so irrational to believe that if Derek ever found out the truth he would walk away. Surely, all that had been keeping him from walking away entirely was his love for his ‘daughter’. If Ari took that away from him, would there be anything left? Trying to hold down the anger she felt at that thought, Ari sucked in a deep breath at the sound of a car pulling into the driveway. She twisted around in her seat, waiting for the sound of the key turning in the lock. The scrape of metal against metal seemed overly loud and Ari flinched as the door gave away from the latch.
Derek Johnson stepped into his home, dropped his suitcase with a thud and slammed the door shut. Their eyes met across the room and Ari saw a war in her dad’s gaze: relief fighting with fury and disappointment. When he marched into the room and grabbed her up into his arms Ari felt the burn of tears in the back of her throat. She gripped her dad tight, inhaling his musky cologne and the smell of detergent on the lapel of his suit jacket. His lips brushed her forehead, his large hands clasping her head between them as he pulled back to look at her. “I’m going to kill you,” he whispered hoarsely.
She blinked, trying to remember the last time he had hugged her. “I’m sorry, Dad.”
Derek shook his head, his eyes darkening as he stepped back, his features tightening. Ari’s heart sank. She wasn’t off the hook yet. “Sit.” He jerked his head at the couch and Ari promptly dropped onto it. She watched anxiously as he shrugged out of his jacket and loosened the tie around his neck. Finally, he collapsed onto the armchair Jai had only minutes before vacated. And then it came. He fired questions at her, not waiting for her to answer, lamenting her poor judgment, vocalizing his disappointment, creating criminal scenarios as reasons for her stupidity, his voice rising and rising until he was shouting, his face mottled red with anger. He wasn’t ready to hear her answers. Ari wasn’t even sure he wanted answers, he just wanted her to know what an inconvenience the worry he had felt for her was. As she sat there, gripping her hands tightly together on her lap, aware of Jai upstairs listening to every word, Ari grew angry too. Her dad’s worry wasn’t supposed to be an inconvenience. It was supposed to be a natural element of fatherhood. And true, he might not be her real father, but he didn’t know that.
Where had he been? Was he really surprised that something like this had happened? He had been leaving her alone for years. He was lucky something bad hadn’t happened before now. He was lucky she could take care of herself.
As Derek ranted on and on about the humiliation of having to call the Sheriff’s Department and tell them that she was fine, that she’d had a bad period and didn’t want to answer the door or the phone, Ari’s fears began to gnaw at her insides. Would he walk away from her if he knew the truth? Would the dad she loved, who had loved her when she was a kid… would he love her enough to still want her if he ever discovered the truth?
“I just can’t believe that you would act so carelessly, so inconsiderately over… nothing. I didn’t raise my daughter to act like that and she never has before. So tell me, Ari… what are you hiding from me?”
Gulping down the truth, Ari shook her head, the build-up of anger in her throat making it difficult to speak. “Nothing.”
Derek’s eyes narrowed, his lips pinched white. “No, I don’t accept that. You never lie to me. Do not start now.”
She scoffed, the noise escaping her before she could stop it. Her father’s nostrils flared at the sound and she narrowed her own eyes on him, feeling dangerous. Feeling weightless and dangerous. “I never lie?” She shook her head, daring him to hate her. “Right.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means… How would you know?” her voice rose an octave on the last word as she jumped up from the couch. “You’re never here. And when I complain you’re never here you just call me a brat who doesn’t know how lucky she is to have such nice things in her life because her dad works hard to give them to her. Lucky?” she whispered, eyes blazing, daring him to hate her and wanting him to love her all at the same time. “I’m all alone, Dad. I have no one, no one but Charlie and he doesn’t want anyone to have him. So no… I’m not lucky, Dad. I’m eighteen and I’m alone because you’re never here. You’re never here and I made a mistake. I’ve made a few of those.” She shook her head, watching the color leach from his cheeks and his eyes dim from anger to sadness. “You think I never lie? I lie, Dad. I lied about Penn. I don’t want to go there. I don’t want a business degree. And worse… I don’t know what I want. I don’t know who I am. And I lied about that. I lied because I want you to love me even though you’re never here. And…” she sucked in a breath, that old lie still biting at her conscience. “I lied about your girlfriend Michelle.”
Derek jerked back, the confusion on his face crumbling Ari’s resolve a little. “Michelle?” he asked softly.
“Your girlfriend that I told you hit me.”
His eyes lit up with recognition. “Michelle.”
“You really liked her. I knew that even then. And you hadn’t liked anyone so much before. I got scared. I didn’t want a mom and I didn’t want to share you. So I lied. She didn’t slap me. She didn’t slap me at all.” She exhaled shakily. “I’m sorry. But I lied. I lied because I didn’t want another mom abandoning us. I didn’t want you abandoning me.” She laughed humorlessly. “And that is just such a joke because… you abandoned me anyway.”
The silence between them was so thick, so fragile. Ari waited, tense, her whole body – muscles, bones, nerves and blood — frozen as she waited for him to respond.
Finally, Derek lifted his head, his soft features hard, his skin stretched taut across his face. His dark blue eyes blazed at her as if he didn’t recognize her. Without another word, he rose to his feet and walked past her. The front door slammed and Ari jumped at the noise, staring blindly down at the armchair he’d left empty.
Well, you wanted to push. You wanted to punish. Someone. Anyone.
Ignoring the ache in her chest, Ari turned slowly around only to come face to face with Jai as he entered the living room. His eyes glittered at her unfathomably but she noted a softening in his features that hadn’t been there before. She dropped her gaze, not wanting his sympathy.
The shrill call of the phone broke the awkward moment and Ari reached over to answer it.
“Ari?” Charlie’s warm voice asked in disbelief and relief.
“Yeah.”
“Yeah? That’s all you’ve got to say. Ari, I’ve been going out of my mind. What the hell happened the other night?”
She glanced out at the darkening day and sighed. “I’ll tell you in a minute. You at home?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll be there in ten.”
This was not at all what Jai had imagined would be his assignment. One, the actual assignment — the girl — was a bigger situation than even he could have imagined. And two, she was different than he’d thought she’d be. Usually Importants were surrounded by people, had busy lives, were focused and driven. But then Ari wasn’t exactly an Important. Not precisely. Jai watched her as she grabbed her keys, shoving her feet into white flats. She turned back to him, her long hair sliding like dark warm chocolate across her back.
“We’re walking. I feel like walking.”
Jai shrugged. Walking worked for him. It was just the destination that bothered him.
For over a week now he’d been following Ari, protecting her. He’d been surprised by how lonely she was, how abandoned she was by even the people who were supposed to love her. Her dad was an idiot, Jai thought so even more now after overhearing their argument. Her friends were typical teens too wrapped up in their own lives to see Ari was drowning, and her so-called best friend, Charlie, who she talked about all the time (even with that damn Ifrit who’d tried to bar him from the house) wasn’t there for her. He seemed to come in and out of Ari’s life, playing with her feelings, pulling her in, pushing her out. Jai felt like the punching the kid, but part of him also got where the guy was coming from. Anger, especially over something like losing your little brother, wasn’t easily dealt with. Whereas some wanted an escape from it anyway they could, others, like Jai, channeled it into something productive. He guessed it all came down to how you were wired. Still, it bothered Jai, for some inexplicable reason, that the first person Ari wanted to run to after all that she’d been through was Charlie. Charlie who was too messed up to give her any kind of support.