Jinni's Wish, Book 4 Kingdom Series Read Online Free PDF

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