Chapter 6 #2
My jaw clenches. The sound is piercing in the confined space. Combined with the howling wind and the sand battering the vehicle, it’s overwhelming.
I pull out my phone, then remember there’s no signal. Of course there isn’t. We’re in the middle of nowhere, and a sandstorm is erasing what little connection to civilization we had.
I try to pull up my offline maps anyway, checking how far we are from the site, calculating delays. If this storm lasts three hours, we won’t reach camp until afternoon. That’s half a day lost.
“How far away are we from camp?” I ask, leaning forward to study the car’s screen.
Khalid taps the dashboard screen. “The storm is interfering. I’m losing the GPS coordinates. The satellite signal is degraded. Too much interference. I have the general area, but the precise coordinates are…” He taps the screen again. “Intermittent.”
“Can you fix it?”
“I can try to boost the signal, but there’s no guarantee. We might need to wait for the storm to pass.”
Ella’s screaming reaches a new pitch. Georgia is doing everything she can, offering toys, singing, making soothing sounds, but nothing works. The toddler is terrified and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.
I feel my control slipping. “This is a disaster,” I mutter to myself, but in the close quarters of the SUV, everyone hears.
“It’s a storm,” Georgia says tightly, still trying to calm Ella. “It happens.”
“We should have left earlier. We should have—”
“Should have what? Predicted the weather? Calvin, this is the desert. Things happen that we can’t control. And we left at five in the morning.”
“We could control being prepared—”
“We are prepared. We have shelter, we have supplies, we have an experienced guide. What we need now is patience.”
That word again. Patience.
“If we’d left on time—”
“We left on time!” Georgia’s voice rises, and even Ella stops crying for a moment, startled. “We left exactly when Khalid said we should leave. This storm isn’t anyone’s fault. It’s just bad luck.”
“Bad luck that’s costing us half a day—”
“So, what do you want to do about it?” She turns to face me fully, and there’s fire in her eyes. “Do you want to drive through it? Risk getting lost, risk an accident? Or do you want to sit here safely and wait, like Khalid advised?”
“I want to not be sitting here uselessly—”
“Then stop complaining and help!” She gestures at Ella, who’s building up to another crying jag. “You’re sitting right there. Distract her. Play with her. Do something besides spiral about things you can’t change.”
The words hit like a slap. She’s accusing me of being weak, and if she really knew me, she would know that I’m anything but that.
“I am not spiraling,” I hiss through tight teeth.
“Yes, you are. You’re losing it over something completely beyond your control. It’s a storm, Calvin. It happens. We wait, and then we move on. Like adults.”
The silence in the SUV is deafening. Even the wind seems to quiet for a moment.
Edmond is studying his hands with great interest. Khalid is very focused on the navigation system, though I already know there’s nothing he can do about it. He’s only trying to look busy and like he’s somehow not listening to the conversation happening less than two feet away from him.
“I am handling this,” I say through gritted teeth.
“No, you’re panicking. And it’s not helping. In fact, it’s making everyone else nervous.” Georgia’s voice is quieter now but no less firm. “So, pull yourself together and let Khalid do his job. That’s what you hired him for.”
She turns back to Ella, effectively dismissing me, and starts singing a soft lullaby.
I sit there, fury and humiliation burning in my chest.
This is the second time in twelve hours Georgia has called me out. Last night at dinner, and now this. And both times, she’s done it in front of others.
I’m the boss. I’m funding this entire operation. And she’s treating me like… like what? An incompetent child having a tantrum?
If she thinks she’s in charge, we’re going to have serious problems. There’s a reason the saying too many cooks in the kitchen exists. Projects need clear leadership, clear hierarchy. Otherwise, it’s chaos.
And I don’t do chaos.
I stare out the window at the wall of sand, my hands clenched into fists. Yes, she’s brilliant. Yes, she’s the lead archaeologist. Yes, I hired her specifically for her expertise.
But this is my project. My grandmother’s legacy. My money funding every aspect of this operation.
She needs to remember that.
The storm rages on. Minutes crawl by. Georgia’s lullaby eventually soothes Ella into hiccuping quiet, then sleep. The toddler’s head lolls against the car seat, her cheeks still flushed and tear-stained.
Khalid works silently with the navigation system, checking and rechecking coordinates, boosting signals.
After what feels like hours but is probably only forty minutes, the storm begins to ease.
The brown wall of sand thins, then breaks.
Visibility improves from only inches to yards, and then suddenly the whole landscape is back.
“We’re good,” Khalid announces quietly, mindful of sleeping Ella. “GPS is back online. I’ve got the coordinates locked in.”
“How far?” I ask, matching his volume.
“About two hours at safe speed. The storm will have changed the terrain slightly, covered some tracks, revealed others. We need to go carefully.”
We start moving again, and I watch the desert roll past. It looks different post-storm. The sand patterns have shifted, creating new dunes, erasing old ones. It’s beautiful and alien—and completely indifferent to human plans.
Ella sleeps on, exhausted from her fear. Georgia sits staring out the window with her hand on her daughter’s leg, protective even in the child’s sleep.
I should apologize. Or at least acknowledge that maybe I was overreacting.
But I don’t.
Because if this is how she treats me in front of the team after one day, what will the next six months look like? Constant challenges to my authority? Public disagreements? Her expertise wielded like a weapon every time I try to move things forward?
The thought exhausts me.
But there’s something else, underneath the irritation.
Something I don’t want to examine too closely.
And it’s that she wasn’t wrong. I was losing control.
I was letting my anxiety about the project, about living up to my grandmother’s memory, about proving my father wrong, get ahold of me until I was no longer in charge.
And she saw my freakout and called it out. Shut it down.
Like an adult.
The phrase stung because it’s accurate. I was acting like a child denied a toy, not a professional managing a complex operation.
I hate that she was right, but I hate even more that everyone else knew she was right.
“Another hour,” Khalid says softly, reading my mind or possibly just checking the GPS. “We’ll be there before noon.”
“Good,” I manage, and focus on the horizon.
This is not how I envisioned this project starting. But then again, nothing about the past twenty-four hours has gone according to plan.
Welcome to the desert. Where control is an illusion and even the weather has opinions about your schedule.
I close my eyes and try to center myself. We’re almost there. Once we reach camp, once we start actual work, things will stabilize. Structure will return. I’ll prove myself capable, and Georgia will see that I’m not just some random rich guy playing at archaeology.
I’ll prove her wrong. Because it’s important to me… Even when it probably shouldn’t be.