LOTS Fic: Aydindril Burning 8/? (Cara/Kahlan)
Kahlan lay stretched out on the narrow bunk bolted to the wall, the only piece of furniture in the small concrete cell, and attuned her senses to her barren surroundings. She grew up in Montana, spent her entire life in a community where hunting was the number one pastime - she knew how to stalk her prey. To keep track of the passage of time, and learn to anticipate Trianna’s arrival with her meals, she had begun counting her heartbeats. Another four hundred beats or so until dinner.
The long empty time with nothing to and no one to talk to had forced her once again to confront the reality of her situation. Not once did she consider that she was actually going to rot there, she had far too much confidence in Richard and Cara both for that. Seeing the two of them together though, that was what frightened her. When Kahlan was carried off, she knew the first thing that Cara would do was call Richard. How was she supposed to handle her lover and her husband at the same time? She owed Richard so much, for caring for her, and she made promises to him - the biggest when she married him: love, honor and obey. Sure, no one really took the obey part serious, but love and honor no one could argue with that.
Had Cara mentioned it to Richard? Had Richard noticed something different about Cara? Could he smell Kahlan on her?
Her hands tightened around the strips of sheet she had braided together and twisted tight to make a homemade garrote that she was concealing beneath her head. She looked for all the world as if she was lounging, relaxed, with her hands folded behind her head. Oh, Trianna was going to b e in for the surprise of her life.
Just on time, Kahlan heard the scrape of boots, the clicking of the lock and then the door was opening to admit Trianna. “Come and get your slop, whore,” she growled, holding out a paper plate oozing with the goop they had been feeding Kahlan for every meal.
Kahlan didn’t move to take it, or even get up. Trianna took a step closer. “Eat your damn food, or I’ll knock all the teeth out of your head.”Another step brought her into Kahlan’s range - thank God for long arms. Trianna had dangerously underestimated Kahlan.
She kicked up, knocking the slop directly into Trianna’s face and then lunged, uncoiling from the bed like a snake. Trianna rallied valiantly, swiping at her eyes with one hand and lashing out with the other fist, but Kahlan was behind her, twisting her garrote around the other brunette’s neck and forcing her to her knees before she could mount a proper defense. Gurgling noises escaped from Trianna’s lips as she struggled to slip her fingers under the sheet and relieve the pressure to no avail. Kahlan shook her once or twice. She hadn’t realized how long it took to strangle someone - her arms were beginning to feel weak and she worried she might vomit.
Trianna’s struggling faded and she slumped to the side. Kahlan held it for a moment longer and then let the ends of the garrote drop. She breathed in and out quickly, her heart hammering against her ribs. She hoped Trianna was still alive, there was just nothing in her nature that would make her happy to kill, but she was vindictive enough to hope the oxygen deprivation eliminated a few of Trianna’s already limited brain cells.
The door was unlocked now, but running through the compound in her dirty, torn up clothes without a weapon was not a reasonable escape plan. She kicked the door closed, after retrieving the keys from the lock. Trianna was heavy and unwieldy, but luckily they were a similar size. In Trianna’s uniform with similar dark hair, she hoped that she could pass if she escaped close scrutiny.
She rolled Trianna, now naked, up under the bunk and covered her with what was left of her shredded sheet. The uniform itched; it was tight in places and the weight of the pistol on her hip felt strange. How had Cara done this every day?
The hallway was clear as she slipped out into it and locked the door behind her. She had no idea where she was, how large the building that imprisoned her was, or which way was out but at least she had taken matters into her own hands and she was on her way to freeing herself.
Richard was going to be surprised when he came to save her.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: I have no space, no room to move around, And this box is getting smaller, I'm trying to get out
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
Cara ignored Richard’s question as she lifted the grating out. It had been a long time since water flowed this way, but the Mord-Sith were not exactly engineers. Temple’s foundations were exactly the same as the day they were laid hundreds of years before as a medieval fortress in the time of the Emperor. Cara planned ahead, always, and during her early years as a young officer she had made a point of researching the original blueprints of the building. The lower levels were largely out of use; the military had decided that wiring and plumbing them to make them sufficiently useful was not cost effective. The upper levels had been changed, remodeled and retrofitted over and over during the long history f use, and today was the central command post for the Mord-Sith division.
Centuries before, a stream had run under the Temple, which had been part of the original strategic reason for its placement. Long ago, the stream had been diverted for farming and the like and now only a dry channel ran under the Temple but the tunnel through which it had passed was never closed up. Why bother? No one was stupid enough to want to get into a building full of Mord-Sith. Hubris was perhaps the most glaring of the Mord-Siths’ sins.
Richard followed her in, and waited crouched and fiddling with his flashlight while she leaned the grate back against the opening. If someone inspected it, there would be no question it was tampered with, but it was unlikely that anyone would come by.
They traveled through the dark tunnel silently, stepping over dead rats and following the wavering beam of light that Richard held. Eventually the tunnel reached a T-junction. Both directions looked the same as the way they had come, and Richard was just opening his mouth to ask the obvious question when Cara pointed at the wall directly in front of them. Carved into the old stone were hand and footholds - a crude ladder.
“Up,” she explained simply.
“Wait,” Richard held up his hand. In the shadows, Cara could just make out his expression and what she saw made her want to hit him in the face. It was his mooncalf look. “Cara, what if…” His voice got low and rough as it trailed off. Shit, was he going to cry? The United States Army did not do sufficient psychological testing in Cara’s opinion.
“What if what?” Cara sounded harsher than she meant.
“You know,” he almost whispered.
“What if Kahlan has grown a tail?” Cara turned away from him, setting her fingers in the first indentations. The climate was dry, so she didn’t have to deal with slime like she might have in other conditions. She hoisted herself up high enough to reach for the next one. “Or, what if I kick you in the head for being such a self-involved ass? If you don’t hurry up, Kahlan will have died of old age before you can sweep in and make your heroic entrance.”
That quieted him. She could hear his boots scrape as he climbed behind her. The hatch leading from the drainage tunnel into the lower level was further up than Cara had anticipated. The strap of her rifle pulled unpleasantly at her shoulder as she lifted her arm and flexed her shoulders. In the back of her mind she dreaded the moment they reached Kahlan. Her mind’s eye constructed a truly disgusting image of Richard rushing into the room, after she had done all the work to get them too their target, sweeping Kahlan off her feet in a ridiculously romantic gesture that was sure to put all thoughts of Cara and the time they had spent together right out of her mind.
“You know, Cypher, if you wanted to wait here, I could extract the target. That way if something happens, we don’t both hang.” It was worth a shot.
“I have your back, Cara. Always. I wouldn’t let you take my bullet to save my wife.” He sounded so damn sincere that Cara contemplated letting her foot slip loose from the hold and take out his nose with her heel. Her temper was growing fouler by the moment.
“You’re such a damn hero.” She growled over her shoulder at him.
“So are you,” he answered cheerfully.
She was thankful that they reached the top. One more moment and she wouldn’t have been able to control her foot. She shouldered the hatch open, sliding it carefully along the ground, and climbed up and out into a disused hallway. She slid her rifle down her arm and into her hand, prepared for the worst, as she bent down to help hoist Richard up the last few steps.
The difference that came over Richard in moments like this shocked Cara. For the most part, Richard acted like a large, shaggy mutt. You could kick it, or give it a treat, either way it would stare at you with big eyes and lick your hand. Except when, whether by training a quirk of temperament, he became an unstoppable soldier.
He slung his weapon down, grasping it tightly and dropped into a half crouch. Cara led the way, following from memory the long ago paths she had traced on the blueprints. They had reached the base of the stairway that would lead them onto the main level when a rush of boots and shouted orders drew them both up short. They crouched, weapons readied, against the corner. The sounds were drawing nearer. And then suddenly whatever the racket was burst onto the stairs they were preparing to ascend.
Cara peered carefully around the corner. One Mord-Sith in full uniform was barreling down the stairway, long hair loose behind her, chased by a quad who all seemed to be shouting at the top of their lungs. The escaping Mord-Sith swung around the corner and straight into Cara as she was pulling back. The two tumbled to the floor as Richard sprang into action, vaulting over the pile of humanity and aiming a spray of bullets into the stairwell that sent the pursuers hastily retreating.
Cara shouted, struggling with the woman on top of her. Punches, elbows, teeth and hair pulling resulted as they rolled on the floor, fighting for dominance. Richard held off a further advance by strafing the stairs every time he caught the slightest movement. It took only a few moment for Cara to finally gain the upper hand, pining her opponents arms with her knees and pushing her thumbs into her throat. Cara laughed triumphantly, gazing down at her vanquished opponent with hard eyes.
“KAHLAN?” she screamed the name, transfixed by the vision of her lover beneath her. Instantly her hands flew away from her neck. The brunette lay beneath her, no longer struggling as recognition dawned on her face.
“Cara?”
“We were just coming to rescue you, sweetheart,” Richard shouted over his shoulder before releasing another hail of gunfire.
“I rescued myself,” Kahlan laughed softly. Her eyes were bright and her cheeks flushed. She had been running for sometime apparently, but the feel of her beneath Cara was seductive. The heat radiated up from her body and through Cara’s pants directly to her groin. Mentally she smacked herself. Getting aroused during a firefight was just typical.
Cara hesitated longer than strictly necessary before rolling off Kahlan and helping her to her feet. “Back through the tunnel, quickly.” She didn’t wait to see if Richard followed her, trusting him to protect their back as she grabbed Kahlan’s arm and drug her back down the twisting hallways.
Bullets ricocheted off the walls around them as the quad finally pulled itself together and gave chase, Agiels out. Nausea rose in Cara’s stomach as the rush and whine of the projectiles’ passage surrounded her. Her vision grew blurry at the edges as her heart rate accelerated out of control.
Now was not the time to lose her shit. She knew it. How badly would she be embarrassed if she launched into a full scale panic attack in the middle of rescuing her lady love? Pretty fucking badly, and then she would have to kill all the witnesses to protect her reputation and she was almost certain she would never meet another woman with an ass like Kahlan’s - it would be a shame to have to kill her for reputation’s sake.
When they made it to the hatch, Cara dropped in first, landed on bent legs to absorb the bone-rattling shock. Her ankles burned in protest, but there wasn’t enough time to climb down.
“Jump, I’ll catch you!” Cara called up to Kahlan whose face was just visible peering down at her. The sharp report of Richard’s weapon was a constant reminder of their heavily armed adversaries.
“Don’t drop me,” Kahlan shouted back.
“I promise.” She did her best to project strength and sincerity.
Apparently it worked because Kahlan’s face disappeared for a moment, and then she was falling through the air. Her weight landed awkwardly across Cara’s arms, driving her to one knee as she struggled to stay upright. Kahlan instinctively wrapped her arms around Cara’s shoulders. Their faces were inches apart. The blonde could feel Kahlan’s breath against her lips. For a moment they were in their own world and it took every ounce of willpower Cara possessed not to lean the short distance to capture Kahlan’s lips with her own.
“That uniform looks terrible on you.” She sounded breathy, and the words came out almost a purr. She just couldn’t seem to control herself.
“Thanks,” Kahlan replied with an unrestrained smile, a blush rising on her cheeks.
“Really terrible. You’d be better off running around naked.”
Richard thumped heavily to the floor behind them. No one had moved to catch him. Cara didn’t feel bad at all. His unceremonious landing did, however, break the mood. Kahlan scrambled out of Cara’s arms to her feet. Cara’s knees protested the battering they had taken, but she pushed herself upright, grabbed Kahlan and headed down the tunnel. The passage was faster the second time and they reached the grate just as their adversaries descended into the depths.
They burst out of the tunnel into the blinding wasteland of searing sun and sand, just as a round of gunfire was unleashed behind them. A bullet brushed Cara’s ear, drawing blood along the earlobe and sending her spinning into Kahlan. The two nearly fell but for Kahlan’s own dexterity in keeping them upright. Richard turned and planted his feet to return fire.
One of the quad dropped, blood blossoming from her stomach - the crimson nearly invisible against her uniform. Cara recovered her footing and pushed Kahlan away from her. “Run!” She ordered before reaching back to grab Richard’s shirt and fling him after the brunette.
There were some things about her plans she had seen fit to keep from Richard, with what she considered good reason. One of those things was the remote-detonation anti-personnel mines she had sunk into the ground along the path between the Temple and their Jeep while he was taking a ridiculously long time on the radio and the Colonel.
Certain that Richard and Kahlan were clear, she fingered the device in her pocket and set off the first wave of explosions. One of the quad was immediately flattened by the rush of fire that plumed in front of her. The other two were blown away, landing on their backs.
Cara laughed softly to herself as she turned, jogging after her friends. They reached the Jeep, Cara slid into the driver’s seat while Richard solicitously helped Kahlan into the back.
“Come on, come on,” the blonde shouted, rushing Richard who was taking too fucking long playing Romeo with his newly recovered wife.
The tires threw up sand as the Jeep tore away, leaving the Temple and only one of Cara’s many nightmares behind. She could tell from Richard’s dewy eyes, that another nightmare was only just beginning.
The long empty time with nothing to and no one to talk to had forced her once again to confront the reality of her situation. Not once did she consider that she was actually going to rot there, she had far too much confidence in Richard and Cara both for that. Seeing the two of them together though, that was what frightened her. When Kahlan was carried off, she knew the first thing that Cara would do was call Richard. How was she supposed to handle her lover and her husband at the same time? She owed Richard so much, for caring for her, and she made promises to him - the biggest when she married him: love, honor and obey. Sure, no one really took the obey part serious, but love and honor no one could argue with that.
Had Cara mentioned it to Richard? Had Richard noticed something different about Cara? Could he smell Kahlan on her?
Her hands tightened around the strips of sheet she had braided together and twisted tight to make a homemade garrote that she was concealing beneath her head. She looked for all the world as if she was lounging, relaxed, with her hands folded behind her head. Oh, Trianna was going to b e in for the surprise of her life.
Just on time, Kahlan heard the scrape of boots, the clicking of the lock and then the door was opening to admit Trianna. “Come and get your slop, whore,” she growled, holding out a paper plate oozing with the goop they had been feeding Kahlan for every meal.
Kahlan didn’t move to take it, or even get up. Trianna took a step closer. “Eat your damn food, or I’ll knock all the teeth out of your head.”Another step brought her into Kahlan’s range - thank God for long arms. Trianna had dangerously underestimated Kahlan.
She kicked up, knocking the slop directly into Trianna’s face and then lunged, uncoiling from the bed like a snake. Trianna rallied valiantly, swiping at her eyes with one hand and lashing out with the other fist, but Kahlan was behind her, twisting her garrote around the other brunette’s neck and forcing her to her knees before she could mount a proper defense. Gurgling noises escaped from Trianna’s lips as she struggled to slip her fingers under the sheet and relieve the pressure to no avail. Kahlan shook her once or twice. She hadn’t realized how long it took to strangle someone - her arms were beginning to feel weak and she worried she might vomit.
Trianna’s struggling faded and she slumped to the side. Kahlan held it for a moment longer and then let the ends of the garrote drop. She breathed in and out quickly, her heart hammering against her ribs. She hoped Trianna was still alive, there was just nothing in her nature that would make her happy to kill, but she was vindictive enough to hope the oxygen deprivation eliminated a few of Trianna’s already limited brain cells.
The door was unlocked now, but running through the compound in her dirty, torn up clothes without a weapon was not a reasonable escape plan. She kicked the door closed, after retrieving the keys from the lock. Trianna was heavy and unwieldy, but luckily they were a similar size. In Trianna’s uniform with similar dark hair, she hoped that she could pass if she escaped close scrutiny.
She rolled Trianna, now naked, up under the bunk and covered her with what was left of her shredded sheet. The uniform itched; it was tight in places and the weight of the pistol on her hip felt strange. How had Cara done this every day?
The hallway was clear as she slipped out into it and locked the door behind her. She had no idea where she was, how large the building that imprisoned her was, or which way was out but at least she had taken matters into her own hands and she was on her way to freeing herself.
Richard was going to be surprised when he came to save her.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: I have no space, no room to move around, And this box is getting smaller, I'm trying to get out
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
Cara ignored Richard’s question as she lifted the grating out. It had been a long time since water flowed this way, but the Mord-Sith were not exactly engineers. Temple’s foundations were exactly the same as the day they were laid hundreds of years before as a medieval fortress in the time of the Emperor. Cara planned ahead, always, and during her early years as a young officer she had made a point of researching the original blueprints of the building. The lower levels were largely out of use; the military had decided that wiring and plumbing them to make them sufficiently useful was not cost effective. The upper levels had been changed, remodeled and retrofitted over and over during the long history f use, and today was the central command post for the Mord-Sith division.
Centuries before, a stream had run under the Temple, which had been part of the original strategic reason for its placement. Long ago, the stream had been diverted for farming and the like and now only a dry channel ran under the Temple but the tunnel through which it had passed was never closed up. Why bother? No one was stupid enough to want to get into a building full of Mord-Sith. Hubris was perhaps the most glaring of the Mord-Siths’ sins.
Richard followed her in, and waited crouched and fiddling with his flashlight while she leaned the grate back against the opening. If someone inspected it, there would be no question it was tampered with, but it was unlikely that anyone would come by.
They traveled through the dark tunnel silently, stepping over dead rats and following the wavering beam of light that Richard held. Eventually the tunnel reached a T-junction. Both directions looked the same as the way they had come, and Richard was just opening his mouth to ask the obvious question when Cara pointed at the wall directly in front of them. Carved into the old stone were hand and footholds - a crude ladder.
“Up,” she explained simply.
“Wait,” Richard held up his hand. In the shadows, Cara could just make out his expression and what she saw made her want to hit him in the face. It was his mooncalf look. “Cara, what if…” His voice got low and rough as it trailed off. Shit, was he going to cry? The United States Army did not do sufficient psychological testing in Cara’s opinion.
“What if what?” Cara sounded harsher than she meant.
“You know,” he almost whispered.
“What if Kahlan has grown a tail?” Cara turned away from him, setting her fingers in the first indentations. The climate was dry, so she didn’t have to deal with slime like she might have in other conditions. She hoisted herself up high enough to reach for the next one. “Or, what if I kick you in the head for being such a self-involved ass? If you don’t hurry up, Kahlan will have died of old age before you can sweep in and make your heroic entrance.”
That quieted him. She could hear his boots scrape as he climbed behind her. The hatch leading from the drainage tunnel into the lower level was further up than Cara had anticipated. The strap of her rifle pulled unpleasantly at her shoulder as she lifted her arm and flexed her shoulders. In the back of her mind she dreaded the moment they reached Kahlan. Her mind’s eye constructed a truly disgusting image of Richard rushing into the room, after she had done all the work to get them too their target, sweeping Kahlan off her feet in a ridiculously romantic gesture that was sure to put all thoughts of Cara and the time they had spent together right out of her mind.
“You know, Cypher, if you wanted to wait here, I could extract the target. That way if something happens, we don’t both hang.” It was worth a shot.
“I have your back, Cara. Always. I wouldn’t let you take my bullet to save my wife.” He sounded so damn sincere that Cara contemplated letting her foot slip loose from the hold and take out his nose with her heel. Her temper was growing fouler by the moment.
“You’re such a damn hero.” She growled over her shoulder at him.
“So are you,” he answered cheerfully.
She was thankful that they reached the top. One more moment and she wouldn’t have been able to control her foot. She shouldered the hatch open, sliding it carefully along the ground, and climbed up and out into a disused hallway. She slid her rifle down her arm and into her hand, prepared for the worst, as she bent down to help hoist Richard up the last few steps.
The difference that came over Richard in moments like this shocked Cara. For the most part, Richard acted like a large, shaggy mutt. You could kick it, or give it a treat, either way it would stare at you with big eyes and lick your hand. Except when, whether by training a quirk of temperament, he became an unstoppable soldier.
He slung his weapon down, grasping it tightly and dropped into a half crouch. Cara led the way, following from memory the long ago paths she had traced on the blueprints. They had reached the base of the stairway that would lead them onto the main level when a rush of boots and shouted orders drew them both up short. They crouched, weapons readied, against the corner. The sounds were drawing nearer. And then suddenly whatever the racket was burst onto the stairs they were preparing to ascend.
Cara peered carefully around the corner. One Mord-Sith in full uniform was barreling down the stairway, long hair loose behind her, chased by a quad who all seemed to be shouting at the top of their lungs. The escaping Mord-Sith swung around the corner and straight into Cara as she was pulling back. The two tumbled to the floor as Richard sprang into action, vaulting over the pile of humanity and aiming a spray of bullets into the stairwell that sent the pursuers hastily retreating.
Cara shouted, struggling with the woman on top of her. Punches, elbows, teeth and hair pulling resulted as they rolled on the floor, fighting for dominance. Richard held off a further advance by strafing the stairs every time he caught the slightest movement. It took only a few moment for Cara to finally gain the upper hand, pining her opponents arms with her knees and pushing her thumbs into her throat. Cara laughed triumphantly, gazing down at her vanquished opponent with hard eyes.
“KAHLAN?” she screamed the name, transfixed by the vision of her lover beneath her. Instantly her hands flew away from her neck. The brunette lay beneath her, no longer struggling as recognition dawned on her face.
“Cara?”
“We were just coming to rescue you, sweetheart,” Richard shouted over his shoulder before releasing another hail of gunfire.
“I rescued myself,” Kahlan laughed softly. Her eyes were bright and her cheeks flushed. She had been running for sometime apparently, but the feel of her beneath Cara was seductive. The heat radiated up from her body and through Cara’s pants directly to her groin. Mentally she smacked herself. Getting aroused during a firefight was just typical.
Cara hesitated longer than strictly necessary before rolling off Kahlan and helping her to her feet. “Back through the tunnel, quickly.” She didn’t wait to see if Richard followed her, trusting him to protect their back as she grabbed Kahlan’s arm and drug her back down the twisting hallways.
Bullets ricocheted off the walls around them as the quad finally pulled itself together and gave chase, Agiels out. Nausea rose in Cara’s stomach as the rush and whine of the projectiles’ passage surrounded her. Her vision grew blurry at the edges as her heart rate accelerated out of control.
Now was not the time to lose her shit. She knew it. How badly would she be embarrassed if she launched into a full scale panic attack in the middle of rescuing her lady love? Pretty fucking badly, and then she would have to kill all the witnesses to protect her reputation and she was almost certain she would never meet another woman with an ass like Kahlan’s - it would be a shame to have to kill her for reputation’s sake.
When they made it to the hatch, Cara dropped in first, landed on bent legs to absorb the bone-rattling shock. Her ankles burned in protest, but there wasn’t enough time to climb down.
“Jump, I’ll catch you!” Cara called up to Kahlan whose face was just visible peering down at her. The sharp report of Richard’s weapon was a constant reminder of their heavily armed adversaries.
“Don’t drop me,” Kahlan shouted back.
“I promise.” She did her best to project strength and sincerity.
Apparently it worked because Kahlan’s face disappeared for a moment, and then she was falling through the air. Her weight landed awkwardly across Cara’s arms, driving her to one knee as she struggled to stay upright. Kahlan instinctively wrapped her arms around Cara’s shoulders. Their faces were inches apart. The blonde could feel Kahlan’s breath against her lips. For a moment they were in their own world and it took every ounce of willpower Cara possessed not to lean the short distance to capture Kahlan’s lips with her own.
“That uniform looks terrible on you.” She sounded breathy, and the words came out almost a purr. She just couldn’t seem to control herself.
“Thanks,” Kahlan replied with an unrestrained smile, a blush rising on her cheeks.
“Really terrible. You’d be better off running around naked.”
Richard thumped heavily to the floor behind them. No one had moved to catch him. Cara didn’t feel bad at all. His unceremonious landing did, however, break the mood. Kahlan scrambled out of Cara’s arms to her feet. Cara’s knees protested the battering they had taken, but she pushed herself upright, grabbed Kahlan and headed down the tunnel. The passage was faster the second time and they reached the grate just as their adversaries descended into the depths.
They burst out of the tunnel into the blinding wasteland of searing sun and sand, just as a round of gunfire was unleashed behind them. A bullet brushed Cara’s ear, drawing blood along the earlobe and sending her spinning into Kahlan. The two nearly fell but for Kahlan’s own dexterity in keeping them upright. Richard turned and planted his feet to return fire.
One of the quad dropped, blood blossoming from her stomach - the crimson nearly invisible against her uniform. Cara recovered her footing and pushed Kahlan away from her. “Run!” She ordered before reaching back to grab Richard’s shirt and fling him after the brunette.
There were some things about her plans she had seen fit to keep from Richard, with what she considered good reason. One of those things was the remote-detonation anti-personnel mines she had sunk into the ground along the path between the Temple and their Jeep while he was taking a ridiculously long time on the radio and the Colonel.
Certain that Richard and Kahlan were clear, she fingered the device in her pocket and set off the first wave of explosions. One of the quad was immediately flattened by the rush of fire that plumed in front of her. The other two were blown away, landing on their backs.
Cara laughed softly to herself as she turned, jogging after her friends. They reached the Jeep, Cara slid into the driver’s seat while Richard solicitously helped Kahlan into the back.
“Come on, come on,” the blonde shouted, rushing Richard who was taking too fucking long playing Romeo with his newly recovered wife.
The tires threw up sand as the Jeep tore away, leaving the Temple and only one of Cara’s many nightmares behind. She could tell from Richard’s dewy eyes, that another nightmare was only just beginning.