Chapter 13 #2
“And what if I threaten to jump off this boat and swim to shore? No doubt the God Men will find me soon enough. Maybe they are willing to tell me what I want to know.”
“That’s a bit dramatic,” Cec notes.
I am bluffing, of course; I’d be an idiot to let myself be caught by the God Men. But Bes and Cec don’t know that.
They exchange a look full of wordless discussion only one of them can appreciate.
Bes grudgingly meets my gaze again. “As I said before, if we could tell you the truth of it, we would.”
“Why can’t you?”
Bes stares out into the calm waters around us, answering my first question.
“If you swim to Civitavecchia and put yourself in the power of the God Men, we’re not coming after you.
Ailsa chose to die rather than subject herself to their methods.
So, you can throw your lot in with us, or take your chances with the fascists. ”
I grimace. I’ll never throw my lot in with the fascists—especially considering they’ve tried to kill me multiple times—but neither can I do as he asks and blindly trust them. I’ll have to keep my wits about me, as I always do.
As much as I still would love to go home and leave all this behind, there are reasons to stay.
I want to find out more about the God Men and how they know about me.
And… I’m growing more and more interested in whether or not the Amulet of Amun is imbued with magic.
Not just because it might be my only way home, either.
I’m also conflicted by whatever it is that’s happening between Bes and I, and my growing friendship with Cec. I haven’t found anyone like either of them back home, and I’m simply not ready to leave them yet.
Crossing my arms over my chest, I regard him harshly. “Well, when you put it like that, I suppose I’ll take the lesser of two evils.”
Unnerved by the silence left behind after that statement, I practically stomp over to the bow of the ship, expecting to be left alone. Instead, someone—presumably Bes, since I don’t hear the mark of Cec’s cane—follows at a distance.
“We should be safe here for the night,” he says, his voice weighed down with sleeplessness.
Safe… I don’t know when I’ll ever feel safe again. I haven’t felt safe since I landed in Cairo, and being on the run certainly hasn’t made it any better.
Despite purging my woes on paper and Cec’s attempts to reassure me earlier, the feelings I’ve been trying to repress surge back to the surface with a vengeance. Especially after all I’ve been through with Claude and now Ailsa. Heat rises to my cheeks and my hands curl into fists.
I nod stiffly to myself and turn on him, back biting into the metal. “I suppose that’s all I can ask for then. Being safe one night at a time. It’s a completely natural way to live.”
He grimaces, anger and possibly regret sparking in his eyes, the bruises underneath them deepening. “I know it’s been difficult, but a little gratitude would be nice.”
I laugh humorlessly. Now he’s done it. I’m at my wit’s end, and Bes is about to bear the brunt of it.
“Gratitude? You’ve practically abducted me at this point. I’ve had my life threatened more than enough times in the last sixty-odd hours because of you, and I’m sick of it.”
Clearly, the lack of sleep has finally caught up with Bes, because he grips the back of his neck hard. “If it weren’t for me ‘abducting’ you”—the word is saturated with sarcasm—“you would’ve met your end at the hands of the bloody God Men.”
I throw my hands up. “Oh, because you’re so concerned about whether I live or die? You’ve chosen to withhold crucial information from me or flat-out lied to me, likely putting me in harm’s way simply by being near you. And you want gratitude?”
“I’m doing it for your own good,” he argues. “Can’t you see that?”
“My own good? You don’t know me well enough to know what is and what isn’t for my own good. You expect me to believe all of this”—I gesture around me wildly—“is for my own good, and not the good of the damned amulet?” I throw my hands up in the air. “You can fuck right off.”
The amulet in question warms against my chest.
Bes runs the hand that was gripping his neck through his hair, whirling away from me and muttering. “Idiotic, egotistical, selfish—”
He cuts himself off. But I’m not done being angry with him. Yelling is how we fix things in my family, and if I don’t express myself in a way I’ll most likely regret later, I’m going to explode.
“Selfish what?” I bite out.
He doesn’t answer.
“Go on,” I goad him, “say it.”
He spins and marches up to me, his face sharp in anger, bloodshot eyes flashing behind his glasses. “American.”
Chest heaving, he spits it out like a swear word, like an insult. It’s exactly the kind of thing I expected him to say. But I’m more than the country of my birth. More, even, than my Italian and Irish ancestry.
The longer we stay like this, the more I realize how close we’ve become. He must recognize it as well because his hands unclench and he blinks, his gaze softening. Chest heaving, his deep brown eyes flick to my lips and away again, brow furrowing.
Fighting the heat clawing up my neck, I shove him back, gentler than I mean to. “Well, get ready for history to repeat itself, because this American is about to revolt against her British captors.”
I make a move for the railing, the metal cold and wet beneath my fingers from the sea spray.
Before I can attempt to climb up on it, Bes touches my arm.
He doesn’t grab it, just barely brushes my skin.
It stops me in my tracks and sends my pulse into a gallop.
Which infuriates me. One man shouldn’t hold such power over me from a simple touch.
“Miss Hawkins, I’m sorry,” he says.
An actual apology from Bes Belzoni—will wonders never cease?
I turn, finding him directly behind me, no more than a foot of space between us. We stare at each other, his face as unreadable as ever. The only thing that gives him away is the slight bob in his throat.
In the pressing silence, I have an inexplicable urge to apologize for the things I said too. And yet, I can’t seem to make the words come out.
He breaks first again, taking a step back.
“I can’t tell you what you most desperately seek to know, but you’re going to have to find a way to trust me. Trust us.”
“How?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper. “I told you, Bes, my faith is earned. I trust my nonna, who trusts Arturo. But you? What have you done to earn it? I don’t know a single thing about you except that you know how to shoot a gun and you’re keeping secrets.”
“You want to know more about me?” Searching the skies a moment, he meets my gaze again.
“When Cec and I were children, before his affliction took hold, we went on a few expeditions with my mother. She often left us with the friend of whoever’s house we were staying at, so she could spend weeks at a time on a dig.
I promised my mother I’d look after Cec, but, eventually Cec got bored—”
“That’s not difficult to believe,” I interject.
“—and snuck out without telling anyone, not even me. My mother told me not to leave the house, but finding Cec and bringing him back was more important than what she might do to me if she learned I went against her word.”
His gaze remains far off, lost in the memory as he continues.
“I found him leaping between the dancers at some local festival. I immediately grabbed him, and forced him back home. When the woman we were staying with asked where we’d been, I told her I wanted to go see the festival and I dragged Cec with me.
Upon my mother’s return, she made me hold my arms above my head for an hour as punishment.
Still, I never told a soul the truth of that night. Until now, that is.”
My lips part in disbelief and melancholy. It sounds as if Bes has been taking care of Cec long before now.
“I tell you this not for you to pity me, but as a first step in gaining your trust,” he says, dark eyes finally meeting mine, “until I can prove it to you in actions.”
He holds my gaze until I look away, still ashamed for acting so childish. It’s not the worst tantrum I’ve thrown, but it wasn’t great either. Especially now that he’s shared a secret part of himself with me. At least I didn’t actually climb up on the railing.
“I’m sorry for”—I gesture at the railing I planned to leap off of—“all that. I’m sure it doesn’t surprise you I’m an only child and am therefore used to getting my way.”
He nods. “It does explain a lot about you, actually.” His lip pulls up slightly at the corner. “But it’s not your fault that we’re in this situation. What I said before was out of line. I apologize.”
I watch him for a moment, wondering where this Bes has been all this time. “Apology accepted.”
“I’d like us to be friends, Miss Hawkins,” he says after a moment.
Friends… hearing him say it aloud, it doesn’t sound right.
I’m not sure Bes and I could ever be friends, whether it’s because he turns out to be my enemy after all this, or for another reason entirely.
Once again, I’m reminded of the way he held me on the stern of the boat, after I nearly went overboard.
He could’ve let me go immediately once he realized I was safe.
Yet, he didn’t. He comforted me when he should’ve been driving the boat.
“This situation… it’s not ideal, for you in particular,” he continues.
“Both Cec and I are aware of that. A great evil in the world chases you because of your association with the amulet, but you must know by now that, at the very least, we’re not that evil.
And I hope, in time, I can earn your trust.”
Bes holds out his hand.
I grasp his olive branch and shake it. “It’s a deal.”
Our grasped hands linger for a moment, warmth spreading along my arm toward my chest from the contact—