There's A Fine Line Between Coincidence & Fate ✓

Chapter 42

*Ardeth's POV*

We land in Cairo, and I don't waste anytime separating from the group and rushing back to the tribe. "Are you certain? That the creature has once more joined the land of the living?" Everyone was asking too many questions at once.

"Quiet!" My mother yells. "Let the man speak, or you won't get any answers."

"Thank you, mother." I say quietly to her. "Yes, I watched it happen with my own two eyes. He hadn't yet regained full form. But he has more help this time. I wouldn't be surprised if by the time we reach back up to them, he's already taken what he needs from some poor souls."

"What are we going to do?" The chief from the 7th tribe asks.

"I'm going to assist the O'Connells locate their son. He is wearing the bracelet. If we can get to him in time, we can avoid this apocalypse."

"And what if you cannot reach him in time?"

"Then we must prepare for the worse. This is what we are here for. We are the protectors against this ancient threat. I will be bringing Horus, sending out our location daily so the armies may follow." The other chiefs nod and the village turns into a flurry of preparation.

"You were not being completely truthful in there my son." My mother says as she follows after me.

"Umi. Please. I need to go see my children before I must leave." I say desperately.

"Where is Margaret?" she asks and I look away, pained.

"She's been taken. By Lock-Nah." My mother gasps.

"Tell me everything..."

*Peggy's POV*

I groan as I wake up on an uncomfortable seat. "What's going on?" I ask, looking around, confused. I appeared to be in the brig of a ship.

"We're prisoners." Alex whispers as he also looks around, worriedly.

"Where are we?"

"On our way to Philae."

"I've been out for that long? What happened in Karnak?"

"Total devastation." He says.

"What?"

"Meela," he says, referring to the woman that was Anck Su Namun reincarnated, "she's no longer Meela. He brought her back. And I tried... I tried to escape." He says, looking down ashamed.

"Alex, if you see a moment where you can get free, where you can get back to your parents, you take it. You do not worry about me." I tell him, struggling to sit up.

"No, don't. Whatever that mummy did to you, it's... infecting you." Alex says, wincing as he looks at my back. I can feel the wound bleeding or weeping through my shirt.

"Ok, that's going to leave a scar." I mumble before we lurch forward. We must have reached land. Alex and I are drug from our cells. I'm separated from him, drug through the ruins to a jail cell, where my arms are chained above me, exposing my torso to whatever they have planned for me. "What are you doing?" I ask but no one answers as Lock-Nah enters the cell.

I struggle to get free, to kill him with my bare hands. "It is funny how you think you're in any position of power here." He taunts.

"Clearly you're worried for your safety, or you wouldn't have cuffed me to the wall. Though I'm not surprised. Only a coward would attack a peaceful village and murder innocents." I spit at him.

"And only a coward kills an unarmed boy in retaliation." He says, anger and hatred marring his features.

"I find it hard to believe that my husband was anything less than honorable in avenging the deaths of our people, among them were his brother and father. And you knew exactly who you were attacking when you killed them. So don't try and pull the wool over my eyes. The laws of the desert are firm."

He shrugs. "Let's give Ardeth Bay another reason to hunt me down." He says, an evil grin on his face as he slides a knife into my abdomen, as if I was made of butter. As he walks to the entrance he has them uncuff me. I'm no longer a threat. Whether from the wound caused by the mummies, or the stab wound now causing me to bleed out onto the desert floor, I'm not making it home to my children.