The last chapter was...interesting, eh? Anyway, yes the crew will appear, perhaps in the next chapter or two. Still undecided. Oh and please excuse any spelling mistakes. Typed on a phone and...well, let's just say it's difficult to fix mistakes once they're made.

Though Lara was happy to be outside for the first time in weeks, she would have preffered a walk through the forest. Not to be dangling over the ocean by too many feet.

She swallowed and looked over her shoulder, down to the sharp rocks and salty water, then peered up at Teagen. She was staring down at Lara with a blank expression, like she was confused but intrigued as to why this seemed so difficult to Lara.

"Just another lunge," Teagen stated.

Lara wondered what truly went on in her brain sometimes, wondered just how wild Mathias had made her.

Lara grumbled a litttle and scrambled those precious feet up to the top of the cliff, her fingera curling in soft grass before she flopped onto her back, closing her eyes. The silence - minus the noise of the waves and birds - was something that caught Lara's attention and she looked up.

Teagen was standing, back to Lara, staring out at the ocean. "Mathias saved me..." she started, voice small. "My father hauled cargo to a small island just off the southern ccoast of Japan...my mother convinced him to let us come along after she explained how lonely she got without him...I didn't want to go..."

Lara listened intently, unsure as to where this confession was coming from. But she wouldn't stop her; it was a subject Lara had been curious about since she had been abducted.

"My father's boat got caught in the storm, we landed here, battered and bruised. My father built a fire, my mother was dying," Teagen shook her head, eyes glassed over. "Then it got dark, my mother was coming to...and Mathias appeared," she looked back at Lara. "He spoke so kindly, played the perfect part of fellow survivor. Then his men arrived, held my parents hostage while my father begged for him to spare me..."

She rolled the right sleeve of her rugged kimono and revealed a nasty purple welp that ran the full length of her forearm.

"A bacterial infection came with a cut I got from the shrapnel of our boat...Mathias had the medicine. He killed my parents, took me in...and here we are."

Lara watched her rolll down the sleeve in silence.

"He owns you," Lara shook her head in disbelief.

Something wild flashed in Teagens eyes. "No," she smiled crookedly, shaking her head. "He is mine," her nostrils flared. "He is mine, the Solarii are mine..." Teagen knelt in front of Lara, took her chin sharply. "No one will take him from me," her mind was racing; Teagen was more dangerous than any of these men. "I saw you peeking the other day," shit. "Think you're going to take him from me?"

Lara tried to shake her head; Teagens grip would leave bruises. "No - I swear -"

"Good," she pushed Lara away, back into the dirt. "You're smart. Your friend - what does he call her? Samantha? Yeah, she's becoming a major thorn in my side."

"Don't you -"

"Ah ah ah," Teagen gestured to the machete on her right hip. "You are mine remember? Mathias taught me how to deal with things that can't be fixed. But like I said, you're smart. I think you can learn."

Lara let out a shaky breath. "What are you going to do with Sam?"

Teagen hummed. "I might kill her..." her eyes seemed to darken. "He spends so much time perfecting her...I've begun to bed him much more to keep him with me and away from her..."

This was crazy.

This was fucking insane.

Teagen's eyes lit up and she clapped her hands. "Wait! Wait! I can use you!"

LRa hesitated. "F-For what?"

"You can talk sense into your friend, tell her to leave him alone!"

Could Lara deny? No, she didn't want to really. She wanted to see her friends.

"Anything..." Lara muttered.

And Teagen cheered.