Page 37 of Uncharted

His chuckle was…different. It was still the same lighthearted joke, but I could hear something thicker, richer, and made of the same heat that had been in his eyes minutes before. “Got there, did ya?”

“Jake,” I said, shaking my head.

“I know,” he said. His voice was soft again, and his hand was on my shoulder. It was an innocent, calming gesture, and yet the weight of it was greater than I could remember. “You’re gonna freak out about this again, aren’t ya?”

“Probably,” I said in annoyance, mostly at myself, but a little at him because he could have just left that little detail out for us to deal with later. “I don’t fucking know. I don’t know why my brain is being stupid.”

“It’s not stupid,” he said crossly, and I held my breath when he kissed the back of my neck. “Don’t talk about my best friend like that.”

I stopped for a second and let out a soft laugh. “Shut up.”

“Just…do me a favor,” he said, and my chest ached at the tone of his voice.

I turned around and, taking a deep breath, I reached up and, as odd as it felt to touch him so gently, so intimately after everything that had happened, it felt more right than ever before. “I promise that if I freak out later, I won’t leave you on proverbial read for days. I’ll make myself not act like my brother, and instead of avoiding what’s going on in my head, I’ll sit down and actually talk to you because despite everything, you’re my best fucking friend.”

“Mika excluded,” he said, knowing I hated when he felt the need to specify that.

“I shared a womb with that fuckhead, of course he’s one of my best friends but he doesn’t count,” I told him in annoyance because he expected it. “Point is, you’re my best friend and I’m not going to let recent…shenanigans get in the way of that.”

“Shenanigans,” he chuckled, but God, if it wasn’t amazing when I felt him lean into my touch, accepting it and my words immediately. “Okay. I’ll hold ya to it.”

“Good,” I said with a smile. “And you don’t get lost in your own head about the storm.”

“Sure,” he said with a grin that made things feel normal. “Everything’s going to be great.”

“Exactly,” I said as I grabbed my bag and headed over to my poncho. “It’s going to be great.”

It turned out, the next forty-eight hours were anything but great.

6

JAKE

Cold.

Impossibly cold.

Cold that didn’t just pierce my skin, it burrowed down deep, made roots in my bones, and shattered my soul.

Worse was the darkness; it was as if it were aware, but not human or alive. It was everywhere; maybe it was made of the cold, or maybe it made the cold. I didn’t know; I just knew it was surrounding me, sliding inside me, down my throat and filling my lungs. All the air replaced by that oily stain wrapping around my insides, draining the life from every inch of my body.

Light flashed somewhere in the cloud. Not the light I wanted and needed to keep going. It was lightning. Arcs, flashes, bolts that made me forget about the icy darkness in those brief moments. The same way people forget about the ache in their heart by dragging a blade across their skin. The same way a bullet to the brain could be more appealing than sitting with your own memories.

I wanted it to stop. For it all to go away. I wished it were fire, but if it all just stopped, that would be⁠—

Quieter…no louder…it’s⁠—

Pain.

Oh, holy shit, it⁠—

Quiet again. The darkness. The cold.

The loneliness.

But there was light again; there was light, and it was…harsh. It sent fresh, broken splinters through my skull, but oh God, it was light.

I wanted to dig my nails into it and drag it closer; claw along the frozen darkness even if it meant breaking my fingers, if it meant getting to that harsh, unforgiving light that made my eyes pulse.