Treasured Heart

Chapter 23

A/N: And here it is. The last regular chapter of this little story. Next week is the epilogue, and then I'll be taking a break from writing for a bit.

As always, thank you so much for reading/reviewing. Huge thanks to my beta as well!

A little over a week later, we had finished our excavation of the Sirène, the artifacts had been handed over to the French representatives, and we were getting ready to catch our flight back home.

There had been no word from Agent Charlotte since last week, but we were hoping he'd have news for us once we were back in the states. As a matter of fact, Jasper was planning on heading to the FBI Headquarters in Miami as soon as we landed in order to find out what was going on.

"Ready?" Edward asked, and I nodded my head. God was I ever. If I never heard a word about the Sirène again, I'd be happy. Never had an excavation left me so emotionally drained.

"I can't wait to get home. I think I could sleep for a week," I told him as I followed him down the gangplank toward the vehicle that was waiting to take some of us to the airport. A few members of the crew had flown out earlier while others were catching later flights.

The flight seemed longer than had it previously, and that was probably because we were tired and the flight had more turbulence than I would have preferred.

Eventually, we landed, and once we were through customs, Edward hailed us a cab to take us home, Jasper, having told us to go home and get some rest, said he'd see everyone tomorrow afternoon at two for our post-excavation meeting.

Once we were home, we took turns in the bathroom before collapsing in the bed and sleeping for close to twelve hours.

..................

"Are you coming with?" I asked Edward a little before one the following day, not sure if he was really needed. We didn't usually have the captains of the ships involved in these meetings.

"Yeah, I want to know if Jasper's heard anything about Black," he told me before letting out a big yawn. Even after twelve hours of sleep, we were both still exhausted.

A little less than forty-five minutes later, we were pulling into the Poseidon parking lot and making our way into the building.

We ran into Jessica on our way to the elevators, and she looked just as tired as we did.

"I hope to God we get at least a week off before our next project," she said as we stepped into the elevator.

"Fuck that! I want a month off," I replied, and I wasn't kidding. If anything, our team deserved a nice, long vacation after everything we'd been through. Although, knowing Aro, we would be lucky to get that week Jess wanted.

The three of us ran into Jasper as soon as we stepped off the elevator, and he told us that he'd like to speak with us after our meeting was over.

"You have news?" Edward asked.

"I do, and there's a lot, so it will have to wait until after the meeting," he told us, and I scowled at him. I didn't want to fucking wait. I wanted to know what the hell was going on, and I wanted to know now.

"I will tell you this. The Treasured Heart has been recovered."

"What?!" we all exclaimed, but Jasper shook his head and walked down the hall toward the conference room, leaving us all staring after him.

We made our way into the conference room that was slowly filling up, and found some seats at the large table.

Soon, everyone who had worked on the excavation was crowded into the room, and Jasper called for our attention.