A nap sounds lovely right now, but I'm so close to seeing Sam that I can taste it. Sam and water, and some food. Take a chance to rest, even. Hopefully there's enough left of the aircraft's radio to summon help. Our expedition needs to be cut short, at least for now. We're going to have a lot of questions to answer after this. Not as many as Yamatai, but there'll be questions. I just hope I have satisfactory answers. I'd rather not develop a reputation as inviting death on all my travels. It'll be impossible to attract interns.
I'm probably twenty minutes away and decide to radio ahead to let her know I'm coming. That's when I hear the retort of the rifle. It's in the direction that I'm heading in and I start to run. There are two more shots and then silence. My heart pounds in my chest and the blood rushes in my ears as I throw all caution aside to just get to Sam.
When I find her, it just breaks my heart. She's curled up on the ground, and there's blood but I don't think it's all hers. Not when I see Victor. The rifle is nearby but I ignore it and fall to my knees next to Sam. I never wanted her to go through this, and it's my fault, all my fault for not being here. She breaks down as I pull her against me. My hands rub at her back. She tries to push me away but I don't let her. I just rock her. and hold her and I cry with her. I cry for her and for the last bit of innocence she'd had left.
Sam doesn't say anything when I finally get her to her feet so I can tend to her. I find a clean shirt and then wash her down. We're blessed with a medkit, but the bullet only grazed her arm. I'm grateful, but still gentle because it has to hurt. Afterwards she sits there, staring at her hands. I don't want to push her, but seeing her so silent like this worries the hell out of me. Sam is chatty in even the worse situations, so not hearing her talk is disconcerting. I sit down besides her, and she leans against me. My arm goes around her.
"He came at me with a rifle," she says, a little dully. "I just..the..it was the only thing I had. I don't even.. Lara, why did he attack me?" She looks up at me, eyes wet, face contorted into an emotion I know only too well.
"I don't know, but we're going to find out, Sam. You.. you did what you had to. You defended yourself." I wish she hadn't had to. If I'd been there she wouldn't have had to.
"I was so scared. I didn't think I'd see you again, or see anyone again. I thought I was gonna die!" She closes her eyes and shudders against me. "Is this what you felt like?"
"I'm…" I swallow, my mouth dry and my tongue not functioning the way it should. "Yes, I think so."
"Does it get easier?"
"You're not going to be in a position to-"
She grabs my shirt and pulls me closer. "No! Don't you fucking say it! You can't keep protecting me, Lara! I have to protect myself. I have to know, because it's going to happen again!"
Her voice rises with every word, until she's shouting in my face. I can't keep my expression even, and I'm sure I look positively despondent. It's going to happen again she says. She's probably right. It feels like trying to speak around a mouthful of gravel, but I finally say, "Yes. And no. It gets easier to do, but each time it feels like a part of me is being cut away."
She falls quiet again, and I try to turn her head to look her in the eyes. "It took me a long time to accept I wasn't a bad person for the things that I've done. I sometimes wonder if I'm a monster. That Lara Croft died on that island and someone else came back."
"Do you think there's some part of Himiko still inside me?"
"I can honestly say she probably left her mark, Sam." I kiss the top of her head. "But you're still Sam, where it counts. If you were Himiko do you think you'd be so torn up over this?"
She nods at me, and lets out a little relieved sigh. Then she pokes my arm. "You don't feel like a monster." She kisses it. "Or taste like one." Her lips tickle me and I snicker a little bit. "Monsters don't laugh either, not like that."
"So you're an expert on monsters?" Her resilience is inspiring, and the grin on my face is genuine.
She has that twinkle in her eye again. A little dulled and worn and tired, but it's there. "No, just an expert on you."
"Fat lot of good that did you, if we were tiptoeing around each other for so many years." I'm more than willing to point out we'd both been complete gits about that. She's sitting up now, and I get up to start to catalogue what we have. My fingers close around the bow and I stare at it, then look up to catch Sam's eye.
"I packed it because you didn't and I thought you might want it, even if it was just like a ...comfort thing. Oh! I found your axe too, it's over there. And there are some arrows. The bow was in the wreckage down the hill…." She closes her mouth as I walk back towards her, the bow held in my hands. I sit next to her and give her a kiss of gratitude. Just holding the thing makes me feel better. Like I can take on the world, or at least this rainforest. My confidence goes through the roof.
"It's good quality, too. You really knew what to look for." I smile at her and the way her eyes light up make me realize that I've said the right thing. I mean it too. For now at least, the events with Victor have been pushed to the backs of our minds, and we can concentrate more on the now, and the future. Like calling for help.
Sam hands me some water, and while I want to drink it greedily, I don't. We need to conserve our supplies and not make ourselves sick. She also finds some wire and I realize I can make some traps. I sit down to get to work, and she comes over to watch. I expect a wisecrack about how nimble my fingers are and I've even got a response about her being well aware of that already prepared, but it doesn't come. I start to worry again about her state of mind, but now isn't the time to argue.
She stops my work with a hand and looks up at me. "How do you even know all this stuff?"
"Roth," I answer, simply. "He saw it as his mission to teach me everything he knew about surviving in the wilderness. Maybe because I'd planned to follow in my parents' footsteps, he wanted to prepare me. Maybe he did it because my father would have. I don't...really know. I just really enjoyed most of it, and I know he liked having an eager student."
"What do you think he'd say to all this? Weather goddesses and crystal skulls and that crap with the statues the last time we were in Peru?"
I look up, trying to see the sky through the canopy. "I think he'd say 'Lara, you can't always look at something with your eyes. Sometimes you gotta look at it with your heart and your gut, and let that be your guide. You're a Croft. It's in your blood.'" God, I miss him, but it doesn't hurt as much as it used to. Progress.
Sam laughs, the sound like the best song I've heard all week, and takes my hand. "It has to piss you off a little. Knowing your father was right."
"Yes. I've spent a lot of sleepless nights looking at his journals, trying to make sense of them. There's so much there that's coded or written in verse instead of any way that makes sense!" It is incredibly frustrating, especially now that I know he hadn't been completely off his rocker.
"Anything about our skulls?" Sam slides into my lap, and I put aside my trap. It's mostly done, anyway.
"A few hints and what looks like a riddle. I'm hoping I can make more sense of it after we find Paititi. Which looks like it might have to wait."
She must catch the disappointment in my voice, because she touches my face and replies, "Lara, don't let this ruin it for you. Don't let me ruin it. I'm fine."
"We still need help, and to talk to the authorities. It'll look a lot less suspicious if we don't suddenly go galavanting off after two people died."
She makes a face, but doesn't push the point. I suspect I'll hear more about it later. "Let me show you how to set those traps, hon. I don't know about you, but I want to eat more than whatever survived the crash."
Sam nods at me, so we get up so I can finish the traps and show her how to set them. Maybe an hour and a half pass before we're back where we were and trying to make a camp out of it. Something rustles in the leaves, and I turn, moving Sam behind me.
What comes out of the forest isn't even human. Appearing to be a man made of stone, it rumbles towards me, hands outstretched. I grab my axe and the bow. I probably sound exasperated. Just another day in my life. "Sam. Run."
I don't think Sam's dancing is going to save us this time (I'm not even sure how that worked the last time we were in Peru). It's fast, moving too damned fast and my head rings when it hits me. I lead it away from Sam and back towards the crash site, my arrows doing absolutely nothing to it. But there's supplies there I can use. Maybe even get some fuel on it and set it ablaze. It should burn hot enough to cut right through that stone, or at least that's my hope. It clips me again, this time in the side and I'm falling, rolling down the hill and through vines and roots and plants. I barely have time to figure out which way is up when the thing is on me.
It lifts me up, gripping me by the face so I can't even see my assailant. I try to claw at it, but only tear my fingers and nails open on the stone. So I kick at it, and when I think I've managed to weaken it's grip it grabs my leg and twists it. I feel the bone snap all the way up my spine and my scream must wake the dead. I don't even have time to breath before it twists the leg the other way. It's excrutiating and the only thing I can do is to keep struggling.
Struggling makes it hurt even worse, but it's better than just screaming. Its grip on my head tightens, and my ears pop. My skull is going to be crushed like a grape. I don't know which direction is up or down and I do something I never do. I panic. I'm scrambling and then screaming the only word I can even think of right now. I scream for Sam and pray she doesn't listen. I don't want her to watch me die, but she's the only thing I can even think about right now.
The stone man drops me, and I land awkwardly on the ground. My ears are ringing. I think I hear gunshots and a voice shouting. I roll my head and I see Sam. I try to tell her to run but I think I'm going down a tunnel now as everything darkens.