She began by crouching down. Each of them on either side of her, Lara took loose her shoes, stuffing her socks into them, and threw them across the river, pitching them like mutant baseballs, where they collided and fell to the sand. Hesitancy encouraged only by the temperature of the water, she took one stride into the stream, feeling muddy soil beneath the jagged stones curl up around her toes, the current snapping at her skin with only a single foot yet immersed. After that, two, then another and another. Soon, she was soaked up to the thighs in water clear enough to drink from and still not halfway across.

"Snake, I'm going to need that rope." She turned to look at him, and he was peering off into the trees lining the offshoots of rockwall they'd left behind.

"I don't like this," he said, taking it from Vines, and making a knot at one end to weight down his toss. She caught it in the first. "Let's be quick about it."

"You couldn't have let one of us go across," Vines said.

Lara caught herself having to shout over the mass of rushing water surrounding her. Her lower half felt clammy, and the suddenness of the temperature change riddled lines of ache up her hips, into her abdomen. She suppressed a cramp with old patience. "I'm the strongest swimmer if something happens."

"How do you-"

Lara glanced over her shoulder, raising a single eyebrow at Vines. He stopped talking.

In a moment, she had fashioned from the rope a sort of lasso, and planted it around her waist before attempting any further. A line had formed, with her at its apex, and the men on the shore, both of their hands on the length of rope yet given. They left her enough slack so she could move forward, but taut enough they could manage to yank her back if it came to that.

The everpresent tug continued its insistence, growing mean. Each step was a careful groping with her toes, feeling delicately forward for sturdy movement, sure not to plant herself in a hidden eddie or snarl beneath the continued flow. The waterline reached her just above her ribs, and had come to its deepest point. The whole of her skin felt as if it had retracted. Her abs began a slight shudder for warmth, then relaxed. The splash of the water was high enough to have thoroughly doused her hair, matting it to her face, ponytail dangling. It struck her she wished she'd put her hair into a braid, but the absurdism flitted away before a moment's passing.

She adjusted her weight, shifting it to the back of one heel, and prepared to throw, when she heard Snake.

"Stop."

Lara turned to look at them both, careful in the motion not to upset the precariousness of her balance.

"What is it?"

One hand tight on Vines' shoulder, he jerked his chin to the direction from which they'd descended. "We're being watched." Lara looked in the direction he indicated and saw nothing, save shrubbery, soil, massive stones and the trail that had led them down the cliff face. A hiding place would have been almost impossible.

"Watched how?" Vines asked.

"I don't know. If they'd doubled around, they must have another way of getting back we don't know about. Probably another patrol sent after Ellie and I were attacked."

Lara turned back to what she was doing, feeling the paranoia, accurate or not, seep into her pores. "Then we'd better get on with it," she said. "Water's a touch cold, anyway."

The rope slipknot that she'd made came loose around her body easily enough, and she slid it over her head shortly before refashioning it into a much smaller circle. It took her a few tosses, but she managed it over the remains of the post along the opposite side of the bank. She gave it a tug, the hardest she could manage, and once satisfied, turned back to the both of them. In order to compensate for the length of rope, they both had to reach the water's edge.

"Let's head off, boys."

"We can't," Snake said.

"Why?"

Snake was paying neither of them any mind. His sight was still scanning the distance for any movement. "Because of my leg," Snake said. To his left, Vines face drained of colour, replaced by moribund understanding.

"I know, you'd need something to hold onto, that was the whole p-"

"No, Lara. The water."

"The water," Vines said, "has parasites. Bacteria."

"I know that, but-"

"Malaria's all but assured," Vines finished for her.

"Are you insane? We're not going to be here but another day. We can't be." Lara tried not to hear the desperation seeping into her voice. She knew what he was going to say before he already did. "But that's not all of it. Is it, Snake?"

"Can we talk about this later?"

"There isn't a bloody later if you don't tell me what's going on!"

Snake said nothing, but Vines impatience and his guilt was enough to break the silence. Vines said "He's already infected, and I've already given him the last of my prophylaxis. We don't have much to begin with, since malaria's not that common out here, and what we do have is at the base."

Lara's skin numbed. From the water or what they were telling her, she wasn't sure. "Wait. That's why were going to go with Ellie, and not just Malcolm. The meds."

Snake just stared off.

"Were you going to tell me? Or even Hal? What exactly was your plan, let us run off without you?"

"It's not like that. I figured maybe I could track them on my own, so all our eggs weren't in one basket."

Lara stood staring at him, mouth slightly agape. The water failed to exist. Words trundled up her throat then fell back down.

"Lara," Vines said, "he's already infected with a parasite. And I'd be shocked if that leg of his wasn't already infected, too. If it's in his blood and he doesn't see treatment inside of forty eight hours, the combination of that plus blood loss could-"

"Shut up," Snake said, voice coming out sudden, with depth like tumbling stones.

It was harder to push aside the broiling than she thought it would be. But she could. And she did. "What is it?"

He began to limp forward, taking the rope from Vines' hands. "You're gonna get your wish. We're definitely not alone. Vines, get over there." Snake took one of the younger man's arms and coiled a rope around it. "Get the hell over there. Lara, get to shore, now!"

She was about to ask him what he knew, or even some vague concept of understanding, when she smelled it. It came in tendrils gurgling past her at first, carried by the wind, then the scent consumed the air.

In moments, the air had been swallowed the acrid stench of gasoline.