Bastian's Storm (Surviving Raine 2)

“It does.”

The corner of his mouth turned up a little as he gave me an appreciative nod.

“It’s gonna hurt worse when I move the rock,” he said. “I don’t have the best angle, and I’ll probably end up crushing your leg more.”

“Great.”

“Beats staying where you are.”

“I can’t argue with that.”

“You ready, then?” he asked.

We looked at each other for a moment before I nodded.

“Do it.”

I held my breath, and Evan began to push down on the rock against my leg. I had to grit my teeth and squeeze my eyes shut as he did it to keep from screaming out loud. I felt it shift a little, and heard the bone crack.

“Fuck!”

“Almost got it,” he said calmly.

“Fucking hurry.”

“That’ll hurt more.”

“I don’t give a shit!” I yelled. “Just fucking do it!”

I heard him take a deep breath and saw him pull his leg up close to his chest. As he thrust his leg forward, I couldn’t hold it in—I screamed as I heard a rock tumble off the edge of the cliff. Reflexively, I yanked up my leg. For the first time, it actually moved.

My head swam and my vision went dark. I had to choke back the bile that rose in my throat as I felt the tendons in my knee tear. Forcing myself to keep my mouth closed, I squeezed my eyes shut again and just tried to keep my cursing to a minimum.

“I think that did it,” Evan said.

“Fuck,” I said with a rush of breath. “I should have asked for a bullet to bite on.”

“I have a few,” Evan said. “I should have offered.”

“Bastard,” I muttered.

Evan chuckled.

“Can you move it yet?”

“Gimme a sec.” I focused on my breathing for a couple minutes, trying to force the pain into the back of my mind. I looked down at the top of my thigh, just barely visible, and tried to push more of the snow off of it. I twisted and turned my fingers right next to my body until I managed to make a large enough hole to grab my leg with my hands. “Here goes nothing.”

I yanked, but nothing happened other than causing additional searing pain to run through my body. I told myself not to be such a fucking pansy and yanked harder. It moved a little more. With my arms straining against the pressure, I gritted my teeth and kept pulling. An inch. Another.

“Fuck!” I screamed as Evan kicked at another rock.

“You do like your F-bombs, don’t you?” he mused. “There was one more in the way. Try again.”

“Motherfucker!”

“Quit your bitching,” he commanded. “Just do it.”

I tried to remember what rank he had held in the Marines. He sounded a bit too much like Landon for my taste. The tactic worked though; I grabbed hold of my thigh and pulled as hard as I could, and my leg finally came loose.