Part Deux!

Proof I'll Return

Chapter two: Running With Your Eyes Closed

His combats lay slung over the top of the shower rail. A pair of heavy leather boots sat just outside. The morning sun, which poured through the window like liquid gold, outlined Kurtis' athletic physique against the shower curtain.

She leaned against the doorframe and watched his dark shadow as he leaned into the rush of the water, letting it flow and caress over his body, waking him. Unaware of her presence, he lifted his head back, ran his hands into his hair, and breathed out a deep relaxing sound.

She was about to pull the curtain aside and join him when she heard the heavy oak of her front door smash in.

The sound echoed cavernously throughout the mansion, and then, silence.

At least that was what it sounded like to the untrained ear. After years of careful trap evasion, Lara's hearing was honed to impressive standards. She could detect the soft shuffling of more than one person as it echoed around the hall… up the stairway… along the corridor… through the door.

By instinct, she leapt back towards her bed to pull twin pistols from her bedside cabinet. Yanking on a shirt and knickers, she searched around for shorts while tugging on the nearest pair of shoes she could find.

Kurtis strode out of the bathroom silently, wet-haired and combat clad, dog tags swinging against his bare chest as he tied up his boots. He jerked his belt tight around his narrow waist and holstered the Boran X in it. Closing his eyes and holding his hands out before him, the whole room became painted in hues of red as his subconscious slid through the bedroom door and into the corridor beyond...

Lara abandoned her fruitless search for some leg coverage when Kurtis snapped back into his body. He held a finger to her lips to silence her.

His voice spoke calmly and businesslike in her mind. We have to get out of here- there's mercenaries in the walkway on the other side of this door, but there's an open window at the end, he turned his head to smile sideways at her, and there was a click as he loaded his gun. Feel like a little target practice?

Ladies first. Lara grinned and kicked the door out.

The first unusual thing the soldiers were confronted by upon entering the mansion was the elderly man in nightclothes carrying two AK-47's( alongside the reels of ammo hung about his person), a shotgun strapped to his back, a bulletproof tea tray strapped to his front and an unmarked bag. For his age, Winston had very quick reflexes.

"Stay back! There is a bomb in this bag!" He shook the dark bag full of pajamas at them with the wild look in his eyes usually associated with people who shout at passers-by from doorways, drinking from brown unmarked bags containing strong liquors.

Hesitant, and momentarily unsure of how to deal with armed, and possibly insane senior citizens, they kept aim, but didn't fire. This gave Winston a split second to pull on the antler of the moose head above him and fall into the safety of the emergency bunker that opened below.

The secure metal hatch slammed shut behind him.

The appearance of a barely-dressed female was the next thing to take them by surprise. Encounters with a half naked member of the opposite sex were not a regular occurrence in mercenary work. The instant it took them to register that what they were seeing was real, and not a consequence of too many days away from the fairer sex, gave Lara a wide enough window to calculate the odds and start firing.

Two down for me… still hiding under the bed are we? Lara thought, directly at Kurtis.

He stepped out of the doorway where he had been leaning, and smiled. Duck.

Lara, by reflex, ducked. The broken bedroom door, lifted by some invisible force, flew over her head, hitting the soldiers who rounded the corner to their right. It splintered on contact with a nasty crack.

Four. And I haven't even broken a sweat. He mock-saluted her, and without looking back- sprinted down the corridor to the next corner.

That's because- she shot one down- you're- a roundhouse kick to the head of another soldier broke his neck- a cheater.

"Five!" she yelled triumphantly as they reached the window. Kurtis turned around on the spot and faced her.

"Seven," he replied and, maintaining her eye contact, hoisted the gun above his head and shot twice vertically into the rafters, with barely a blink. A pair of bodies fell together from the ceiling with a disdainful "thunk".

She watched his grin quickly fade and his gaze slip past her through the window. Before she could turn to look, he pinned her to the ground just as shots ripped apart the space her head had previously occupied. She looked up wide-eyed at him.

"Thanks," she panted, pulling herself upright.
"Don't worry," he began, breathing heavily, "it was just an excuse to get on top of you again."
"Excuse me if we are interrupting something…" A calm male voice announced.

Lara and Kurtis turned slowly, filled with dread.

Joachim Karel stepped in through the window, crossing his arms serenely behind his back as he stood before them.

"Ever the romantic, Trent," he spoke sarcastically, "Even when we held you captive you still called out her name in your sleep."
Kurtis rubbed his shoulder absently and returned Karel's sarcastic gaze.

"You know me, a big softie at heart," he moved his hands fleetingly behind Lara's back and she felt something touch her backside gently.

I don't believe him sometimes, she thought furiously, standing in front of a lunatic murderer, and he still can't focus on anything except-

Then she felt him slip something into the waistband of her knickers, and rest it against her spine, covered by the long shirt she had hastily pulled on. It was cold and hard against the small of her back. Then he tapped her back once. There was a small sharp pain, which she ignored.

Karel seemed not to notice his quick slight of hand; either that or he chose to ignore it. Mortals were messy, disgusting creatures, and he did not like to think too much about their mating habits and the suchlike. It made his pale skin crawl.

More mercenaries filed in and circled them, guns loaded and fully prepared to shoot. There was no way out of this one.

"I am afraid you both will be coming along with me… and Mr. Trent, your glaive please, we don't want any dim-witted tricks from you."

A guard who had been admiring the back of Lara's profile noticed something was not right… he reached forward to pull her shirt out of the way of her back.

Kurtis flicked his hand and the Chirugai spun above his head in a makeshift halo, pulsating in a warm orange glow.
"Who, me? Tricks? Never," another barely imperceptible flick of his index and the guard had his head abruptly severed. His expression became hard, "but if you'd please keep your guards from staring at poor defenceless Lara here, I'm sure we'll be a lot more cooperative."

Karel gave the signal for the guard's body to be taken away, along with the suddenly docile Chirugai. He stepped right up to Kurtis, their bodies inches apart. Leaning in he breathed with quiet menace, "Careful, Trent, I know what buttons to press," he reached around to Kurtis' back quickly; Lara almost mistook it to be a pat on the back. Kurtis' hand caught Karel's by the wrist just as swiftly before it reached his intricately tattooed shoulder blade.

Karel looked into his eyes for a moment and seemed to find something there that at once enthralled and uneased him. He backed away with a slight smile tilting the corners of his pale mouth, before the mask went back on and his face became businesslike and apathetic. Kurtis' intense glare never once let up.

"Lock them up in the gym. I have a tremendous urge to have a look around the famous Croft estate... who knows what I may find?"

He turned his back on them and they were led away, the occasional unwary guard being tripped up or thumped viciously as they struggled all the way to the gym.

An hour later and from her position (tied in a very unladylike way across the side of a climbing frame) Lara could only imagine what fun Karel was having reading through all of her confidential files… everything she had ever gathered on the Cabal, Lux Veritatis, Kurtis…

She looked across at Kurtis, who had had a blindfold put on him after a few incidents with the guards, some telekinesis, and a few large and heavy weights. Many of them were now either mildly concussed, sporting black eyes, cut lips or in one case involving a jumping horse, a few cracked ribs. She had to admire the man's spirit.

He was tied to a chair, legs spread in a typical masculine sitting position, the dog tags still intact against his taut bare chest. His arms were tied behind him, biceps stretched against the wood. Apart from the blindfold and ropes around his chest and legs, he looked for all the world as if he was simply reclining in a chair at his own ease.

She tried reaching out to Kurtis mentally, trying to talk to him through her mind, but she was completely unsure of how to do it. She screwed her eyes shut and tried her hardest, opening up to any voices in her mind, thinking desperately and pointedly in Kurtis' direction. He must have felt something because his head snapped over in her direction, facing her dead on. Even with the blindfold on, she had a feeling he did not need eyes to see. Beneath the black fabric, the corner of his mouth tilted into a half smile, and a shiver ran up her spine.

She felt a whisper of something unearthly brush up her legs and something spoke softly in the back of her mind;

Close your eyes.

She looked to Kurtis, unsure if it was her imagination. With a jolt she saw him visibly nod. As if he had seen her look at him for confirmation.

She closed her eyes and abruptly they opened again as he touched her somewhere deep inside.

Kurtis had been trying his best to hear where the guards were, but they were soon catching on to the fact that even with his eyes covered, his hearing had deadly accuracy. The slightest noise on their part was soon followed by something extremely painful being flung into something extremely painful.

He felt something faint brush softly at the edge of his mind; it had a sweet taste, a scent, something about it that told him it was Lara. He reached out to her and then an idea began to form in his mind. The guards were so busy concentrating on him… what could he get Lara to do to give him enough time to get himself untied…?

He had a thought, and a smile grew on his face.

Close your eyes, he told her.

He nodded. She closed them.

Lara's eyes flew wide and she only thought of attempting to silence the first moan long after it had escaped her lips. She could barely see, as her dark eyes rolled back in her head and white-hot spots danced before her vision. She clenched her fists and pulled against the ropes, the sounds of her increasingly heavy breathing filled her ears and she noticed another noise in the background.

That was when she realized that noise was herself crying out.

She tried to pull her legs up against her chest as electric jolts of pleasure pulsed up her legs to the center of her solar plexus. It hurt to be in so much ecstasy, she felt as though she was about to go insane, split open, burst into blossom and flame, and she screamed. She wanted it to stop and never end, all at the same time.

The three mercenaries left from their earlier encounters with telekinesis sat up immediately at the first noise. There was a bang, and a loud unearthly sound. They turned their attention from the male to look at the woman. She kicked out against her restraints; her low moans becoming higher, intense cries as she screamed for someone to end her pain- if that is what it could be called.

She sounded like she was calling out at once in pain and intense pleasure, sounded as if she was dying and climaxing all a once. The things Kurtis heard in his head from her right then were enough to raise an eyebrow even from him. She desperately wanted to kill him and have him inside of her at the exact same instant.

The guards walked quietly up to Lara, puzzled, and looked to each other for ideas.

One guard spoke. "What's go-"

And that was the last thing any of them heard. The knife Kurtis had hidden in Lara's waistband loosed itself, and their own personal worlds all went black as they met their maker. The disembodied knife cut Lara's restraints and then went to Kurtis.

Lara fell to the floor, her legs giving way under her. She sat with her forehead touching the floor, finding its solidarity comforting. Blood dripped to the floor from her lips. She had bitten it so hard it bled.

She felt a cool hand touch her shoulder and energy flooded into her. The hand was steady and calm, and she was able to follow it up, and get to her feet.

Kurtis laid a hand on her shoulder and poured power into her trembling form. He could feel her skin covered in a thin layer of sweat beneath her shirt. She would freeze like that. He pulled a pair of combats that he had taken from one of the decapitated mercenaries over her shoes and gently up her legs as she stood, fastening the zip and button all in one quick moment.

As his hands brushed her legs when he pulled the trousers on her, they left white-hot marks of pure sensation along her sensitive skin. It was all she could do to restrain herself from shoving him up against a wall. He looked up at her, and must have shared that same image. Their connected gaze crackled and he seemed to be more looking into her, than at her. He gently brushed a hand across her jaw and up her cheek, sweeping away the blood. The softness of his gesture made her heart ache in a way she had never felt before.

"We have work to do." His voice was low and broke slightly as he spoke, and this almost made her lose it at him. She inhaled deeply, if shakily, already feeling the power return to her limbs, and with great self-control, turned away from him towards the door. Kurtis let out a breath he did not even know he was holding. If she had started something, he knew all his willpower would have dissolved.

Kurtis freed his chirugai from the titanium box that it had been placed in, and threw Lara one of the fallen guard's guns.

Very carefully not looking at each other, and even more careful not to touch, they walked through the side door that led to the indoor pool.

Lara ran to the diving board and pushed the hidden switch beneath it. What originally had looked like an ornate square tile on the pool floor, suddenly disappeared from view and Lara jumped off the diving board in a graceful swan dive, through the square. Kurtis got on one knee on the board, before following, his athletic body arcing as he broke the water with barely a splash.

They swam forwards for a few seconds, and then upwards to the surface. As the water poured down his skin, his eyes began to adjust. He looked around at the cavernous, dark room with surprise, it seemed to have been carved out of the original rock that the house had been built on. Other passages led onto this room, from other escape routes in the house, he presumed. As they came to the center of the room, Lara picked up a bag full of pyjamas and smiled. She picked a corridor and walked on.

Lara and Kurtis emerged, rather suddenly, on a large piece of wood that extended to the other side of the wall. Kurtis looked down into the pre-morning gloom that spread out below them. They were in the rafters of the garage, looking down at four mercenaries who each stood facing a doorway that led into the house. Stupidly, they had not thought of any other possible entries to the room. Lara indicated to a cars headlamps and then to her eyes, back to the car roof, and then the chirugai. Kurtis immediately understood.

A small key lifted itself off the shelf and drifted easily through the bars that protected it from burglars. It slipped in though the open window of a custom-made, drop-top Aston Martin, and slid into the ignition.

The engine roared and the headlights flashed obscenely into the dawn-adjusted eyes of the guards, effectively blinding them. It growled and tore forward, running down two of the men. As it neared Lara and Kurtis, the chirugai slashed an enormous gap in the fabric roof of the car, and they jumped together, straight for the open roof.

The garage door switch flicked and it began to pull up slowly.

Too slowly.

"Kurtis…" Lara said, eyes wide, too quiet to be heard over the noise, and then yelled, "KURTIS! WE'RE NOT GOING TO-"

"SHUT UP AND DUCK!" He forced her head down as he clamped the wheel between his knees and lifted his hands from it.

There was a noise like the worlds biggest can opener opening the worlds biggest can of Heinz Baked Beans.

Lara looked behind her to see the door had been ripped off its hinges, and was now lying in a crumpled heap behind them. She saw the torn roof blowing energetically behind the car, and she saw freedom ahead. And bizarrely, she began to laugh like she had never laughed before.

Kurtis looked at her, a smile gracing her face, her hair streaming freely behind her in the wind, and perhaps because they were both hysterical with adrenaline, maybe just because there was simply nothing else to do, for the first time in years, he laughed too.