Assassin's Creed: Winter's Falling

Chapter 20

Sol awoke slowly to next morning. It was hard to wake up in the dark shadows of the cave, but once she noticed where she was, she was up in a flash. She sat up quickly and surveyed her surroundings, trying to figure out how she had ended up there. She glanced down at Lazerus. He was still asleep, which was rare, on his side with his arms outstretched. To think, that just a moment ago, Sol had been lying in those arms, sleeping soundly. Strangely it wasn't the fact they had slept next to each other that appalled her, but the butterflies that appeared in her gut as she gazed down at his sleeping face. She scooted further away from him. The sudden disappearance of warmth from his arms, woke Lazerus. He blinked, sat up, and scratched his head. He slimed as he noticed Sol.

"That's strange," Lazerus shrugged. "I haven't slept that soundly in a while."

"We were all very tired," Sol spat.

She got to her feet in a hurry and walked around the fire the wake the others. She didn't want him to see the crimson color her face had turned. Lazerus gave her a puzzled expression. What's her problem? Jack was sitting by the embers of yesterday's fire, trying his best to start a new one where the old one had been. Lazerus moved closer to where he was. As he reached him, the fire sparked a little and the wood caught. In minutes, the Jack had a small cooking fire going. He stuck some fish on sticks and placed them over the fire to cook.

"Fish for breakfast?" Lazerus questioned as he approached.

"Lunch actually," Jack gave him a sly smile. "It's a little past noon."

"What?" Lazerus was confused. "I never sleep in that late."

"Must have been your new teddy bear," Jack held back a laugh. "I'd sleep soundly too if I had a cute little bear to sleep with."

"What?"

Jack nudged Lazerus's chin with his knuckles. Lazerus gave him a puzzled look, but turned to look across the room anyway. Sol had succeeded in walking Lightning and Ann, but Nerida was giving her some trouble. She glanced up from her work, noticed Lazerus watching her, and scowled at him. Lazerus groaned and turned back to Jack as her realized what must have happened. Jack doubled over and cackled.

Sol sighed and reached over for Nerida's glaive. She knew what the guys were talking about, but she didn't have the energy to smack them. Instead, she focused on getting Nerida up so that they could pack up camp and get going. Just as she was about to touch the glaive, Nerida's eyes flew open. She sat up and swiped the weapon out from under Sol's palm.

"No touchie!" Nerida hissed at her.

Sol blinked at her, then shrugged and got to her feet. After a quick, but delicious lunch of fish and bread, the team packed their bags, killed the fire, and got started the walk back to the entrance of the tunnel. The sunlight flooding threw the spaces between the branches over the entrance and almost blinded them. Lazerus and Jack cleared the entrance. The entrance was a little hard to climb through without a rope, so Lazerus hoisted Jack up towards it. Once Jack was out, he reached down to help pull everyone else through. Lazerus helped from the bottom, helping speed up the process. Soon, they were all standing together in the jungle, blinking at the brightness of the afternoon sun.

As Sol looked around them, she couldn't help but notice the strong smell of smoke in the air. She searched the sky and found a large cloud of smoke coming from the direction of their den. The Templars must have burnt it to the ground. Jack lead the way away from the smoke. Sol had no wish to go deeper into the jungle, but there was no hope of saving the original den. She gave one last look at the now familiar tunnel, and walked into the unknown.