Shay Savage - Bastian’s Storm

I closed my eyes and focused on my right thigh for a moment. It was itchy, and I figured that was due to the graft; I’d had them before. I recalled a brief flash of the pain from the bullet, and I remembered the snow and ice surrounding me as I tried to clean it up. It had been too cold to leave my flesh exposed long enough to do it properly.

Cold. Ice. Snow.

“Avalanche.”

“Right,” the woman said with a nod. “You were caught in it.”

A slight dizzying sensation overcame me as I remembered tumbling down the mountainside. The pain in my leg throbbed as I recalled the abrupt stop as I hit the rock ledge below. Visions of being trapped and unable to move traipsed along in my head together with images of a little piece of folded paper with a drawing on it.

It all came back to me like a bright and violent flash of lightning as it strikes a tree.

One final tournament in the frozen north. No one but me and a certified hit man left in the game. Certified and certifiable.

Evan Arden.

We had both been covered by the snow and had formed an unprecedented alliance to free ourselves. I had to survive. I didn’t care about the money or a fucking trophy. I had to get back to her. To them.

“Raine,” I whispered.

“I’m here,” she said.

“Oh, fuck—Raine!”

Ignoring the tug of the IV needle in my hand, I reached out and brought her to me. I’d done it. I’d lived up to my promise to her. She was here with me, safe and protected again. Somehow, I had gotten out alive and back to the one woman who mattered in my world.

With the help of my key competition.

Did Evan make it? Did he get off that island alive? There was only one way I would ever know, and that was if and when I heard that Franks had been murdered. Assuming Evan made it, how long would he wait before taking action? Days? Weeks? Longer?

Would he even bother to fulfill his promise to me?

I only thought about it for a moment before deciding that yes, he would. Evan Arden was about as fucked up as they get, but I didn’t think he was a liar. I also got the idea he was a guy of principle—he’d never back out of a hit. If he did survive, I had no doubt that he would get the job done. I’d just have to be patient.

Not my best attribute.

Raine was crying against my shoulder, and I placed my hand on the back of her head and pressed my lips to her temple.

“I’m all right, babe,” I told her. “I got you.”

“They said you might not make it,” she cried against me. “They said even after the surgery, you might not wake up.”

“I’m awake,” I said. “I’m going to be fine, Raine. I’m going to be fine.”

I had no idea if it was true or not, but I wasn’t going to contradict myself. I made it down a fucking mountain with a crushed leg. There was no way I was going to die in a fucking hospital bed.

I held her as long as I could, but my head was aching, and I nearly passed out again. Raine summoned a nurse to tell her I was awake, and the woman checked my pulse, temperature, and the output of the various machines connected to me.

Raine stood to the side, wringing her hands and biting her lip.

“Where’s Alex?” I asked.

“With John Paul,” Raine replied. “They’re in that building where we were staying.”

“He’s okay?”

“He’s great,” Raine said. “He and John Paul hit it off. I didn’t realize that man was such a child at heart.”

I smiled, but it hurt my head.

“Landon?” I asked.

Raine’s face scrunched up at the mention of his name.

“He left a little while ago to get something to eat,” she said. “He should be back in an hour.”

A doctor showed up and checked me over in greater detail. She pulled back the dressing on my thigh, ordered the nurse to add something to my IV, and shined a flashlight in my eyes.

“How does your head feel?” she asked.

“Like shit,” I replied.

“Bastian!” Raine snapped.

“Well, it fucking does,” I muttered.

“Quite all right,” the doctor said. “He’s got a few reasons to curse. You might want to consider a safer hobby.”

I wasn’t sure what she thought my hobby was, but I figured it was best not to say anything else. Raine watched as the doctor finished up my examination and then left. The nurse came back with a bag of something to add to my IV drip, and Raine gave me a little more water.

“You okay?” I asked her.

“I’m fine,” she said. “Just worried about you.”

“No worries,” I told her. “I always bounce back.”

Landon appeared in the doorway just as the nurse was finishing up. He stood quietly near the entrance until she was done then asked Raine to give us a few minutes alone. She glared at him without responding but stood from her chair. She leaned over to kiss my forehead and run her hand through my hair.

“I’ll be outside,” she said sharply. “I’m going to let John Paul and Alex know you’re awake.”

“Thanks, babe.”

Landon moved out of the way as Raine passed, a slight smile on his face. He watched her walk out before shutting the door and coming to sit by my side.

“You look a little better,” he remarked. “There was a time I thought I’d have to convince them to give Raine your winnings posthumously.”

“Thanks for your vote of confidence.”

“You were in bad shape,” he said. “You had hypothermia along with your injuries. Bad infection in your leg, too.”

“So I hear.”

“Prognosis is good, now that you’re conscious. Your leg is going to need some physical therapy once it’s mended enough, but you should be back to normal in a few months. You gained a few more scars.”

“Just additions to the collection,” I mused.

“If you are going for a record, I think you might have won.”

I had to keep myself from laughing at his comment—moving hurt.

“Did you find Arden’s body?” I asked.

Landon shook his head.

“No sign of him,” he said. “Considering the depth of the snow, I doubt he’ll be uncovered any time soon. We’ll just have to wait until global warming takes its toll.”

I gave him a half grin, but it hurt to do so.

“I saw him go down,” I told him. “The only way I kept from being buried was from hitting a ledge part way down. That’s what broke my leg, but it stopped me long enough for the rest of the avalanche to pass over me. He kept going to the bottom.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.” I hoped I sounded convincing.

“Any chance he could have survived?”

“Not as far as I could tell.”

Landon took in a breath, filling his lungs deeply before he stood up.

“I’m heading back to Seattle,” he announced. “John Paul is arranging for you to be moved to a hospital in Miami. It will take a day or two, but you can finish your recovery from there. You were in a skiing accident in case anyone asks.”

“Good to know.”

“I’ll be in touch.” He started for the door.

“Landon?”

He turned back to me.

“I’m done now,” I said as I looked straight at him. “No more tournaments. No more favors. This was it.”

Landon nodded but didn’t look back at me. I had no doubt that he was simply agreeing because he knew it was what I wanted to hear. Evan had been right—there was no way out of this except to eliminate those who had leverage over you.

I have to kill him.

First things first—I was in no shape to go after Landon.

Should have asked Evan to do it.

No, that wasn’t right. I needed to take care of Landon. I wanted him to know it was me. I didn’t give a shit about Franks—I’d wanted him dead since that night I watched him torture and murder people, Raine’s father included. I didn’t care how it happened as long as he was gone. Landon was a whole other issue. I was going to get him out of my way once and for all, but I couldn’t do that in my current condition. Even at full strength, Landon wouldn’t be an easy man to eliminate, but that wasn’t going to stop me. I still needed to get myself back into shape before I conquered him.

My plan would wait. At least for now, I’d let myself heal.

Getting back to normal was a long fucking road.

I spent two weeks in the hospital after I was transported back to Miami. Had it been any other tournament, I would have told the doctors to fuck off and left earlier, but Raine made me promise to do anything they said. Any time I tried to protest, she’d say something about how Alex was going to need me to be able to walk and run so I could teach him to play football or some such shit.

I couldn’t really argue with her emotionally charged logic. In fact, I thought about it a lot while I was lying around in the private hospital room, going to physical therapy sessions twice a day, and trying to get around on crutches. I thought about how life just wasn’t the same when you had a kid to think about. I loved Raine with every ounce of my being, but Alex…Alex made everything different.

Raine brought him to the hospital a lot while I was recovering. We stuck with the skiing accident story though the way he looked at both of us when we told him gave me the impression he didn’t believe a word of it. The kid had been in a mob family for the first six years of his life, so he had probably seen more shit than he should have for a kid his age.

While he visited, he’d color pictures of the three of us or of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He also kept drawing the same picture over and over again of a house with a big field of rolling hills behind it. He said it was the place we were all going to live someday. All of the pictures ended up taped to the walls of the hospital room so I could see them from the bed.