UNCHARTED: Strange Relic

VII.

"Mátalo!" One of the men from across the room commands, clearly a higher ranked lieutenant.

The mercenary, already with his gun aimed at the display that Drake hides behind, sets his finger on the trigger.

"Yo no haría eso." Lara says calmly, her Spanish accent right on mark. She said 'I wouldn't do that' as she aims the pistol at the back of his head from the other side of the glass.

The other soldiers close in with their guns ready, but the lieutenant raises his arm to stop them. He gives Lara a cold glare. "You."

"Let us go." She says, her voice back to normal. "We can all walk away from this."

"Give us what you took." He watches as the pendant sways from her neck.

Drake stands up, his revolver aimed at the lieutenant. The guards continuously glance back at their superior, waiting for the order, as they aim their guns between the two intruders.

The lieutenant glances over to one of the guards and nods. The guard swiftly aims his gun Lara's direction and fires, sending a bullet flying through her hostage's head. Shards of glass fly her direction as his body crashes through the display and she kneels, shielding her face with her arms.

The lieutenant nods. "Kill them both."

Drake fires, hitting one guard in the chest, before jumping back down to lean against the display. Bullets scatter into the wooden base of the display and he closes his eyes as the glass shatters from above him.

Lara gets back to her feet and scurries over behind the front counter. She leans over it to take a few shots, hitting one guy in the right shoulder and another in the thigh, before ducking back down. She may not be a killer, but she is a survivor. And sometimes the two contradict each other.

The man she shot in the shoulder tosses the gun to his left hand and continues to open fire at the receptionist counter. The other soldier falls to the floor, holding onto his wound as he bleeds out.

Taking deep breaths, Lara checks the magazine on her handgun to see that she only has four bullets left. She'll have to make them count. The man continues to shoot at the countertop from the other side until his clip runs empty, the only noise coming out of his chamber is a faint clicking.

She seizes the moment, twisting up to lean over the counter, and aims at his chest when—suddenly—a muzzle of an automatic rifle digs into the back of her head.

Drake crawls over to take cover behind another, bigger display near the center of the room. He wraps around the bottom of the base as three of the men continue to fire his direction and glances over at the exit, even closer than it was before. He could make it and draw most of them outside, giving Lara more of a fighting chance. He gulps at the thought of how many bullets he has.

"Let me go!" Lara screams from nearby.

His eyes widen and he peaks up to see the lieutenant as he signals for his men to stop shooting with one hand, pulling Lara by her hair with the other. He pulls her to the center of the lobby and tilts the tip of his gun to aim underneath her chin. Her arms are restrained by a ziptie.

He smiles. "Come out or she dies."

Lara tries to pull away and he tightens the grip on her hair.

"Damnit." Drake mutters to himself as he tosses the revolver aside and, from the other side of the display, stands to his feet. He holds his hands up as he walks around the display to stand in front of the men.

"Don't shoot." An unfamiliar voice says from the hallway to Drake's right.

An older man with long gray hair pulled back into a ponytail enters the lobby from the archway, followed by almost a dozen more shoulders. "I want them alive. For now."

"Son of a bitch." Lara snarls, the lieutenant tightening his grip on her hair yet again.

The man smirks as he nonchalantly walks up to her and reaches out to graze his hand across her left cheek. She pulls back, turning her head as far away as possible, as his hand lowers to her neck. "Miss me?"

He smiles as his fingers touch the pendant, then quickly clasp around it as he rips it from around her neck. 

"Hey, asshole, leave her alone!" Drake yells, taking a step forward.

The man turns to nod at a guard and the mercenary quickly walks up to Drake to slam the butt of their rifle into his face. He falls to the floor with a thud, the blow knocking him out cold.