DISCLAIMER: I do not own Lara Croft or Tomb Raider. I am not making money
with this work of fiction.
Only to be archived at Fanfiction.net and "Lara Croft's Tales of Beauty and Power". All other sites please email me first at siirma6@surfeu.fi to gain permission.
Tomb Raider: Prevail by Heidi Ahlmen (siirma6@surfeu.fi)
Chapter 6
Imagine the world of a snake. You slither peacefully in a little coppice on an ocean shore in the middle of the loveliest African night. Then you come across something strange. A red, plastic thing with a glass and a button on it. You slither over it. Then you discover something much more sinister - a bush of thick, brown strands of something that resembles burnt grass, attached to a larger quantity of flesh and fabric.
That was the fate of a snake that night.
Lara had trekked over to the campsite, and noticed it to be, indeed, a campfire used to dry wet socks. Next to the fire, slept Josephine Ross on a sleeping bag, as the night was hot and she'd have died of dehydration if she had had decided to to take advantage of the luxury of sleeping in the bag.
Lara took a position some five metres away from Josephine and the fire, and waited for an excuse. And it came, in the form of a grass snake slithering across the campsite.
Who said only bad things came out of revenge? To Lara it seemed to offer a quite an explicit pleasure. She fired, and the snake's head became a mesh of skin and teeth.
Josephine had never woken up so quickly. She nearly flew to a sitting position, certain that Death himself had rummaged through her campsite.
Lara waited, aware that her identity was hidden by the shadows.
"Lara?" Josephine asked, and Lara noticed her voice was trembling slightly.
"No, it's the Greenhouse Effect."
Josephine tried to laugh. Without much notable success. "Your head okay?" she asked, and got ready to stand up.
"Funny you should ask. By the way, I'd stay sitting if I were you - we wouldn't want anything knocking you unconscious, would we?" Lara asked in a marmalade-sweet tone. She stepped closer, a pistol still aimed at Josephine.
Josephine looked next to her on the sandy ground and saw the snake. Then she looked at Lara, who had stepped even closer. More accordingly, she looked at the mouth of Lara's Colt.
"Weren't we supposed to be friends, Josephine? I wasn't aware of being your toy, really." Lara's tone was stern, mocking.
Josephine got up, ignoring the pistol. Lara wouldn't shoot. Just yet. "I wasn't aware you ever applied for the job."
Lara clicked her pistol. "You are aware of what the significance of the safety clip in a handgun is, are you not?"
"You're not scaring me."
Lara gave Josephine her best evil grin. "Does this mean you won't be intimidated by my rough, scavengeristic charm?"
"Yeah." Josephine moved her glare from the pistol to Lara.
"Funny - I thought my graverobbing, murdering and betraying side was the only one you thought to exist. Or has your view of me changed?"
Josephine grew tired. "If you really need to know - it had, up until know. You know, I really feel sorry for your boyfriends when you get these rushes of rage. Poor little chaps. Probably rich and good-looking but not very brainy. Or old."
Now that wasn't really called for. "I've had serious relationships with men, you know." Lara hated the fact that she had to defend herself to Josephine.
"I should know," Josephine replied victoriously, "After several of those and one marriage I should know about serious relationships."
Josephine noticed Lara was actually surprised. "You were married? Congratulations. What was the cause of the eventual split? Your chronical bitchyness?"
"No need to go into profanities, Miss Croft. I'm only here to do my job. You seem to be here to kill innocent little animals."
"I'm already on Body Shop's black list, so what's to lose. Anyway, what have you found so far? Sand? Splendid. Mud? Astonishing. Water? You are a true archaeologist. Tell me now, Josephine - did you plan all this? You knew from the moment I walked to Garret's office that Malawi would be a wild goose chase?"
"Maybe, " Josephine replied defiantly. She hadn't. She had partially hoped it wouldn't have been, but things always played Lara's way, it seemed.
"I see. You're even better of a fraud than me. Feel free to get back to sleep. We have a long day ahead of us."
"What?" Josephine's face was a questionmark.
"You, my dear, are going to show me the exact location of this ship you've been ranting about. Surely we have to give Garret his little prize for letting me off the leash, don't you agree?"
Josephine returned to her sleeping bag. "You only get half of what we find. And what will you be doing in the meanwhile?"
"Enjoying the lovely night and making sure nothing gets in or out of this campsite. Now, might there be a sandwich in your bag?"
Josephine awoke groggily the next morning. Miraculously, she had slept well. Seems as she had been telling the truth to Lara when saying she wasn't afraid of her. Or maybe it was the good ole "you can't kill me because I'm too useful" -cliche so often present in the action movies she'd seen.
She smelled smoke, and stood up, partly alarmed. Lara was sitting a few feet away from her, tending a pot boiling above a small campfire. Lara raised her head as she heard Josephine splatting sand off her shirt. Damned desert winds.
"Slept well, have we, Josephine?" Lara asked with a surprisingly neautral tone. She probably thinks I'm at her mercy here, Josephine thought bitterly and ignored her.
Josephine stirred in the sunlight, and gazed out to the sea. A pair of sea lions were exposing their bellies to the warm sunlight nearby, and the ocean winds whisked the coast. A vibrantly red-rusted wreck in low water shimmered in the light. The whole beach had a beautiful, yet dramatic aura.
"Breakfast, Josephine?"
Josephine turned, walked next to Lara and sat down in the sand. "It beats me why you always use my name when you have something to say in spite of the obvious fact that there isn't a soul nearby."
Lara passed her a steaming cup of... something. Josephine stared into the cup.
"Tomato soup. I added some beans. I've just been wondering how you got such a name. Don't get me wrong - there's nothing wrong with your first name."
"Even though it's not us catchy as Lara Croft. Lara. Croft. Lara what Croft?"
"Angeline. Kinda takes the edge off it, doesn't it?" Lara remarked, and took a sip from her mug.
Josephine dug out a peaked cap from her pocket and put it on. It was sandy. "Dad decided to name me and my sister after archaeological stuff. Meant a lot to him."
"Josephine was Napoleon's wife," Lara said more to herself than Josephine.
"Gee - I always thought I was named after a Tori Amos song," Josephine mocked.
Here we go again with the hostility. Why is it that people don't stick to their real turns of being angry?It definitely isn't hers, Lara thought. She was having a tough time being angry in such an intriguing place. Especially the waterfront wreck made her skin crawl in excitement. Now that would make a challenging diving site. Pity it wasn't the ship they were after. It couldn't be. It would've been emptied long ago."Who's Tori Amos?" she asked.
"Nevermind. So, Dad named me Josephine and my sis Mariette."
"After the monastery in Jordan - St. Mariette? I take it your father had something to do with that?"
"He lead the excavation team," Josephine said, with such a hint of dreamyness in her voice it strenghtened Lara's feeling about Josephine thinking that leading an excavation is the best job one could possible get in archaeology.
"And your mother had no word in naming you two, then?" Lara asked politely.
"She was Joanie Josephine, so I guess she was happy enough because of me being named after her. What about you? Lara's a not a very common name."
"Had my father named me after the things he loved, my first names would probably include Dow and Jones. My mother was an Andrea, Angeline could be a twist of that. I never learnt the history behind "Lara"."
"An illiterate priest?" Josephine joked, and Lara found herself laughing. 'Laura' would never have fitted her. Or so she liked to think. Laura, as a name, had no edge, no wit to it. Not enough for Lara, the least.
Well, time to move onto more serious matters, Lara thought. She cleared her throat. "You're expecting me to ask why, Josephine -" Lara's train of thoughts were taken off the track as she realized she had unintentionally used Josephine's name again. True - it was funny as there was noone nearby. Maybe a sort of habit, or an unconscious attempt to gain control. "You're expecting me to make you compensate for the bump I now have in my head. I won't - until we have something concrete in our hands from this trip. In my order of importance, work comes before personal vendetta. So concentrate on the job at hand, and you won't have to fear my revenge."
Josephine stared her, and Lara realized she had unintentionally sounded somewhat more uppity than she had intended. Why is it so difficult to get one's message clear without being misunderstood and mocked these days?
"Your revenge? Implying that you'll shoot me? Come on, Lara, you can do better than that," Josephine whined sweetly.
"I can do much better than that, I'll have you believe."
"Werner Von Croy mentions in his book that you never tried to help him in Cambodia in the eighties when you two had your little accident -" Now what the bloody hell does this have to do with anything? Lara's mind screamed. Josephine continued; "Is that what you're going to do, then? Get what you want and feed me to the sharks. Cut my regulator tube?"
Lara felt like screaming and ripping off her hair. How could Josephine be so stubborn in her view of her? It wasn't as if Lara' image of Josephine hadn't changed. Voluntarily. If you count being whacked in the head voluntary.
"I won't shoot you, drown you or make you redundant. You're getting half of everything, and no bad feelings. You'll have your fifteen minutes of fame, I promise."
"And what?"
"Nothing."
"You expect me to believe that? If they held world championships in lying you'd be disqualified." Josephine put her empty cup down on the sand and crossed her arms on her chest, waiting for Lara to reply.
"I don't need any more bodies in my trail. Nor do I need more enemies. I do have a question to ask. It's not why you decided to give me a concussion. It goes: who is this mysterious financer of yours that wanted us to work together? Why?"
Josephine couldn't help feeling she'd be humiliated if forced to reveal it all to Lara. Even though it was the first stupid mistake she remembered making. Everything was supposed to run so smoothly. Guess it never works like that with Lara, she caught herself thinking. Stop it. She isn't a supernatural force.
"There is no financer. Except for the university. They made no conditions. It was an outright lie, I guess, but I'd have never caught your interest otherwise. I'm sorry."
She's sorry? Lara didn't remember many times she'd have been that surprised. It was probably a taruf, as they said in Iran. A non-realistic compliment or promise.
"I guessed," Lara lied. Was she getting old? She'd never been caught by such blatant lies before. A financer with a condition including partners? It wasn't common for Lara's employers to request or suggest that she got a partner for the quest, they all knew her well enough to know she would decline.
Was it because Lara was so used to and thereby only skilled in unravelling male lies that any female gibberish went right through and settled in?
Or maybe she truly was getting old. Lara watched Josephine pour some sand on the fire to put it out, and then walked to the jeep to inspect her gear. Her tanks were full, her BCD was intact, with no rips or leaks, her regulator worked. She didn't have an octopus - meaning an extra regulator for a possible diving partner in trouble. She usually dived alone, despite the risks. It didn't feel necessary to check her console - it was well- packed in its small velvet bag in her backpack. The rest was okay.
Josephine had walked to the waterline and was washing her face. "Hell lot of salt here - have you got enough weights?"
Lara nodded and scratched her elbow. "Have you got an extra regulator?"
"Surprise, surprise that you don't. I know you work alone. Yes, I've got an extra."
"Does that boat you've hired got a winch?" Lara asked.
"I think so. Why?"
"It's very difficult to drag bigger things out of wrecks. Anything bigger than your kneecap could be risky in these waters. I hope our captain is a skilled one." Lara gazed out to the sea. It was no wonder the coast had gotten its name from shipwrecks. The sea nearby the coast was filled with them. The waters were treacherous - without turning her head she could see dozens of sharp rocks protruding from the raging sea. She hoped Josephine knew where to go. Otherwise they could be stranded between wrecks and the sharp-rocked shoal. She hated to admit being worried. She felt insecure without her usual array of underwater maps, carefully planned notes and herself being in charge.
"Josephine - I have to admit this whole affair looks risky. I assume you have a map of the area, and that you have planned this dive. I mean, look out there! If we hit those rocks or something happens to the boat I don't think we stand a chance of getting back here." Lara's way of archaeology was a dangerous one. But it didn't mean that she took unnecessary risks. She knew she could hold it together. She'd had worse. She didn't want anything to happen to Josephine. She was already starting to feel like watching over her in a way, and she hated it. It distracted her from the task at hand.
"I've checked the maps, and I know where we're going." Mild lie. "I'm sure they sent us a good captain - they said he's a local fisherman. He should know about what to look out for. Something's saying it's unusual for you to worry like this."
Lara leapt down from the back of the jeep. "I usually plan everything very carefully. Minimalize the risks. How much wreck experience do you actually have?"
The dreaded question. "None."
Lara stopped at her heels. "Excuse me?"
Josephine swallowed. "Some?"
Lara smiled sightly. "I almost thought I heard none. I take it not from these waters?"
"Not from here, no."
"Well, the water should be clear enough - I've dived at Ivory Coast and it was pretty clear there. And there shouldn't be much sharks to worry about. What's your tank size? Mine's twelve."
"Twelve." Josephine swallowed again. What was she doing, even thinking about entering the wreck?
She'd guessed Lara would chase her down. The only reason she had delayed the boat. Josephine Ross had never been one to take any risks. But if Lara could take them, why couldn't she? Of course, she'd at first decided to go on her own. But the coastline had scared her. She was maybe threading a risky path for a diver of her skills, but at least Lara would be there. The biggest problem would be to convince her about the usefulness of saving her if the situation called. Lara was unpredictable. There was nothing wrong with Josephine's nerves or her physique, even though she wasn't a living version of Catwoman like Lara. She could dive. Come on, woman. No time to feel remorseful. For once, just go with it. Even if it meant breaking every fucking rule in the diving book. "He should be here any minute."
"Nice of you to mention. I have to change." Lara climbed back into the jeep, and soon Josephine heard the clattering of metal and things falling off the back as Lara was searching for something. "Pardon me for not being very organized this morning. I left in a hurry."
Josephine looked up, and for her surprise saw Lara greeting her with a smug smile. How many times has this woman been whacked in the head already? She seems somehow used to it. "You could always change in the boat if you change into your swimmers here."
After a few minutes Lara emerged from the jeep, wearing a perfectly form- fitting wetsuit. "Swimmers? If I tried to fit swimmers under this I'd get myself strangled. A bikini's all I can manage to squeeze underneath."
"Special personal order?" Josephine had always settled for standard wetsuit sizes.
"A little luxury never hurt anybody. Besides, I needed a certain kind of belt to house my holsters, and they had to change their model a bit to get it fitted." Lara clicked two pistols into the aforementioned leather holsters. Josephine didn't want to start thinking where Lara thought she'd need them.
"Nice." Josephine went to change into her swimming suit and a wraparound.
Only to be archived at Fanfiction.net and "Lara Croft's Tales of Beauty and Power". All other sites please email me first at siirma6@surfeu.fi to gain permission.
Tomb Raider: Prevail by Heidi Ahlmen (siirma6@surfeu.fi)
Chapter 6
Imagine the world of a snake. You slither peacefully in a little coppice on an ocean shore in the middle of the loveliest African night. Then you come across something strange. A red, plastic thing with a glass and a button on it. You slither over it. Then you discover something much more sinister - a bush of thick, brown strands of something that resembles burnt grass, attached to a larger quantity of flesh and fabric.
That was the fate of a snake that night.
Lara had trekked over to the campsite, and noticed it to be, indeed, a campfire used to dry wet socks. Next to the fire, slept Josephine Ross on a sleeping bag, as the night was hot and she'd have died of dehydration if she had had decided to to take advantage of the luxury of sleeping in the bag.
Lara took a position some five metres away from Josephine and the fire, and waited for an excuse. And it came, in the form of a grass snake slithering across the campsite.
Who said only bad things came out of revenge? To Lara it seemed to offer a quite an explicit pleasure. She fired, and the snake's head became a mesh of skin and teeth.
Josephine had never woken up so quickly. She nearly flew to a sitting position, certain that Death himself had rummaged through her campsite.
Lara waited, aware that her identity was hidden by the shadows.
"Lara?" Josephine asked, and Lara noticed her voice was trembling slightly.
"No, it's the Greenhouse Effect."
Josephine tried to laugh. Without much notable success. "Your head okay?" she asked, and got ready to stand up.
"Funny you should ask. By the way, I'd stay sitting if I were you - we wouldn't want anything knocking you unconscious, would we?" Lara asked in a marmalade-sweet tone. She stepped closer, a pistol still aimed at Josephine.
Josephine looked next to her on the sandy ground and saw the snake. Then she looked at Lara, who had stepped even closer. More accordingly, she looked at the mouth of Lara's Colt.
"Weren't we supposed to be friends, Josephine? I wasn't aware of being your toy, really." Lara's tone was stern, mocking.
Josephine got up, ignoring the pistol. Lara wouldn't shoot. Just yet. "I wasn't aware you ever applied for the job."
Lara clicked her pistol. "You are aware of what the significance of the safety clip in a handgun is, are you not?"
"You're not scaring me."
Lara gave Josephine her best evil grin. "Does this mean you won't be intimidated by my rough, scavengeristic charm?"
"Yeah." Josephine moved her glare from the pistol to Lara.
"Funny - I thought my graverobbing, murdering and betraying side was the only one you thought to exist. Or has your view of me changed?"
Josephine grew tired. "If you really need to know - it had, up until know. You know, I really feel sorry for your boyfriends when you get these rushes of rage. Poor little chaps. Probably rich and good-looking but not very brainy. Or old."
Now that wasn't really called for. "I've had serious relationships with men, you know." Lara hated the fact that she had to defend herself to Josephine.
"I should know," Josephine replied victoriously, "After several of those and one marriage I should know about serious relationships."
Josephine noticed Lara was actually surprised. "You were married? Congratulations. What was the cause of the eventual split? Your chronical bitchyness?"
"No need to go into profanities, Miss Croft. I'm only here to do my job. You seem to be here to kill innocent little animals."
"I'm already on Body Shop's black list, so what's to lose. Anyway, what have you found so far? Sand? Splendid. Mud? Astonishing. Water? You are a true archaeologist. Tell me now, Josephine - did you plan all this? You knew from the moment I walked to Garret's office that Malawi would be a wild goose chase?"
"Maybe, " Josephine replied defiantly. She hadn't. She had partially hoped it wouldn't have been, but things always played Lara's way, it seemed.
"I see. You're even better of a fraud than me. Feel free to get back to sleep. We have a long day ahead of us."
"What?" Josephine's face was a questionmark.
"You, my dear, are going to show me the exact location of this ship you've been ranting about. Surely we have to give Garret his little prize for letting me off the leash, don't you agree?"
Josephine returned to her sleeping bag. "You only get half of what we find. And what will you be doing in the meanwhile?"
"Enjoying the lovely night and making sure nothing gets in or out of this campsite. Now, might there be a sandwich in your bag?"
Josephine awoke groggily the next morning. Miraculously, she had slept well. Seems as she had been telling the truth to Lara when saying she wasn't afraid of her. Or maybe it was the good ole "you can't kill me because I'm too useful" -cliche so often present in the action movies she'd seen.
She smelled smoke, and stood up, partly alarmed. Lara was sitting a few feet away from her, tending a pot boiling above a small campfire. Lara raised her head as she heard Josephine splatting sand off her shirt. Damned desert winds.
"Slept well, have we, Josephine?" Lara asked with a surprisingly neautral tone. She probably thinks I'm at her mercy here, Josephine thought bitterly and ignored her.
Josephine stirred in the sunlight, and gazed out to the sea. A pair of sea lions were exposing their bellies to the warm sunlight nearby, and the ocean winds whisked the coast. A vibrantly red-rusted wreck in low water shimmered in the light. The whole beach had a beautiful, yet dramatic aura.
"Breakfast, Josephine?"
Josephine turned, walked next to Lara and sat down in the sand. "It beats me why you always use my name when you have something to say in spite of the obvious fact that there isn't a soul nearby."
Lara passed her a steaming cup of... something. Josephine stared into the cup.
"Tomato soup. I added some beans. I've just been wondering how you got such a name. Don't get me wrong - there's nothing wrong with your first name."
"Even though it's not us catchy as Lara Croft. Lara. Croft. Lara what Croft?"
"Angeline. Kinda takes the edge off it, doesn't it?" Lara remarked, and took a sip from her mug.
Josephine dug out a peaked cap from her pocket and put it on. It was sandy. "Dad decided to name me and my sister after archaeological stuff. Meant a lot to him."
"Josephine was Napoleon's wife," Lara said more to herself than Josephine.
"Gee - I always thought I was named after a Tori Amos song," Josephine mocked.
Here we go again with the hostility. Why is it that people don't stick to their real turns of being angry?It definitely isn't hers, Lara thought. She was having a tough time being angry in such an intriguing place. Especially the waterfront wreck made her skin crawl in excitement. Now that would make a challenging diving site. Pity it wasn't the ship they were after. It couldn't be. It would've been emptied long ago."Who's Tori Amos?" she asked.
"Nevermind. So, Dad named me Josephine and my sis Mariette."
"After the monastery in Jordan - St. Mariette? I take it your father had something to do with that?"
"He lead the excavation team," Josephine said, with such a hint of dreamyness in her voice it strenghtened Lara's feeling about Josephine thinking that leading an excavation is the best job one could possible get in archaeology.
"And your mother had no word in naming you two, then?" Lara asked politely.
"She was Joanie Josephine, so I guess she was happy enough because of me being named after her. What about you? Lara's a not a very common name."
"Had my father named me after the things he loved, my first names would probably include Dow and Jones. My mother was an Andrea, Angeline could be a twist of that. I never learnt the history behind "Lara"."
"An illiterate priest?" Josephine joked, and Lara found herself laughing. 'Laura' would never have fitted her. Or so she liked to think. Laura, as a name, had no edge, no wit to it. Not enough for Lara, the least.
Well, time to move onto more serious matters, Lara thought. She cleared her throat. "You're expecting me to ask why, Josephine -" Lara's train of thoughts were taken off the track as she realized she had unintentionally used Josephine's name again. True - it was funny as there was noone nearby. Maybe a sort of habit, or an unconscious attempt to gain control. "You're expecting me to make you compensate for the bump I now have in my head. I won't - until we have something concrete in our hands from this trip. In my order of importance, work comes before personal vendetta. So concentrate on the job at hand, and you won't have to fear my revenge."
Josephine stared her, and Lara realized she had unintentionally sounded somewhat more uppity than she had intended. Why is it so difficult to get one's message clear without being misunderstood and mocked these days?
"Your revenge? Implying that you'll shoot me? Come on, Lara, you can do better than that," Josephine whined sweetly.
"I can do much better than that, I'll have you believe."
"Werner Von Croy mentions in his book that you never tried to help him in Cambodia in the eighties when you two had your little accident -" Now what the bloody hell does this have to do with anything? Lara's mind screamed. Josephine continued; "Is that what you're going to do, then? Get what you want and feed me to the sharks. Cut my regulator tube?"
Lara felt like screaming and ripping off her hair. How could Josephine be so stubborn in her view of her? It wasn't as if Lara' image of Josephine hadn't changed. Voluntarily. If you count being whacked in the head voluntary.
"I won't shoot you, drown you or make you redundant. You're getting half of everything, and no bad feelings. You'll have your fifteen minutes of fame, I promise."
"And what?"
"Nothing."
"You expect me to believe that? If they held world championships in lying you'd be disqualified." Josephine put her empty cup down on the sand and crossed her arms on her chest, waiting for Lara to reply.
"I don't need any more bodies in my trail. Nor do I need more enemies. I do have a question to ask. It's not why you decided to give me a concussion. It goes: who is this mysterious financer of yours that wanted us to work together? Why?"
Josephine couldn't help feeling she'd be humiliated if forced to reveal it all to Lara. Even though it was the first stupid mistake she remembered making. Everything was supposed to run so smoothly. Guess it never works like that with Lara, she caught herself thinking. Stop it. She isn't a supernatural force.
"There is no financer. Except for the university. They made no conditions. It was an outright lie, I guess, but I'd have never caught your interest otherwise. I'm sorry."
She's sorry? Lara didn't remember many times she'd have been that surprised. It was probably a taruf, as they said in Iran. A non-realistic compliment or promise.
"I guessed," Lara lied. Was she getting old? She'd never been caught by such blatant lies before. A financer with a condition including partners? It wasn't common for Lara's employers to request or suggest that she got a partner for the quest, they all knew her well enough to know she would decline.
Was it because Lara was so used to and thereby only skilled in unravelling male lies that any female gibberish went right through and settled in?
Or maybe she truly was getting old. Lara watched Josephine pour some sand on the fire to put it out, and then walked to the jeep to inspect her gear. Her tanks were full, her BCD was intact, with no rips or leaks, her regulator worked. She didn't have an octopus - meaning an extra regulator for a possible diving partner in trouble. She usually dived alone, despite the risks. It didn't feel necessary to check her console - it was well- packed in its small velvet bag in her backpack. The rest was okay.
Josephine had walked to the waterline and was washing her face. "Hell lot of salt here - have you got enough weights?"
Lara nodded and scratched her elbow. "Have you got an extra regulator?"
"Surprise, surprise that you don't. I know you work alone. Yes, I've got an extra."
"Does that boat you've hired got a winch?" Lara asked.
"I think so. Why?"
"It's very difficult to drag bigger things out of wrecks. Anything bigger than your kneecap could be risky in these waters. I hope our captain is a skilled one." Lara gazed out to the sea. It was no wonder the coast had gotten its name from shipwrecks. The sea nearby the coast was filled with them. The waters were treacherous - without turning her head she could see dozens of sharp rocks protruding from the raging sea. She hoped Josephine knew where to go. Otherwise they could be stranded between wrecks and the sharp-rocked shoal. She hated to admit being worried. She felt insecure without her usual array of underwater maps, carefully planned notes and herself being in charge.
"Josephine - I have to admit this whole affair looks risky. I assume you have a map of the area, and that you have planned this dive. I mean, look out there! If we hit those rocks or something happens to the boat I don't think we stand a chance of getting back here." Lara's way of archaeology was a dangerous one. But it didn't mean that she took unnecessary risks. She knew she could hold it together. She'd had worse. She didn't want anything to happen to Josephine. She was already starting to feel like watching over her in a way, and she hated it. It distracted her from the task at hand.
"I've checked the maps, and I know where we're going." Mild lie. "I'm sure they sent us a good captain - they said he's a local fisherman. He should know about what to look out for. Something's saying it's unusual for you to worry like this."
Lara leapt down from the back of the jeep. "I usually plan everything very carefully. Minimalize the risks. How much wreck experience do you actually have?"
The dreaded question. "None."
Lara stopped at her heels. "Excuse me?"
Josephine swallowed. "Some?"
Lara smiled sightly. "I almost thought I heard none. I take it not from these waters?"
"Not from here, no."
"Well, the water should be clear enough - I've dived at Ivory Coast and it was pretty clear there. And there shouldn't be much sharks to worry about. What's your tank size? Mine's twelve."
"Twelve." Josephine swallowed again. What was she doing, even thinking about entering the wreck?
She'd guessed Lara would chase her down. The only reason she had delayed the boat. Josephine Ross had never been one to take any risks. But if Lara could take them, why couldn't she? Of course, she'd at first decided to go on her own. But the coastline had scared her. She was maybe threading a risky path for a diver of her skills, but at least Lara would be there. The biggest problem would be to convince her about the usefulness of saving her if the situation called. Lara was unpredictable. There was nothing wrong with Josephine's nerves or her physique, even though she wasn't a living version of Catwoman like Lara. She could dive. Come on, woman. No time to feel remorseful. For once, just go with it. Even if it meant breaking every fucking rule in the diving book. "He should be here any minute."
"Nice of you to mention. I have to change." Lara climbed back into the jeep, and soon Josephine heard the clattering of metal and things falling off the back as Lara was searching for something. "Pardon me for not being very organized this morning. I left in a hurry."
Josephine looked up, and for her surprise saw Lara greeting her with a smug smile. How many times has this woman been whacked in the head already? She seems somehow used to it. "You could always change in the boat if you change into your swimmers here."
After a few minutes Lara emerged from the jeep, wearing a perfectly form- fitting wetsuit. "Swimmers? If I tried to fit swimmers under this I'd get myself strangled. A bikini's all I can manage to squeeze underneath."
"Special personal order?" Josephine had always settled for standard wetsuit sizes.
"A little luxury never hurt anybody. Besides, I needed a certain kind of belt to house my holsters, and they had to change their model a bit to get it fitted." Lara clicked two pistols into the aforementioned leather holsters. Josephine didn't want to start thinking where Lara thought she'd need them.
"Nice." Josephine went to change into her swimming suit and a wraparound.