To say I'm sorry about the delay would be an understatement. :) When writer's block hits, it hits with a vengeance. (Not to mention, I really didn't want this to seem like Eve's fab fic, The Distance, so that's where a lot of my troubles started.)
I'm planning a wedding now, and working full time, so I honestly can't say when chapter 8 will come, but hopefully not in another nine months. :)
~PZB
Chapter 7
My mind was spinning. I couldn't get her out of my head. What the hell was my malfunction? I couldn't close my eyes – I would just picture her glancing down at me with that little "I-told-you-so" smile, or the way she looked at me on the dock, as though I could actually be a human being in her perfect little world. Dammit! This is so annoying. A woman had never been more than someone to entertain a night with...maybe I had just never found one that intrigued me in such a way. But this was unnerving. This was *very* unnerving. How the hell was I supposed to be able to do anything with thoughts like these running through my head?
So I gave up on sleep. Sleep is just a waste of time anyway.
The sun finally starting to peak over the sand dunes to the east, casting an eerie orange glow on the Nile. Jonathan was grinding, Hassan was mumbling some Arab nonsense or other, and Evelyn... Evelyn's skin took on this strange, radiant glow, like she was born of the morning desert sun...
Dammit!!
I slammed my head into the trunk of the palm tree I was leaning against, rattling the fronds above. One came loose, careening down on top of Evelyn. She awoke with a scream, sending my hands to my guns, even though I knew what was wrong. Damn reflexes. Jonathan awoke with a start, swearing he hadn't touched her, while I leapt to my feet, freeing the thrashing librarian from the palm frond. "Hey. Hey!" I finally had to grab her wrists to keep her from decking me. "Evelyn, are you all right?" Her eyes finally opened...she had slept through that?...and she looked up at me, down to my hands holding hers, then back up at me. I let go immediately, much to her surprise, as she lost her balance and fell back into the sand with a thud. "Are you all right?" I asked again, as she sat up slowly, rubbing her head.
"I...I think so," she muttered, glancing to Jonathan as he struggled to his feet.
"What in God's name is going on here?" Jonathan stammered. "O'Connell, if you touched one hair on my sister's head, so help me..."
"Oh, do shut up, Jonathan," Evelyn hissed. "Mister O'Connell did no such thing. If I was attacked by anything, it was the palm tree."
"Bloody trees," Jonathan said, glancing at the frond lying in the sand. I glared at Jonathan for a moment as he staggered away from us, through the reeds, mumbling something about nature calling.
To no ones surprise, Hassan was still snoring. I rolled my eyes as I stood up straight, walked over to the warden and gave him a good, square kick in the ribs. "Get up, Hassan," I ordered. "We move out in twenty minutes."
"Umm, Mister O'Connell, if I may..." Evelyn started scrambling to her feet. "I...well, you see, I was thinking last night, and umm, well I can't very well go traipsing about the desert in just a chemise..." As much as Hassan might like to see that...
"Yeah, I know. There should be a Kasbah about twenty, thirty kilometers from here. We'll pick up supplies and camels while we're there."
"No there isn't," Hassan spat, grumbling as he rubbed his ribs. I closed my eyes for a moment, rubbing my temples to keep from shooting the bastard.
"Yeah, there is."
"And what makes you the expert?"
"How about the fact that I spent three years parading around here and two months of that was in the Kasbah that's twenty kilometers from here?" I turned away from the putz before he could grate on my even further.
We hadn't been on the road more than ten minutes before Jonathan started whining.
"God, I'm hungry!"
"Quite," Evelyn agreed. "But what can we do but trek onward?" I sighed, the first of many for the day. I had no sleep, and this was never a good thing when dealing with idiots, wardens, and women in nothing but a nightgown. I kept my eyes on the horizon, looking for any sign of the Kasbah, doing everything in my power to keep my eyes from wandering over.
"But Evy, how am I supposed to 'trek onward' if I haven't the strength to put one foot in front of the other?"
"Think of it this way," I said, breaking my silence. "Either stop thinking about food, or you will be food."
"And just what is that supposed to mean?" Jonathan shot defensively. I pointed to the circling buzzards about a hundred yards away, then glanced at Hassan. "Ah, I see. Good point, ol' boy." I wish he would stop calling me that. "So tell me more about this gold, Evy darling." Oh, boy. Here we go again. I tuned her out, fed up with the talk of this supposed gold. It sounded all too familiar. Besides that, I knew if I listened to her, I'd look at her, and given the fact that it was already hot, she would more than likely be sweating... Dammit!!! I buried my face in my hands for a long moment, trying to forcibly rub away the images in my head.
"Are you all right, Mister O'Connell?" the librarian asked, placing a hand on my shoulder.
"Yeah. Fine. Didn't sleep. It's catching up is all." Whether or not she bought it I'll never know, but she nodded with a small comforting smile, before turning back to her brother, continuing her tales of the City of the Dead. I resigned myself to listen...not so much to what she was saying. Just to her voice.
