He groans again, eyes fluttering open.
Cec kneels at his side. “Are you alright, Bes? Hawkins says you were stabbed.”
“That I was,” he manages.
Protecting me, I think.He was stabbed protecting me.
Cec looks near me. “And you were down there with him?”
“She shouldn’t have been,” Bes cuts in before I can respond. “She should’ve come up here at the first sign of trouble.”
I nearly yell at him, before reminding myself to keep my voice down. “I suppose I was too damn stubborn to just abandon you.”
While Cec feels around for the grate with his foot and pushes it back over the hole, Bes regards me with appreciation in his eyes. “A fool thing to do.”
Why is he being so obstinate?I refuse to feel remorse for wanting to help him.
My gaze searches his. “I’ll gladly play the fool if it means never leaving you behind.”
After a moment, he shakes his head, unable to keep a soft grin from pulling at his lips. Then winces again.
“It means more than you can know to hear you say that,” he grinds out, “but you can’t put yourself in danger trying to save me. It’ll only end in death or disappointment.”
I open my mouth to argue, but clamp it shut. Bes almost died tonight taking a knife in the shoulder for me—and might still if we can’t stop the bleeding.
Breathing shallow, Bes says, “Cec, take my right arm and help me up.”
His cousin is at his side instantly, lifting Bes to his feet with impressive strength.
“Where’s the knife?” Cec asks.
“Left shoulder.”
Cec clicks his tongue. “We’ll have to leave it in until we can get back to the boat and stitch you up.”
Cec turns toward me. “Can you sew, Hawkins? I can attempt it, but it would be better if someone who can actually see does it.”
I nod, then remember he can’t see me. “I can, and I will. Whatever Bes needs.”
Bes’s attention shifts to me. Wiping the blood from his lip with the back of his good hand, his gaze searches mine intently. Despite him nearly dying, my heart races at his attention; it must be the lingering adrenaline.
His voice is rough when he speaks again. “Cec, give Miss Hawkins your jacket.”
Shucking off his tuxedo jacket without questioning the request, Cec offers it to me.
I shake my head. “I don’t—”
“Unfortunately, you do.” His pointed gaze flicks down my jumpsuit.
Following it, I find the spattered blood left behind from the Blackshirt I killed. My stomach turns at the sight, but settles quicker than I thought it would. I appear to be coming to terms with the killing of fascists at my own hand, yet refuse to stomach the idea of Bes dying at theirs.
Killing was once so foreign to me. A sin not only in practically every religion I refuse to subscribe to, but my own moral code as well. Now, in less than a week, I’ve killed three people who would’ve done the same to me if given the opportunity, and… I don’t regret it.
Not yet, anyway.
Each time I’m faced with choosing between living and dying, I choose living the only way I can in this new world I’ve been thrust into: by killing. Instead of being gutted long after, like I still am with Claude, I find I’m relieved when I gain the upper hand over the fascists whose sole purpose is to kill us and take the amulet. They’re not interested in negotiating; they only follow orders.
Before the Temple of Seti I, I didn’t consider lethal self-defense an option. Now… now there’s too much at stake to question the morality of the thing before taking action. I already made the mistake of not killing Ingrid at the museum. Ailsa died in Messina—and we all nearly died moments ago—because of it.
