Bastian's Storm (Surviving Raine 2)

Stepping to the side, I gripped my fingers around his wrist and stopped the forward motion of the weapon. With a quick spin, I twisted his arm around and brought it to his side, shoving the blade through his parka and inner clothing and into his gut just below his ribcage. As I felt his hand go slack, I pushed the blade sideways, cutting through his abdominal muscles as he screamed in pain.

I let go of the handle and quickly wrapped the piano wire around his neck. Erik moved fast, grasping the wire with his thinly gloved fingers before I could tighten it completely. I slammed my knee into his back near his kidney, and he gasped at the blow. If he hadn’t been suspended from the wire around his neck, he would have fallen to his knees.

With a quick movement, he slammed the back of his head into my face, and we both went down as pain ripped through my jaw. He fell on top of me, but I didn’t let my grip falter. The muscles in my arms strained as he fought against me. His hand was lodged between the wire and his neck, so I couldn’t get the proper grip to strangle him. I could see the wire was cutting him on one side as I pulled harder and harder, but his strength remained enough to try to talk.

“Motherfucker!” He twisted and turned, but I kept my grip on the wire around his neck. Blood oozed from the space between his fingers as the wire cut into his flesh beneath the gloves.

“Give it up,” I said quietly. “It’s over. You’re done.”

He screamed and lurched to dislodge me, but he didn’t have the strength as his blood poured from his side onto the ground. I tightened my grip, further cutting his skin even though I couldn’t quite find purchase against his trachea. As his struggles weakened, so did his voice.

“I have a kid…” he groaned between panting breaths. “A girl…she has…no one…fuck, no…”

I released my grip on the piano wire with my left hand and shoved myself backward with my feet, letting his head drop to the snow as the wire slipped from around his hand and neck. Blood seeped from the area where the wire had entered his skin near his jugular but not in a grand enough stream to make me think I’d severed it. It didn’t matter. The skin exposure from the cut through his clothing and the blood pouring from his stomach were more than enough to kill him.

His words felt like a stab to my own gut.

Erik tried to roll to the side, but he couldn’t manage it. He struggled to pull the knife from his body as I stood a few feet away, watching him bleed to death. I should have stepped in and ended him faster, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it. The wounds he had suffered were the end of him. It wasn’t as if there were any emergency medical personnel coming.

He turned his glazed eyes to look up at me, and his mouth opened to form additional words, but nothing intelligible came out. I crouched to keep low to the ground and caught my breath as his blood puddled below him. He choked out a couple more breaths before lying still.

Where’s his daughter?

The thought rumbled through my brain, but I had no way of knowing. I could only hope she was with someone who would care for her because her father wasn’t coming home. It was the price he paid for being a part of this. It was the price any of us could pay.

Not me.

I looked into the dim red light at the top of Dytalov’s goggles, knowing there was a room filled with people watching me right now. They could see my face through his camera and his through mine. If I could have seen them, I would have witnessed the passing of large bundles of cash back and forth as losers forked over their money to the gloating winners.

I glared at the light, wanting to give them all the finger, but I couldn’t do that without removing the mittens. I had to be content with a look. It was only three hours into the game, and half of the players were gone. If I kept up the pace, I could be sleeping with Raine again tonight.

A tiny voice inside of me—one that sounded like Raine—told me I should regret what I had just done. The same voice tried to tell me what I was doing was wrong. I had no argument against it, but I couldn’t bring myself to feel any remorse either.

My resolve was set. At least for now, the blood on my hands was of no consequence.

It had been an hour since I had killed Erik Dytalov, and I hadn’t seen either Arden or Hunter. A few minutes ago, there had been two more gunshots coming from the west. I was no gun expert, but I was fairly certain the shots had been from handguns, not Arden’s sniper rifle or AR. I’d pinpointed the direction from where the sounds had originated, and I was heading that way.

Reaching up with both hands, I pulled myself to the top of a ridge and looked over cautiously. A dark shape below lay on the ground, face down. From the size of him, I knew it was Hunter. He looked dead, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I approached slowly with the piano wire wrapped around my covered fists. As far as I could see, the huge lump of a body wasn’t moving at all, but possum tactics were common in tournaments, and I wasn’t stupid enough to make any assumptions.

I looped the wire in one hand, the circle large enough to slip over Hunter’s head, if necessary. In the other hand, I gripped Reaper’s bloody brass knuckles. Slowly and quietly, I approached the mound lying on its face on top of the ice-covered rock. When I got close enough, I could see a neat bullet hole in the back of Hunter’s head. His face was nothing more than a mess in the snow.

In his bare hand, he held his gun. Kneeling, I reached for it, but his skin was practically grafted to the handle. I could have pulled it away from him, ripping skin from his dead flesh in the process, but I didn’t. I dropped his hand and the weapon back to the snow.

I was better off with what I had.

I looked up, wondering where that bastard of a sniper was and if he was still looking down on this spot. The only way I would have found out was if I heard the shot before I died. I paused just a little longer than I should have, testing him or myself; I wasn’t sure. In the end, it didn’t matter. No shot rang out.

“Just you and me, Arden,” I whispered into the icy wind.

Exhaustion was setting in. As much as I wanted to push on, I was too fucking cold.

This should have been over by now.

I had no idea where Arden was, and I could only hope he didn’t know where I was either, or rather, that he didn’t figure it out before I found him. Every time I stepped out from the cover of a ridge, I tensed and waited for a shot to ring out.

Maybe he’s dead already.

It was an errant thought, and one I discounted immediately. If he was dead, they’d know from his camera and would send the helicopter for me. Since I didn’t hear any helicopter, he was definitely still alive. I’d just have to keep looking.