Ice: The Immortality Trinket

X: Bloodhounds

"You, you sure?"

"I'm sure. Stay here and don't come out until I give you the green light." Kelli gets out of cover with her hands raised. Bold brat.

"Identify yourself!" shouts the woman. Judging from the look on her face, she wasn't very pleased. "Ah, it's just you. What are you doing here Anderson?"

"Figured I'd get a head start since you guys were slow as."

The woman facepalms and lowers her gun, putting the safety on and strappin' it to her chest. The other person does the same. They're wearing black fatigues, though not as loose as normal military ones. They had lots of weird straps and pockets, some of them filled with magazines. Their get-up looks like it should be completed with some fancy headgear but I suppose they passed on that for obvious reasons.

"The boss was wondering where you went, idioot. We were supposed to go tomorrow, you didn't know?"

Kelli shakes her head. "Neto never told me."

"Mister, Neto. And he wants Lacroix-Wilson and MacMillan along. I assume they are safe and sound with you?"

We take that as our cue to leave cover. Hands still raised, of course. You don't play around with guns.

"You can relax, you're on our side." She comes up to me and offers to shake hands. The texture of her gloves is weirdly sticky, with grooves all around. "Nienke De Vries. I apologise for the inconvenience that is my New Zealand acquaintance."

"Aye, she can be quite the handful at times, and I've only known her for a day. Elizabeth MacMillan." She cocks an eyebrow after my response.

"You have an English accent I've never heard before."

"It's not—" Yvette punches me on the side before I can finish. Och, I guess I'll give her a pass since she's Dutch. The guy shakes my hand next.

"Hey. The name's Alexander Gillespie." The three of us all look at each other. We all know what we're thinking of inside our heads.

"Yank."

After the introductions are done, we just kind of... stand around for a moment. It's not when Kelli clears her throat that the situation gets goin'.

"You've disrupted the boss's schedule, so I'm hoping you have a good reason or an excuse," reminds Vries as she walks walk back into the jungle with Gillespie. "We expect you to arrive before the afternoon. Take care." They disappear into the trees.

"Quite nice blokes aren't they?" asks our very own Bloodhound.

"Nice, for blokes that could've shot us."

"It didn't occur to you to tell us about them earlier?" Yvette chimes in.

"Yeah nah, never thought we'd meet them prematurely like this. We really should get going now," explains Kelli as she sticks the key into the ignition, "lest we want a proper talking to from old boss man."

>>

We arrive back to where we started, in the village of Luta. Remember when I fawned over how active and bustling it looked? You can forget about that. Every poor villager here is stiff and scared. Neto and the rest of the Bloodhounds' presence can be felt right down to the very air we breathe.

"I definitely didn't miss being in the field with these lot. Watch your step, alright? Let me do the talking unless Neto directly addresses you. Keep your trap shut, especially you Lizzy. You do NOT want to mess with him."

Most of Luta's villagers stayed in their respective huts, leaving only a few of the adults around to handle the rigorous questioning process from the militants. Eliza's fists get tighter and tighter by the second. Kelli walks up to a random armed guard. He has a small scar on his cheek.

"Hey Jake. We heard Neto needs us for something?"

"Yeah, no shit. We waited 2 hours for you. We even sent Nienke and Gillespie. Anyway, boss is waiting there with the village head Rodrigo." He points to a clearing on the grass where a lot of people are congregating.

"Ta, mate. Knew I could count on ya," thanks Kelli, earning a curt huff from Jake.

In a way, I find it charming and a tad humorous that she has the ability to make friends with these hardened guns-for-hire. It's no wonder how easily she connected with Eliza.

We amble our way to our destination. Eliza gets in front and tries to push me a little bit backwards, but not before I swat her arm away.

"Sorry Eve. Reflex."

Everyone here is in combat uniform. Black, menacing and dotted with vague camouflage. A particular figure catches my attention. He's not dressed like the others. He opts for a simple button-up shirt, jeans, and combat boots. His balding hairline is contrasted by his thick beard and a bullet necklace.

The bloodstains on his clothes remove any doubt I had. That must be Vicente Neto.

>>

"Anderson."

Kelli salutes him. "Sir. This is Lacroix-Wilson," she looks to me, "and this is Eliza MacMillan, her plus one."

Neto surveys Eliza for a couple seconds. His eyes are cold, they've got that thousand-yard stare quality to them. At the same time, I sense calculation and determination.

"Can we trust her?"

"She's—MacMillan has proven to be trustworthy and cooperative, sir. She's skilled enough to handle her own and Lacroix, to make sure they're unharmed in any harmful situation that happens."

"If so..." he doesn't take his eyes off of Eliza, staring into her soul as if to gauge the reason for her entire being's existence, but then smiles as if nothing happened, "then where are my manners?" He extends his hand forward. Eliza's about to shake it before she realises the blood on it.

"Oop, sorry for that. There was a nuisance I had to take care of earlier. He's no more, now." He takes out a tissue from his pocket and wipes his hand clean. They shake hands thereafter.

"May I inquire as to why the three of you decided to go off without awaiting my direct orders?"

I nudge Kelli, hoping she can form the proper words. My hands and hers are shaking like mad. Eliza's hands are shaking too, but they're balled into fists with her nails almost piercing the palms.

"Um, we thought we'd get a head start since you were late. But we did find something, the arapaima's location. And next to it was some sort of structure. Old, mossy, looked like it was built around the same timeframe as the texts that mentioned the Immortality Trinket." She takes out the map that she scribbled on and turns it to face Neto. He takes it from her hands.

"Hm... I see. Perhaps you did that in good judgment. By the way, did this, structure, have a circular carving on its entrance?"

"Didn't see. Beats me—"

"Yes, it did. It was split into eight and it had a unique symbol on each one."

Now it's my turn to get analysed. It's really quite disturbing, it's like he views us as specimens in an experiment. Only here to aid him and be expendable. I know he's trying to convince Eliza that he's not as bad as we make him out to be, but she's not stupid. He was done examining his unforeseen variable, and now he's onto his manipulated one.

"It is good to finally meet you in person, Lacroix. Your work has been of great use to me and the Bloodhounds. We appreciate your contributions." I shake his soiled hands and wipe my hand on my trousers after.

I don't answer him. It's not necessary anyway. Whatever backtalk I come up with is useless, since he has so much power over me.

So Eliza takes a dig.

"You're off your head, bawbag. Least be honest that you're an arsehole and drop the act."