His second honeymoon wasn't supposed to end up like this.
Nathan Drake pulled himself atop a sturdy antique bookcase and clutched his thigh, desperate to apply pressure to recently-torn flesh. His fingers slipped, slick with his own blood, and he could feel the tatters of his jeans clinging the wound already. Considering what they'd been through this evening, he was up for one hell of an infection. But he would have to worry about that later—getting a nasty infection meant he'd have to live long enough for that to happen, first. It was crazy to think that of all the things in Australia that could kill him—spiders, snakes, jellyfish, crocodiles, sharks, stingrays, cassowaries, stinging trees-he never expected to be mauled by a goddamn tiger. He flicked his gaze from the beast up to Elena—wide-eyed, silent, pressed into the corner of the wall atop the bookshelf, but thankfully unharmed. The tiger reared up on its haunches and swiped at the bookcase, raking its claws through wood and knocking a Victorian vase to the floor. It shattered over the hardwood so loudly that it may as well have been heard in Cairns.
"Bad kitty," he said, and prayed that the guards hadn't been alerted, too.
Days Earlier...
Sunset and a stunning view of the city made a perfect backdrop for a quiet anniversary dinner for two. Their steak was nice and bloody, the wine palatable, and Nate was grateful to be seated outside; the harbor breeze was just gentle enough to cool his recent sunburn. He must have looked ridiculous, bright red nose clashing with the suit he'd donned for the occasion, but otherwise he cleaned up well enough. Besides, it wasn't often that Elena put on that tight little blue number of a dress that he couldn't wait to get her out of later that night.
She stopped fiddling with her new camera's menu settings and pointed it at him. He'd given it to her before dinner, and predictably she'd brought it along with her.
"Here we are on the far side of the world in Sydney, Australia, with up-and-coming author Nathan Drake, flush with the imminent success of his debut thriller, No Honor Among Thieves." Nate rolled his eyes, but smiled. He'd ignored all advice as well as tradition in not getting her jewelry as an anniversary gift. A nice camera seemed like something she would appreciate more. And by the way she was grinning at him through the viewfinder, he could safely say that he was on the money. He could certainly afford it-his utterly fictional and not at all inspired by real events novel about an antiquities dealer who finds the lost treasure of El Dorado had been optioned as a film as part of his publisher's close relationship to the studio. His book hadn't even hit the shelves yet, but that was just how the publishing and film industries went these days-option film rights early while they're cheap, reap bigger rewards or minimize potential losses on your potential blockbusters. He didn't expect anything to come of it, honestly. His deal was just one of many that the studio made that year, and it would probably die a lingering death in development hell. But as Sully would point out, he got a hundred grand out of it, and that's all that mattered.
"Congratulations on your upcoming book, Mr. Drake," Elena continued. "And happy anniversary." She reached into her purse, pulled out a small gift-wrapped box, and slid it across the table.
"Oh honey, is it those diamond earrings I've been waiting for?" He teased, making a show of shaking the box.
"Just shut up and open it!" She said, then added: "you know, we should've done this earlier. I could have filmed you earning that sunburn."
"Yeah, you would tape me falling ass over teakettle off that crappy foam surfboard." The first day of their Australia adventure had been spent at the beach, with Elena goading him into giving surfing a shot. That ended badly for his ego, although the locals found his failures hilarious. But splashing around in the ocean and dropping down walls of water had scratched at a familiar itch of his—it had been far too long since either of them had done anything really exciting. Shortly after coming home from Yemen, he'd been approached to go looking for Zerzura, yet another mythological city in the middle of the desert. Tales claimed that terrible giants guarded the priceless treasures of the dove-white oasis. Knowing his luck, that would have proven to be all too true and then some. He turned the offer down, a prospect that at the time was perhaps a little scarier than bounding off into the desert again.
Instead he spent much of the past year chartering flights on Sully's plane for pocket money, writing, and shopping his manuscript out to publishers. As for Elena, she had backed down from covering a spate of violent uprisings in the Middle East, which did a lot for his peace of mind considering the number of journalists that died in the conflict. She turned to following up on human rights violations in China instead. It was a grand mutual experiment in not-dying, but fortunately their wanderlust couldn't be suppressed by well-intentioned responsibility forever. Being flush with cash in time for their anniversary seemed like a sign, and so they hightailed it out of the country as fast as they could once he got the news about the film deal. Nothing was really planned and there was no real itinerary here, and that sat just fine with Nate.
He turned his present over and hooked a finger into the folds of the paper, tearing it open to reveal a black velveteen ring box. He flicked it open. Inside was a ring that he would have mistaken for silver if he weren't so experienced at telling the difference in such things. The white gold was etched with a Latin inscription.
"Elena, you didn't," he said, tugging it out of the box. She had even tied to a leather cord. She said nothing, but gave him a look and raised an eyebrow in anticipation of something. He inspected the ring closer, and found that it was not a true replica of Francis Drake's ring; the Latin inscription didn't translate to 'greatness from small beginnings' at all. As he turned the ring over in in his fingers, silently mouthing the words, he laughed. "I did not think that far ahead?"
"I thought it was an appropriate motto for you," she replied. "I've been holding onto it for months, and I had to stop myself from giving it to you earlier. You keep tugging the buttons off your shirts."
It was hard for him to break a twenty-year habit of fiddling with Francis Drake's ring whenever he got lost in thought. Unfortunately for the second button on his Henley shirts, they were in roughly the same spot where the ring used to be. They didn't take too well to his absent-minded twisting.
"Since when do you know Latin," he asked. With the way Elena took up languages and nosed through his books, it was a valid question.
"I don't, but Charlie does."
"Sneaky," he said, slipping the leather cord over his head. "... Thanks. This is. This is perfect."
Elena turned off the camcorder and snapped it shut, her expression warm. She parted her lips to speak, but was interrupted by the buzzing and chirping of her cell phone's text notification going off. Nate groaned.
"I thought you were going to keep that thing turned off!"
"I thought it was off!" Elena pulled it from her handbag and looked at the screen. She immediately began to tap out a reply. Nate sighed. Everything had been going so well, and now he was up for a fight or she would spend the night getting wrapped up in work again. Or both. She glanced up at him.
"I know, I know. But someone is telling me that they have a hot tip on Jiang." Jiang Peng was the subject of Elena's latest crusade—the guy was a major player in the CCP's Politburo, and responsible for placing political dissidents and scholars under house arrest or worse.
"Can't it wait?"
"What do you think I'm telling them right now?"
"That they should call your producer, because you're on vacation and preoccupied with your incredibly handsome husband?"
"Something like that," she teased, finishing the text. She held up the phone for him to see and turned it off. "There. Done."
"Good," Nate said, easing back in his chair. He reached for the bottle of wine and refreshed his glass, then hers. "Because I have a few ideas about how we can use that camera tonight."
"You are so horrible," Elena laughed and attacked her steak with a fork. Taking a year off from business as usual had worried him. And it had been tough, damn tough, to break his old habits. But after everything he'd put her through he owed her that much—to actually give it a try. She was happy. He was happy. Sure, they still had spats, but nobody had walked out on anybody this time. It was slow-going, this life, but considering the results, maybe going legit wasn't so bad after all.
He awoke the next morning to find that Elena was already up and pacing around the room in a pink camisole, her fingers darting over the keypad of her phone in rapid-fire. He slung an arm over the side of the bed and felt around for his discarded underwear. "Morning, sunshine," he said as he snatched them up from the floor and slid them on.
"Hey there, cowboy," she replied, not glancing up from the screen. "Are you feeling alright? You went through more than a couple of glasses of wine last night."
"Well, it feels like there's a desert in my mouth and I could use an aspirin, but other than that, not too bad. Did you pack aloe?" The sunburn was more of a bother than the mild hangover.
"Yeah, check my bag in the bathroom," she said.
He plodded over to the bathroom, his eyes still bleary from sleep, and unzipped the black leather bag that Elena kept her cosmetics in. It didn't take much digging to locate a bottle filled with blessed green goo. The blue stuff with lidocaine would have been better, but something was better than nothing. He slathered it over his nose and walked back over to the bed.
"So, what would you think of going to the museum today," Elena asked, putting away her phone and sitting next to him at the foot of the bed.
He shrugged. "I guess we could do that. Why?"
"Since we're here, I want to get a leg up on my Australian history?" Neither her tone nor her choice of words were at all convincing. And she called him a bad liar.
"Okay, you weren't even trying with that one. What are you up to? And don't say 'nothing.'"
Elena made a face and took a breath before speaking. "He's coming here. To Australia. There's a collection of artifacts on loan from China that will be made open to the public in a couple of days, and he'll be there for the reveal—something to do with him facilitating the loan. According to my source, there's something else going on, and I should meet them at the museum to find out more."
By 'he' Nate assumed she meant Jiang. "Couldn't you just try and get in on the press event?"
"I could," she shrugged. "But all I'd get out of that are some non-answers. The museum wants reporters to put in a nice story for the local papers or evening news to get more bodies through the door; what they really don't want is someone asking questions about forced labor camps. I don't want to just be part of the PR hype, especially if there's something else going on here."
"What makes you trust this source anyway," Nate asked. A lead based on anonymous text messages? Yeah, like that couldn't be sketchy as hell.
"It could be nothing," Elena agreed. "But I'd like to check it out anyway. Who knows when I'll get another lead like this? Besides, even if it's bogus, the museum would still be interesting, right?" She leaned forward, placing her elbows on her knees, and damned if it wasn't cute.
Nate shrugged. He wasn't crazy about the prospect of Elena burying herself in work while on this trip, but he couldn't bring himself to stay away from intrigue at a museum. "What the hell? I could use the shade, anyway."
"Great!" She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and kissed him lightly on the cheek. "I'm going to need your help smuggling a camera in. There's a no camera policy."
"I see how it is, you're just using me for my disreputable skills." He hugged her waist and rested his forehead against hers.
"There's a reason I married a thief," she said.
"Just one reason?"
"If I think of any others I'll let you know." She winked and stood up. "C'mon, we gotta get ready!"
Nate shook his head. Elena was still very much the same plucky girl he'd fallen for five years ago. And as much as he loved it, that probably meant that she was headed straight for trouble.