“Fuck,” he muttered, completely monotone.
“Why didn’t you just fucking shoot me?” I snapped.
“Still jammed,” he replied.
“I thought you were a fucking gun expert,” I challenged. “You telling me you can’t unjam a gun?”
“Not with one hand,” he replied in the same tone.
One hand…did he lose a fucking arm in the avalanche? It was possible, and I hoped it was true. In this cold, bleeding to death would take quite some time, but having him end that way sounded pretty good to me.
I shifted my shoulders against the snow behind me, trying to create a little wiggle room. I was only mildly successful, but it gave me just enough space to be able to turn and see him.
Evan Arden was lying on his side, facing me, with one arm not just below him but completely buried under rocks and snow. Unlike my icy tomb, Arden’s was made of more rocks than ice, and he was definitely pinned down. He had one leg trapped as well.
I let out a short laugh.
“Well, you’re fucked,” I said simply. I went back to digging at the snow around my lower half. If I could get out, I could finish him off without a lot of resistance.
A half hour later, I was panting, sweating, freezing, and still completely unable to dig myself out. I dropped my head back into the snow behind me and watched my breath rise in puffs around my mask and over my head.
I turned my head to see Arden’s stoic face as he laid his head against a rock and stared out over the cliff. There were a lot of marks in the snow where he had obviously tried to free his arm, but the rocks and ice were too thick there. He’d need a fucking bulldozer or at least some help, which I wasn’t about to offer.
His gaze shifted to me.
“This is supposed to be my fucking retirement,” Arden mumbled.
“Ha!” I snorted. “Mine, too.”
“Oh yeah?” He shifted his head lower to rest it on the snow and sighed again. “What are you doing here, then?”
“Killing your ass is the plan,” I answered simply.
“I’ve heard that before,” he replied. “Everyone who ever said it is floating in the Chicago river.”
“Everyone I’ve ever said it to is six feet under.”
He moved his eyes to me and gave me a slight nod.
“So I’ve heard,” he said, “but you’ve been out of the games for a long time.”
I didn’t comment. My leg was starting to throb, and I was convinced it was broken. Conversation was distracting, pointless, and pissing me off. I needed to get myself out of this and kill the guy beside me. Even then, my chances of getting back down the mountainside with a busted up leg were growing slimmer by the minute.
I was cold. Really fucking cold.
I closed my eyes and tried to think of Raine, hoping thoughts of her waiting for me would give me a little more motivation and maybe even warm me a little. Thinking just made the back of my head throb, and I reached up to rub at it. There was a good knot back there, and touching it made me dizzy.
Fucking fabulous.
I set my head back against the snow bank to catch my breath. I needed energy, so I dug down a little by my side until I could reach the pocket with the tubes of nutritional goo. I sucked it down my throat and then ate a few nuts to get rid of the taste of the overly processed shit in a tube.
“Why did you agree to play?” Arden asked. “If you’re supposed to be retired, why come back now? This is all about the Chicago war, not Seattle.”
“It wasn’t exactly by choice,” I said with a sigh. I was too tired to yell at him, and wasting energy was a bad idea anyway. “Why are you here? You were never a tournament player before.”
“Nope, never was,” he confirmed.
“So, why?”