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Cozumel, Mexico
Lara groaned as she rolled over, every muscle and bone protesting the movement. She blinked up at the single pinprick of light that was the street above. The previous sounds of the busy street were gone, replaced by the telltale echos of water dripping in a cavernous space.
Lara swore softly under her breath.
Close your eyes girl, take stock of your body and any injuries.
Even so many years later Roth’s voice still rang in the back of her mind.
She squeezed her eyes shut and began to mentally scan herself, checking for injuries. She could still feel every throbbing bump and blossoming bruise from head to toe, so that was a good sign. Nothing important felt broken.
She sat up slowly, opening her eyes again. Debris from the street above surrounded her – boxes and trash bags. Along with the body of the mercenary she’d had in a headlock before the sinkhole opened up beneath them both.
She eyed the body carefully, even though the man’s neck was obviously twisted in a macabre manner. Lara slowly and painfully got to her feet, the trash bag beneath her crunching and rustling in the empty echos of the cavern. Probably the only thing that had saved her from the same fate as the mercenary.
She found her own pack, thankfully – torn open and spilled all over the cavern floor. With the remains of her radio smashed into tiny silver pieces.
“Fuck.” Her single exclamation sounded as loud as a gunshot.
A sudden rustle behind her had her pulling her pistol (where it had miraculously remained in its holster) in a single practiced motion. One of the boxes, moldy and crumpled, shifted where it had fallen.
Lara gripped her gun tight and inched close enough to nudge the box with her foot.
A single tiny squeak. So quiet she might have dismissed it.
She should have turned and walked away right there. But something in the back of her mind, something that sounded an awful lot like Sam admonishing her, told her to open the box and peer inside.
At first she thought it was a funny colored rat. Round and scruffy, with a tiny thin tail and pale orange fur. Barely large enough to fit in the cup of her hand. But then she saw the little triangle shaped ears, the twitching pink nose.
Lara and the kitten stared at each other.
The kitten made that noise again, somewhere halfway between a squeak and a raspy cry.
Lara frowned, looked back up at the pinprick of light from the street above, then back at the kitten.
Then she sighed. Heavy and with resignation.
“Bloody hell.”
Before she could change her mind she reached into the box and awkwardly scooped up the animal. The kitten allowed her to, squeaking once again with a tiny pink mouth. It looked at Lara with clear eyes still tinted blue. Some crust around the nose, signs of flea dirt around the edges of its ears. A little too small to be away from its mother, but past the age of sole reliance on milk. Patchy dirty fur. Clearly a stray.
Lara looked back up at the light above again, before back down at the kitten. Who seemed content to sit in her hands, judging by the sudden uneven rattling purr and the flexing of tiny claws.
Lara sighed once again through her nose and frowned deeper, holding the kitten closer to her face to look the little creature in the eye. “You better not give me trouble, understand? I can get us both out, but you’re going to have to behave.”
The kitten did nothing but close its eyes in a contented blink, still doing that uneven rattling purr.
Lara huffed once, deciding that was as close to an agreement as she was going to get. She did her best to rig her ripped bag into a backpack, slinging it across her chest in as secure a hold as she could get it. She tucked the kitten into the makeshift backpack along with a few ration bars and bandages she was able to scrounge up from the debris. Thankfully her flashlight had survived the fall, but the light stuttered and remained dim when she hit it against the heel of her hand.
There was no getting out the way she came in, that was clear. The walls were smooth limestone, worn down by centuries of water run-off from the street above. The cavern stretched deeper into the earth, water running down the walls into a steady stream trickling into darkness. But at the same time, a breeze rustled the hair around her temples, coming up from the tunnel entrance.
“Well, I guess down we go.”
Her boots were sturdy and had good grip, but the smooth stone beneath her was slick. She stepped carefully, running her hand along the wall. The water got deeper, seeping into her boots, dripping onto her head.
A sudden squeak right by her ear made Lara jump almost out of her skin before she threw a glare over her shoulder. In the dim lighting of her weak flashlight she could see the tiny ears of the kitten, who had somehow wiggled its head out of the top of her backpack. Soft fur brushed her cheek as she turned. “Hey. I told you to behave.”
The kitten squeaked again, as if in reply. The animal seemed content now with its head freed and settled against Lara’s shoulder. She felt more than heard that uneven rattling purr.
Lara and her tiny passenger walked for what felt like hours, following the slight breeze she could still feel occasionally brushing against her damp skin. The tunnel remained narrow, twisting in sharp turns and sudden drops.
The kitten’s quiet purring was strangely comforting, a steady vibration against her shoulder as she walked. She snorted at the ironic realization that the shoulder the kitten had settled against was the same one torn up by a jaguar just last year.
“You know, I’ve really only been around your bigger cousins. Dad was allergic so I never did have a cat growing up.” Her voice bounced back at her, distorted and loud. “I mean, look at me. I’m talking to you and you probably have no idea what I’m saying. I guess...” Lara paused here, carefully stepping over the remains of a broken stalactite. “It’s nice to have someone to talk to. Other than myself I mean. Normally when I’m in places like this anyone else I run into is trying to kill me.”
The kitten didn’t squeak this time, but the purring didn’t cease.
Without warning, the tunnel abruptly opened up into a wide cave, a cistern. High above a beam of light stretched overhead like a beacon of a lighthouse. Below the tunnel sloped downward into a wide underground lake. Lara stuck close to the wall, feeling the slickness of the smooth limestone below her.
“Now where does this go?” Lara peered down at the water below and watched the water swirl, faintly. So there was a current. That could be good or bad. Her eyes automatically followed along the wall, where some of the limestone wall had dried and cracked. She pulled her climbing axe from her hip and struck the wall experimentally. The rock crumbled, soft.
She swung the axe hard and the serrated tip dug deep into the rock. She tested her weight against it before putting her boot on the wall and began to climb.
She’d almost forgotten her tiny passenger until a more indignant squeak sounded in her ear and tiny needle claws dug into her shoulder. She grunted, although the claws hardly hurt. She’d certainly had worse.
“I said you need to behave.” She turned to catch the kitten out of the corner of her eye. “Otherwise I will drop you.”
The kitten squeaked again, determined to make their opinion heard. She continued her climb, the motion familiar and reassuring. A short swing followed by the metallic sound of her axe striking rock. Swing, clack. Swing, clack. Swing, clack.
She made it to the top, swinging a leg over the ledge until she had a secure hold.
The sudden crack underneath her distinctly wasn’t.
She froze, feeling the vibration of the crumbling rock giving way. She had only seconds, if that.
In a flash she let go of her axe and grabbed the kitten over her shoulder by the scruff, throwing it over top of the ledge right as the rock beneath her gave way.
Her last glimpse of it before she struck the water was a tiny orange ball of fur sailing up and over the ledge onto the safety of the platform.
The water was a cold shock to her system and she struggled not to gasp when it closed over her head. Instinct took over and she kicked for the surface, feeling the current curling around her and tugging at her limbs and equipment. Something struck her thigh, hard. A protruding rock.
She kicked desperately until her head finally broke the surface, gasping and coughing. She struggled against the current to reach the side of the cistern where she finally hooked in with her remaining axe. She looked up the wall high above her head and groaned.
The water was chilled and she shivered violently as she slowly and painfully made her way back up the cistern wall. Her thigh throbbed – it would definitely bruise.
Lara’s limbs burned as she made the arduous climb, eventually getting within reach of her second axe still stuck in the wall. She grasped it and yanked it free, using it to hook over the edge of the crumbled ledge and finally haul herself over to safety.
She lay there on her back, panting heavily in the still damp air.
“Gonna have to… take a hot bath after this one.” She panted. Every sore muscle and scrape seemed to scream at her. Damn, she was out of practice.
“Mew.”
A familiar raspy squeak near her head. Lara blinked and turned her head to see the orange kitten, sitting with all four feet tucked underneath it as if it had been patiently waiting for her. As soon as she did, that same uneven rattling purr started up once more and pale grey blue eyes squeezed shut. The kitten got to its feet only to tuck against the crook of her neck without heed of the sweat and chilled water still clinging to her skin.
Lara froze for a moment, then let out a breathless chuckle. She scratched the tiny creature between its ears with a single finger. “Still in this together then?”
There was only a raspy squeak in reply.
Sam yanked the wheel of the jeep hard, avoiding a fallen trunk that blocked off half the dirt road. She dared a glance down at the crumpled map in her lap, squinting at the marked cavern entrances on its stained surface. Lara’s scribbles and shorthand were hard to translate on a good day…
She turned the jeep around another corner and abruptly slammed on the breaks, causing the tires to spin out in the slick mud before sliding to a stop. There on the edge of the road was a figure she’d recognize anywhere – even covered in mud and twigs.
“LARA!”
The woman in question waved at her with a tired hand as she approached, yanking the door open before sliding into the passenger seat.
Sam scanned her, looking for any obvious injuries, and when she saw nothing she started up the jeep again. “You look like shit.”
“Yeah well, you fall into a thirty foot cistern and come out looking not like shit.” Lara plucked a twig out of her ponytail and flicked it out the window.
“You alright?”
“Yeah.”
“And the other guy?”
Lara shrugged, pulling what looked like a makeshift pack into her lap.
“Ah.”
“Did you find anything?” Lara fussed with her bag, pulling out a handful of items including the remains of what looked like her radio.
“Yeah, I think I got a lead at one of the museums, found a guy willing to talk, I – Lara.”
“Hm?”
Sam blinked, her attention caught on Lara’s lap. “There’s a cat in your bag.”
Lara hummed again and pulled a tiny orange kitten free of her bag, cradling it in her hands like it was a priceless artifact. “His name is Cornelius.”
Sam stared at the kitten. The kitten stared back. “Huh.”
She might have been imagining it, but Lara had the smallest smirk on her face as she placed the impossibly small creature in Sam’s lap. “He’s our child now.”
Sam looked back up at Lara, at the smirk on her lips, and back down at the kitten in her lap. Somehow it looked like it – Cornelius – was smirking too.
Sam let out a bone deep sigh and allowed herself a smile before turning the jeep back towards town. “You are lucky I love you.”
“I know.”
The screen in front of her blurred as Lara rubbed her eyes once more, suppressing a yawn. The small digital clock on the desk read almost two in the morning when she blinked at it.
Sam must have fallen asleep by now. Lara blinked to clear her eyes and leaned towards the computer again to finish reading.
Something brushed against her leg and she might have jumped out of her skin if it wasn’t accompanied by a familiar rattling purr and a raspy meow. A moment later Cornelius leapt onto the desk, blocking her view of the laptop screen. Nearly two years after finding him in that cavern, his scruffy kitten days were long behind him. A smooth shiny ginger coat and bright clear green eyes, quite a handsome fellow if you asked Lara. A high-end rhinestone collar courtesy of Sam glittered on his neck.
“He’s a rich girl’s cat, Lara. He deserves to be swanky.”
Cornelius bumped his head against Lara’s chin and purred. Lara tried to half-heartedly peer around him at the screen for a moment longer before giving in. “Okay, fine. You win.”
Lara scooped him up in her arms and closed the top of the laptop. Cornelius’s uneven contented purrs didn’t stop or slow down until she entered the bedroom and he smoothly leapt from her arms to curl up against Sam’s sleeping form. To Lara’s surprise Sam sleepily reached over and scratched his head.
“Did you get her?”
A raspy meow.
“Good.”
Lara kept her scoff to herself as she slipped under the covers beside them. “Traitor.”
Sam gave a sleepy laugh, allowing Lara to pull her in for an embrace.