A/N: For extremely obvious reasons (or at least the ones I'm aware of), this story is now considered AU. My apologies for taking forever to update. I did pretty much abandon this story, but a recent review reminded me that I had the third chapter almost done. And I just remembered why I enjoyed writing it so much in the first place. So here you are.

*=*=*Chapter 3*=*=*

So the gang was all here, assembled once more in the same location. To Irina, it came as a mild relief. Her intel-network had been stretched to the limits trying to keep tabs on everyone. However, Jakarta had ultimately proved to be a bust for her. It was only through keeping track of the Holts that she had managed to follow them this far.

They, she knew, had a found a hint as to where the next clue was hidden.

It was generally easy to tell who had and who hadn't. Alastair Oh, for instance, hadn't, for he had spent the last two days studiously watching the Holts as they scurried around the main tomb. Their cries to each other had been so loud that they may as well have simply posted a sign that the clue was hidden somewhere beneath it.

But the Kabra children were another story. Either they had no clue or they were playing things pretty close to the chest. The elder one, the boy, had spent the previous day watching the Holts, Alastair and herself—when he believed that she wasn't looking. But the girl had been skulking around the outer rims of the tomb, careful to avoid the boisterous Holts, but close enough to monitor any activity. It was… not their usual pattern to say the least.

Which was why she was listening in on their bugged hotel room.

"I'm sick of this waiting around," the girl was whining, yet again, "I say we forget the Holts, forget the old cow, and just hunt elsewhere. They've been following us the whole time anyway."

"It's different," he told her, "With everyone this close together, do you want to get killed or robbed before we even get there?"

She snorted, "You think anyone would dare? Oh come off it! Spasky won't touch us because of Father, the Asian doesn't have the stomach for it and if we can't outsmart the muscle-heads, we don't deserve to win!"

"We wait. You're not going near the graves until we are in the clear."

She made an exasperated noise, "You're not even listening to me! And you're not the one taking the risks here either."

"Just stop complaining and do it already," the boy snapped at her, then added in a gentler tone, "I can speed things up if you need me to—"

"Very much appreciated, brother," she said snippily, "Don't know why you didn't do it before now…"

It wasn't concrete, but enough to know that the British brats were plotting something. She didn't know what exactly and they started whining at each other over the Jonah Wizard inconvenience and then over the rain and its effect on the girl's hair. Nothing of any importance.

It just meant that Irina would have to keep a closer eye on both siblings.

As dawn broke, the Cahill descendents lined up at the gates. Grace's grandchildren were there too, looking stiff and tired from their journey. The younger boy kept yawning widely and the older girl had deep bags under her eyes. The Holts had arrived too, a few of their young brutes beginning to harass the two children. The Kabras and Alastair showed up at the last minute, as the guards were staring at their watches and counting down the seconds.

"Hey Amy," she turned to see the Kabra boy catcalling to the girl at the front, "A-a-amy."

She didn't turn to answer him and continued to stare straight ahead, her mouth drawn in a tense line. It gave Irina chills to see just how closely she resembled Grace right then. The brother whispered something to her and she nodded silently. It was an interesting development, but Irina didn't have time to ponder it as the gates clicked open and the hunt began again.

He was doing it again. His regime of taunting and teasing her, making crude suggestions for his sister to laugh at and then flashing that unbelievable smile in her direction… it was wearing Amy down.

Each time she expected something different to happen—shouldn't she have gotten used to it after all? Shouldn't she have developed a little more courage? But it never was any different. All it took was for him to call her name and it happened. A blush would blossom on her cheeks, her heartbeat would start to thunder in her ears and her knees suddenly refused to move. The immobilizing effect was so complete that it felt like her brain had almost ceased to function and it took Dan telling her to ignore him before she remembered to breathe again.

Just one of the many reasons she hated Ian Kabra.

But the moment the gates opened, she no longer had to think about him. Arms jostled her as a stampede of Holts tried to push past Dan and her in the race up to the terraces. She took an elbow to the eye and cried out in pain, doubling over in an effort to protect her face.

When she looked up, everybody but Dan and her were rapidly disappearing up the hill. It was easy enough to pick out Ian's retreating back, his black sports jacket whipping behind him as he walked. She quickly turned her gaze back to her brother.

"You okay?" he asked her. She knew the annoyance in his voice was for the jerk that had elbowed her and not for slowing them down.

"Yeah, it's still there, I think," she said taking her hand away from her eye. It was still throbbing and sore and hurt to blink, but they had to get going.

"Too bad," he said with a wry smile, "You could have had an eye patch. That would have been sweet."

Amy rolled her eyes at that, then stopped realizing how much that hurt. They trudged up the hill slowly along with the other normal, camera-toting tourists. There was a thick fog that morning that hung about the ruin, just before the cliffs plunged into the valley below. It was the first time that Amy had ever laid eyes on the ruin and she was not disappointed.

There was terrace after terrace of these roofless, granite rooms leading up like a staircase to an expansive lawn at the centre. It literally felt like a village floating in the clouds, with a brilliant blue sky overhead and majestic mountains jutting up on all sides. The sun was peeking over the horizon, a retina-burning ball of orange that lent just enough light to the area to see by.

It was breath-taking.

"Wow…"

"I know… it's—"

"—just like out of Indiana Jones."

Amy threw him an incredulous expression. Right. They'd come all this way to see this spectacular, world-famous site that was steeped in mystery and beauty and the only thing that Dan appreciated was that it was like the setting of some dumb action-hero movie! Well, if that wasn't depressing she didn't know what was.

"Right…" she agreed dryly, "My thoughts exactly."

"What are they doing?" Dan asked pointing a finger in the direction of the Holts. Amy squinted against the sun as she followed his finger.

"I don't know." She answered, frowning in puzzlement at what she saw, "They look like they're guarding something."

"Don't tell me they've found it already." He muttered.

Amy had fished the tour map out of her pocket and flipped it open. Her finger traced their path up from the entrance to locate what it was that they were standing before. Reagan and Madison were stationed out front, their hoods pulled over their heads for warmth. They looked bored and tired to Amy, but Hamilton, who kept popping in and out of the downward-leading entrance like a gopher, was energetic enough.

"It's the main tomb here," She relayed to Dan, glancing up worriedly, "'Beneath bone and marrow of the newly forgotten.' I'd say we're looking for a tomb, right?"

"But what about the whole 'newly' part of it? The old geezers that are buried there aren't exactly… fresh?" Dan commented optimistically.

Amy bit her lip knowing that he was right. It didn't fit perfectly, but was it too much to hope that their competition was wrong? The Holts obviously did have some sort of clue as to where to go. Who was to say that they weren't right? She scanned the rest of the map anxiously praying that there was another newer tomb located nearby.

"Uh oh," she heard him say and jerked her head up, "They've got company."

At first, she didn't understand what he was talking about. He was pointing towards the far end of the tomb which was almost completely cast in shadow from the sun. Whatever it was, neither of the Holt girls noticed it either.

"Wait for it…"

And then there she was. Dressed in her black trench coat, a small figure peeked out from behind the stone wall to watch the activity at the entrance. Her jet black hair danced across her face as she kept to the darkness. Even at a distance, she was easily recognizable. Natalie Kabra.

"Seems like they have the same idea," Dan ventured, distaste evident enough in his tone "I mean, it was their clue that said that."

"I think they're both wrong." Amy replied thinking quickly, "There is nothing new about that tomb. It can't be the right one."

"Do you know where the right one is?" he asked, leaning over her shoulder to see what she was looking at so intently. The map was unfolded in her hands and she had been staring at it.

She paused as the wheels started to turn and the connections were made. The settlement here made by the Incas was too old, which begged the question of who had died here that was young enough to fit the bill. Hiram Bingham had died and been buried back in the United States, so it certainly wasn't him. But people had been living here long after the Incas, hadn't they?

"What about the people that showed him this place?" she theorized aloud, the makings of a brilliant idea starting to come together, "I read in the guidebook that an eleven-year-old boy was the one who brought Hiram Bingham up the mountain to these ruins. The boy's father was a farmer in the area—these people had to have some sort of graveyard, didn't they?"

Amy had already dropped the map to the ground and was flipping through the guidebook that she had brought along, trying desperately to remember where she had read that information. Dan had picked up the discarded map and was looking at the symbols with interest.

"We may have to leave the ruin to find this place," he said resignedly, "I'll bet they didn't bury people here after it was discovered."

She frowned in thought, looking up from her work, "But the clue says 'beneath the Lost City.' It can't be that far away."

A silence followed as it became very clear that they didn't really know where to start. Anxiously, Amy turned back to her book as Dan continued to watch the Holts from their safe distance. There was so much information on the ruin in the Peru guidebook that sifting through it all to see where she'd found that information was going to take a long while. She was just about to recommend that they go find a tour guide and ask about it when Dan spoke.

"He's not doing anything; just sitting there watching."

"Who?" Amy asked.

"Mr. My-Armani-Suit-Cost-More-Than-Your-House," he answered in a mocking imitation, gesturing across the knoll to where Ian Kabra sat atop what looked like a granite bench, "He hasn't moved in ten minutes."

She tried to ignore the small tug in her chest at the sight of him, "And Natalie? Is she still down there?"

He paused, taking a second to locate her before speaking again, "Yeah, she is. Holts still haven't noticed either."

"I wonder what they're doing," Amy said hollowly as she turned back to the page, not wanting to spend another second dwelling on the Kabras' activities. She had to focus on her own if she was going to get them anywhere.

"Nothing, by the looks of it," Dan reported with marked confusion, "I think Alastair Oh has the same idea. He's just watching them. And—hey! There's our Russian comrade too! Something really weird is going on…"

Amy put down the book for a moment to take in the scene that Dan had. Bizarre as it was, he was absolutely right. Hidden a decent way back from where Ian sat in the open was Irina Spasky, crouched in the ruins of a hidden house and barely visible if it wasn't for the small, slit window carved in the rock. She was watching them as well.

"I don't understand…" she said with a frown, "They look like they're all waiting for something to happen. But what is it?"

"Beats me."

Amy glanced down at the map briefly, deciding that it was no use just sitting around waiting for something to happen. If it was going to happen, there was nothing they were going to do about it.

"There's an old farming plot on the other side that was used by the Incas," she told him, "I'll bet that that was where the 'newly forgotten' farmed too."

"And that is helpful why, exactly?" Dan asked.

"Because if we find where they were farming, it probably isn't too far from where they lived, right?" she reasoned.

"Beats just standing here," he agreed and picked up his backpack from where he'd dropped it before. Amy straightened up too, stuffing the map away and getting ready to go.

The two set out on the most direct course across the ruins, meandering around the houses and down the steep, three-foot steps to the preserved agricultural area. They two of them were sure to give the Holts a wide berth, but it certainly did attract the stares of their competition. Amy could feel their eyes burning holes through her and could almost hear them wondering what they were doing. She half-expected someone to follow them, but no one did and they made it to the far side of the enclosure safely and descended down the stairs and out of sight.

There weren't any tourists where they had landed, but Amy didn't expect that that would last. The place drew hundreds of tourists everyday and they probably wouldn't be alone for much longer. It just meant that they would need to work fast.

"Huh… I thought it would be bigger." Dan commented on the small plot of land that had been outlined by a tiny stone wall and then roped off from tourists for preservation.

"Remember, it wasn't a city," Amy said as she circled around the patch and took in the surroundings. A fence blocked off the spot where the land dipped sharply downwards, presumably to keep tourists from tumbling to their deaths down the steep slope.

"Right, the pilgrim thing," he recalled, leaning over the rope barrier to get a closer look. It was overgrown with grass now, kept dutifully trimmed by the maintenance staff, "You remember what Wendy said earlier?"

Amy tensed at the mention of that conversation, "About our parents?"

Dan nodded, looking troubled, "You know who the head of the Lucian branch is, right?"

She couldn't speak, feeling like the wind had been kicked out of her. Her gaze dropped back to the fence she'd been examining to hide the blush that was staining her cheeks. Yes, like that thought hadn't crossed her mind a million times since they'd left Jakarta along with every second she had spent with Ian Kabra.

"He didn't ever mention—?"

"No," she answered, cutting him off abruptly, "He didn't tell me."

Dan sank into silence, probably sensing the very 'off-limits' tone that Amy was using. She knew it was unfair to him; he had just as much a stake in knowing whether or not the Kabras had been responsible for their parents' deaths as she did. But how exactly did you confess to your kid brother that you had kissed and almost fallen for a member of the family that was responsible for making you an orphan? And it was the truth; she didn't know for sure.

"I want to know," he told her, this vulnerable look on his face as though he was seeking her approval, "If we get a chance to find out about them, I want to know."

She nodded her agreement, sympathizing whole-heartedly, "Me too."

"And if we…"

Dan's eyes suddenly grew wide and his mouth opened as though he were about to sneeze. Amy stared at him in confusion and was about to ask what was his problem when his hand rose to the back of his neck and pulled at something black that came away easily in his hand.

"Dan?" she asked, her voice starting to quiver nervously, "Wh-what's that—?"

His eyelids had started to droop and his mouth fell open farther as he swayed unsteadily on his feet. One hand shot out to catch the rope before him and kept him standing. The other opened to reveal a small, black dart with a red band.

"Run." Was the last word he spoke before his knees gave out and he collapsed on the ground, his shoulder thankfully breaking his fall so that he didn't hit his head.

Amy cried out and scrambled over to him, calling his name repeatedly. By the time she'd reached him, he'd lost consciousness but was still very much alive. The dart lay in the grass next to him and she picked it up in horror. Who would have shot her brother? She knew only two people who readily carried around dart guns… Fearfully, she glanced up, scanning the area above them for the Kabras. One of them had to have done this!

She dragged Dan's limp body beneath the giant steps that had led them down there. Her heart hammered in her chest as she fought not to cry with her brother's head cradled in her lap. It made no sense! Here she was, just waiting patiently until someone came down to peg her as well. What was she doing there?

She could hear someone, their heavy footfalls sounding on the grass above her. Amy squeezed her eyes shut in terror and pulled Dan closer. Running was the last thing on her mind; she was absolutely not leaving him there. She didn't care what those horrible Kabras were about to do to her for not making a break for it.

"We'll be okay," she promised him in a scared whisper, "We'll be okay."

As the Cahill children were discreetly making their way down the opposing side of the ruin, Irina Spasky was holding position behind the granite housing. It made her nervous to see them separate like this because it meant they had some sort of clue with them. She debated following them for a moment and had yet to make up her mind when something else of interest caught her eye. Ian Kabra was standing now, turned in her direction and walking silently over to her.

"I don't suppose we can strike an agreement, can we?" he called out to her in his usual drawl.

She frowned at him, "Why would I trust you again?"

"Come now," Ian said with a silky laugh, "Surely you still want a Lucian victory. Could you imagine a Tomas winning this contest?"

Her lip curled in distaste, but common sense held her back. She knew she couldn't believe a word the boy said; he was far too clever for his own good and had pulled one too many fast-ones on her before.

"Here's the plan; me and Natalie will go take out the Cahills, but I need someone here to watch the Holts and to keep me posted if they find anything," he said, serious as could be. "Think you can do that?"

He spoke to her as though she were a child and not fifty years his senior. It was irksome and she was tempted to reject the deal out of spite, if not for the fact that he made an unnerving amount of sense. Still...

"No," she sneered, getting to her feet and hiking her bag up over one shoulder, "I will take care of the siblings. You can keep watching the meatheads."

She was satisfied to see the dissenting glint in the boy's eye, but wisely, he kept silent and didn't push the argument. With an indifferent shrug, he told her it didn't matter to him which she preferred—so long as both were taken care of. He turned his back to her while Irina pulled out her gun and began loading it.

"Don't kill her, Spasky," she heard him say over his shoulder, pausing a moment before retreating back down the hill. His voice was firm, but there was something softer about his eyes.

"You mean them," Irina corrected.

Ian said nothing in reply, instead letting the sentence fall flat as he descended back down the hill to his post. Irina stared after him, only half-interested. Something was off about that boy, but she didn't care enough to find out what. If he wanted them left alive, well, that was fine. She wasn't in the habit of killing children anyway.

With that in mind, she checked the cartridge load on her tranquilizer gun, lightly fingering the red plastic fringe tails that kept them flying straight. It would keep them out of the game for one day, perhaps that would be enough.

Dan awoke to the smell of eggs frying in a pan—somewhere. Where that was, exactly, didn't seem too familiar. Wooden beams criss-crossed dizzyingly over his head and the scratchy feel of wool burned against his skin as he moved his head. How had he gotten here?

"Welcome back to the land of the living..." he heard someone say, inclining his head a little to get a better view. Nellie was standing in the doorway of wherever he happened to be, a wry expression on her face and Saladin wrapped in her arms.

"Where in the...? What?" he muttered incoherently. The practice of forming sentences had apparently deserted him.

At this, Nellie pulled a tight smile and sauntered over to the bed where he was laying. With a little forced encouragement, the cat hopped out of her grip and onto Dan's legs with a disgruntled 'mrrp' and a mournful look thrown her way.

"You were hit with a tranquilizer this morning," she answered his query, her voice straining to stay level, "Probably the Kabras trying to slow us down because they're too stupid to figure anything out on their own. They're going to pay for that, by the way—"

"—And Amy?" he croaked, blinking hard.

"Asleep on Pedro's friend's couch. We're crashing here tonight," Nellie answered quietly, sinking down onto the comforter next to him. There was an extended pause before she spoke next, "Look dude, I know I gave up telling you kids how to run your lives when I took off with you, but today was seriously not fun. You had me worried—and as a general rule, I don't do that."

"Yeah, fine. We'll be more careful," Dan recited, trying not to roll his eyes. He hated it when Nellie started acting like a parent; it wasn't so much that he minded the attention, but she always made him feel painfully nostalgic for his own mom and dad, which was silly since he'd never known them.

Nellie nodded, one hand absently resting on Saladin's back. She'd stopped stroking the feline and was studying Dan with an odd look. For a while, she didn't say anything, leaving him with a distinctly uncomfortable and guilty feeling. Maybe they were taking too many risks and not giving enough thought to how they were treating their usually-super-cool guardian—mostly because it never occurred to him that Nellie worried at all.

"We're... sorry," he offered feeling more than awkward about it.

This produced a wry smile, "You're all right, Dan."

"I know."

"But I gotta ask this, because if you want to go back now we should," she continued sounding rather serious. "We're almost out of cash, the competition's getting douche-ier by the minute, and this seems as good a place as any to check out—"

"No," he said with marked determination, "Not a chance. We're not done yet."

With surprise, Dan watched as a slow grin spread across Nellie's face before he'd even finished speaking, "I was hoping you'd say that," she said with a spark of excitement in her voice, "Because I translated our clue for Pedro. Guess where it says we're supposed to go?"