“They won’t,” I said. “Not after Red Joe.”
“It’s actually terrifying that’s where the line is. Like, was there an actual possibility?”
I shrugged. “We’re unprecedented, remember?”
“Yeah.” He smiled, the tight line of his shoulders dipping as he relaxed. “You and me. Unprecedented. I like that.”
“I want to get out of here,” I said, my chest fluttering. “Can we go to your place?”
The skin at the edges of his eyes crinkled as his smile grew. “Yeah. Let’s do that.”
We escaped out onto the street, which wasn’t much of an escape since the noise from the old church followed us all the way next door to Dominic’s place. The POLICE sign was hanging at an angle from the front doorknob, and I traced the raised letters with my finger while Dominic hunted in his pockets for his keys.
He hadn’t figured out yet that you didn’t need to lock your doors on Dauntless.
He found the key at last and turned it in the lock. “Hey, so me and Eddie are going to look for those gun post things tomorrow. You should come with us. We can have a picnic or something. That’s romantic, right?” The expression on my face made his brows tug together. “I mean, I thought it would be fun, that’s all.”
“I...” I struggled not to let my panic show. “Tomorrow? I’d rather do something that’s just us, you know?”
“Yeah.” He laughed. “I guess the first official outing of the Dauntless Island Amateur Historical Society isn’t exactly great first official date material.”
My stomach flipped, oscillating wildly between dread and delight. First official date! That was everything I wanted to hear, except it would also be our last official date if Dominic had to arrest me.
“Um, yeah,” I said, and smiled too wide when Dominic looked at me curiously. He was trained to spot liars, right? And I was already a terrible liar. I just had to tell this one convincingly though, and I’d have some breathing room. “I should probably go and help get Mum home and settled. But I am coming back,” I said, to forestall his disappointment. “Like in an hour or two at the most? She’s sometimes really hard to settle down.”
“Oh.” His eyebrows rose. “Yeah, sure. Of course.”
Relief coursed through me.
“Okay! Great!” I pushed him against the door and kissed him.
“Ouch!” He shifted. “Doorknob. Can we try that again, please?”
“Sorry.” I kissed him again, more gently this time, a promise I was making. I’d be back, and then we’d... Well, I hoped Dominic had some ideas, because I wasn’t sure I could say mine out loud. I wanted him to fuck me. Except I didn’t like thinking of it that way. I wanted him to... make love to me? Now I really sounded like one of those soap opera characters. I just wanted Dominic. I wanted him in me, and I had about an hour and a half to figure out a way to say that. “I’ll be back soon.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
I almost tripped over my own feet at the way he said it, his voice low and hungry. Button John was so fucking wrong—Dominic was totally hot.
I darted down the side of the old church in case he was still watching me, dodging the kids playing hide and seek around the fallen headstones, and then stepped over the fence into the street behind the main street.
And then I ran.
The moonlight illuminated the old, familiar path up the hill, and the island opened up around me. The breeze was cool, and tasted like salt, and my feet knew the way. They would have known the way even if I’d had my eyes closed.
Thirty minutes later, the incoming tide carried me inside the entrance to the cave at Mayfair Bay. It was pitch black inside, but I ran my hand along the rock wall to find my way. The lapping waves echoed inside the belly of the cave, and I shivered. It was cold here; I’d left my shirt and shorts under a rock on the beach, and I was rocking the wet underwear look. If there’d been a glimmer of light to show me off, the crabs would’ve been getting an eyeful.
I just had to get up the path, grab the packages we’d stashed there last time, and dump them at Young Harry Barnes’s house to worry about some other time. If Dominic and Eddie found the cave tomorrow, there’d be nothing up there but footprints.
Simple.
My foot slipped on a wet rock, and I hissed at the sudden, sharp pain as rock scraped my ankle bone.
Fuck.
I tried to pull my foot free, but it was wedged. I leaned down and felt my way around my ankle. Yeah, no. It was stuck in there real good.
A little wave hit the back of my ankles, salt water stinging.
