Lose Control (The Jewel Project #5)

29.1.|| Closure

Then, his mind went into a different direction, once again picturing the hieroglyphs and the angle in which each stone was drawn. He'd reached an obvious conclusion that the jewels were not exactly jewels, but part of a bigger space rock which had crashed in Egypt a long time ago and maybe split in seven upon impact. That would certainly explain the Ra hitting them with his chariot part. But the question now was, did they spread out upon impact with the Earth's atmosphere or did they all fall in Egypt and were later spread out across the globe? What if there were more?

A grunt from Skye turned his attention back to her. She'd missed a platform, fallen in between, and was now struggling to get herself back up. Sam took one step towards the course, but stopped himself. She was so close to the end, and intervening now would ruin her progress. So he waited, his eyes fixed on her as she finally managed to pull herself up on the final platform. Even if she was high up, he could see the victorious look on her face.

With a grin, she basically threw herself off the last platform and grabbed the final rope that would allow her to climb down to the floor. Her descent only lasted a second before she yelled and let go of the rope. He ran under her and reached out his hands. Her weight was bigger than he'd anticipated. It was like catching a very soft boulder. His knees gave out and he fell on his ass, but managed to keep her vertical.

Skye didn't seem to care she'd brought him down. Her eyes were closed, tears streamed down her face, and her hands shook.

"What happened?" he asked. "You were doing so good."

She shook her head, her chin trembling. A low whimper escaped her lips and he finally realized what went wrong. She'd grabbed the rope with too much force and burned her hands sliding down.  His suspicion was confirmed once he rested her body in his lap and turned one of her hands over. Her skin was pink and looked gooey, as if covered by a thin sheet of honey.

She hissed and pulled away, cradling her hands.

"Oh, Skye. You hurried."

"Shush," she muttered, her teeth clattering together. "I'll be fine."

"You need to wash up. And--"

"I know what I need to do," she snapped. "I'm a freaking doctor."

Right. He kept forgetting that she actually went through med school even if she'd chosen to practice psychiatry.

She struggled against him, obviously wanting back on her feet, but unable to push off him. He helped her up, watching her warily. He'd gotten rope burn before and knew how much it hurt, so the fact that she wasn't bawling her eyes out was impressive.

"I think it's safe to say we're done for the night," he said, his tone careful.

She glanced at him between the tears. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to snap." Her words were still shaky. "I was doing so well."

"You did do well. Even with the last fall, you broke your previous record."

She nodded, but didn't exactly seem thrilled.

"Do you need help?" he asked.

"No, I've got this." And she turned around and walked towards the girls' lockers. 

Sam went to his own, stroking the palms of his hands with his thumbs, trying to assure himself that he had no woulds of his own. He should really ask her what the hell was up with sympathy pain. But sympathy pain or not, he was perfectly capable of taking a short shower and pulling his pants on. As he opened his locker for deodorant, he wondered if he should go home or stick around at the Agency some more. He'd taken most of his research out of there because he wasn't ready to admit that he'd broken into forbidden folders using Herrison's account, but there were a lot more books in his office here.