After getting to the air field, which was a long stretch of flat, dirt ground, dying grass on the sides and a wall of trees on either side. They took a private plane to their next destination, in the desert and cloaks for the environment they are going into. Both of them wearing cloaks with their hoods up, Lara's khaki, Jonah's is a darker brown, and in matching cargo pants, though Jonah is wearing a black BDU shirt and Lara is wearing her usual sleeveless shirt that she wore when she first ran into Trinity.

Walking through the market place, the venders all bunched up alone both sides, selling jewelry, fish, meat, material, clothing, grains, trinkets, you name it and Jonah glances at Lara, wondering if this last article that came out about the Wings of Darkness is true or if they're on a while goose chase. Her eyes are determined, her mind is set and she wants answers.

Sand gusts through the area and they both hold their hood down to protect their faces, vendors calling out to them, but Lara can barely hear them. Knowing how much danger these innocent people were in if the wings were used here, the whole place would be silent except for the wind and littered with bodies. Her mind flashes to images of the whole street being eerily quiet, the vendors' tables being empty, paper and garbage being blown up and down the street with bodies lying all around them. Stepping carefully around their limbs, looking down she sees the faces, they are grey, their mouths are open as though they were crying out for help, dry from the sandy air, their pupils are gone, a very light tinge of grey-white, but the fear still lingers there.

Her mind flashes and there's black blood dried on their chins, their cheeks, having spilled out from the corners of their mouth, on their hands, and their bodies are twisted from falling to the ground and writhing on the floor in pain. Their brains having tried to register what was happening, what went wrong, why are their blood vessels erupting, why is there a black whisping chemical sweeping through their veins, making their muscles contract and their nerves twitch uncontrollably. Gasping as the blackened blood fills their lungs and came gushing out through their mouths seconds before drowning on their own poisoned blood. Their bodies being left on the streets with no one left in the city to call on, to get answers, the world oblivious to the terror that could come to the UK, to America, to the rest of the world because someone thinks it's a brilliant and wicked idea to save the world from itself and start it over.

Lara finally registers that her eyes are closed and that she stopped walking, that Jonah's hands are on her shoulders, "Lara? Are you okay?" his voice coming through the dog of her mind, she opens her eyes and her ears finally take in the noise of the marketplace. Her heart is racing at what she's facing, what she needs to stop if the wrong people get their hands on it.

She looks into his eyes; he's scared for her, scared of what is going on in her mind to make her stop and freeze up, "Jonah… I need to get the Wings of Darkness," Lara says and he nods firmly, seeing a new sense of purpose in her like when she first found the location for the Divine Source. Her dedication showing in her eyes.

"Alright, let's go and get answers then," Jonah says and feels a hint of fear, he has never seen her freeze up like that, close up in on herself, he swore she was shaking just a little and no one else but him saw that she was doing.

They continue through the market place, and come to a four way and turn down the main street to go to the palace. It's wider here and less people, the palace is so grand, but her mind isn't on the architecture this time, it's on the opening ahead of her and the guards standing in front of the large double doors leading in.

Walking through the entry way lined with pillars on either side, Lara looks up at the guards who are blocking her way from getting in, "I've come to see the Prince, I have an appointment." She pulls away her hood and the guards step aside. She blinks in surprise but shrugs it off and walks in with Jonah.

There are antiques, collectibles, special artifacts on pedestals lining the walls and special paintings on the wall as they go along, but Lara isn't focused on it. Feeling anxious now to be in a city where the Wings of Darkness were possibly seen recently, it gives her the chills where she would be normally enjoying the new surroundings as Jonah is.

Going up three flights of stairs, they come to a landing with a long red rug with black trim. A foreign language is heard on the other side of these double doors with glass in the holes, Jonah looks at Lara, "you sure these were the directions he gave? How come we didn't get an escort?"

Taking a deep breath and staring at the door ahead of them, "because I requested for no escort, I told him I'd be bringing no weapons as this was a meeting for knowledge. Nothing more," she answers and the doors open up to have the prince standing before them with his arms open wide.

"Ah-ha! The woman who found the golden hand of Midas! Come-come!" Prince Auda says excitedly and that's when Jonah remembers her interview that got her some good karma and some bad. But at least she finally has some good publicity on her side.

He has a large black full beard that he's kept trimmed, thick black hair that is wavy, wearing a white robe with golden trim and blue accents on symbols that Lara does not recognize. His arms are open wide, "Please, come in! Have a seat and a drink," he smiles widely as they step in.

There are guards standing at the door and at the balcony overseeing the area they walked in from, "would you like to have some tea?" he offers as they take seats in wooden caned chairs with thick red cushions and a short but long oak table sits between them. The wall behind Lara and Jonah and a big picture window with plants in the way behind Prince Auda.

Lara nods, "yes, please," she says to be polite; pushing aside the images her mind created earlier and remembering she has to be civil to get her answers.

He motions to a bald slender servant to bring the tray and he rubs his hands together, "the Lara Croft," he smiles and looks at Jonah, "and her partner in action, Jonah Maiava," he extends his hand to Jonah who gives him a firm shake.

The tray is set down and three cups are poured, Lara puts sugar into hers and a bit of milk, Jonah puts just sugar into his while Prince Auda leaves his as is. "I was not expecting to get a phone call from you, knowing that it is artifacts and special, special treasures you go after," he looks at Lara now before taking a sip and so does Lara and Jonah. "I have to tell you Lady Croft, I do not own any special things."

Taking a moment Lara goes into her right cargo pants pocket on her thigh and pulls out a standard piece of paper and shows him the picture of the Wings of Darkness. "Do you recognize this?" she asks before taking another sip of her tea.

Prince Auda smiles when he looks at it, "yes, I owned that piece once," he looks up at her, seeming oblivious to what it truly is. "I got it in a trade, it was in a glass case on display, and an older man came around collecting priceless artifacts claiming to be with a museum."

Lara blinks, "you sold him the wings?" she asks and he nods. She wants to ask him more without setting off alarms, and she doesn't know how much she can trust him.

Nodding and setting the photo down, "yes, for $500,000.00. He said his name was Albert Ograc," Prince Auda says and Lara's mind starts reelin. "I got the feeling these wings were special, but I didn't think there was anything that…." He thinks for a moment, "special? What do you know about them Lady Croft?" he looks at her in genuine intrigue.

Taking another sip to finish her tea, Lara looks up at him, "someone told me that I should look into them," she lies and holds her head as it starts to feel fuzzy, and Jonah doesn't flinch when she does. "I got a letter in the mail with that photo, so I did some research to find you were the last one who owned it. But it never said you sold it to anyone," Lara says and works to connect the dots while she finds herself spacing out, finding it harder to focus. She knows that something like what he is saying would have been in the newspaper.

"I only just sold it to him yesterday," Prince Auda says and Lara's eyes widen, "would you like his business card?"

She nods her head and he snaps his fingers for the servant to walk over with the card, "thank you Prince Auda," Lara says as clearly as she can, looking up at him and she notices that her vision is blurring, her hand trembles as she reaches for it.

"Lara?" Jonah says and she looks at him before looking back at the Prince. Jonah collapses, hitting his head on the table before rolling onto his side on the floor.

Her head is spinning; she places both of her hands onto the table to try and stabilize herself, "I'm sorry Lady Croft, but I'm doing this to protect my client, please understand that it is just business."

The room is spinning around her, she tries to stand up but her balance is completely off and she falls onto her left side on the floor. No matter how many times she blinks, the room will not stop and her vision continues to blur. Prince Auda stands before her now, and sighs. "It's a mind game… a dangerous mind game."

With that her vision went dark.


Jonah wakes up, groggy as all get out and groans to himself, slowly opening his eyes as the place he's in gives a small shake. He sees a couple of armed guards standing in the small hallway leading to the cockpit, both are in black BDU's, black vests and have assault rifles slung around their necks, nothing more. Glancing to his left he sees Lara is sitting next to him and is asleep, looking at his buckle system that is keeping him in place his eyes go up to watch the two guards who are talking about an episode of Homeland.

His fingers move around the buckle to unfasten it where the hell are we? He wonders and gets the primary buckle undone and one of the guards looks his way. He quickly fakes that he is still asleep.

"Hmmm I thought I heard something," the one says, both of their faces are covered with a cloth, the one on the right walks over to Jonah, "hey big guy, you awake?" he asks and kneels down in front of Jonah to get a look at his face.

Without warning Jonah punches him square in the jaw, the guy is knocked out instantly, falling onto Jonah and the other guy jumps in surprise. Grabbing his assault rifle and aims it at Jonah, he fires off a few rounds while the plane jumps around and Jonah pulls the friend up as a shield making him take a couple of the hits and the buckle takes one of the others.

His eyes dart around, his brain in overdrive as he needs to get Lara and him out of this mess and do his best to make sure she doesn't get hurt. He stands up to fumble for the guys assault rifle, grabbing the handle he swings it around and fires the rifle shooting the guy a few times in the chest, the guy stumbles into the wall behind him screaming out in pain while pulling the trigger on his own gun. One of them nails Jonah in the right thigh making him drop the man who was a shield. He looks at Lara quickly to see she wasn't shot and grips his thigh, looking at the wound briefly to assess the major artery wasn't hit. Standing up to grimace he limps to the cockpit quickly we need some answers.

Once he gets to the door he holds up the assault rifle at the ready, he turns the knob to find it is locked, "hey! Open this door! I want some answers!" he shouts and gets silence in response.

Shooting the lock he shoves the door open and the pilot swings a handgun on him, "you won't take me alive!" he cries and Jonah wastes no time putting a couple of bullets into him to watch the man collapse instantly and slump into the controls.

A machine starts to beep like crazy and Jonah looks out the glass to see they're flying out over some mountains, "what the heck… where were you guys taking us?" he mumbles and sees that the plane is starting to tilt forward, "shit!" he grabs the pilot's under arms and with most of his strength pulls him out of his chair. The bullet hole in his leg oozing out blood while he was pulling the man out, once the pilot is out if his chair, Jonah uses what strength he has left to drag the body to the other area where the other two are and Lara.

Planting his hands onto his thighs, sweat on his face he puts his right hand onto his face to wipe the sweat off but truth be told he doesn't feel too good. Wiping his face caused blood from his leg to go onto his face. Looking around he sees no parachutes which means they need to get the plane back under control. He hobbles over to Lara as fast as he can, more sweat appearing in seconds on his face as he strains to walk, he places his hands onto her shoulders and gives her a gentle shake, "Lara! Wake up! I need you!"

Lara is shaken awake, she's sitting and then realizes Jonah is talking to her, she opens her eyes as the fog in her mind is slowly lifting. Her mind registers blood on his face and he's grimacing. "Lara! I need you to fly this thing!" she sees he is holding her shoulders, she blinks and feels a strong shudder from the plane they're in and looks around, his right thigh has been shot and there are a few dead men on the floor. There are boxes and crates held into place behind her.

The plane shakes violently as her groggy mind clears up and she feels herself snap into action, standing up to stumble into Jonah who helps guide her to the front of the plane which was across from where she was sitting. She grabs for the walls leading to the cockpit, lights going off, beeping from controls as she staggers to the two seats to find them both empty and blood on some of the controls. I'll ask questions after I get this plane back under control… if I can Lara jumps into the pilot's seat as she sees they are going down towards a heavily wooded area and the whole plane shakes with turbulence.

Buckling herself into her harness system she looks at the wheel in front of her and pulls, her hands shaking with the plane, she presses her feet to the wall under the controls and uses that as support and pulls harder. Her heart hammering in her chest in fear as she stares at the tree tops while they get closer, she clenches her jaw, groaning, straining, and pulling even harder to watch as the plane finally lifts.

Jonah gives a sigh of relief once they're going up and she manages to level it, finally she hits the switches to shut the beeping off and make the lights stop flashing. "What the hell happened?" Lara asks as he takes a seat in the co-pilot's spot, Jonah looks as though he's about to pass out, his pant leg is almost soaked with blood. She looks at the controls and finds autopilot to turn it on before unbuckling herself to search for the first aid kit.

"I… I don't know," Jonah's chest heaves as sweat starts to drip down the side of his face. "The… the last thing I recall… w-was the P-P-Princcce," his eye lids start to droop and his head starts to slump forward.

Hurrying back to the cockpit to see the first aid is tucked behind the pilot's chair Lara opens it on her seat to start going through the contents, "stay with me Jonah!" she looks over her shoulder and finds the gauze, she also finds a brown gelatin in a pouch which she knows is meant for deep wounds.

Turning to face him, Lara lightly taps his left cheek to get his eyes to open a little, "Jonah! Stay with me Jonah!" she feels herself starting to panic as he drops off. Pursing her lips she looks at his pant leg and with her fingers pulls the fabric apart, making the hole nice and big. "I need to clean your leg to see the bullet hole better…" she looks in the kit to see a large bottle of rubbing alcohol, she gives a hissing sound as she opens it.

"Sorry," she pours it over the bullet wound area and his eyes shoot open for him to scream out, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry Jonah, I needed to clean the area to see what I'm dealing with," she says and watches him slowly relax.

"Geez girl, couldn't you have used water?" Jonah asks with a partial smile, looking down at her as she opens up a pouch and pours some of it over the bullet hole and feels around the back to find no exit hole.

"Sorry, didn't really want to spend extra time searching for water when your passing out," Lara explains, moving back to the one on the top she grabs a couple of square pieces of gauze to lie on top before taking a thick roll of gauze out and wraps it around his leg over and over again until it's done. Going back to the kit she pulls out some tape and pins it into place.

Finally she closes up the kit and takes her pilot seat to view where they are, "what the heck happened Jonah?" she looks at him, "besides the Prince drugging us, he obviously faked drinking his own tea."

He groans and wipes at his forehead to get rid of the sweat, "I woke up, saw two armed guys, knocked out one, the other shot him, I shot that guy and then the pilot pulled a gun on me and finally I woke you up," he looks at her with a smile.

She raises her right brow at him, "short and to the point… now… where the heck are we?" Lara looks around for any indication but finds none so she stands up again to search the pilot's body and to her relief he has his cell phone and it wasn't shot. Taking her seat again she dials for the mansion and within two rings Winston answers.

"Hello?" Winston says and Lara smiles to herself.

"It's Lara, Jonah and I are in a pickle and I need Liam to track the number I'm using to figure out where the heck we are," Lara says and hears Winston give a sigh. "I'm alright; but Jonah's been shot in the leg, we're in the air and have no way of knowing where we are."

"Just a moment Lady Croft," Winston says within a couple of moments hears the phone being transferred; a mumbled explanation goes on the other end.

"Give me a moment, going onto my computer now… how did your meeting go with Prince Auda?" Liam asks and Lara sighs.

"He told me that he sold the wings to someone yesterday while drugging us with his tea," Lara reaches down to feel her pocket and is surprised to hear the sound of paper in it as she never put the photo back. "Hmmm… what's this?" she says out loud without intending to and pulls the folded piece of paper out of her pocket.

To her surprise there's something in the folding, undoing it she finds another piece of paper that is folded in half, "a letter," to this Jonah looks over in curiosity.

"Dear Lady Croft, I apologize for knocking you out like that, but I have spies in my midst and didn't want them to overhear what I wanted to tell you. This was my only way to protect you. The name of the buyer was actually Eli Drachir, a private businessman with an office in San Francisco. His address is 33rd Avenue, 1509 Cabrillo St. Apt. 410. Please, when this mess is over, come and visit again. Sincerely Prince Auda," Lara looks up at Jonah and he smiles.

"Looks like we're on the right track," Jonah says and Liam is typing away on his computer.

"My suggestion, come back home, refuel and get Jonah the medical attention he needs. I'll then go with you to the apartment," Liam suggests and Lara looks at Jonah to see he is looking like he can pass out again.

She looks out through the window and her eyes widen at some of the building structures she's starting to fly over, "no, Jonah needs a hospital now and… I think I'm in Spain," she responds. She hears some typing going on the other end of the phone.

"You would be correct, but Lara it isn't safe enough for you to go to San Francisco on your own being you were just drugged," Liam comments and Lara lets out a slow breath, thinking about everything that is going on.

"Well, after I land and get Jonah set up with the closest hospital, I'll get a plane to take me to San Francisco," Lara says with determination. "If you want to join me I suggest you hop on a plane as soon as you can."

To Be Continued…


Review please! Yes, I took Jonah out but I gave him action. And things are going to continue to get interesting.