Heel is bouncing on the floor of the taxi, her eyes are staring at the text on the page before her but her mind isn't there, it's on Eli Drachir. Why would he be after the Wings of Darkness? Does he have someone paying him to get it for them? What if he never gave Prince Auda his real name and address to avoid being followed and I'm on a wild goose chase? She closes her eyes while she sets the document onto the seat next to her, rubbing her face with both hands.
"Jonah…" her eyes open and her mind flashes to when he was stabbed by Konstantin. Watching the man take advantage of Jonah's hesitation, while she banged on the glass yelling at him to shoot. He told her then "You can't blame yourself anymore, we all make our own choices." He chose to find me even after I told him over the radio to turn back, that it was my mission but he chose to not leave me side. I know that when I was going after the Hand of Midas he wasn't hurt, that is was me, but he got shot because of me.
She stares out her window, watching the rain droplets hit the glass and slip down, in the distance she sees the lighting flashing up in the clouds above the city buildings and her mind drifts off to the hospital she left 15 hours ago…
His arm slung over her shoulder, Lara grits her teeth as she helps him limp through the Emergency Entrance, sweat glistening on her forehead and soaking the upper portion of her top with the sun setting behind her. "Please help! My friend has been shot!" she calls out, a male doctor standing at the info desk looks up from his chart in alarm and a male nurse sitting at a computer jumps from his seat.
The nurse hurries around the counter to grab a stretcher and the doctor hurries to the other side of Jonah and relieves Lara from his weight onto his own shoulder. "What happened?" the doctor asks, he's dark skinned, with corn rows, looks young and slender.
"We were on a private plane, a cargo plane and he got into a fight with someone who then pulled a gun and started shooting," Lara lied but at the same time she couldn't tell the truth. The less questions the better.
The nurse, an older guy with a full beard, bald head and a belly comes around the corner with the stretcher; the doctor and the nurse help Jonah into lying down and start to wheel him away. For the first time Lara glances around to see that she's not the only one there, a handful of people are waiting to be taken in and are all staring at her.
"WAIT! Lara!" Jonah yells out and she turns to run back to him, once at his right side she takes his hand firmly.
"You're going to be fine, Jonah," Lara assures him and he nods before pulling her down so her ear is to his lips.
He whispers, "you go and get those Wings of Darkness, they don't know I'm here but they'll go for those wings. Stop them," she pulls away and watches him give a nod before getting pulled away.
She feels his fingers slip through her own, his face slowly disappears through the double doors, leaving her standing there. "Excuse me, miss?" comes a chirpy little voice from behind her and she realizes she has paperwork to do. Walking to the desk to see a young girl at a computer, long light brown hair framing her face, bright green eyes and when she looks up a sweet smile. "Hi! Could you please fill this out and as soon as we know anything we'll notify you as soon as we have any news."
Lara takes the clipboard from her with the form, her eyes glance over the words and reads health card, "I don't know much about his medical history… he has his health card on him," Lara looks up at her and the girl nods.
"Okay, fill out what you can and we'll go from there," she answers and Lara walks to a chair nearby without looking and sits down. Her mind reeling from the events, if she and Jonah were that much of a threat to the wings then she has to follow with his instructions and get to Eli. She quickly fills out what she can and rushes to the desk.
"I have to go and get something; I left my phone number on there and our co-workers if you cannot reach me. Thank you," Lara says hurriedly and before the girl could say anything Lara was gone back through the automatic doors to the air port.
Lara called Roger after she left the hospital to get a private jet that would take her straight to San Francisco, and watches as the car comes to a stop. She jumps and looks around to see that they're at the apartment, gathering up her papers she pulls out her wallet and pays the driver before stepping into the rain and stepping into the building quickly she hurries to the main door. A group of teenagers are laughing and goofing around as they're stepping out, the last one holds the door open for Lara and she says a quick thanks before stepping through.
Pulling out the note from Prince Auda she looks over the room number again, 410 and she glances around. The apartment building is nice looking, burgundy walls, hardwood flooring, golden lights along the ceiling; she hurries along the doors till she finds the elevator on her right. Pressing the button she feels herself getting more and more anxious as she waits, her fingers clenching the note tightly in her fingers as the doors open down the middle.
Stepping into the elevator, relieved to see no one else is inside she presses the button for 4 and watches the doors close. Looking at the number on the note again she folds it up to tuck it into her pants pocket and once the doors open she hurries through them. Glancing up at the numbers on the doors, going left she finds herself walking and soon after speed walking, feeling her anxiety building up with every step she takes.
What if he did get it for a client? What if he has no idea what it is? What if he touches it and I find him dead on the floor and no wings? She shakes her head stop it Lara, you will get there and all will be fine… though it never works out that way.
Her eyes settle on 410 and she's about to knock when she notices the door is open a crack, "hello? Eli Drachir…" her eyes widen she sees the place. Everything is a mess, just ahead of her is a crouch with the stuffing sticking out and discarded, along the wall to her right is a very long book shelf that almost touches the ceiling, books have been spilled from most of the shelves. Two of the units have been knocked onto their face, one is resting on what she assumes is the red wood oval coffee table.
Papers and couch stuffing at her feet as she steps in, being careful with where she steps, her eyes take in the wreckage, the books lying open on their back, face or like a tp. Pages of scribbles, sticky notes, as she moves around to the left of the couch and towards the kitchen she finds glasses, bowls and plates smashed on the counter and on the floor. There is a bag sitting open with some boxes that look to be take out.
On the wall between the kitchen and the study area is certificates of achievement, they're been smashed, there is a picture between the certificates of Eli surrounded by a group of guys, each holding up a stein. Celebrating something great… she frowns and turns to go back to the coffee table.
"Eli Drachir?" Lara calls out and walks to the window that's across from the couch and coffee table, the rain is pouring heavily, she clenches her jaw tightly.
Lara feels a sudden tightness on her right ankle and jumps when it pulls, she spins around and looks down to see a bloodied hand sticking out from under the second book shelf unit holding her ankle.
"Please… don't-" the young man coughs and she crouches down low, trying to see under the unit a young man with glasses. He's a red head with short curly hair, a 5 o'clock shadow, white sweater vest and dark blue dress shirt under it and beige slacks. "Help me," he groans.
She moves around to the top of the shelving unit, wrapping her fingers firmly around the edge she lifts with her knees. It takes a moment as it is only her and the unit feels like solid wood, "you've got expensive taste Mr. Drachir," Lara grunts. As it goes high enough she hears him coughing and groaning while she moves under it and is careful not to step on him. Continuing to push the book case unit straight up, her feet stepping on uneven ground as books shift and papers slip under her, she is forced to pause with lifting the unit to kick away some stacks of books to plant her feet firmly on the floor. Making the process tricky, finally she hears the satisfying thud of it hitting the wall, holding her hands out and watching it carefully to be sure it won't fall again. Once she is confident, Lara moves to Eli, kneeling down next to his weakened body.
"Who did this to you?" Lara asks as she touches his right shoulder gently.
He gives a light chuckle, "someone who I should have done my homework on properly, Frutana Corp," he answers and Lara feels a chill run up her spine. "One of their partners and stock holders is presumed dead."
Taking a deep breath as she helps to turn him over she sees a stab wound to his lower stomach, the method used to give the recipient a slow and painful death. She opens her mouth to say something, but hears footsteps approach the door, they stop just at the door, and Lara looks around frantically and finds a lamp on the floor from a little fancy table. She moves around as though she's back in the woods, being cautious with how she steps and where she steps while wrapping the cord around the base so it doesn't dangle about.
Lara walks sideways to the wall and edges along it to the door as it slowly opens, her back is to the wall, and her heart rate is elevated. The floor doesn't creek as the door opens more, just finger tips pushing it open against the books and paper that slide under it. Biting her lower lip as her palms feel sweaty against the wood of the base of the lamp, Lara inches just a tad closer to the doorway and watches as a gun is coming into the room.
Not taking any chances, Lara twists herself to the intruder and swings the lamp down onto the hand holding the gun, "Gah!" he yells and steps into Lara to freeze. Face to face with Liam, Lara's heart is beating wildly and she lets out a deep breath that she didn't realize she was holding.
"My gosh… Liam!" Lara smiles at him and he smiles back.
Stepping into the apartment properly and closing the door behind him, "I would have gotten here sooner but a big storm hit and the airport ground all flights," he holsters his gun and looks down to see Eli lying on the floor with a large amount of blood on his shirt. "Shit! What happened to him?"
Running to the kitchen, Liam opens and closes drawers quickly till he finds the stash of towels for drying the dishes and hurries back while Lara calls 911 on her cell phone.
"Frutana Corp is what happened to him," Lara answers and Liam doesn't bother to look up. He isn't surprised.
"Were they after the Wings of Darkness?" Liam asks and Eli nods, groaning at the towels being pressed into his wound.
"Yes, but it's not here," he grimaces and coughs, "they didn't believe me when I said I didn't bring it home with me."
Liam glances up at Lara, she's listening between giving the address, and he looks back at the young man who could be just a few years older than himself. "You're going to be alright," Liam promises, from his history with torturing and the paleness on Eli's face, this wound was inflicted recently. They did this wound with the intention that he should still be alive if and when they come back to interrogate him some more. "Where did you put the Wings of Darkness?"
Giving a light laugh, "suddenly a hot item… but I cannot let it fall into the wrong hands… just know it is safe," he says softly, resting his head back and looking up at Liam finally.
Hanging up her phone, Lara rushes back, "please Eli, I only intent to protect it from the wrong hands. I've dealt with Frutana Corp before and they will stop at nothing to get their hands on it."
Looking up at her, Eli gives her a look of recognition, "I… I know your face," he coughs and Lara nods. "You gave an interview… the hand of Midas… you're a Croft," he smiles at her and reaches his hand up to her; she takes it and his face lights up. "You destroyed the Divine Source, didn't you?"
Lara is a little stunned by this question, she nods and he gives her hand a squeeze, "after I bought the Wings of Darkness I dropped them off on my way home. They're in Columbia," Eli says and she blinks.
"Where in Columbia?" Lara asks and he can see she is eager.
Reaching into his pants pocket, pulling out a folded piece of paper he hands it to her, "the coordinates are here. Don't lose them… I fear that my friend in Columbia is in danger… get the wings before Frutana Corp-"
A grunt is heard, Lara and Liam both look up in time to see a man in the doorframe, the same one who took Lara's book when she was first investigating the Divine Source and he steps in only to hear a clamour of laughter in the hallway. He is startled; he turns and takes off, Lara stands up to step onto the cushions of the couch, places her hand onto the back of it and swings her legs up and over.
Slipping on the books and paper on the floor with her landing, "Lara! Wait!" Liam calls out, but she goes around the doorframe and is gone. She watches him push through a group of young men and women who look to have been partying, the group cry out, yelling after him and stumbling about. Lara almost pushes through until he slips into the elevator just as the doors are closing.
Breathing heavily she turns and sees the door to the stairwell at the other end of the hallway, she runs full out for it and shoves the door open. It's a regular winding staircase, she takes the railing and heaves herself up and over to the inside of the stairwell, planting the toes of her shoes to the black steel.
Looking down Lara acts quickly, pushing off and releasing her grip to drop and have her hands slap onto the next railing, her feet are planted onto the steel again and she does it again and again till her feet land on the rug at the bottom.
She swings open the door just in time to see her man walk out through the elevator, she hears him curse before he takes off through the main door. She runs after him, having a door open up and an older woman steps out for Lara to change up her footing to step around her and not lose her momentum.
Her legs are pumping as she grabs the handle for the door, turns, pulls and dashes through the door to see him take off through the entrance door into the rain and turn right. Lara bounds down the hallway and manages to shove the door open before it closed behind him and takes off down the sidewalk to the right.
He pushes through people who are using their umbrellas and aren't expecting him to push between them, "sorry," Lara says as she uses the same gap and chases after him. Weaving around garbage cans, smokers stepping out of their shelter, and watching him jump into traffic to leap over the car hood that had to slam on its breaks for him. She watches the car pull away and runs through where it once was, her feet splashing into a deep puddle that gets both of her legs soaked.
Lara's hair, and shirt are soaked, she wipes her bangs out of her face so she can continue to watch him. He makes a quick turn between a set of buildings and Lara quickly finds it rather tight. He is climbing up on a stack of boxes, slipping on the large double lidded garbage dumpster and he leaps to grab the fire escape ladder.
The guy just barely has it, hoisting himself up and climbing the slippery bars. Lara feels the boxes she climbs onto give way, but she pushes and jumps off of them onto the dumpster and leaps. Her left hand slips and her right hand clutches the bar, grunting she swings herself enough to grab the same bar with her left hand and pull herself up.
"You just don't quit!" the man shouts angrily as she climbs the ladder to see him taking off up the stairs going up the fire escape.
"Better believe it you bastard," Lara says under her breath, feeling a chill setting in and her hands starting to slip on the railing but the tread on her boots catching the cross hairs of the fire escape allow her to propel herself and charge across to turn and go up the stairs.
Using her hands to pull herself up the stairs while taking every other step as she goes up, she feels the rough patches in the steel where the paint has broken away for the pointy edges to jab her skin. Lightning flashes over her head, illuminating everything as she keeps her eyes on his back. Two flights, three flights, she is relieved to see him slipping and stumbling on his way to the top, and finally he trips as he gets to the top.
Finally she storms up the last couple of steps to see him scrambling to run across the pebbled roof top, steam issuing out of the pipes. Her boots slipping briefly as she takes off after him, her heart beating wildly from this pursuit for knowledge I'm not going to let you escape this time! She watches him look over his shoulder; he changes direction to have his left leg get nailed on the inside of his calf.
Spinning around he groans, clutching his leg briefly before continuing on, but now she's on his heels just as he's reaching the other end of the roof. He screams as he leaps, Lara knows that if she tries to stop she won't be able to, due to the soaked ground she'll slip off and most likely hit everything on the way down.
Instead Lara leaps off the edge and within seconds of falling she finally makes contact with the guy, grabbing him around the waist he gasps. She doesn't see the other buildings fire escape, nor does she feel it. He takes it in the shoulder, making them both do a wicked turn in the air; she loses her grip on him, she feels the next railing down on her lower back.
Releasing her grip on him as her body does a flip on the way down, she loses sight of him to have her body hit the top of a dumpster and finally tumble to the ground. Lying there on her back she listens to the guy that she'd been chasing hit the ground with a thud.
Lara's body aches from the running, from the hits and now has the adrenaline leaving her body; she turns her head in the rain water beneath her to look at him a couple feet away. He isn't getting up, instead he lies there groaning. I need my answers while he won't fight me she forces herself to roll onto her left side, facing the middle of the alley and plants her right hand onto the ground to steady herself before moving on her hands and knees to him on the other side of the alley.
Crawling with the rain continuing to pour on them both, lightning illuminating the whole place again and Lara moves to kneel next to him, he groans and looks away from her. To her surprise blood starts to come out of the corner of his mouth.
"You just don't know when to quit…" he groans and coughs, but that's what tells her he's got a nasty internal injury. He clutches at his chest and wheezes. More blood to come up, spilling over his cheek and onto the wet ground.
"You've got a punctured lung," Lara analyses and he nods before coughing up more blood and she looks up at the end of the alley, "help!" she screams as a loud crack of thunder resounds. The rain dripping off her face as she stares and looks down at him, cradling his head, he's stopped moving. She touches his neck to feel for a pulse and after what feels like minutes, she lets her hand drop, accepting that he is dead.
Groaning she moves to roll onto her back, almost in the middle of the alley and stares up at the black clouds. Watching the millions of streaks of rain coming toward her and hitting everything else, the lightning making the clouds glow in flickers, feeling the thunder make the ground rumble beneath her. Completely soaked, her chest going up and down evenly, her breath having caught up, her legs no longer aching from all of the running, instead she feels the dampness setting in. The cold clothes with the breezes of the night air accompanied by the rain, her body gives a small flinch to the shudder she feels inside of her at the coldness reaching her muscles and bones.
As she stares up at the clouds, her mind drifts to Sofia what does your sky look like tonight? What did you do today? Have you been thinking about me… what am I saying? Of course you have been… but now you're wondering about Liam. Gosh… if you could see me now… in the middle of an alley… at night… in the middle of a storm… you'd probably be shaking your head at me for my foolishness. She closes her eyes, envisioning Sofia wrapping a blanket around her in her bedroom in the mansion, rubbing her back. Opening her eyes she is greeted by the clouds and rain, giving a shudder, Lara sits herself up and looks at the dead man next to her.
She reaches over and pats down his upper legs and then his chest to feel a small square bulge. Unzipping his jacket she reaches in to find a folded up piece of paper and holds it under herself to protect it from the rain while she looks at it, her eyes widen. "These are instructions… from Trinity," she folds it back up while standing up.
That's when she feels it, her lower back has pain spiking up her spine and into her hips, she hunches over while holding her hip with her free hand, "right… forgot about that," she glances up at the fire escape she remembers hitting on the way down. Lara looks at the man lying on the ground and pulls out her cell phone, dialing 911 I'm not going to leave you in the rain; it would be immoral for me to just let you sit there while this storm rages out. I don't care what kind of man you are, no one deserves to be forgotten, which is what I'm sure Trinity would make happen.
Lara steps into the apartment to find Liam staring out of one of the picture windows, the rain is calming down and the thunder has subsided, he turns around and looks at her in alarm, "where have you been? What happened to you?" He hurries to her, but Lara walks to the kitchen in search of an ice pack for her lower back.
Grimacing as she opens the freezer door and finds a bag of frozen peas, she places it onto her back and lets out a relieved sigh, "I chased the guy a little ways, down an alley, up a fire escape, jumped off the building to tumble down with him," she hisses as she takes a seat on the destroyed couch and he sits down with her. "Not the brightest idea… hurt my back in the process; he got a punctured lung and died in front of me. I called for police and gave a statement."
Liam listens and at the last part he blinks, "you called the police? What did you say?"
Resting her head onto the stuffing sticking out at the top, she gives a sigh while closing her eyes, "I told them I was walking by, and I heard someone give off a scream. When I looked up I saw him jump as though he was trying to jump to the next roof but failed, that I watched him hit a few things on his way down, soon after hitting the ground he was coughing up blood and before I knew it he was dead. They got my name, the one officer recognized me, and I told him I am in town to research something and took a stroll in the rain to give my eyes a rest from staring at documents all day. I think they bought it, but if there's a security camera on the streets I was running on they'll see me chasing him. We'll have to wait and find out," she sighs and feels like Liam is staring at her. "How's Eli?"
Running his fingers through his hair Liam looks at the spot where Eli had been lying on the floor and sighs, "he's going to be fine, he told me what we needed to know. His friend, the location, everything just before the paramedics took him away," he looks back at Lara, "you had me worried. I know you can handle yourself, but at the same time if he got the jump on you… led you into a trap-"
"Oh," Lara says, cutting him off in the hopes that what she got from the now dead guy will ease his mind, "I found this on his person, inside of his jacket but I didn't want it to get wet."
Going into her pocket she retrieves the note and hands it to Liam, he groans inwardly. He doesn't like her shrugging off his worries, not when he's supposed to be protecting her, if he could have reacted a second faster it would have been him bolting after him and not her. Looking at the folded up piece of paper, he takes it and finally puts his back to the couch as well as he unfolds it.
"Trent Donhavin, Due to your prior services being fruitful to our mission, Trinity orders you to see Eli Drachir, 33rd Avenue, 1509 Cabrillo St. Apt. 410, San Francisco. Find out where he has the Wings of Darkness by any means necessary while keeping a low profile. A payment of $200,000.00 will be given, half now and half upon completion," he finishes and sighs. "So we have two companies going for the Wings of Darkness," he looks at Lara, "I'll call up Roger to set up for the next flight."
To Be Continued…
Sorry I hadn't posted in a while, I got hit with a nasty cold bug and so did my twins.
What do you think? What do you like? What was your favourite and least favourite part? I want to hear your thoughts :)