"Where the hell could they be?"
Chase snuck through the camp, doing her best to avoid the remaining mercenaries. She held the snub nose revolver close as she searched the camp for her friends, cursing David under her breath for giving her a gun with only six bullets.
"My fault though," she begrudgingly admitted, "I should've at least waited long enough to see if he had any extra ammo."
Looking through the tents, she prayed that people were getting to safety. The area had quickly become fairly empty, but where everyone had gone was a different matter entirely. She ducked into a tent as a pair of mercenaries rounded the corner, trying to avoid notice. But several bullets tearing through the khaki canvas walls told her she had failed in the regard.
"Damn it Nate, where are you?" she grumbled under her breath, ducking behind a large tool chest, "I could use your help."
One of the mercenaries burst into the tent, quickly receiving two bullets to the chest. Before Chase could make a move, the second man came through the back of the tent, grabbing her from behind. As the attacker attempted to wrestle the gun out of Chase's hands, several rounds expended into the air, tearing through the canvas walls and smacking into the dirt before one drilled right through the mercenary's boot. Calling out in pain, the man's grip loosened enough for Chase to pull herself free, swinging her arm back to club her attacker in the face with the butt of the revolver. As the man crumpled into an unconscious heap, Chase checked her weapon, cursing inwardly as she realized she only had emptied the revolver.
"Crap," she mumbled, pulling a stubby sawed-off shotgun from the fallen mercenary's back, "Maybe I -should've had that redneck jackass come with me."
She rounded a corner, calling out for Nate and Gabe, hoping they were safe. She knew that Nate could take care of himself, but Gabe? He wasn't like Nate; he wasn't made for this. She called out for him again, finally hearing a voice in reply.
"Chase!" Gabe cried out, "Help!"
She zeroed in on where his voice came from, running to find him. She cut through several tents, finding Gabe in the hands of a man she hadn't seen, a wild haired man in a dirty disheveled black suit, his hair matted with blood. The man had his back to Chase, holding Gabe by the shirt, interrogating him.
"Please, please don't kill me!" Gabe begged as he was slowly lifted off the floor, "I don't know where they went!"
"Drop him!" Chase shouted, pointing her weapon a Gabe's attacker.
The man turned his head, looking over his shoulder. Despite being unarmed, he was seemingly unimpressed by the sight of a double barrel trained on him. As he sized her up, his black, void like eyes sent chills down Chase's spine.
"Go home little girl," Ben replied sternly, turning away from her, "You're not a part of this."
Chase was taken aback by the man's chilling, confident demeanor, but held her ground. "No," she retorted, "Let my friend go." She was doing her best to sound confident, but this guy creeped the hell out of her. She could swear the air had gotten a couple degrees colder.
"Could we not do that?" Ben asked, his tone a mix of a disciplinarian and someone being mildly inconvenienced, "As exciting as it would normally be to have a beautiful woman holding a gun to me, I'm not really in the mood. And besides, it didn't work to well for the last guy."
He sighed as Chase held her ground, pausing for a moment before tossing Gabe aside like a ragdoll. Ben turned menacingly towards her, his untucked shirt soaked in blood. In a flash he had closed the distance between them, ripping the gun from her hands. He let out a guttural, animalistic yell, baring blackened, monstrous teeth as he flung Chase through the air. She fell in a heap next to Gabe, and they looked in terror at the man before them, striding powerfully toward the duo.
"Don't hurt her!" Finch uttered as confidently as he could manage, putting himself between Chase and their attacker. Ben stopped, standing over them, snarling through pitch black fangs, "You need us! We can help you with whatever you want, just please, don't hurt her!"
The rabid look on Ben's face disappeared, quickly replaced with a confident grin. He dug a finger into the hole in his shirt, small amounts of blood leaking out. Chase felt herself want to throw up as she heard the sound of him digging into flesh and bone. After a moment, he withdrew the hand, displaying an expended bullet between his index finger and thumb.
"I told you," he spoke with a returning calm, "It didn't work out to well for the last guy."
"Who the hell do you think you are?" Elena yelled, delivering a harsh slap to the side of David's face. He somberly accepted the attack, knowing that he deserved it, "You had no right to… kidnap me!"
"Elena," David tried to explain, but was interrupted by another slap. He knew it wasn't going to be pretty when she woke up, but he had resigned himself to accept whatever hate she wanted to give him.
"Nate need's my help, our help!" Elena continued, "But you just leave him with, God knows who those people are, to take me to some port?"
"I'm sorry for what I did," David responded, hoping she wouldn't slap him again, "But Elena please, just make sure Juliet's safe. That's how you can help Nate."
Elena sighed, "I know," she admitted, her voice slowly sounding more hurt than angry, "I just wish he would quit, I don't know, pushing me away… running off every time something bad happens."
She sat down on the edge of the docks, David taking a seat beside her, their feet dangling over the water.
"He's not pushing you away," David replied, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder, "You know just as well as I do he's not that guy any more. But Juliet needs you too, and I know he'd never live it down if anything ever happened to either of you."
The pair sat in silence for a moment, Juliet watching them from her car seat, the car door open a few feet away. David took a deep breath, standing up and retrieving Juliet from the car, car seat and all, and sitting her next to her mother.
"You know," David continued, sitting back down next to Juliet, "Nate actually didn't want me coming back for him."
"What?" Elena asked, her eyes widening.
"Yeah," David nodded, "He asked me to stay with the two of you, and make sure y'all are safe. He promised he'd find you when all this was over."
"So what're you going to do?" Elena inquired, looking at him expectantly.
"Well, it's like you said," David responded, "He's my friend, and I can't abandon him. But first, I need y'all to get on that boat, and get outta here."
David stood up, helping Elena to her feet as she looked at the rusty boat at the end of the dock, two locals getting it ready. Reaching into the trunk of the rental car, he pulled out a small red drawstring bag, handing it to Elena.
"These guys will get you out of the country," David assured, "There's about twenty grand in here, along with a phone and a gun, just in case. If you need to, try to contact Sullivan for help, and find a place to lay low. I'll bring Nate back, I promise"
Elena gave a small smile, accepting the bag from David. "Thanks David," she replied, giving him a hug.
"Don't mention it Blondie," David cracked, returning the embrace.
As she watched him get into the car and drive off, Elena picked up Juliet in her car seat, praying that Nate was okay.
The sound of classical music filled the air, causing Nate to stir as it reached his ears. He blinked his eyes open, confused as he found himself lying on a small, cheap bed in a room he had never seen before.
"What the hell?" he mumbled, rubbing his eyes as he sat up. The shoddy accommodations were in fact, not a dream, he realized as he blinked repeatedly, running his fingers through his hair. As the violin recording continued, Nate searched the room for his weapon, but found nothing. Even his pockets were empty, down to the lint. His shirt was laid across the back of a chair on this other side of the room, half dry, but still damp from sweat. Lying on the bedside table was a clean, neatly folded white t-shirt. Pulling the shirt over his head, he pulled on the door handle, surprised to find it unsecured.
Making his way into an equally plain hallway, Nate searched for a weapon, still thrown off by the music echoing through the space. As he pulled a ball point pen from a drawer, holding it in his hand like a shank, the smell of bacon reached his nose.
"Where the hell am I?"
He rounded the corner, holding the pen up threateningly, unsure of whom or what would greet him. He paused, uncertain of what to make of the sole occupant of the room, casually cooking at a stove top as he hummed along to the music, his back to Nate. The man stood in rumpled brown cargo pants and an untucked navy button down shirt, absorbed in the music as he filled several strips of bacon. Nate looked around the room uncertainly, noticing the contents of his wallet, his phone, sobriety chip, and his half eaten pack of gum laid out neatly on the table. In the corner of the room was the wooden chest, it's contents neatly organized. Hanging from one of the plain wooden chairs at the table, Nate spied a worn in leather shoulder holster, reminiscent of the ones he used to wear. He snuck into the small room, reaching for the pistol hanging unattended from the chair.
"I'm sorry if I was rude before," Abraham spoke casually, sliding the pieces of bacon onto two plates, each already topped with a generous helping of eggs, "I get impatient sometimes when I'm working."
He turned to face Nate, a welcoming smile on his face as he held a plate in each hand, setting them down on the table. Nate blinked, his hand half on the pistol, uncertain how to proceed.
"What the hell is going on?" Nate asked hesitantly.
Abraham raised an eyebrow, seemingly confused. "I'm…cooking you bacon and eggs," he replied innocently, as if it were obvious, "I thought you might be hungry after sweating out that toxin."
"So, what, you just abduct me and make me breakfast?" Nate asked incredulously, "At ten in the evening?"
"Well I was going to make pancakes too," Abraham replied honestly, retrieving salt and pepper from the pantry, "And when is it ever a bad time for bacon and eggs?"
Nate relinquished his grip on the pistol, intrigued by his new associate's welcoming demeanor. He watched as Abraham turned back to the stove, pausing the music on his phone.
"I'm Abraham," he continued, tipping his head in an almost imperceptible bow, "And I'm sure you've got plenty of questions."
Nate chuckled sarcastically, "Well my family's lives were threatened by a man I'd never met, a psychopath who I'd shot in the heart responded by strangling me, and before I could find my wife and make sure she was safe, I got abducted. But not, mind you, before I got shot by a hallucinogenic dart. So yeah, I'm not short on questions."
Abraham let out a sigh, taking a seat at the shoddy little table, "I'm sorry about all of that, it's not what I wanted to happen."
Nate stood in silence for a moment, "Where's my wife?" he asked plainly.
"She's with a friend of yours," Abraham assured, "The one with the, uh, surfer hair. I'm not sure where they went."
Nate let out a sigh of relief, "As long as she is out of harm's way," he replied, "You leave her out of this."
"I have no desire to endanger your family," Abraham responded, "But I can't say the same for our friend Henry."
"Who is he, Henry Reimer?"
"A man backed into a corner," Abraham answered, "And made all the more dangerous for it. He's spent years rebuilding what we thought was a dead organization, proving time and again he is not to be trifled with."
"He said I killed someone important to him." Nate spoke quietly, cautiously taking a seat. Abraham pushed a plate of bacon and eggs toward him.
"I think you know the answer to that one," Abraham replied, motioning to where Nate had been hit with the dart.
"He was one of Marlowe and Talbot's men?"
Abraham nodded, his mouth full of scrambled eggs.
"Ah, crap," Nate sighed, helping himself to a slice of bacon. The pair sat in silence for a moment, eating their food, "So how do you fit into all of this?"
"As Henry said, his people are at war with mine," Abraham explained, "Our job is to keep powerful artifacts safe and out of the hands of people like Katherine Marlowe, Henry Reimer, and anyone else who would misuse them."
Nate smirked, "So now you want me to help you? Help you find the City of the Caesars and beat Henry Reimer?"
"Actually," Abraham replied, "I think that you could use my help."
"What the hell happened to you?" Henry Reimer asked, raising an eyebrow as Ben emptied a canteen on his head, rinsing the blood out of his hair.
"Just making new friends," Ben replied gruffly, running his hands through his curly black hair.
"I see that," Henry responded, "Is this all that's left?"
Ben eyed the small group of prisoners they had lined up on their knees in the dirt, "These are all we managed to grab," he affirmed, watching the archaeologists avoid his gaze, their eyes to the ground, "The rest are in the wind, including Nathan Drake and his…shovel wielding friend."
Ben touched a hand to the back of his head, giving an irritated growl as he felt his freshly healed scalp. Henry poured a glass of bourbon, holding it out towards Ben, who eyeballed it momentarily before snatching the bottle out of Henry's hand.
Henry let out a frustrated sigh, drinking the bourbon from the glass. Two hundred dollar bottle or not, he didn't feel like arguing about it, "And if one of them is here, then there might be others. We need all hands on deck," he motioned to one of the men, who stepped off to make the call, "I don't want to take any chances."
"One of who?" Chase wondered, listening intently to the conversation. She glanced sideways at Gabriel, who was sitting silently next to her. All things considered, he was holding up very well. He met her gaze out of the corner of his eye, his face calmly apprehensive behind cracked glasses lenses. "God Nate, what have you gotten yourself into this time?"
"Did we ever find that chest?" Henry asked the small clutch of mercenaries that surrounded them, looking at them expectantly.
"No sir," came an apprehensive reply.
Henry rubbed his brow with his thumb and forefinger, shoulders slumped faintly, "Nathan Drake is in the wind again, along with the chest," he spoke with calm frustration, "And he's receiving an unknown amount of help from our enemies."
The mercenaries winced at their boss's tone Henry fought back a scowl as he turned to face the small band of archaeologists, maintaining a calm expression on his face, "So, archaeologists and scholars, there was a wooden chest discovered earlier today, purported to make reference to the legendary City of the Caesars," he paused for a moment, his icy blue eyes staring daggers through his captive audience, "I want you to tell me everything, about this city, the chest, all of it. I want every photo, every note card you might have. Pray that what you've got proves useful, or my associate here," he looked at Ben, who was staring intently at the prisoners, "Well, you don't want to know."
Ben finished off the bottle of bourbon, giving a malicious grin "I am feeling kind of hungry actually."
"Goddamn, was he mauled by a bear?" Reese wondered as he looked through the scope of his sniper rifle, his sights resting on Ben's muddy and blood stained form. Nestled quietly in the tree line, he scanned the site, taking stock of the situation.
"Alright, six hostages, at least…eighteen mercenaries, not to mention Jack the Ripper and his boss."
Reese looked on, finger next to the trigger as the archaeologists jumbled around, speaking fervently with their captors.
"I see that squirrely professor guy, and that woman Chase, but no sign of Nate anywhere. God damn it."
Keeping his rifle at the ready, Reese sat in silence, working out how to proceed. He tried Nate's cell phone again, but with no success.
"Damn it," he mumbled, looking back down the scope of his weapon.
"There are too many guys to take a shot without endangering the hostages, Nate's MIA, and it looks like my best chance of finding him is…"
Reese sighed, slinging the sniper rifle on his back, "Son of a bitch," he grumbled, unholstering his 1911 before making his way to the camp.
Henry's eyes narrowed menacingly, "This is all you have?" he asked one of the archaeologists, holding up a thin manila folder.
"Well we didn't have the chest for very long before…" the archaeologist began, but stopped as Henry's icy blue eyes stared daggers in him.
Henry flipped through the contents of the folder, skimming over the notes and glossy photographs. Taking a deep breath, he closed the folder, passing it off to one of his men.
"Alright," Henry spoke commandingly, "According to Drake, this place was supposed to be in the mountains along the border between Chile and Argentina. See if any of this can narrow that down."
The man nodded, taking the folder off into one of the tents.
"And we're only going to need Drake's friends," he continued, "So Benjamin," Ben looked up from the bourbon bottle, seemingly desperate for any remaining drops at the bottom, "Take care of the extras."
"NO, DON'T!" Chase shouted, rising to her feet before being desperately pulled back by Finch.
But it was too late. In one swift motion, Ben violently smashed the bourbon bottle on the head of one of the archaeologists before jamming the broken remains into the neck of another.
"Sorry," Ben grinned sarcastically at Chase and Finch, "But orders are orders."
Then, as he took a step towards the last two, Ben felt two small pin pricks in his back. Before he could investigate, he collapsed to the ground, convulsing spastically as Reese held down the trigger of the Taser with his right hand, gripping the collar of one of the mercenaries as a human shield with his left. Maintaining pressure on the trigger, he wrapped his right arm around the mercenary's neck, freeing his left to draw his pistol, pressing it into the merc's temple. Henry looked down at Ben, who was twitching face down in the dirt as the Taser continued to pump electricity through him.
"Can I help you Mr. Reese?" Henry raised an eyebrow, completely unimpressed.
"You can start by letting these-" Reese began, but was interrupted by the sound of a gunshot. Doing his best to conceal his surprise, Reese watched as one of the remaining archaeologists slumped over on the ground.
"I'm sorry," Henry replied with an icy menace, lowering his pistol to his side, "That was rhetorical."
I don't know why, but the idea of a character like Ben being dropped by a Taser is hilarious to me. And please, continue to read and review. I want to tell the best story I can, one that you guys will continue to want to read, so every piece of constructive criticism helps. And thank you to everyone who has favorite, followed, or even just viewed this story. Just seeing the support this story gets motivates me to keep writing.