Can’t stop.

Hand over hand, balancing on one foot, and reliving my time on the island with Raine, I kept on going. I never looked down as I progressed and was surprised when the cliff flattened out somewhat and allowed me to let go of the rocks with my hands. As I did, I lost my balance and put weight on my left leg.

“Fuck,” I groaned as my leg gave out from under me and I fell, rolling down the rest of the mountainside between two short ridges. I threw my arms out to slow my descent but continued to tumble anyway. I didn’t have enough strength to stop and ended up just going where gravity took me. I managed to turn myself just enough to point my feet downward and try to dig in the heel of my good foot, but it wasn’t enough. In the process, I slammed my temple into the ridge on my right, and my head jerked to the side. A moment later, I landed at the bottom, just short of where land gave way to the ice floes.

My lungs burned as I tried to get some oxygen into them. The pain in my head was excruciating, and I was sure I was going to throw up, but I couldn’t even roll to my side. The exertion from the fall had been too much—I couldn’t move anymore. As much as I tried, my body simply wouldn’t listen.

I tried to get my bearings. I was at the bottom of the mountain and would be easily visible from the air. I was close to the water, and the ground was wetter here. I knew that was a death sentence, but I couldn’t manage to do anything about it.

My body was done.

* * *

Darkness lifted, and I saw the bright white of the snow on the ground with the blue water not far off. I tried to move my arm, but it appeared to be frozen to the ground. Shooting pain traveled up my left leg as I tried to pull it closer to my body to secure a little more heat. I was lightheaded, dizzy, and thirsty, but I couldn’t remember where my canteen was. Even if I could recall its location, I wasn’t sure I could move enough to reach it.

I wasn’t cold. That was bad.

After all this shit, I’m going to die waiting for them…

Curling into myself as much as I could, I closed my eyes and waited.

* * *

I never heard the helicopter; I just heard Landon.

“Give me a sign, buddy.”

The word sounded strange to me. Landon wasn’t one for terms of endearment. For a moment, I thought maybe I was hallucinating. Maybe if I opened my eyes, I’d see the imaginary kid Evan had gone on about. I wanted to find out for sure, so I forced my eyelids to open.

“There you are,” Landon said quietly.

As I looked up into his face, I saw him smile. It looked strange on him. It wasn’t sarcastic or snippy, but a real, genuine smile as if he were really, genuinely happy. I’d never seen him smile like that, and it made me think that I was hallucinating after all.

“Can you talk?” he asked.

I swallowed and opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

“Okay,” he said, “don’t try.”

“Where’s Arden?” another voice called out. “There’s no sign of him.”

I cleared my throat and licked my lips. Pulling air into my lungs, I managed to utter a single word.

“Dead.”

“You sure?” Landon asked.

I nodded.

“Snow,” I croaked. “Avalanche…”

“Yeah, I got that idea.”

“Found his Barrett,” another voice said. I couldn’t tell who was speaking and couldn’t move my head enough to figure it out. “The barrel’s damaged, but I know he’d never leave this particular weapon behind, damaged or not.”

“Are we calling this?” another voice asked.

“Not without a body.”

“You want to dig through all of that?” a woman’s voice snapped. “It’s fucking freezing already, and the temperature is dropping.”

“There has to be proof.”

“If Moretti says Arden wouldn’t leave without his rifle, that’s good enough for me.”

“Fine.”

“Agreed. Get me off this fucking rock.”

“Folks,” I recognized Franks’ voice as he spoke, “we have a winner.”

There was a lot of motion around me, but I couldn’t quite keep up with it. I heard myself scream as I was lifted and placed on a stretcher of some sort. The whirring blades of a helicopter filled my vision as I was maneuvered through the open door and onto the floor. Without the wind rushing over my body, I felt my muscles relax a little as the warm air inside the helicopter seeped into me.

Landon knelt beside me and began to release the fastenings on my parka. As he got it open, I warmed a little more. My stomach lurched as the craft took flight. Landon continued to remove my outer clothing.

“Shit, Sebastian,” he muttered.

I felt his hand against my leg and then a sharp pain. I closed my eyes against the sensation and gritted my teeth as my head swam, and my vision went dark.

I didn’t know how long I was out, just realized how sick I felt as I regained consciousness. I opened my eyes to look around, but everything was blurry. I knew I was inside a helicopter. From the motion, I could tell we were in the air, but I couldn’t really identify anything I saw. There were human shapes moving around me, but I didn’t know who they were.

“Can you focus on my finger?” Landon asked.

The voice came from a nondescript mass in front of me, so I assumed it was him. I tried to focus on his hand where he held it up, but there were at least three of them. I shook my head, but that was a big mistake.

The nausea that had been building inside of me took over, and Landon had to roll me to my side to let me puke all over the inside of the chopper. Once I was done, he rolled me to my back and straightened me out.

“Sebastian,” Landon said, “I’m going to have to reset your leg. It’s better for me to do it now; we won’t have proper medical treatment for at least twelve hours.”

I tried to nod, but wasn’t sure if I managed it or not.

“You hear me?” Landon called out. I felt his hand on the top of my head. “Fucking answer me if you can.”

“Yeah,” I mumbled.

“I’m going to set your leg now. You want a fucking bullet to bite on?”

“No.” I laughed, but it hurt like a motherfucker.

“Good.”

Maybe I should have asked for one.

I heard the crack and then myself screaming. After that, everything went dark.

* * *

Gunter Darke used to tell me what banging heroin felt like. He would describe it in great detail, everything from the needle prick in his arm to the pressure of the fluid filling his veins. Then he’d talk about the warm, sleepy feeling like it was the best fucking thing in the world, better than Christmas morning, better than rich desserts, better than orgasms.

I was sinking. I felt heavy everywhere though there wasn’t any discernable pain. I was dizzy, and when I tried to understand why, I realized I didn’t have any idea where I was or what had happened to me. My eyelids felt heavy as I pried them open.

I’d been in enough hospital rooms to recognize the setup. There were white walls, dimmed lights, and a lot of beeping machines. I was on my back with a sheet pulled up to my chest, but my arms were on top of the covers. One of them had an IV hooked up to it. My left leg was encased in a cast and elevated off the bed in traction.

“Bastian?” a feminine voice spoke.

I moved my eyes toward the sound, and a dark-haired, dark-eyed woman sat near me in an oversized chair. She was a tiny thing—petite in frame with long, straight hair flowing past her shoulders. She stood as I looked at her and moved close to the bed.

She was beautiful, but her eyes were sad.

I tried to place her, but nothing came to me other than pain and throbbing. My throat was dry, and I couldn’t swallow properly. She reached over to touch my face with her hand. Her expression was so tender and familiar, but I couldn’t remember who she was.

As I looked around again, I figured I must have recently finished a tournament though I couldn’t remember the details. All the games kind of flowed together anyway. Obviously I’d won, or I wouldn’t be here at all.

Where’s Landon?

I couldn’t speak to ask.

The woman’s eyes filled with tears. Had I been sleeping with her before the tournament? She wasn’t dressed like a nurse, but she seemed awfully concerned for someone who had just spent a single night with me. Maybe she was just like that. I wished I could remember her name.

“Can you hear me?” she asked.

I opened my mouth, but my lips were as dry and cracked as my throat felt. The woman reached over to the table beside the bed and held a glass of water with a straw up to my lips. I couldn’t lift my head to drink, but she angled the straw for me to take a few sips.

“Are you in pain?” she asked.

I still couldn’t place her. I thought about her question and did a mental evaluation of my body before I tried to speak.

“Leg hurts,” I croaked.

“It’s broken,” the woman said.

I’d assumed so from the cast. I took a deep breath and focused on my other limbs. My right thigh felt a little strange, and I was achy almost everywhere. My head was pounding, making it hard to think.

“What else?” I asked.

She pulled a rolling chair close to the side of the bed and took my hand in hers.

“Your leg was basically crushed,” she said quietly. “You’ve gone through two surgeries to fix it. The ligaments and tendons around your knee had to be repaired, too. You have a really bad concussion, and Landon said you…you…”

She choked up a little, took a breath, and went on.

“You were shot in the leg. He said it wasn’t that bad, but it was infected by the time they found you. They had to give you a skin graft there.”