Uncharted: A Thief's Legacy

Chapter XIV - And We Keep Living Anyway

When Sam walked inside, the flat appeared empty. The door to the spare bedroom, where Cassie had been sleeping, was closed. However, he couldn't see a light on through the crack underneath the door. Charlie was nowhere to be found.

He stood in the middle of the dusty, dimly lit room and his eyes scanned it and fell on the table in the center. He wandered to it and skimmed over the books, the blueprints, pages upon pages of notes...everything they had been planning with for weeks. They had been so confident. They were sure they had the jump on Marlowe, they had calculated everything so carefully, more than they ever had before. Sam had known what was on the line, and it was one job he wasn't going to wing. On top of that, the brothers and Charlie were not new to this life. What had gone wrong had not been due to a lack of experience.

What had gone wrong...it was almost laughable. Despite their meticulous planning, everything had gone wrong. They could not have predicted Marlowe somehow knowing that they were there, and Elijah's betrayal had come as an even bigger surprise. That had been the real kicker. If anyone else had been holding the gun, Sam could have handled it better. He could have rationalized it knowing that it was just chance. It would have been harder to claim responsibility. But this...this was personal, and it was his fault.

His mind strayed back to the last time he had seen Elijah. Quite naively, he hadn't thought twice about any of it. It all made sense now, why Eli had found their house without his help, why he had been overly apologetic about Sully's death... Nathan and Elena had been skeptical, and rightly so, it seemed. It hadn't ever occurred to Sam that Eli felt guilty beyond recommending a dubious job. Nathan's voice rang in his ears. Trust this guy with your life. But I wouldn't. What would Nathan say to him now? Sam could imagine his brother's smug, I told you so.

How long had Eli been feeding Marlowe his information? Had the Brit's eyes been on Sam for months? Years? Sam's head swam. How many times had he put Sully and the other three Drakes in danger because he hadn't recognized a shady contact?

With that thought, all the emotions he had been burying, not just that day but since Sully's death, came flooding in. However, now the guilt and grief were amplified by the rage and betrayal he felt towards a man he'd called his friend. Sam's mind felt cloudy and more raw emotion overcame him than he knew how to process. Feeling as though his chest might explode, he reacted violently towards the only thing within reach.

With both arms, he swept everything off the table in front of him. Books slammed to the floor, pencils clattered and their leads broke, papers caught on the table's rough wooden surface and ripped in half, flying everywhere. One notebook was left lying on the table, untouched. Sam picked it up gently, stared at it for a moment, and then hurled it across the room, where it hit a bookshelf and fell. He watched it drop to the ground with a thud that echoed through the room. Sam crumpled to his knees. He heaved with sobs before he became fully aware of it. His hands grasped at the floor and found papers that he scrunched in his fists. The feeling seemed to ground him to reality.

For how long he had been kneeling on the floor, he didn't know. A hand on his shoulder shocked him back to life. Sam raised his chin and turned his head slightly, and his eyes met Charlie's. The older man crouched next to him; his face etched with concern. What must I look like? Sam thought. On his knees, red in the face, surrounded by the carnage of their research...