Shay Savage - Bastian’s Storm

It wasn’t. It wasn’t anywhere near enough. I needed to be able to tell her myself that she would be all right because she wasn’t going to believe anyone else.

She might not believe you either, asshole.

“Just give me two minutes on the phone with her,” I said.

Landon tossed into my lap the in-flight magazine full of great shopping deals I could get without having to pay duty. I scowled at him.

“Get your mind on something else,” he instructed. “Don’t dwell on the things you can’t control.”

“Asshole,” I muttered. He obviously wasn’t going to budge at this point. I opened the magazine and stared at some strange contraption that was guaranteed to teach cats to shit in the toilet.

The plane began to taxi. At least for now, I would take Landon’s advice.

“When are you going to let me talk to her?” I asked.

It was freaking freezing, and we’d been hard at training for three days straight outside a tiny, nearly deserted old mining town called Leaf Rapids. Landon had said it was near Thompson, but that was a load of shit. It had taken us more than three hours to get here. It was just about as uninhabitable a place I had ever seen, and the location of the tournament was supposed to be far more remote.

Landon let out a sigh. I grabbed a canteen of nearly frozen water and tried to recover from my latest jaunt across the icy land. I dropped my ass down on a tree stump near the lake and pulled a cigarette out of my pocket. It was slightly crushed, but serviceable. I had to take my hand out of my glove to light it, though.

I’d asked the same question at least a dozen times since we began training. I’d been met with silence or some comment about patience being a fucking virtue.

Landon looked up at me, glared at the cigarette, and then looked toward the setting sun.

“You make that your last cigarette today,” he said, “and you can call her tonight.”

I felt like a kid at fucking Christmas time. A kid with a real family and real parents who gave a shit and made sure there were presents wrapped up in red and green paper and a plate of cookies and milk for the elf dude. It was the kind of thing I’d never experienced, but I wanted to make sure I knew what it was supposed to be like so I could give all that to Alex.

I wanted to give him everything.

Knowing Raine was with him, even if it was against her will, made me feel like there was some actual hope for the future. It made me believe when this was all over, we could make it work.

That night, as I shoveled logs into a wood burning stove, Landon came up behind me and handed me his cell phone.

“Five minutes,” he said.

I took the phone from his hand and placed it up to my ear.

“Raine?”

“Bastian? Oh my God, Bastian!”

“It’s me, baby,” I said. I could hear her crying. “Are you all right?”

“I’m okay,” she sniffed.

“Where are you?” I asked.

“Somewhere in Canada.”

“Thompson?”

“That might be it.”

I looked to Landon, and he nodded once.

“I’m just a few hours away from there,” I told her. “Everything is okay, baby.”

“That man,” Raine said with a shushed voice, “that Landon man—he came to the condo. He grabbed me and…and…”

“I know, Raine,” I said as I glared up at him. “I know what he did. I didn’t know he was going to do it, but he did it to protect you.”

“Protect me?” Raine practically yelled. “He hauled me out of the building with a gun in my back!”

I placed my hand over the mouthpiece of the phone.

“You took her at gunpoint?” I hissed.

“I couldn’t haul her out kicking and screaming, could I?” Landon said with a shrug.

I growled and went back to Raine.

“I’m sorry,” I said, though I didn’t know what the fuck made me apologize for him. “He never should have done that. Maybe if he had just talked to me”—I raised my voice and looked over at him pointedly—“we could have worked it out a little better.”

Landon rolled his eyes. I knew he hated it when I used logic against him.

“You’re safe now,” I told Raine. “No one there is going to hurt you, I promise. They’re just making sure you’re not in the line of fire or anything like that.”

“Like you are,” she said quietly.

“I’m fine,” I reassured her. “I’m just freezing my ass off while training. I’m going to make sure Landon takes me to see you soon.”

“You’re with him?”

“Yeah, I am.”

“Well, tell him I said he was a fucking bastard.”

If I had been drinking, I would have spewed whatever it was all over myself.

“I’ll relay the message,” I replied through my grin.

“You do that!” she spat back.

Landon made a little motion across his neck to let me know my time was up.

“I have to go,” I told her. “I just wanted you to know it was all okay. Alex is with you, right?”

“He is,” Raine said, “but it’s not all okay, Bastian.”

“It will be, baby,” I said. “I promise.”

As Landon reclaimed the phone, I wondered if my promises still meant anything to her.

Snow, ice, and training; trying to scale rocks with my fingers so cold, they could barely move, let alone grip a thin ledge through the gloves; running mile upon mile with the frozen air coating my lungs and my legs so tired I couldn’t even feel them anymore. This was apparently Landon’s idea of fun.

“You should have been with me when I was training in the Navy,” he said. “We’d go from areas like this to the Caribbean in the same week. I thought I was going to die from the change in temperature.”

He laughed.

“I’m pretty sure you aren’t right in the head,” I mumbled.

“That’s why I like you,” he responded. “We’re the same. Let’s go over it again, shall we?”

I took in a breath of frigid air and nodded. I followed Landon down the gravel road away from the trees and lake to where his Jeep was parked. There were a couple of downed tree trunks off the side of the road where he had parked, and we sat on one of them.

“Buckingham Island is far above the tree line,” Landon said, “so don’t plan on finding any trees for cover. There isn’t much in the way of vegetation or animal life at all, just a few lichens and mosses, but don’t eat the lichens—they won’t do you any good.”

“I figured,” I said with a nod. “This is going to have to be fast. I should be able to carry everything with me.”

“You’ll have to,” Landon agreed. “You’re also going to have to stop and eat frequently. In twenty-four hours, you’ll burn seven or eight thousand calories easily just trying to stay warm.”

That would explain why I had been so ravenously hungry every day we had been here.

“Temperature this time of year is right about negative five,” Landon continued. He pulled a roughly drawn map from his pocket and laid it out on the gravel in front of us. “It could get as low as negative ten to fifteen with wind-chill. The only landform is Mount Windsor, which is pretty much the entire island. It’s a volcanic formation with deep vertical ridges going from the top down to the ice floes. Those are going to be your best friends when it comes to securing yourself from the sniper.”

I looked over the terrain on the map. It was pretty fucking boring—nothing but rock and ice. I could see the ridges Landon spoke about, running up and down the sides of the mountain.

“They’ll offer some protection,” I agreed, “but also the possibility of getting myself trapped. If someone’s above me, they’ll have a definite advantage.”

“Maybe,” Landon said. “When it comes to pure strength—either that in your hands or the strength of exceptional firepower—taking the high ground will give you the advantage. When it comes to strategy, that’s what everyone is going to assume.”

I sat back a bit and looked at him, realizing almost immediately what he meant. We’d had this conversation many times over the years I had trained with him.

“I should do the opposite.”

“It will be the unexpected,” Landon said with a nod. “You can pull that off where others can’t. Remaining hidden is what will bring you victory.”

“I got ya.”

“I’ve got one other thing to help you out.”

Landon stood and headed over to his Jeep. He opened up the back and pulled out a large duffel bag, which he dropped at my feet before leaning over to open it.

“Kevlar,” he stated simply.

I looked over the rough-feeling black vest.

“Arden is definitely a one-shot-one-kill man,” Landon said, “but this could still help you out.”

“He goes for the head shot every time. He doesn’t miss often.”

“If he does, this could save you.”

“It’ll work against Dytalov’s knives, too,” I noted.

“It will,” Landon agreed. “It will also give you a little extra warmth in the torso, which you’re going to need.”

I slipped off my parka and put the vest on underneath it. It was a little snug, but I could move well enough. If it managed to keep me from getting cut or shot, it would definitely be worth it.

“Let’s call it a day,” Landon said as I slipped the vest back off. He packed it in the duffel and handed the bag over to me.

I looked up at the sun, which didn’t seem to make any perceivable difference in the temperature. It was still high in the sky.

“Kinda early, isn’t it?” I wasn’t going to argue with him or anything. I was already gathering up my stuff to make sure he didn’t change his mind. We’d been hard at it for days upon days, and my head was overloaded. I wasn’t even sure what the date was anymore.