Chapter 1 #2
He landed on a large spruce branch, the impact pausing his descent for a moment, before more debris snapped the limb, took him with it.
He crashed through a dozen more, each one slowing him enough he didn’t outright die when he dropped the last ten feet into a thicket of sword fern and salal.
He hit hard, breath wheezing out of his chest, the impact sparking a bolt of pure agony though his left thigh.
A dull roar echoed in his ears, everything tilting beneath him as he blinked back the black streaks cutting across his vision.
Blood.
Dripping down his leg, leaving a trail across the brush-choked ground — a patchwork of glass and steel peppered along his thigh. He clenched his jaw and stumbled to his feet, bracing his weight on a tree before stumbling off as boots pounded up the short rise.
He grabbed a Ketamine shot like the one Sloane had given him on his last mission, inhaled, praying the drug dulled the pain enough to pick up his pace. Do more than stagger through the thick undergrowth.
Shouts rose behind him, a chorus of speculative gunfire stitching through the salmonberry bushes. Scattering birds and leaving a path of shredded fern behind him.
Shoving down what the drug didn’t ease, he angled along a small deer path, staying low. The chaos faded into an eerie silence, just the odd pop in the distance as he paralleled the cliff, headed deeper into the forest.
A bulging rock face pushed out of the earth, a small ledge perched on top.
He scrambled up the short rise, hunkered down as he watched the path behind him.
Shadows played across the forest floor, the encroaching storm washing everything into a dull gray.
A squirrel chirped in a nearby tree, the warning prickling the hairs on the back of his neck.
Movement.
Following the sedge-clogged path he’d travelled.
Either the slight boot impressions he’d left behind or the blood.
Six men in black tactical gear, carbines at their shoulders, a melee of canisters clipped on their ballistic vests emerged out of the trees.
Night vision goggles hung around their necks, comms units poking out from one ear.
A cold fury burned hotter than his leg. The gear, the way they moved, using hand signals he’d mastered during his Delta days — these weren’t ordinary mercs. They were tier-one operators. Men he could have served with. Guys like Bodie, Dalton, and Buck.
And with the way they shadowed his trail — had refocused their attack solely onto him — they’d been hunting him all along.
The thought settled unforgivingly in his gut as he slipped off the other side of the rock, folded back into the forest. If they wanted a fight, he’d give them one.
He struck off, pain still manageable as he limped along a wider trail, followed it toward a nearby roar. Water rushed past, the top churning white, what could either buy him some time or drag him downriver. He weighed his options until a twig snapped behind him, followed by a hushed curse.
That solidified his decision — had him plunging in, praying the water didn’t go much above his waist. He waded across, the shocking cold easing the burning down his leg, the current pushing him along slightly.
He reached the other side, took a moment to splash water up and over the bank — a simple misdirection that could buy him a few precious seconds where seconds equaled life — then continued downstream for another fifty yards before dragging his ass out.
Shivers racked his body, everything shaking as he limped along another animal trail, popped out at a fallen log bridging a deep gully.
It wasn’t much, but large enough it would draw attention.
Nick grabbed a dead branch, then inched across the makeshift bridge, placed the branch at an unnatural angle atop a collection of loose rocks — right where the rain-soaked log gave a bit.
With any luck, one of the men would tap it, set off their position like a damn beacon.
And Nick would strike.
He scrambled over, found cover behind a massive cedar root ball a hundred feet off.
The scent of damp earth and rot saturated the air — a hint of rain laced through.
He waited, breath metered, his silenced Sig resting on one gnarled root — the pain in his thigh a dull, rhythmic pulse.
That eerie silence crept over the forest, again, an added heaviness weighing down the air.
They misted out of the underbrush moving fast but controlled.
Modified diamond formation before closing ranks as they reached the log.
The leader crouched low, swiped one gloved finger across the edge, then motioned his men across.
They moved in single file, the first three crossing with cat-like grace, missing Nick’s impromptu trap.
The fourth guy hit that spongy spot going a bit too fast, a little overconfident — knocked the branch over, the rocks sloughing off with a loud crack.
The asshole cursed, tried to double back, but in that half-second of stillness, Nick fired, dropped him with a precision shot to the base of his skull.
The others froze, gazes sweeping the forest before they vanished beneath the undergrowth.
Nick’s cue to move — put as much distance as possible between him and the remaining men.
He picked up the pace, running in a halting, ugly gait, branches whipping across his face, bramble clawing at his pants.
Pain bled through the Ketamine, the previous dull ache replaced by an iron-hot burn and the metallic taste of blood loss.
He pushed on, stopping when the trees gave way to a sheer sheet of granite cutting through the forest like an old scar.
Killing any hope of simply out running the wet squad.
Not with boots pounding the ground behind him, bushes rustling as the men renewed their pursuit.
He calmed the initial punch of hopelessness, scanned the rock face, aware he’d never climb the cliff in time, not with his leg still bleeding, fingers already tingling from the cold and fatigue.
There.
Tucked behind a thick curtain of dripping moss and ferns. A slash of black amidst the gray.
He hobbled over, unsure if he’d even fit in the awkward fissure but determined to die trying.
He took a moment to execute one last deception — tossed an empty magazine smeared with his blood twenty yards south in a tangle of roots and fern.
What looked like him changing mags on the run as he attempted to circumvent the cliff before he slid into the claustrophobic space feet first.
The cold, damp walls closed in around him, the pressure on his leg igniting the pain like a flare.
He wiggled lower, gun at the ready, stringy moss hanging down from the entrance like lace.
Footsteps crunched across a gravel section before the men appeared, moving slower, heads on a swivel.
They searched the cliff, jumping over the fissure without pausing before continuing down.
One of the men called out, low, rough. Nick pushed up to get a better view as the guy held up his bloody magazine, made a few hand gestures farther south.
They took off, clustered together, the last guy staring at Nick’s spot for a few moments before slinking into the trees. Silence swept over the forest, the usual din finally returning.
A breath.
That’s all he allowed himself before finally dealing with his injuries.
His belt around his thigh, cinched high and tight to the point he nearly passed out as he grabbed a small round of duct tape out of one pocket.
A few circles of his leg, and he had the worst of the shrapnel layered beneath, the bleeding down to a slow trickle.
Another scan to ensure the men hadn’t doubled back before he grabbed his burner cell. A quick text to Bodie, then on to the one that mattered.
His finger hovered over Sloane’s number and the pre-arranged nine-one-one protocol they’d both inputted when their lives had been one Hail Mary after another.
Codename ECHO. Though, sending it now, after he’d claimed he’d moved on — left the thrill of the mission behind him, along with all those death vibes she’d sworn he gave off — seemed like a failure.
Like pulling a rip cord to a chute he’d locked away.
Until he stared at his bloodied hands, the cold seeping through the rock and into his bones. The familiar sense of everything shutting down, just like it had during that mission five years ago. The one time he’d truly believed he was going to die.
Pride reared its ugly head, but he shoved it aside. This wasn’t about saving face — it was about survival. And regardless of where she was — on the coast like she’d hoped or knee-deep in the mud at some secret base — she’d find a way to help. Pull one last save out of her ass.
He hit the button, watched the text flash across the screen, then bleed to black.
What he prayed wasn’t a foreshadowing of his future.
Voices rose in the distance, the men obviously circling back as Nick leaned his head against the stone, a numbing silence closing in on him.
He closed his eyes, listening for the next round.
He could do this.
He just needed to last until she answered.