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“You could have just said send Cali in. None of you are smaller than me.” Bitch. I added in my head. Romero glanced at me and smirked like I’d said it aloud.

“You know she’s right, baby.”

I pouted for a full ten seconds. On one hand, I was overjoyed he wasn’t trying to wrap me in bubble wrap and treat me like glass because I was pregnant. On the other, I would have liked a little more resistance on his end about me crawling around under a church. The damn thing would probably crush me just for being on holy ground.

“Let’s just figure out how we need to do this,” I sighed.

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

This was the epitome of bullshit.

Cobra had snuck up first, finding the crawlspace and removing the grate. He’d returned and the first words out of his mouth were, “It’s dark as shit under there.”

That wasn’t an issue. I liked the dark; it had always made me feel safer than the light.

I was given a mini flashlight, a knife, and a swat on the ass as my send off. “No bullshitting,” Romero had warned.

There was an acolyte named Jeremy coming me with me. We were the same damn size, so him fitting wasn’t an issue ,either.

We’d made it to the crawl space without being spotted, and were now crawling in what I hoped was the right direction.

The bullshit was the smell, the spider-webs, and the moldy dirt underneath me. I held the flashlight in my mouth and moved at a steady pace.

There were some fallen beams and spiders the size of my hand watching me from them. Their beady eyes seemed to say, “You aren’t supposed to be here.”

Going out on a limb and adding mice or rats as another species that lived under here wouldn’t be a far stretch.

“You good back there?” I whispered to Jeremy. I didn’t want to turn and blind the kid with my flashlight.

“Yes, my liege,” he answered respectfully.

I rolled my eyes and huffed.

Little pebbles pressed into my palms. I shuffled forward, dragging my jegging-clad legs.

The crawlspace opened up after another few minutes into a circular area. Aiming the light, I spotted the old door in the ceiling that led into the church.

To get to it, all I had to do was crawl over a small graveyard of bones. My flashlight beam bounced off three skulls, one much smaller than the others. The rest of the bones I couldn’t offhandedly identify. None of them were together anymore, and the skulls all sat in different places, coated in dirt and cobwebs.

“I would like to go first, my liege,” Jeremy said softly.

“Its Cali,” I reiterated for the fourth time since we’d been down there, moving out of his way.

He crawled past me towards the door. I kept the flashlight aimed up so he was able to see better.

I had no idea how he was moving so gracefully and not passing out from heat stroke, wearing his black robe.

The door lifted right up, which I found anticlimactic as fuck. Jeremy slowly eased himself up and out of the crawlspace.

I listened for a few minutes and waited. There was a soft thud right above me but no voices. Just when I began to think he’d been caught, his head popped back down and he gestured me onward.

Moving to him, I did my best not to crush any of the remains. I wasn’t that disrespectful as to screw with someone’s resting place. Even if this more than likely wasn’t their number one pick in terms of burial sites.

Jeremy lifted me out of the crawlspace with ease, gently shutting the hatch behind me. “The back end of Jericho seems to be empty as of now, but there are voices coming from the front. I believe it’s some sort of meeting,” he quickly explained, opening the door of the small wine room we were in.

I shut off the flashlight, no longer needing it, and followed him out into an open foyer. “You get the back door open and let the others in. I’m going to eavesdrop.” I took one step towards one of the halls that split off the foyer before he blocked me.

“I was told to stay with you. I—”