Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jack
“I don’t think I can manage another step without some rest,” Ruby said, slowing to a stop.
Jack checked his watch. Nearly midnight.
They’d been walking for three hours. Azraq hadn’t appeared in view yet, but Jack hoped they were only a couple of hours away by this point. Close enough that, were he alone, he’d likely push through the exhaustion and aching muscles and feet and just keep going.
But I can’t ask that of Ruby.
He nodded toward a ridgeline of rock. “Why don’t we stop over there? It’ll shelter us from the wind.”
They trudged toward it, Jack feeling the sting of the biting wind against his cheeks despite the warm flow of blood through his body. Once they settled in, it would get cold, fast.
They found a small cove amidst the rocks and Jack pulled out his flashlight, checking for scorpions or snakes before they set their bags down. The desert didn’t have any good options for firewood and, once he sat, he realized he didn’t have the energy left to build a fire anyway.
After a few sips of precious water, Jack cleared an area on the ground as best he could, moving pebbles and rocks to the side.
“Here,” Jack said, pulling out an old army blanket. He laid it out on the ground, then set his bags on one end as a lumpy pillow. “If you don’t mind sharing, we can wrap ourselves in this. Keep some of the cold away.”
Ruby nodded. “I don’t mind.”
They lay down on the blanket—a poor option for a bed, considering the ground was hard and rocky. Even in Kharga Oasis, Jack had lived like a king compared to this. But, better than nothing.
The makeshift bed was cozy, the warmth of Ruby’s body radiating against him. Her shoulder bumped his and didn’t move away. The brush of her sleeve against his arm was barely there, but it grounded him in a way nothing else had in days.
In that one small way, this was better than Kharga. For the first time in ages, he wasn’t alone.
“My feet are throbbing,” Ruby said with a moan. “I’m tempted to take off my shoes, but I don’t think I can move.”
He groaned in response. “Now that we’ve stopped, starting the trek is going to be so much harder.” His shoulder brushed against hers. They’d be more comfortable if she was lying against him, but given what had happened after they’d spent that time in the crate, Jack didn’t suggest it.
The last thing he needed was to complicate this any further.
“Who’s in Rutbah?” Her voice was thick with sleep.
“A friend. Ned Harris with the RAF. We go way back from the war. Whoever flew into Azraq will know him—everyone even remotely connected with the RAF in this area does. I’m hoping I can leverage that into getting a ride to Rutbah. From there, Ned will take us to Baghdad—no question.”
“I thought you wanted to stay away from British officials and keep out of sight.”
“I do. But I can trust Ned. He’s one of the few people in this area I would trust blindly, actually.
He won’t give us away. He’s the kind of man who’d lie to his own CO if it meant saving a friend.
And since we’ve had terrible luck with the smugglers and criminals, it might be time for a new strategy.
One that doesn’t involve nearly getting us both killed. ”
“Hmm …” She was quiet for several beats, as though struggling to stay awake, her eyes closing.
The sound of crickets—somehow still singing despite the cold—filled the air, a nighttime insect chorus that Jack took comfort in.
“You know, for someone who’s been estranged from his sister for so long, you’re sure going to a lot of trouble to find out what happened to her. ”
He shifted, a rock under his thigh digging in painfully, and blinked up at the myriad of stars above them. “I’ve always missed her,” he admitted quietly. It shouldn’t be hard to admit that fact—but he’d never given it a voice.
Noah had told him once—after his own brother had been killed in Gallipoli during the war—that he was a fool for pushing Alice away.
But, even then, Jack hadn’t been able to admit how much the rift between Alice and him hurt.
He used to tell himself the distance between them had been her choice.
That she’d walked away. That it wasn’t his fault.
But, deep down, he’d known better. He was the one who stopped fighting harder to get her away from Prescott. Who didn’t push harder.
And when she disappeared?
Even then—he hadn’t acted because of Alice. Not right away. Because in those first few days, all he could think about was Kit. Kit, with her stubborn fire and impossible promises. Kit, who he’d thought had vanished for good long ago.
But something had shifted since Ruby showed up. Since they’d been thrown together in that godforsaken crate and nearly blown up by bandits. Since he’d seen her refuse to give up—on her family, on herself—even on helping him.
He hadn’t even mentioned Kit to Ruby. Not once. And somehow it hadn’t felt like a betrayal.
Maybe it was because he was starting to feel the same fear for Ruby’s fate that had once lived in him for Kit. The same gnawing protectiveness. But it felt different this time.
Kit had never needed anything from him.
But Ruby … she did.
Enough.
He couldn’t let himself get carried away by the notion that someone who needed him for his money might ever need him for anything else.
“What happens if you don’t find her, Jack?
If you fail?” Ruby’s eyes were open now and she turned toward him, a crease of worry between her brows.
“That’s the thought that keeps me awake.
Night after night. If I fail helping my family, what will happen to them?
Felix thinks they’ll be all right. That I’m making too much of a fuss of it all.
And who knows—maybe he’s right. But if he’s wrong?
How do I live with myself if I could have helped and didn’t? ”
In the dark, her pupils were large, her eyes expressive. He let the moment hold, unsure of what to say to comfort her—and himself. Because … what if he failed? Could I live with myself? Was that last argument with Alice the last time he’d ever talk to her?
The stars were so vivid they seemed to pulse in the sky. Alice used to trace constellations for him when they were children, naming them after imaginary heroes. He tried to find the Archer now—but the sky blurred. Maybe it was the wind, or maybe it was the weight of too many memories.
The desert was too quiet. Every thought echoed louder in the silence.
“We’re not going to fail,” he said, at last, with a conviction he didn’t feel.
“Neither of us.” He went on gently, “But it’s also not entirely up to us.
There’s only so much either of us can control.
And if I learned anything during the war, it’s that we can put our heart and soul into something, and the damnedest, most unexpected things can take it all away.
And there’s nothing you or I can do to change that. ”
She released a slow, sad sigh, then leaned back again.
“That sounds a lot like resigning yourself to the inevitability of fate. Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, so do our minutes hasten to their end; each changing place with that which goes before, in sequent toil all forwards do contend … right?”
He smiled. The way she’d recited the sonnet had a transcendent, spellbinding quality. “Shakespeare?”
“Mhmm.”
He hadn’t heard someone quote Shakespeare in years—let alone in the middle of a treacherous wasteland. Not like that. Not like it meant something.
Her voice had carried the cadence of something deeper than performance. There was a rhythm in it that tugged at some forgotten part of him, like music half remembered from another life. It didn’t sound rehearsed. It sounded lived-in.
She hadn’t just spoken lines. She’d summoned them—as if they’d been sitting inside her, waiting for a moment when the silence got too loud.
He’d seen plenty of women who could charm a crowd, but very few who could quiet the desert.
“You really are an actress,” he said again, softer this time. As if he were speaking to the version of her that existed before all of this—the one who might’ve stood in the light, not the shadows.
She yawned. “I used to be. Now I’m nothing but a common thief.”
He pursed his lips, the desperation that had driven her to that choice unsettling him—more than it had before.
Rather than continue to force her to discuss it, he asked, “So how does Felix play into all this? I understand you and Theo. But Felix? Why’s he wrapped up in your life of crime?
Or is he trying to save his family too?”
Her breath caught softly. “No, he’s English.”
“Then what’s his motivation? What’s his role in all this—other than taking punches from men like me?” Despite his best efforts, Jack hadn’t found it in him to feel remorse for punching Felix in the throat that first night he’d met Ruby. Felix had held him at gunpoint. He deserved the punch.
Ruby cringed at his joke, though. “He’s in love with me,” she said, her voice thinning like a thread pulled too tight.
“He’s the one who found us the contacts in the Middle East, who knows the people who will help my family—for a price, anyway.
I think Felix is hoping I’ll marry him if he helps me. ”
Jack turned at the hesitation in her voice. She was looking away, but the way her fingers twisted the edge of the blanket betrayed more than her words.
“Ah …” The unsaid was clear. She doesn’t feel the same way about him. But …
The next thought made his gut clench.
“Does he think you’ll marry him because you’ve got some sort of understanding?”
A sharp gust of wind howled around them, and she shivered.
“I haven’t told him I’ll marry him, if that’s what you’re implying.”
She was quiet for a moment, the wind tugging a strand of hair across her face. Jack watched as she tucked it behind her ear with slow, deliberate fingers—as if the act of moving gave her something to hold on to.