The summer air was warm, even in the dead of night. But as I bulleted downward, gathering speed, goose bumps rose on my skin. I didn’t have time to think about all the reasons that jumping off a cliff naked, in the dark, into a blackened body of water was a bad idea. My feet hit first, but I felt the sting of contact ten times more in my arms when they slapped the surface of the water, and my entire body plunged down into the deep. I’d thought it was dark outside, but that was nothing compared to the sensation of being completely submerged, unable to breathe, feeling my movement slowing, all too aware how easy it would be to forget which direction, in the pitch black, was up.

I kicked. It was only a matter of seconds—could have been two, could have been twenty—before I broke the surface. I gasped for air, even though I knew on some level that I hadn’t gone without it for long. From the moment I’d jumped until now, time had seemed to stretch sideways. My heart was thumping. I could hear other girls breaking the surface all around me, gasping and giggling. Adrenaline surged through my body.

And before I knew it, I was laughing.

“Anyone want to go again?”

We stayed in the water until someone had fetched our clothes. Most of the other Candidates had jumped off one of the two lower ledges. Victoria was the only senior member of the White Gloves who’d joined us at the top.

“That was . . .” Lily was pulling her swimsuit on beside me on the shore. They’d turned off all of the lights on the boat but one—for modesty’s sake.

Because we’re all so very modest.

“That was amazing.” Lily was giddy. “I thought we were going to die!”

“I didn’t,” Sadie-Grace said seriously. “I thought the rest of us were going to be fine, but Campbell was going to die.”

“What?” Campbell demanded. “Why me?”

“I thought that maybe you had a heart condition that you didn’t know about.” Sadie-Grace paused. “Is this what Greer means when she says I let my imagination get the best of me?”

“No,” I replied before Campbell could. “What Greer means is that maybe you imagined her wearing a fake pregnancy belly. She’d give anything to convince you that you don’t know what you know.”

In the ultimate irony, Sadie-Grace’s stepmother—the third participant in my mom’s pregnancy pact, who’d lost her baby and hung the others out to dry—was currently faking a pregnancy. None of us had any idea how she thought that would work out, given that her August “due date” was quickly approaching.

“It’s not Greer’s fault she’s grumpy.” Sadie-Grace was the world’s most understanding stepdaughter. “Faking the third trimester is exhausting.”