Lose Control (The Jewel Project #5)

29.1.|| Closure

Sam loved his new apartment and his new obsession. Even if it was much smaller than his last one, he also didn't have all of Christine's crap filling three quarters of the space. So he had enough room in the living area to place the massive desk he'd confiscated from his father's agency and a large blackboard.

That way, he could work from home, brush up on his ancient Egyptian, and try to figure out more from that photograph about the jewels.

He'd figured that the inscription was a recounting of an ancient artifact bestowed upon the Egyptian people which had been severed by Ra's chariot into seven pieces called The lights of the gods.

He'd poured over the exact translation for days to make sure he wasn't reading it wrong. Because the name reminded him of something else, something that had him searching into his own archives from Mexico and the photos they had taken of the scribbling on the temple walls.

The light of the gods was a thing. The Mayans had used the term, too, and it had to mean something.

His mind had blissfully moved on from mundane things such as death and heartache and focused fully on unraveling an ancient mystery about giant jewels with curious properties. Jimmy had been right. Losing yourself in work was the way to go.

It was so easy to zone out and visualize the hieroglyphs, both Egyptian and Mayan, that it was sometimes hard to focus on his surroundings. Which was how he barely managed to dodge a right hook from Skye.

His late reaction gave her the opening to land a kick in his gut. He hopped back, wheezing, and caught her next fist in midair. Despite the fact he'd rendered her attack useless, she was grinning.

"I got you," she said. "I can't believe I got you."

Just to make sure her head wasn't getting too big, he tripped her and slammed her on the mattress. "You can't stop and do a happy dance every time you land a hit."

"Of course not. But this is the first time I touched you! Even you should find that impressive."

He wasn't sure if to burst her bubble, but giving her too much selfconfidence in battle was probably a bad idea. "I sort of zoned out. I was comparing hieroglyphs again."

Skye huffed and got up, leaning her hands on her bent knees. "So I'm not even good enough to warrant your full attention."

They were alone in the Agency training room, well past closing hours, both of them doing overtime. She was obviously tired and so was he, but he'd promised to train her and she needed to learn. She was actually pretty good at it, much more talented than Christine ever was.

"You are getting much better."

She blew the tendrils that had fallen loose from her braid out of her face, and gave him a skeptical look. He in turn glanced at the ceiling because that position was giving him a too good view of her cleavage and he'd been doing his best lately not to project unrequited love on her.

"So are you," she said unexpectedly. "You've been very full of life over the past week."

He had. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been this motivated about anything. A good mystery would do that.

"Thanks. Now let's run the course and call it a night. You're obviously tired." And he wanted to get home and bounce ideas off his blackboard more.

"I'll run it by myself, if that's okay."

"Are you sure?" He didn't know why he was asking because the look on her face was the stubborn one he'd learned not to argue with.

She'd never run the obstacle course alone, though. But he wasn't kidding when he said she was improving greatly. Maybe it was time. So he let her climb to the top, told her wen to start, and turned on the stopwatch. For a few minutes, he followed her progress, impressed by how fast she was going, even if a little sloppily.