Chapter 6 #2
Bazel left the room and then raced back. “But wait. I remember. Buckets. They old, metal, and say Wicked Lady on them, and it have picture of woman.”
Atlas turned to Wyatt and began typing at the computer.
“I thought it was strange. The Azerbaijani Star is a ship, but it hasn’t left Asia.
Now I get it. They told you the wrong ship so that it would throw anyone off.
But the buckets had the real ship name. The Wicked Lady was in Miami last week and left two days ago for Europe.
What do you want to bet that before she gets there, she makes an unscheduled stop somewhere on the Black Sea?
A day or two to pick up some lucrative cargo, and then she’s back on her route and once again headed to the US.
” Atlas hugged him, and Bazel didn’t quite know what to do.
“You did really good remembering all that.” He grinned, and Bazel’s belly did that fluttery thing again.
BAZEL FINISHED his tea and went upstairs to bed.
The others stayed downstairs talking for a while.
Eventually Atlas came up, turning out the lights.
Bazel rolled over, facing the wall as he tried to understand his feelings.
He knew when they happened, but not what they meant.
And that fluttery feeling in his belly hadn’t gone away, so maybe he was getting sick.
Evie came in and sat beside the bed. He rolled over and gently petted her, appreciating that she was there. Once he yawned she left the room, probably going to sleep in her usual spot with Atlas.
Then his thoughts shifted, and Bazel slid farther under the covers.
The man who broke into the house, the same one from earlier, was after him.
He hadn’t done anything other than get rescued from the back of a truck, from the hell he and all the people with him were going through.
“I no deserve this,” he said out loud, and then put his hand over his lips because he hadn’t meant to make a sound.
“No, you don’t,” Atlas said from the doorway a moment later.
He had these clingy shorts things on and nothing else.
Bazel knew he should turn away, but he couldn’t because Atlas was…
strong, and he made Bazel’s heart beat hard and fast. When his body reacted, Bazel shifted so Atlas couldn’t see.
Still, Atlas’s chest was full and prominent, with hair across it, and his belly had lines that led to his shorts.
He was a man, the best kind of man, and for a second, Bazel let his mind take a fantasy journey of touch and smell and taste before sliding back under the covers.
“I will keep you safe. We have put a bulletin out to the hospitals for anyone coming in with dog-bite injuries. He’s going to need help, and when he asks for it, we will find him. ”
“What if he not?” Bazel asked. “Maybe he go somewhere else.” The flutters in his belly grew more intense.
“We are going to find him and figure this out. I promise you.” Atlas sounded so sure and confident. “I’m not going to let someone take you or hurt you again.”
“Maybe he go after women.”
Atlas sighed. “He doesn’t know where they are.
Chris is very good at keeping women safe.
It’s what she does all the time. There isn’t one place anyone can go to find out where they are.
It’s like a puzzle, and you have to know all the pieces and how they fit in order to get to the information.
She set up the system, and even she doesn’t have access to all the pieces.
No one person does. That’s what will keep them safe. And it’s my job to keep you safe.”
“Okay,” Bazel said. “But I still scared.” And the more he thought about it, the more he felt it.
Fear was something he knew well. He had lived with it for a lot of his life, and he thought maybe by now he should be able to handle it.
Bazel blinked and steadied his voice. “I okay now.” He lied because he didn’t want Atlas to think him weak and not a man.
He couldn’t rely on Atlas to keep him safe and make the fear go away.
That was something he had to do for himself.
“You certain?”
“Yes. I sure,” he said with much more confidence than he felt. Atlas waited where he was for a few seconds. Bazel couldn’t help watching him as he turned and then left.
Bazel knew he had to be strong. That he could not let this man, the intruder, scare him.
He had been locked in a box at sea for days, maybe weeks.
He had been put in the back of a truck, hidden from everyone.
He was treated like he was an animal and had survived, and now he slept in a comfortable bed where a nice man promised to help keep him safe.
No one had promised to do anything for him in a long time who actually did what they said they were going to do.
They had tricked him when he paid all his money to get to America.
And then they treated him like he was property and belonged to them.
Atlas didn’t do any of that. He was good to Bazel…
and he was sexy. Atlas even explained that Bazel wasn’t wrong, that he was gay, and that there were lots of others like him.
That he had choices. Now maybe that was a really scary thing.
He actually got to decide what happened to him. That was completely new.
After a while his mind settled down and Bazel figured out what he would do if the man came back.
He would hide, and if the man found him, he would fight.
That was what he was going to do. He did not fight when they put him into the box or in the back of the truck.
He just went. But that was no more. Now he would fight.
Maybe it was because Atlas seemed ready to fight for him, and Bazel couldn’t let him fight alone.
It was time for him to stand up for himself and for what he wanted.
He had been someone who had just done what he was supposed to as he was growing up.
Then he did it again and left his village to try to come here because it was easier.
Now he just had to decide what he really wanted.
But then, that was easy. Bazel wanted a life here where he was free to be the person he was.
That was why he had left in the first place.
But there was more than that. A lot more.
His thoughts kept turning in circles, and he had to make them stop so he could go to sleep.
In the end, Bazel figured that he had time to think things through.
Atlas had given him that time, and Bazel wanted to do something to thank him for that. But he didn’t know what.