AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Ellie staggered back a step as the impossibility of it washed over her.
Thunder rumbled in the distance. The sound brought the men clustered around the sinkhole to a hush. Wind gusted through the trees again, ripe with the promise of rain.
Bones arrived and pushed his way through the crowd.
“Back to work!” he ordered. He clapped his hands for emphasis as he herded the men away from the sinkhole.
They went slowly, glancing back with either fear of the dead or greed for those hints of gold. Ellie didn’t doubt that some of them would slip back here tonight, seeking to climb down and rifle through the bones.
She wondered if anyone would bother to stop them.
A flash of light caught her eye. It winked from the temple at the top of the pyramid… from where Adam and Dawson had gone. The glare was unnaturally bright—a star-like illumination that blazed out from between the columns.
Then it was gone.
An instinctive panic tightened at Ellie’s chest. She looked to the far side of the sinkhole, seeking out the place where Charlie stood.
He was also staring up at the pyramid. He lowered his gaze and met her eyes from across the pit. Ellie could read the question in them.
She nodded.
Charlie nudged Lessard with his elbow.
“Eh! Slaver pig!” Lessard shouted.
The harsh call of it shattered the hushed quiet of the scene.
Braxton Pickett whirled toward the sound, and Lessard threw a meat-handed punch into his jaw.
Pickett’s head snapped back as the blow sent him reeling—and the crowd burst into a roar.
“Is he crazy?” Mendez demanded behind Ellie. He took a few steps closer to the edge of the sinkhole as he angled for a better view.
Flowers shrugged—and then easily knocked Mendez over the side.
Mendez landed on a pile of bones and barked out a ferocious curse.
“You aarait there, bali?” Flowers called out.
He turned and gave Ellie a pointed wink.
A cheer rose up from the crowd gathered around Lessard and Pickett as Charlie called out stakes. Ellie cast them only a glance before looking back to Flowers.
Thank you, she mouthed and darted off into the bush.
She bolted through the ruins. A shout echoed through the trees a moment later—Mendez’s cry of alarm as Flowers pulled him out of the pit and he realized that Ellie wasn’t there. His protest was largely drowned out by the roar of the men gathered around Lessard’s brawl.
Ellie dodged through the deepening shadows around the ruined buildings, stumbling over roots and tumbled stones. She paused for a breath to orient herself. Her lungs burned from the sprint.
The central plaza must lie somewhere to the right ahead of her. Through the distant leaves, Ellie could just make out a faint glimmer of light from the campfire there.
Crashing footsteps and voices sounded from behind her, far closer than she would have liked. Ellie stumbled forward through the thickening gloom as quickly as she dared without raising a racket or twisting an ankle.
Her boot came down—then slid on a hard, round surface. As she fell forward, something under her foot let out a sharp crack.
She found herself kneeling on the shattered remnants of an excellent example of Mayan urn manufacturing. Her hands itched to gather up the pieces even as she winced against the echoing racket of her misstep.
That echo was abruptly answered with the thunder of a rifle shot. A bullet smacked into a tree beside her.
