Chapter 21 #2
“Doesn’t change the fact that you’re bleeding out,” he mumbles, clearly already over my nonchalant attitude about getting shot.
I attempt to pull my boot from his grasp, but he holds firm. “It can’t be as bad as all that.”
He doesn’t find my tone amusing. Instead, he gently eases the shoe off my foot to reveal my red stocking. It was white when I first put it on.
“Oh God,” I moan, looking behind me again at all the blood lining the rocks.
Ben blanches. “What? What, did I hurt you?”
“No,” I answer with the shake of my head. Far worse. “Do you think I was bleeding enough to show them a trail?”
He doesn’t answer me, which is answer enough. “We should move then!” I again try to pull myself away, but he won’t let me.
“We’ll discuss it after we patch you up.” There’s no more arguing, just Ben and his best attempts at fixing me up. He moves quickly and without apologies.
The rest of his pocket canteen goes first. A ripping, burning sensation that washes over the wound in one agonizing wall of fire. It takes every grain of strength in me to not scream out and alert everyone to our location.
The cleanest part of his shirt goes next, though “clean” is a loose term. I had watched him rinse it in the cave pool, but since then it’s been through the dust of collapsing tunnels and the heated sprint that would make anyone sweat through any number of layers.
We have no scissors, no thread and needle, nothing but the shirt on his back and the mixture of watered-down whiskey in that canteen.
As Ben wraps my leg and ties it off, I can’t help but think back to the moment I let my bag slip through my fingers.
I’d gotten shot anyway; I should have reached for it again.
“Stop doing that,” Ben hums.
“Stop what?” I ask innocently.
“Blaming yourself for what happened.” My heart breaks at the thought of Ademir, but I know it was not my fault. I can only blame Margaret and the Germans for that, but the damned bag is full of so much evidence…
So in sync with me, Ben leans back. “Why do you think she did it?” He pretends to study his work so he doesn’t have to look at me, but I know that every instinct he has is trained on every little movement I make.
Even if I’m as patched up as possible, there will not be a moment his attention ceases.
In the case of Margaret Williams, well, I suppose I could understand.
“They must have promised her things. They made her into something, and she felt important,” I answer with a shrug.
Whether her motives will ever be known to me, I understand her initial decision to join a cause on a deep level.
“Much like Mr. Morgan made me,” I say softly.
A man that had given me so much purpose in the wake of losing my mother.
“Much like he made me into something worthwhile.”
Ben finally looks up. There’s something like rage in his face before he takes a steadying breath and counters. “You were valuable long before you ever met Mr. Morgan.”
“Was I?” Emotions wash over me as we lose another drop of sunlight.
With it, I lose a little of my own light.
“I guess you’re right. I was much more valuable to you then than I am to you now.
” Holding his gaze hurts more than the hole in my leg, but I do it anyway.
“I was only valuable to you when I had nothing. When I agreed to work for Mr. Morgan, I agreed to the inevitability of coming back here. You still haven’t forgiven me for that decision. ”
Ben straightens uncomfortably. Anywhere else, he would call me a liar and retreat to some grand room. Here… Here there is nowhere for him to run to. I don’t know why it surprises me so much when he meets my challenge head on.
“I want this to be over—”
“So we can go back to the way things were before?” I say, still fighting for his gaze. I won’t hear him. Not after every time he’s turned me down. “Back to stolen kisses and pretending?”
“I want this over so I can have you,” he stammers.
“So I can have every bit of you.” His voice cracks at the words, and I suddenly have nothing to say.
“I made promises to you, though silently, years ago, Lillian. Promises to keep you safe, to see to your happiness. I didn’t see a way to do that as a husband.
It would have altered my judgement and changed my way of viewing missions.
It would have added more unnecessary risk. ”
Loving me wasn’t worth the risk to him. I have to sniff back the tears at the thought. “We’ve been married as aliases for a decade. How could you not see that what we had was beautiful.”
“It was, Lillian. It was everything to me, but it wasn’t real.” The slap of those words hurts worse than when Margaret backhanded me out of hatred.
I contemplate a pathetic counterattack, but I can only settle on the truth. “It was real to me.”
“Lillian,” he begs. “Lillian, I don’t want to think about mistakes or lost time; I only want to look at the future.” He scrambles forward and forces his hands into mine.
“Future?” I ask with a laugh. “If you couldn’t see one before, I have a hard time believing you can see one now.”
“I can,” he says through a firm nod. “I see us walking out of here at the end of this.” A painstaking smile appears and then disappears. “Then I intend to return to England, to marry you, and live the rest of my life with you.”
“Ben,” I stammer. I have never heard him speak so assuredly of such a motion.
“I love you,” he states plainly. It’s the first time he’s said it first. “With everything I am, I love you.”
“You want to marry me?” I ask, still caught up in his vision of the future.
“Yes,” he answers. His throat bobs in nervousness. “As long as that’s still what you wish.”
I can’t help but let out a restless laugh. “Of course that’s what I want.” I launch myself at him with a cry, and he gathers me in those big strong arms that have only ever meant safety. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted,” I say a little softer.
I’ve barely finished my sentence when he pulls me closer and his lips crash into my own.
The warmth of him fills a void that’s been vacant for much longer than the past few weeks.
Falling deeper into him, he handles me with more care than he ever has.
He holds me like I am valuable to him, like I have always been precious to him.
He’s nervous—I can feel it in his rapid heartbeat, the way his fingers curl into my shirt—but the care is real.
He isn’t performing for my sake. For the first time it feels as though he truly meant what he said.
I reach out for my necklace in the same way I did earlier. With each pulse of Ben against my lips, I demand the stone show me our future.
Nothing but darkness answers me back.