“Quit cuddling and run!” Jezebel yells, waving us toward her from her spot just inside the circle of light cast by the flickering candle.
Bishop pulls me farther into the narrow, snaking bowels of Los Angeles County. The dragon doesn’t follow—can’t follow—but I’m smart enough about the workings of the Priory to know that doesn’t mean we’re safe.
Almost as soon as I have this thought, I become aware that the cold, thick water that was licking my ankles not too long ago now reaches to my knees.
“The water’s rising!” Hysteria breaks my voice, thoughts of drowning in a sewer constricting my throat.
The others don’t respond, as if they noticed already and didn’t want to scare me.
Jezebel’s boots splash three feet ahead of us, leading the charge. “Just keep running,” she says between struggles for air. “We’ll get out at the next sewer cover.”
But it’s kind of hard to run underwater. The cold liquid rises up around the tops of my thighs, an awkward depth too high to run in and yet too shallow to swim in, and I have to lift my legs higher and higher to make any headway. Jezebel’s three-foot lead becomes twenty, and I gasp and struggle for air. Even tyrannical hellish cheerleading training under Bianca’s regime has left me unprepared for this task.
“I don’t get it.” Jezebel’s voice breaks up with obvious exhaustion. She slows to a jog, then stops, doubled over and panting. “Why wouldn’t the Family have helped? They promised. It doesn’t make sense. The Priory has the Bible. Why wouldn’t the Family send everyone they’ve got? It’s their own lives on the line.”
It doesn’t make any sense to me either, and I can tell by Bishop’s silence that he’s thinking about it too as he sucks in big gulps of air.
“Come on, we have to keep moving.” Jezebel pushes up and breaks into a sloppy jog again.
The water has slicked higher up my body in the time we’ve spent catching our breath, and though my lungs ache with exhaustion and my overworked heart pounds, I run after her.
Bishop stays at my side even though I know he could have lapped Jezebel twice over. “Take it off.” He gestures to my dress. “It’d be much easier.”
I give him a hard look. “Nice try, but I’m not reenacting your porno fantasies.”
He shrugs. “Suit yourself.”
But it’s only a few slow, heavy steps later that I realize he’s right. In a few minutes’ time, the water will be above my waist, and we’ll have to swim. “Unlace me.”
“Oh God,” Jezebel calls from up ahead.
“Hurry up! The water.” I spin around to give Bishop access to the corset-back of my gown. He whirls around, looking for someplace to put the candle before sticking it on a small ledge poking out of the brick.
He splashes up behind me, and even above the whoosh of water in the intakes and Jezebel’s splashing footsteps, I hear him swallow hard, hesitating, fingers fumbling with my laces.
“I didn’t come back just because I was ordered!” he yells over the noise.
Familiar tears sting my eyes. Which is stupid, because really—so not the most important thing right now. Water moves up to my hip bones, the skirt of the dress puffing up around me.
“It’s true the Family sent me to train you as punishment for losing the Bible,” he says. “But they had no idea that I really wanted to do it, that I’d been dying to see you again. It wasn’t a punishment at all.” He takes hold of my shoulders, and I draw in a little breath. “The real punishment was being away from you.”
My heart swells so much I’m worried it will burst, relief and happiness causing tears to spill down my cheeks.
“And I only stopped that day at the sand dunes because I didn’t want you to regret anything. I didn’t want you to think back on what you’d done and hate me for it.”
Heat floods my face at the mention of that day, and I’m glad my back is to him so he can’t see it. But as much as I don’t want to forgive him for humiliating me, I know he’s right. I would have felt like he’d preyed on my vulnerability if he’d let things go any further.
“Indie.” He pleads my name, his fingers brushing tentatively along the cold skin of my arm. His touch sends a current down my body.
“Okay, you’re right,” I say tersely.
Silence. And then, “What did you just say?”
I huff and spin around to face him, not bothering to wipe my tear-stained face. “I said you’re right. You’re right and I was wrong. Go ahead and enjoy the moment because it’s probably never happening again—”
He takes my face in his hands and kills my words with a kiss. A kiss so intense it would scare me if it didn’t thrill me so much. Long and deep and lingering.
“What’s taking you guys so … long.” Jezebel slows to a halt.
I pull back from Bishop, my breathing as erratic as my pulse.
“Oh, well, pardon me,” Jezebel says. “I guess I mistakenly thought we were running for our lives.” She turns on her heel and keeps running.
I bring my eyes up to Bishop’s. “She hates us.”
“And I don’t care.”
I laugh. “Okay, get me out of this thing.”
“With pleasure.”
I roll my eyes and hold my arms out as Bishop stretches the corset’s laces until the bodice hangs loose around my bust. Then I wriggle out of the dress with Bishop’s eager help until I’m wearing nothing but my boy-cut underwear and an interestingly shaped bra made specially for open-backed dresses. But Bishop doesn’t seem to notice the ugly bra, his dark eyes exploring me.
“Aren’t you going to strip down?” I ask.
“Indigo, I have a feeling your boyfriend wouldn’t approve of this.” He tosses my dress aside—it lands with a slopping sound before sinking from sight—and then shrugs out of his jacket. Much as I’d like to, I don’t wait for him to get undressed.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I say, leading the way into the darkness where Jezebel disappeared.
“Interesting.” Bishop follows on my heels, bringing along the taper. “He looked like your boyfriend when you were snogging earlier. Congrats on the homecoming queen thing, by the way.”
“He kissed me. Against my will. And thanks. Now can we concentrate on escaping this sewer before we drown?”
“Sure thing, boss.”
It doesn’t take long for me to regret our little bonding moment. Not the kiss but the time we wasted; the water now reaches my ribs, and we might as well be trying to run in quicksand for all the progress we’re making, near naked or no. We’re forced to ditch the candle in favor of a headlamp Bishop conjures, and revert to messy front strokes, craning our heads back every few lengths to look for a sewer cover we can escape through. Panic punches the air out of my chest.
“What if we don’t find one?” I struggle to catch my breath between strokes. “What if we can’t get out?”
“No worries.” Bishop’s voice is calm and unconcerned.
“What’s the plan? Snorkeling mask? Break through the roof?” I inadvertently swallow a mouthful of slimy water and have to stop, bobbing in the water as I cough and sputter uncontrollably.
“Finally stopped sucking face, huh?”
Bishop pulls up short, shining the light from his headlamp onto Jezebel, who stands just a few feet in front of us. Her hair is sucked flat against her head, the ends fanning out around her like jellyfish tentacles in the water, and her arms are crossed like a petulant child’s.
“It’s a ‘to be continued’ sort of thing,” Bishop retorts.
Jezebel’s nostrils flare, but she changes topics. “Found one.” She gestures up at the barely noticeable outline of a circle in the curved roof.