Six
Lying in her bed, eyes now opening to the pale light of a winter morning, Deirdre heard the door to the bathroom shut, and the shower start a moment later. For a few wild seconds, she thought that must have been Leland or Sean, getting up to begin their day, and that everything she’d suffered over the past few months had only been a terrible nightmare.
But then she remembered that Sean and Leland were dead, and so was everyone else. Those reassuring, normal morning sounds had come from Amaal, her captured djinn.
Panic hit next, and she scrabbled under her pillow, looking for the device she’d hidden there. Her fingers closed around the hard little box, and she blew a breath of relief out from between her lips. Thank God. She didn’t see how Amaal could have possibly taken it, since he
