I’m frozen in place, wanting to go out to Raylan, but afraid to cross the dark fields alone. I’m gripping the handle of the fish knife in my fist, rigid and motionless in the kitchen chair. My ears straining for any other sounds that might tell me if what I’m imagining is real, or only just a paranoid fantasy, like a child who runs up from the basement, thinking there’s a monster at their heels.

Silence. Total silence.

I’m an idiot. I’m just making myself scared, sitting alone in a dark kitchen.

Still, I want Raylan more than I’ve ever yearned to see anybody. If he were sitting next to me on the deck, with a drink in each of our hands, I wouldn’t be scared of anything.

He’s got to be almost finished with the horses by now. I’m going to go out to meet him.

Still holding the knife, almost forgetting that I have it, I walk swiftly toward the kitchen door. It’s so dim that I reach out half-blindly, fumbling for the knob.

Right as my fingers close around it, an arm locks around my neck.

I hadn’t heard anything. Not a creak. Not a breath.

The Djinn grabs me from behind and jerks me back off my feet.

His arm is a steel bar around my throat, closing off my air in an instant. He lifts me up off my feet, inhumanly strong. And he squeezes harder.

It’s all too familiar—we’re in air instead of water, but I’m plunged back exactly where we were. I’m drowning again, choking to death in the arms of the Djinn.

His other hand is clamped over my mouth. It doesn’t matter—without air, I can’t scream. And even if I could, Raylan is too far away to hear me.

The Djinn watched and waited. He knew I was alone in the house.

The loss of air is so sudden that my limbs go weak. My fingers loosen. I almost drop the knife.

Almost . . . but not quite.

With every last shred of control, I grip it tight. I blindly swing backward, aiming for his body.

The fish knife plunges into his side. I hear a grunt of pain and fury in my ear. The first sound I’ve heard him make. But he doesn’t let go.

I keep hold of the handle and wrench the knife out again, then swing it back toward him. He jerks away with his body, avoiding the blade. But he has to loosen his hold on my throat.

As soon as I feel his forearm loosen, I turn my chin to the side and drop down with all my weight, slipping out of his grasp. I swing the knife wildly, and this time it sticks into his thigh. I lose my grip on the handle. The Djinn gives a strangled yell and backhands me in the side of the face, knocking me backward.

I slide back across the kitchen tiles. For the first time, I get a good look at the Djinn, in the flesh. Or at least, as good a look as I can get in the dark. He’s dressed in a skin-tight black suit, not so different from the one he wore into the swimming pool. His head is covered by a tight hood, and his eyes look monstrously enlarged like a house-fly, because he’s wearing night-vision goggles. The fish knife protrudes from his thigh.