I braced myself on the wall and tried to pull my foot out.
Nothing, except more stinging pain.
Oh shit.
I was stuck, and the tide was still coming in. Cold dread drowned me as the truth of the situation hit me.
I was stuck, the tide was coming in, and not a single soul on Dauntless knew where I was.
Oh no.
Chapter 17
DOMINIC
Natty Harper was as brave as hell. He was also cagey as fuck about something, but I put that down to general Dauntless Island weirdness, since there was no shortage of that. Especially not tonight. When Red Joe shook my hand outside the old church, I’d fought the crazy urge to bow like I was meeting royalty, or at least salute. And I was pretty sure I hadn’t saluted since the academy. It was one of those things they taught you that you never really did again once you were sworn in. Like burpees.
But the way Natty had squared his shoulder and jutted his chin out...
“You should have seen it, Frank,” I said as I tried to make my bedroom look less like a bomb had gone off. “It was shit hot. ‘Me and Dominic are together. And it’s nobody’s business but ours.’”
Frank looked unimpressed, but she was a cat; that was her job.
I dragged a dirty shirt out from under the bed, balled it up, and tossed it into the corner. Should probably make the effort to put it in the hamper in the bathroom before Natty arrived. I’d seen the state of his house, and it was a hell of a lot neater than mine. And considering that Nipper Will was hardly ever home and Susan probably wasn’t much of a housekeeper, it was pretty obvious who kept the place clean and tidy. Natty wasn’t like most other young blokes his age—he’d notice the shit all over my floor, for sure.
I found a sock lurking under the bed too. It joined the shirt, and then I picked both of them up and detoured to the bathroom. Frank followed me there and then followed me down the stairs to the kitchen. She wound around my ankles in a desperate plea for food while I stared into my refrigerator and made plans for what to make Natty for breakfast. Because whatever happened tonight, and I didn’t want to get too far ahead of myself when it came to expectations on that score, tomorrow morning was going to be our first full day together as boyfriends, and I wanted to get it right. I’d probably cancel my plans with Eddie, to be honest—Natty had clearly not been onboard with that—and just spend the day with Natty. I wondered if a picnic lunch was still on the table if I made it clear that it would just be us, without Eddie third-wheeling.
I stared at the contents of my fridge and the contents stared back at me.
“Looks like it’s gonna be cereal,” I said. “At least I have milk now. I’m winning at life on Dauntless.”
And, despite trying to sound sarcastic because of my lack of breakfast options and my inability to cook anything anyway, I was winning at life on Dauntless. I had milk, but most importantly I had Natty. I checked my watch.
If he ever gets back here, that is.
I went to the back door and opened it. There were no lights on at Natty’s house. I wondered if that meant I’d missed them while I was cleaning my room, and Susan was already asleep in bed, or if Natty hadn’t got her to leave the church yet. Because the party was still in full swing over there, the sounds of music and laughter spilling into the night. This time last week I would have been appearing on Frank’s talk show and pointedly not listening to the music, but tonight I hummed along with a smile. Natty’s declaration and Red Joe’s show of acceptance had caused a seismic shift in the way I thought about Dauntless and the islanders. Turned out that ‘hostile and murdery’ became ‘charming and quirky’ when I was no longer in the firing line. I wasn’t sure if that made them the hypocrites, or me, but the important thing was that ‘murdery’ had been taken out of play.
I fed Frank and then headed into my office to check my emails. As expected, there was nothing there that was particularly relevant to my day-to-day duties on Dauntless. The mainland might have been only four hours away by boat, but it felt like a whole different world.
When I shut down the computer and checked the time, it had been almost two hours since Natty had promised to be back. I stared at the front door of the station, waiting a few minutes for a knock that didn’t come, and then got off my arse and headed outside into the brisk night air.
The music was louder outside, but still lively and cheerful despite the late hour.
I walked to the front of the church. The doors were open, and light spilled outside. A few people gave me odd looks as I entered, but I nodded and smiled and made a beeline for Button John, who was dancing on his own. Space had opened up around him, probably on account of all his drunken flailing.
“Button John!” I waved a hand in front of his face to get his attention.
He gazed at me, bleary-eyed, a slow grin spreading out over his face. “Heeeey, copper!”
“It’s Dominic,” I said out of habit. “Have you seen Natty?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Oh, yeah. He was right here, copper. Constable. That’s a funny word. Hey, have you heard that joke? It goes, ‘I haven’t had any cu?—”
“Drinkstable,” I said, cutting him off. “Yeah, I’ve heard it.” I craned my head and looked around the church. “Where did you see Natty?”
“Outside,” Button John said, and pointed, inexplicably, to the altar. “He was all, ‘Guess what, bitches? I’m fucking Dominic, and screw what any of you say!’”
“That’s not really how that happened.” Also, that was two hours ago. “I think you need to drink some water, okay?”
