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ten.
STARING DOWN THE
BARREL OF A GUN
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TATE'S CHEST SPASMS, her back arching so hard it feels like her spine might snap in half, water bursting from her mouth. Someone rolls her onto her side to prevent it from returning to her lungs. Her eyes blink open to reveal dark, fuzzy shapes around her, both water and saliva forming a puddle next to her head as she continues expelling the intrusive fluid from her lungs. Each hacking cough sends sharp pain slicing through her chest.

A soft voice cuts through the agony, reassuring her, "Hey, you're okay. You're okay."

Once Tate is certain her lungs are clear, she reaches up to wipe her eyes. Her vision clears. Nathan hovers above her with his chest heaving. His soaked hair is pushed back from his face, water droplets sliding down his cheeks and cascading onto her. She looks at him in confusion, remembering only the murky water and so much pain, until the pieces snap together.

Their position. His face is barely a foot from hers. The water erupted from her lungs.

"Your heart stopped," he says, gently brushing a soaked curl away from her forehead.

Her heart stopped. Jo had almost won. Again.

Still stunned by her near-death experience and the dull pain in her ribs, Tate is speechless. She accepts the hand that Nathan holds out. He hauls her to a sitting position. In an instant, she throws her arms around him. They both shiver due to the clothes that stick to them like second layers, relishing in the bits of heat from their skin.

"Thanks," Tate whispers.

"Yeah, no problem," Nathan replies. "Sorry. I might've bruised your ribs."

She shakes her head, pulling back. "Don't apologize for that. I've been through worse."

He doesn't ask what she means by that. Tate's eyes slide to Chloe, who's also catching her breath. A few minutes ago, they had been goners. But here they are now: still going.

Which means Tate's job is not yet done.

If she sought vengeance on her sister before, she wants it by a tenfold now. She's sure that the burning in her lungs will accompany the phantom pain in her scar when she gets lost in her past. Her fingers tighten into claws against the stone floor, yearning for Jo's flesh to scratch underneath them. She wants to feel her blood on her knuckles, the blood that flows between them, the blood that marks them as family.

Sully had beaten Jo and saved them. Did he kill her? Tate doesn't think so. He doesn't seem like the type to murder someone in a Papa John's, even if his opponent was trying to end him. Plus, he would probably be under arrest then, and they can't afford for him to be taken into police custody.

"Nice to hear your voice, Tate," Sully says. She's surprised that her earpiece is still working.

In an odd turn of events, Tate almost finds herself smiling. "You too, Sully."

Despite the horrors they'd endured minutes ago, the air between them is lighter than it's been since the beginning of the trip. It's like the near-death experience had brought them closer. They had trusted Sully to save them, and even though he'd experienced some setbacks, he had come through. A sense of camaraderie entwines the four adventurers.

Nathan yanks the cross from the other end of the porthole and hands it to Chloe. Then they all get to their feet, groaning, every inch of their bodies protesting. Their sodden clothing is heavy. Tate's backpack appears to weigh a thousand pounds when she slings it across her shoulders. She shivers as they pick their way through increasingly dark corridors and tunnels. So much for her jacket keeping her warm.

Nathan leads the way this time, his flashlight illuminating the dusty path. Chloe and Tate walk alongside each other. Tate is surprised when Chloe digs her elbow into her side, looking at her in questioning. Chloe raises an eyebrow. Tate still doesn't get it, so Chloe leans in to whisper.

"Nothing. It's just that I knew there was going to be some mouth-to-mouth action between you two at some point," she says.

Tate's face burns. Her eyes snap to Nathan, who walks ahead of them, oblivious. She'd known he'd resuscitated her, but figured he'd only done the chest pumping part, not blowing air into her lungs.

If Chloe wasn't here, Tate may have grabbed Nate's arm and planted a kiss on his face just to see him get flustered.

The stagnant air of the underground tunnels does nothing to help her hair as it dries, becoming a frizzy, curly mess on her head. She ties it back again to tame it. Once they find the gold and get out of here, she'll need to treat it with her products back at the flat.

The passage shrinks until they're forced to crawl on their hands and knees. Tate still thinks this is a little too much for some treasure. If they were stowing away the gold for future use, she can't imagine any of them would want to endure all of these hardships just to go back for it. But maybe that's the point—only they are insane enough to go through all of this.

Being several steps ahead of Jo's henchmen makes Tate feel victorious. Without the keys, they'll never be able to unlock the hidden door, much less be rescued from the well trap. Adrenaline fuels her blood the further they go. It can't be much longer now... and soon she'll have finally succeeded in beating Jo.

The tiny tunnel opens up to a cavernous room. Tate dusts off her hands after standing, her aching back thanking her as she stretches it out. She almost has to squint to see. Gaps in the high ceiling allow slivers of moonlight to shine down, but there's hardly enough light to illuminate their surroundings.

"Hey, Sully, you still there?" Nathan asks.

"Yeah, I'm here," he replies. "What have you got?"

"Nothing much. It's dark as hell in here."

Tate misses her flashlight. After she had drowned, it had fallen from her grasp, and Nathan was more concerned about saving both her and Chloe to bother going back for the tools. It's a miracle she still has her backpack and comm.

Nathan pries an iron torch from the wall. Pulling his lighter from his back pocket, he tosses it up in one hand and catches it again, a grin on his face. "I always wanted to try this."

Tate and Chloe share a look. He repeatedly flicks the igniter again, causing sparks to burst from the wheel, the rhythmic clickclickclick echoing off the walls.

"You need to give that thing up already," Chloe tells him.

"It's getting sad at this point," Tate replies.

"Oh, come on." Nathan frowns at the thing, pressing his thumb harder. A solid flame finally bursts from the igniter. "Ah-ha!"

His victorious expression makes Tate snort. If he thinks he's made a point with it working, he's sorely mistaken.

He tips the flame into the torch. It catches, growing larger until it illuminates his face in a warm, amber glow. "See? That's all I ask. Little faith."

While it doesn't help much, it does enable them to see details of the chamber. The floor is covered in dust and smithereens of broken stone. Elaborately carved columns hold up each corner. One has a large crack running up its side, but after further consideration, Tate isn't concerned. It appears to be decorative rather than functional.

"I see a light," Sully says. "Is that you?"

"Yeah, that's us," Nathan answers. "We're in some sort of Roman antechamber."

"The question is..." Tate looks around, surprised that the archways carved into the stone don't open into larger rooms, "where does it lead?"

Tate reaches the spot where the moonlight is brightest and looks up. She jumps when she sees Sully's face peering at her through a storm drain in the ceiling high above her head, her hand flying to her heart.

"Jesus, Sully," she hisses.

"Is that you?" he asks, his face tilting this way and that. His voice both echoes down to her and comes through her earpiece. "I can't see shit."

"Woah." Nathan's voice causes her to turn around. He kneels in front of a small door against the south wall. It has the same compass design as the porthole in the well, though this one has an iron piece to represent the needle.

"Hey, you got that key?" Nathan asks.

Chloe unzips her bag and passes it to him, trading it for the torch. Tate hesitantly treads closer.

"Please don't send another onslaught of water at us," she tells him as he inserts the gem-covered end of the key.

"I'll try not to," Nathan replies. Though he rotates it, nothing happens. He pulls away after a moment. "No, it doesn't fit."

Tate looks back up at Sully. "Our key doesn't fit. Do you see anything up there?"

His face disappears from the grate. A moment later, he responds. "Yeah, I see something. It looks like a ladder... I think I get it—I think it's the two keys put together."

"Great," she says. "Toss us yours, then."

Sully's voice echoes down to them again, sounding almost like a snarl. "Hey. You think you're gonna double-cross me?"

Tate wishes she had something to hurl at him. Is he seriously doubting them? After everything they've withstood tonight? A short while ago, he had saved them from death. And now he can't bring himself to part with his key so they can end this journey.

She thought they had grown closer, but clearly not.

"Hey, Sully," Nathan shouts loud enough for him to hear. "You want the stupid key, or do you want the gold? Come on, this is it. Throw it down!"

"I'm coming down there for this," Sully says, shaking the cross in front of the grate. "You hear me? You ain't gonna play me."

"Sully, I don't care enough to play you," Tate tells him. Her voice is tinged with exhaustion, and she's sure he can tell. Maybe he can even see that her weight is shifted to one foot and her arms are folded. "I almost died earlier. I just want to get out of here and get drunk or something."

"Typical Sully," Chloe says. There's a sardonic smirk quirking up her lip. "He'd rather lose the gold than—"

"Fuck!"

A burst of pain knocks into Tate's head when Sully accidentally drops it directly on top of her. A hand flies up to massage the aching spot that will surely bruise, only to find blood, slippery and wet, between her fingers. One of the gems had damn near made a crater in her skull.

"What the fuck?" she demands, glaring up at him.

"Sorry," he calls down in reply.

Chloe picks up the cross and gives Sully a halfhearted smile. "Thank you."

"I think some of my blood's on that," Tate grumbles, wiping her fingers on her jeans and following after Chloe. She hates the feeling of blood on her skin. It takes her right back to applying enough pressure to her bullet wound so she wouldn't bleed out, then to how stained her hands were even after she'd woken up in the hospital. The pink tint had taken ages to finally disappear.

Both crosses in hand, Nathan rotates Sully's key so their ends follow one after the other. "Does that look like a ladder to you?"

"Yeah," Chloe says.

"As close to a ladder as it's gonna get," Tate adds.

She reaches up to rub her head again, tensing her jaw at the pain that radiates from her new wound. That damn thing had been heavy. Maybe, when Sully comes down for it, she'll throw it at him and see how he likes it.

Nathan crouches in front of the small door and tries again. With both of the longer ends aligned, he inserts the keys, causing the compass to clink. Tate's breath catches. As he turns them, they hear the familiar sounds of inner mechanisms shifting. The compass rotates.

"Did you see that?" he asks, looking over his shoulder with a tiny grin on his face.

"What are you waiting for?" Chloe kicks the door open.

"Woah! What the—?" Nathan cuts himself off once he turns forward.

Tate crouches down to peer inside. Each of them ducks through the opening, finding themselves in an enormous vault. In the center of several Roman-style pillars are several gigantic vases rising at least seven feet into the air, sealed with lids.

Tate can't believe it. It's happening. The goal she's worked for, bled for, pushed herself to the limits over and over—she's finally about to achieve it. Victory is so close she can taste it.

"What happened?" Sully asks. Now that they're further from the storm drain, his voice comes through their comms again.

"We found it," Chloe replies. She's smiling, her eyes glimmering with accomplishment and hunger, as she heads deeper into the vault.

Tate turns to her left. Nathan is staring at the vases in awe, firelight reflected in his dark eyes. He looks at her when he feels her gaze on him. They share smiles, disbelief on both of their faces.

Chloe gets to work illuminating the other torches that are mounted to the pillars. Each flame reveals more signs of wear on the clay containers—dust, dirt, fine cracks.

"Is the gold there?" Sully asks, his voice frantic. "Talk to me."

"We're in an old Roman storehouse," Nathan replies. "It's gotta be at least two thousand years old, and there are these giant urns that are, like, eight feet tall."

Tate's smile begins to dim the more she examines the room. It's huge, but... surprisingly empty. Old pottery lies in pieces against the corners, seemingly insignificant. Mounds of sand are piled against the far wall. No glittering, shining gold.

"Are they intact?"

"Yeah." Nathan reaches up, sliding a gentle hand across one of the sides. "They're perfectly preserved."

"So what are you waiting for? Open them up and get the gold!"

Chloe lights the last torch against the wall and passes theirs to Tate. She holds out her hands toward Nathan. "Give me a lift."

He bends down and locks his fingers together, allowing her to use him as a makeshift ladder. He appears slightly strangled as she climbs onto his shoulders. A misstep makes her jam her boot into his collarbone, causing him to cry out in pain.

It would be an amusing sight if something didn't feel so wrong. These urns are too round to make sense as containers for gold—their bulging sides and narrow necks would make it difficult for coins, trinkets, and other golden artifacts to fit snugly. It would leave too much room for gaps.

Dread slowly poisons the sense of victory in Tate's gut. Cold, toxic dread that sucks the joy out of her veins.

Chloe balances with one foot on the side of the urn and one on Nathan's shoulder. It gives her enough leverage to push the lid to the side. A moment passes, and it's enough confirmation for Tate to think, No.

Because Chloe does not gasp in excitement. She does not erupt into cheers or start tossing artifacts down to them. Instead, she stays completely silent.

No.

Tate did not come this far just to lose.

"Uh..." Nathan says, side-eyeing the clay next to his face. "Chloe? Chloe, I think we have a problem."

The cracks become big enough for Tate to see. They spread like spider webs across the ancient vessel, multiplying too fast to keep up with. By the time Tate blinks, she knows they're in danger.

Tate screams when the urn explodes. The force knocks all three of them to the ground, the torch clattering out of her hands as she hits the stone. The urns' close proximities make each of them combust in turn. One after another, they burst like too-full water balloons, leaving a mountain of broken shards and powder behind.

Tate leans up on her elbows and stares in dismay at what they have uncovered. Salt. A bunch of salt.

The disappointment makes her vision sway. Or maybe that's her head wound, still pulsing with every beat of her heart.

It was supposed to be Jo feeling this harrowing sense of bone-crushing defeat, not her.

"What's happening?" Sully's voice is frantic, but Tate can't respond. Maybe it won't be real if she doesn't say it out loud.

"No." Chloe lunges into the pile of salt and broken clay, sifting through the white granules by the handful. "It's got to be here."

"Yeah, or why all the tricks?" Nathan asks. He crouches by the edge of the pile in contemplation.

Tate picks herself up and brushes off her clothing, sickened that the salt has left plumes of white on her still-damp attire as if it's mocking her. She has half a mind to jump back into that well just to get it off.

"Answer me, guys!" Sully exclaims. "What d'you got?"

"The gold's not here," Nathan replies.

He notices something peeking out of the pile and climbs the mountain, white granules crunching under his feet. Tate joins him, feeling nauseated with every step. She peers over his shoulder to see him uncovering a leather cylinder.

He loosens the buckles to reveal a map. It takes Tate a moment to make sense of the red dots and lines that mark the ancient paper, wrinkled after spending centuries stuffed in one of those urns.

It sounds like there's a lump in Nathan's throat when he says, "Oh my God."

"What is it?" Sully asks.

"They never brought it back."

Tate crouches beside him to get a closer look, swallowing down the bile rising in her throat. The acid stings on its way back down. Nathan looks at her with a solemn expression. He traces one of the lines that radiate from a dial at the map's center, his finger winding up in a spot labeled islas molucas in thin penmanship.

"The path to the gold starts here in Barcelona, but it ends somewhere over here in the East Indies." He pauses for a second. "Hey, Chloe—"

He looks over his shoulder, only to freeze. Tate feels the moment Nathan's muscles tense. It makes her heart stop, dread filling her veins as she slowly turns.

And is greeted by the barrel of a gun.

________

a/n:

merry christmas! your gift is angst. but also... a mouth to mouth tathan moment? so it's all good.

i hope you enjoyed this chapter! thank you for reading!

— kristyn

( word count: 3.1k )