Now When You Cry, I Don't Have To Be Around To Wipe Your Lies
Chapter 1
'It has been a rather traumatic and stressful evening.' Lara Croft said to herself as she stood running her bath. The day had started normally enough, and she had awoken that morning feeling a tad excited, if anything.
A month had expired since Lara had returned home from Prague, since she and Kurtis Trent had exchanged their goodbyes at the airport, she leaving for England, he for the States. Life back home had been decidedly uneventful, and so to liven things up a little bit Lara thought that she would re-arrange her gymnasium, (formally ballroom) and spend some cash on new equipment, to add to and replace the old.
One of her purchases, which she would quickly come to regret, was a second set of monkey bars, which weaved to the sides, like a wooden snake. They were installed that very afternoon, high above the floor. Croft was slightly dubious when a spotty, greasy, and frankly stupid looking seventeen-year-old boy turned up on her doorstep to fit them. However, the minute that the kid had left the premises, she scaled the high frame that reached up towards the new bars.
Jumping up with arms outstretched, she grasped the first two rungs firmly in her hands. Swinging to-and-fro, she made steady progress along the ceiling. Alas, about half way across, to Lara's wide-eyed horror, something creaked. With split second timing, she heaved her weight to one side and let go, her fingertips just finding the narrow window ledge to her left. Before she had time to draw a breath of relief, a sickening crash followed by a splintering sound rang out through the great room. Craning her head upwards, she saw lots of little holes in the plaster. Every single bolt had slipped out.
As luck would have it, the racket had brought Bryce, her resident techie, running. Unfortunately he did little to improve her situation. For in fact he found the sight of her dangling there so amusing it took a full five minutes for him to stop pissing himself laughing. It then took a further seven minutes to find and set up a ladder. By this time she had spent close to a quarter of an hour hanging by her arms.
In retrospect, the whole incident was so painful that she couldn't help but wonder if she would be hurting any less if she had just fallen to the sodding ground when the monkey bars had.
Croft let out a blissful sigh as the soothing warmth of the bath water lapped over her body. She started to feel the acute aching in her arms subside. 'Ahhh.' She thought, lowering herself slowly deeper and deeper, before slipping under completely. When she re-emerged there was a loud rapping on the bathroom door.
'What do you want now?' Lara called, cursing under her breath.
'A telephone call for you. Apparently it's very important.' came the voice of Mr. Hilary the butler.
'Well unless it's the police calling to inform me that the little bugger who fitted my bars has been caught and sentenced to death by firing squad, it can't be bloody important enough!' she barked, and then dunked herself under the water again. 'Enter if you must.'
Visibly wincing, she reached out for the phone as Hilary opened the door and approached the bath, and snatched it from him. Dismissing the servant with a wave of her hand, she began to talk:
'This is Lady Croft speaking. Who are you and what do you want?'
'Ah, I see this is a bad time. I'll ring back.'
'Kurtis!' Lara recognised his drawl instantly. She guessed he must have heard her bickering with Hilly, and could detect a slight smirk in his tone. 'No, it's a perfectly convenient time now. So…how are you?'
They proceeded to make small talk for a short while until Lara detected something wrong.
'Not to be rude, but what was the real reason you called?' she asked him, as politely as she could manage.
'I need you to come here, to stay with me for a few days. It is quite urgent. I need your help Lara, and I need it now.'
This took her aback somehow. Trent failed to strike Lara as the type who ever asked for help. He was too strong, too proud, and too tough.
'Explain.'
'I would, but I can't. I don't even know what it is myself, not fully anyway. That is one of the things I need your help with. Please, trust me.'
But Lara still had to know more, she just wasn't in the mood for the secrecy game.
'Can you please at least tell me what or whom it concerns?'
He sounded on the verge of tears as his reply trudged down the line. The blood vanished from her face and her grip tightened involuntarily on the receiver. 'I can be there by morning.' Came her whispered response.
