Page 38 of Wicked Intention

Her parents shared a look. “Owen, why don’t you put the bag in our room.”

Or, as Zo thought of it, Marianna's room. They’d shared the two-bedroom, two-bath apartment while they’d worked on their graduate programs, but with her friend’s departure, no one used the second suite except her parents.

“Zofia, let’s sit and talk.”

She stiffened before nodding. Reluctantly, Zo gave up her position near the door. Escaping was a fantasy anyway. Her mom had settled in the middle of the couch, which left Zo no choice about putting space between them.

As soon as she was seated, her mom took her hand. “Robert said you ended your relationship with him. You don’t have to drop out of school merely because the two of you had a falling out. He might be an assistant professor, but you can complete your doctorate without encountering him.”

“Robert and I didn’t have an argument. I broke things off because there was no point in pretending he would ever be more than a friend.” And not a close friend, either. He didn’t understand her in the least. “I left school because Iwas offered a job at the Paladin League, which interests me.”

Her mother frowned. “The Paladin League’s grants do a lot of good, but you can do so much more as a field archaeologist, or as a professor. You could inspire the next generation of archaeologists. Think about that.”

Zo took a deep breath. “I don’t enjoy teaching—that’s your calling. That’s Dad’s calling. I don’t want to become a professor and deal with the politics of academia. That’s not me.”

“That’s nonsense.” Her mom squeezed her hand. “You handle the politics perfectly. You have since you were a child. You’re merely exhausted from so many years of schooling. Take a quarter or two off, give yourself a chance to recharge, and you’ll feel differently.”

Her mother wasn’t listening to her. Again. Her parents had laid out their plans for her life for as long as she could remember, and resistance was futile.

“Everything settled?” her father asked as he returned to the living room.

“Zofia is going to take a leave for a couple of quarters, and then she’ll return to finish her dissertation.”

“Brilliant!” her father said with a smile. “I knew a face-to-face conversation would solve the issue.”

Zo felt her pulse spike, and her throat tighten. It was tempting to agree—easier. She could work for the Paladin League while she was on leave. She could continue with her PhD and do her job at the League, too.

But it would only postpone the career argument.

She had a fear that if she went along with her parents now, she might wake up one day and discover she’d been a college professor for ten years and married Robert or someone like him. Zo couldn’t allow that to happen.

“No,” she said, but her parents didn’t hear her over their congratulatory conversation with each other. She swallowedhard, gathered up her courage, and spoke again, more loudly this time. “No. No, I’m not taking a leave. No, I’m not going back to school. No, I’m not giving up a job that interests me so I can finish my doctorate and become a professor, which is something I dread.”

There was a moment of stunned silence before both her parents spoke to her at once. Zo closed her eyes and realized that although they’d only brought an overnight bag, she might very well be under an indefinite siege unless she capitulated.

Huarona Ruins

Near San Isidro, Puerto Jardin

Present Day

DAYLIGHT BROUGHT dismay.Zo stood on the ridge overlooking the Huarona ruins. It had been a decade since her last visit, and while she’d meant to bring Finn and show him the site, they hadn’t gotten around to it. Time was always short when they were in Puerto Jardin, and they both had friends in San Isidro to visit when they detoured south.

Zo scowled. Her vision of the Huarona city had been so clear in her mind that she never expected to see anything else. She should have known better.

The rainforest had reclaimed most of the ground that had been cleared while the archaeological team had worked here. She could see only a small fraction of the ruins and trees abutted the temple on three sides—the only open space was the front that faced the plaza, and even that was limited. To reach the step pyramid, she would need to use the machete and hack her way there—ten years of tree growth, ten years of bushes, and ten years of vines.

Now, what the hell could she do?

The pulsating sensation returned, and Zo gave in to the urge to take the Lost Disk—No, it wasn’t lost any longer—to take the Disk of the Gods from her jacket. It seemed to warm at her touch, soothing her dismay. She ran the fingers of her free hand over the front of it.

The disk was beautiful, and not because of the gold.

As Señor Ramos had said, there was a face in the center, but it seemed as if the man wore a helmet of some kind, one with a visor pushed up above the eyes. Surrounding the helmet were lines, circles, spirals, and zigzags that meant…something. Zo couldn’t decipher the symbols, but she knew they were important.

The face, though, only filled the center. Around it was a half-inch border with more glyphs, ones much more elaborate and detailed than what was on the helmet. She recognized some of them from the stones in the ruins, but many of them were new to her.

No one had worked out the Huarona language or what the pictographs meant.

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