Chapter Eighteen
I stalled as long as I could. I took a shower, dried my hair, even put on some lip gloss and mascara, things I hadn’t bothered with lately, not after I’d swiped some heavy-duty lip balm from REI on our one foraging run there. But all the preparation in the world could only take so much time, and eventually I had to emerge from the master suite, although I noticed that Dutchie had nudged the door open earlier and slipped away.
Or maybe Jasreel had let her out.
Despite my delaying tactics, I knew I wasn’t ready to face him. A cowardly part of me was praying that he’d packed up and left, had gone to “join the others,” as the strange, cruel-looking djinn had told him to do. Where that supernatural meet-up was supposed to take place, I didn’t know. I didn’t want to know.
Th
