Chapter 7: I Can Show You I'll Be The One

I was tied to a chair. Shaking my head, I cursed. It did not make me feel better. Someone on my left mumbled. Like me, Phoenix was tied to a chair. Devon was tied to a chair on my other side. They were naked and gagged. I had not been gagged. Something crashed upstairs. I heard a triumphant shout. The thief confirmed my suspicion by coming downstairs with my lamp. He sat in front of us, setting the lamp down carefully.

"That motherfucking shopkeeper lied," the thief said to me. "He gave me the little bitch's address!"

He stared lustily at Devon. "When I'm done, we'll get better acquainted, Blondie."

Devon shivered with disgust.

"It's not going to help," I told him.

"What?"

"You know the rules -- you can't undo what has been done," I said.

"What rules, asshole?" he asked. His eyes darted to the lamp.

"You didn't ask?" I drew my head back. "Jesus! I was fourteen and I knew to ask!"

He got up and slapped me hard. "I didn't do anything wrong! That bitch fucked me over!"

My head was ringing. I stared at him until there was only one of him again.

"This Genie is going to give me everything I want," he yelled. I looked at Phoenix and Devon. They were looking at the thief like he was crazy.

"You wasted your wishes on getting these two bitches to fuck you," the thief said to me. He sat down and picked up the lamp. "What a waste! You should have wished for money and power then ALL the bitches would want to fuck you, kid."

"How did that work out for you?" I asked with a snicker. "Oh tell me, great intelligent one, how did your wishes work out?"

He looked like he wanted to get up and slap me again. Devon and Phoenix looked from the thief to me.

"That Genie cunt fucked me over," he said. "I wished for women to want me..."

I threw my head back and laughed. He did not appreciate me finding humor in his misfortune.

"Asshole, even I could find a way to screw you on that one," I told him. "Women want you ... to leave. Women want you ... to die."

He flinched.

"I got it right?" I asked in surprise. This time he did get up to slap me when I laughed.

"Enough of this shit," he grumbled. The thief sat down and rubbed the lamp hard.

Nothing happened.

"How did you get out of jail?" I asked.

"It doesn't work," he said to me. "Why doesn't it work? It looks just like my lamp! You're a kid, so no way these two whores are fucking you just because. You made wishes! How do I get the Genie to come out of the lamp?"

"Well," I said. "Obviously, I was far more curious about Genies than you, so how about you answer my questions and I answer yours."

"Where is she?" he yelled at me.

"Is that your first question?"

His breathing was harsh.

"I've been waiting for this since I made my wishes," I told him. "I asked my Genie a lot questions. A lot of the same questions to try catching her lies. Genies lie a fuck of a lot! She ALWAYS fucked over the owner of the lamp. She thought of a way to turn every wish her Masters made against them. I expected this, asshole!"

He sat down and studied me. Devon and Phoenix were wide-eyed.

"You're going to get what you want," I told him. "It will be my pleasure to watch a second Genie ass-fuck you because you don't want to think or understand the simplest thing. Your Genie was playing the magical equivalent of a prank, but Allysandre will kill you."

"They can't," he said. "The Genie said she couldn't kill me."

"They lie, asshole! Oh wait, you already know that because your Genie screwed you over, didn't she?" I whispered. "They can't gut you with their own hands, but haven't you considered that one of those women who want you dead is going to think killing you herself might be fun. The Genie didn't kill you if one of them does, but same fucking difference to me."

For a second, a cunning light lit his eyes.

"I ask a question, you ask a question," he said to me. "You won't lie?"

"No," I replied. "And that was your first question. My question – how did you get out of jail? I thought they set a large bail."

He shrugged. "Some of the bitches want me gone enough to pay me to leave."

I grunted appreciatively.

"Where is your Genie?" he asked.

"I sent her away. What else did you wish for?"

"Money."

"And you got it with the women who want you gone. She took out two wishes with one shot. Nice! She fucked you AND cheated you."

"Where did you send her?"

"I honestly have no fucking idea," I told him. "I basically wished for her to be gone."

He looked confused. "You can't summon her back?"

"My turn," I said. "What are you going to do to us?"

"Kill you," he replied. "I'll fuck them first and then kill them."

I nodded slowly.

"Can you summon her back?" he asked.

"No," I said. "It would violate my wish."

"Liar!" he screamed. "I'm not stupid. If you rub the lamp and summon her, she'll come to you!"

"So let's try my question again, how has that worked out for you?" I asked him.

His breathing was harsh again but he calmed down.

"It's a basic rule of Genies," I told him. "You can't undo what has been done! I made my wish for her to be gone -- I can't undo it. Not even another Genie could, no matter what you wished for. It's why I wished her gone, because it could not be broken. Allysandre was the scariest person I've ever met. I wanted her far, far away before she figured out a way to kill me. Believe me, she wanted me dead!"

He got up and paced the living room. I don't think he noticed he was rubbing the lamp madly. I looked at Devon and Phoenix. They had identical looks of fear and curiosity when they looked at me.

"She can change the wish," the guy said, stopping in front of me. "That wouldn't be undoing it."

Two shots rang out!

One of the cops who arrested the thief walked into the living room. He stood over the thief, but he wasn't looking at his victim. The cop brought the gun around and aimed it at my face.

"If you're dead, you're not the owner of the lamp. I am!" he said. "She has to come to her new master, doesn't she?"

"You got the pull to cover a quadruple homicide?" I asked him. Devon and Phoenix gasped at how calm my voice sounded.

"You really were expecting something like this!" the cop said in wonder.

"You think you know," I told him. "You don't! They spend thousands of years bathing in their worst memories. Allysandre was sold into slavery before becoming a Genie. Raped nightly! Tortured! She can never get even with them, but she will have you. Two assholes came here to kill me tonight, that's your future if you take up with a Genie. Take my word for it, Allysandre is going to wring out any immaturity left in you. My advice -- make your wishes as soon as she pops out of the lamp. You might not be able to avoid the nightmares."

The thief grabbed the cop's ankle. He stabbed the cop in the calf. The cop folded; the thief stabbed upwards into the groin.

"FUCK!" I yelled, cringing at the cop's scream. The cop kept falling. The thief stabbed him twice in the neck.

The thief grabbed the cop's gun and aimed it at me. I rocked the chair madly. It fell; the thief shot at me. I felt the hot air of the bullet's passing. I opened my eyes to see the light dying in the thief's eyes.

"No!" I said to Devon.

She had worked her way out of the bonds and was reaching for the house phone.

"Don't call the cops yet, Devon," I ordered. Devon looked at Phoenix. I couldn't see her, but Phoenix must have shaken her head. Devon walked into the kitchen and came back with a knife. I jumped up after she undid the rope at my feet and wrists. I bent over the body of the thief to search his pockets. I had to be careful to not get too much blood on me.

"What are you looking for?" Phoenix asked.

I found it! The key was on a chain around his neck. I carefully worked the chain around until the clasp faced me. I removed the chain and key from the thief's neck and put it in my pocket.

"Help me," I said.

We turned the thief over enough so I could get his wallet. My fingers were clean of blood. I rummaged through the wallet until I found a receipt.

"Farewell Storage," I said.

"Wipe the wallet and his pants," Phoenix said when I tried to put it back. Devon handed me a rag. I did what Phoenix instructed.

"You think he kept his lamp in a storage unit?" Phoenix asked me.

I nodded. "I'm not going to let someone else get their hands on it. I wasn't kidding -- Allysandre is bat shit crazy! I doubt any of them are different; evidence to support my case is the dead thief. I can hide Allysandre's lamp and this one where no one will find them, even if I'm dead."

"It would have worked?" Phoenix asked. "Killing you."

"I did send her away, but I tied the last wish to my life," I said. "If I die, she goes back in the lamp. It's the only way I could think of her sparing me."

"Did you really make a wish to fuck me?" Devon asked, watching me reach for the phone.

"No," I replied.

"What did you wish for?" Phoenix asked.

"For luck. For health."

Phoenix looked at the two bodies. "Yeah! I would say you're lucky!"

"If the amount he can fuck and his performance on the football field... " Devon shook her head.

"You're very healthy," Phoenix told me. "You said the Genie screwed you too?"

I ignored how calm they were being. I needed to call the cops. My hand froze on the phone. "It did work out, didn't it?"

"I would say so!" Phoenix replied.

"Maybe it worked," I said slowly. "At least for now! I wouldn't call two assholes coming to kill me lucky though. Nobody ever having a reason to kill me would be lucky."

"What worked?" Devon asked.

"His third wish," Phoenix told the blonde. She turned and studied me. "You bribed her. What was your third wish, Michael?"

I sighed. "Allysandre had a very hard life. The slavery, rape, and torture were the beginning. They happened when she was thirteen, and it didn't get better!"

I looked out the window, remembering the look on Allysandre's face when she told me what had happened to her. She knew I was horrified and she took joy in the telling of each story. I didn't doubt they were true; the pain was in her eyes.

"I wished for her to live another life," I said. "From birth to death, I wanted it to be a good life. She'd get to know the loss we all do, like the death of a parent, but it would be a part of a beautiful life. A complete life without the misery of her previous one."

Phoenix took Devon's hand and sat on the couch with her.

"You fainted," Phoenix told Devon. "That's what you're going to tell the cops. You fainted as soon as the guy charged in and knocked Michael out. You never woke up until we shook you. No gunshots. No stabbings. Nothing, Devon! Do you understand?"

Devon nodded.

"Call the cops, Michael," Phoenix said. "We to get dressed and go over our story."

I never tried to get emancipated minor status, even though for all intents and purposes I was living on my own. The money from my mother's accident would have covered me, especially after it became clear that I would get a college scholarship if I did not get injured. At first, I didn't do it because of the remaining small hope that he would remember how to be a father to me. After he admitted cheating on my mother with the woman he took up with after her death, it was about not letting them off the hook. If I made his abandonment legal, they could move on and forget his past life.

It was also to my advantage at times, like not having to answer the police's questions until my father arrived or a lawyer in lieu of said father. Mr. Marie, acting as my lawyer, did not favor the further traumatizing of a 'child'. Phoenix had been conscious the entire time (according to her statement) and was happy to tell them how heroic the dead cop had been and how evil the thief had been. A day later, I had to go down to the police to agree to the high points of Phoenix's statement.

I didn't like the cop being lauded as a hero, but it was an easier pill to skate on than anything resembling the truth. The police and news interest in us made Phoenix and Devon keep their distance for a couple of days. It gave me time to scope out the thief's storage facility. I needed to turn one security camera away from his locker to make sure no one saw me approach it. I rented a small locker in the facility and made sure the cameras caught me making a couple of trips to fill it with my mother's things.

The story turned from Devon, Phoenix, and me to the cop's family and funeral. The cops closed the case and put it away. They had not found the locker so the thief must have paid in cash, giving me a window to investigate.

I unlocked the storage locker and opened the door. The lamp was in the middle of the locker on the floor. I sighed with relief ... too soon.

Devon ran by me and picked up the lamp.

"No!" I yelled.

Phoenix put her hand on my shoulder and tried to turn me. "It's okay, Michael."

"You're not supposed to be here," I told them.

"That was never going to happen!" Phoenix said. "By the way, you're horrible at figuring out when someone is following you."

"Devon, don't!" I pleaded. "I'm not kidding about how dangerous they can be."

"It worked out for you," she replied. "Didn't it?"

"So far," I said. "But at best, AT BEST, I bribed her into not fucking me over. You saw the thief. He wasn't happy and he ended up dead."

"You got me. You got Phoenix. One of the hottest girls in your school is YOUR bitch as soon as she crosses the threshold of your house," Devon said. "I think that's more than bribery."

"We've seen you play football, Michael," Phoenix said, squeezing my shoulder. "Your Genie defined healthy as you being physically far above average in everything. You're a monster on the field! If you played like it or if Davis accepted that he will never get as far as you, you could carry the team. You found another Genie's lamp! If that's not lucky, I don't know what would be other than hitting the lottery."