Chapter 5 #2
For a moment, I consider whether or not I should get into a car with another stranger. Their accents lead me to believe they’re more friend than foe, but Claude put on an accent too. And yet, if Bes or Williams wanted to kill me for the amulet, they would’ve done so already.
Worst case, they plan on abducting me and holding me for ransom; best case, they’re driving me to the museum to pay me what I’m owed and then promptly delivering me to the airport so I can go home. The former would be unfortunate but not unexpected, and the latter feels less and less likely.
All I can do is keep surviving. And that means getting out of this damned desert and back to civilization.
Bes opens the passenger door on the other side and takes it upon himself to dump Williams into the leather seat. I roll my shoulders, grateful to no longer bear the man’s weight. The soldier lets out a short groan, but otherwise keeps his discomfort to himself.
I extricate my suitcase from the trunk of Claude’s car—which, now I think about it, was either stolen or a gift from that Thule Society Bes mentioned—and climb into the back of Bes’s automobile, tossing my belongings onto the seat beside me.
Pressing his foot down on the clutch, Bes starts the engine without further delay. Unfortunately, this car is British, which means he needs his left hand, the one Claude damaged, to shift gears.
“Miss Hawkins, will you…?” He trails off.
I lean forward, wordlessly gripping the ball on top of the gear shaft.
He glances at me over his shoulder. “Do you know how to—?”
“Don’t insult me by asking if I know how to put this contraption into gear,” I bite out. “The sooner we leave this place, the better.”
He clears his throat. “Go on, then.”
Wordlessly, I shift the gear shaft all the way to the left and then push it into first. The car lurches out onto the dirt road back to Cairo, the engine rumbling loudly as I shift through second, third, and finally into fourth gear.
I sit back in my seat. Silence envelops us, with only the hot desert air blasting my face through the cracked windows to remind me that I’m alive.
Glancing down, my eyes catch on the amulet still showing through my dampened shirt.
I take it out and hold it in my palm. The gilded wings bite gently into my flesh.
The bloodstone flickers slightly in the half light, but otherwise appears to be a normal piece of jewelry.
Did I imagine the warmth against my chest when I nearly drowned inside the cenotaph, or after shooting Claude?
Was my mind so deprived of air that I imagined the red specks moving beneath the surface?
It had to be, I reason, realizing my lack of sleep has had more of an effect on my psyche than I first gave it credit for.
But I also recall what Claude said about the rumor that it can make a person invisible. I’m not inclined to believe it, but neither can I wholly discount it after what I’ve felt and seen.
No, Mel, you just need sleep.
Wondering still if there’s a small chance Claude could be right, I turn around and steal one last glance at his lifeless body.
I shouldn’t have. My stomach roils and bile buoys up my throat from the sight: at the blood staining his shirt, at his dark eyes wide open.
It’s catching up with me now, what I’ve done.
That I’ve taken a life. My chest clenches with guilt.
I killed Claude. I killed Claude.
I didn’t want to, but he… forced my hand. And it wasn’t only my life on the line—Bes’s life was in danger too. Maybe even Williams’s, who would’ve been left for dead in the desert.
That doesn’t mean I don’t regret it. Shockingly, at the ripe old age of twenty-two, I’ve never actually murdered anyone in cold blood before—technically it was self-defense, though I’m having trouble convincing myself it’s any different.
There may have been another choice besides killing him, but in the moment, I could only think about doing whatever I could to survive.
My lower lip wobbles and my eyes burn. A single tear spills over and carves down my cheek. I wipe it away angrily. Something sticky replaces it, likely the blood from Bes’s wound.
The young man in question glances at me in the rearview mirror. Worry crinkles the skin between his dark eyebrows. “Are you alright, Miss Hawkins?”
“I’m fine,” I snap. “Mind your damned business.”
Bes clicks his tongue. “Your tita must have her hands full.”
Unchecked frustration rises inside me, and I lock my blood-stained hand onto his shoulder before I can stop myself. “Stop talking about my nonna.”
“Bloody hell!” Bes swerves from the unexpected contact, only narrowly avoiding the thick trunk of a palm tree. Dust and sand kick up around us, floating inside the car.
He rights the wheel hastily, the car wobbling on for a bit longer. “What’s your problem? You could’ve flipped the bloody car!”
My anger simmers. “Oh, I’m sorry, did my decision ruin your day? Like your decision to be late ruined mine?”
Williams moans and shifts restlessly in his seat.
The edge in Bes’s voice softens. “Let’s discuss this later, when we’re out of danger.”
I release my fingers from his shoulder. “I think we’re well out of danger now, with our Nazi pal dead. You’re welcome, by the way.”
“Thank you,” he says after a moment, sounding sincere.
It doesn’t make me feel any better.
“I take it you haven’t been to Egypt before,” he says after a moment.
My grip tightens on the edge of my own seat beside either thigh to distract myself from what I’ve done. Try as I might, though, I can’t let go of my indignation at Bes. I know I’m being unreasonable, but I’m not ready to face my sins, and berating this stranger is distraction enough.
“Oh, you’re just a glorified errand boy. What do you know?”
His scarred hands flex around the steering wheel. “Enough to know that you’re in shock. And you’re making it terribly difficult to concentrate on the road that’s going to take us out of here alive. Therefore, respectfully, sit back and be quiet.”
Respectfully? I grit my teeth and cross my arms over my still-dampened chest, choosing silence.
Because I realize he’s right, and I hate it.
I don’t like being told what to do by anyone, much less a complete stranger who could abandon me in the desert if he were so inclined.
He hasn’t so far, but that doesn’t mean something I say won’t push him over the edge.
I also don’t want to be the reason we’re left with no way back to civilization.
“Fine.”
Slumping back into my seat, I decide I’m done: I’ve had a long day, and the need to slip into oblivion beckons me.
I uncinch my bag and rifle through the soggy contents for one of the stoppered plastic vials of Veronal I brought for this very occasion. Hopefully Claude didn’t destroy them in his haste to find the gun.
First, my fingers brush a roll of gauze I packed for when I inevitably hurt myself.
I sigh internally. It’s soaking wet with stagnant aquifer water.
Great. I’m sure the museum will have something I can use to wrap my scraped-up hands and injured knee.
Maybe some alcohol to act as an antiseptic.
Drinkable alcohol, preferably—two birds, one stone, as it were.
Finally, my hand closes around one of the vials and I breathe a sigh of relief. Nonna has been importing this miracle drug from New Zealand since before my mother was born, for when she couldn’t sleep from her night terrors. The same night terrors she haplessly passed onto her granddaughter.
Ah family, the gift which keeps on giving.
I pull out the cork and down the tasteless powder, knowing there’s no other way I’m going to survive the trek back to Cairo with Bes and Tommy-boy without it.
“Wake me up when we get there, Skippy.”
Bes says something in reply, but I only hear garbled, nonsensical words strung together as the drugs drag me under into blissful nothingness.