Chapter 2 Aleksandr
ALEKSANDR
Cold hits me first, so deep it feels like my bones have turned to ice and my blood has frozen solid in my veins. I try to move, to force my body to obey, but nothing responds to my commands.
Pain comes next, sharp and burning in my shoulder, radiating down my arm in waves that should make me yell, but there's something else competing for my attention.
A dull, throbbing ache in my head pulses with every heartbeat like someone's taken a hammer to my skull and left it lodged there.
The two pains war for dominance, and I can't yell because my throat is raw and my mouth is dry as sand.
I drift in and out of consciousness, time losing all meaning as hands grab me and start pulling, dragging me across something that tears at my skin.
The pain in my shoulder explodes into white-hot agony, and I try to fight back, try to throw off whoever's touching me, but my arms won't cooperate, and my body refuses to obey.
A voice cuts through the fog. Female, speaking words I should understand but can't quite grasp.
The sounds wash over me, urgent and frightened, and some part of my brain recognizes the language even if I can't process the meaning.
English. She's speaking English. Why do I know that when I can't understand what she's saying?
My body moves across something rough and cold that I recognize as snow, and then suddenly, there's warmth, shocking and sudden, making my body shake with violent tremors I can't control.
The voice comes again, closer now, almost pleading, and I want to respond, want to tell this person I'm trying to cooperate, but the darkness keeps pulling me under before I can form words.
When I surface again, there's light. Dim and flickering like firelight, but nothing about it feels safe.
Hands touch me again, gentler this time, more careful as they remove my clothes and peel away layers that stick to my skin.
Every instinct I have screams danger, tells me to fight, to defend myself, but I can't make my body obey, and my limbs are nothing but dead weight.
The woman's face swims into view above me. Blonde hair, short and wavy, frames features I can't quite focus on. Her eyes, though, those I see clearly for just a moment. Dark blue, almost midnight, filled with concentration and something that might be fear. She's young, maybe mid-twenties.
Her hands move over my chest, pressing something warm against my skin, and I realize I'm shaking so hard, my teeth are chattering. The sound echoes in my skull, mixing with the pounding headache until I can't tell where one pain ends and another begins.
I try to speak, try to ask where I am, who she is, what happened to me.
My mouth opens, but only a groan comes out, low and pathetic, the sound of a wounded animal rather than a man.
The woman leans closer, her breath warm against my face, and says something I still can't understand.
Her voice is soft now, soothing, like she's trying to calm a spooked horse.
The darkness pulls at me again, and I let it take me because fighting hurts too much.
When consciousness returns, I'm still cold, but not the bone-deep freeze from before.
I'm lying on something soft, covered in layers of fabric that smell like wood smoke and something floral I can't identify.
The pain in my shoulder has changed, sharper now, more focused, like someone's digging into the wound with hot knives.
I force my eyes open and see the woman again.
She's bent over my shoulder, her face tight with concentration, and there's blood on her hands.
My blood. The sight should alarm me, should trigger some kind of response, but I can't muster the energy to care.
I watch her work with detached fascination, noting the steady way her hands move, the careful precision of her movements.
She's wearing a thermal shirt that clings to her curves, and even through the haze of pain, some primal part of my brain registers the swell of her breasts, the narrow curve of her waist. She's beautiful in a practical, no-nonsense way, like she doesn't have time for vanity but nature gave her good bones anyway.
Her eyes flick to my face, and she freezes when she sees I'm awake. We stare at each other for a long moment, and I see fear flash across her features before she schools her expression into something neutral. She says something, a question, maybe, but the words slide past me like water.
I try to respond, try to form words, but my tongue feels thick and clumsy in my mouth. The effort exhausts me, and my eyes drift closed again despite my best efforts to stay conscious.
The darkness this time is different. Deeper. I sink into it like falling through black water, and suddenly, I'm somewhere else entirely.
Cold air bites at my face, and I'm standing outside in the dark. Snow falls around me in thick flakes that catch in my hair and melt against my skin. I know this place, or I should know it, but the details are fuzzy, indistinct, like looking through frosted glass.
Someone stands beside me. I can feel their presence, solid and familiar, but when I try to turn my head to see who it is, my body won't cooperate. The person speaks, their voice low and urgent, but the words are muffled, distorted, like I'm hearing them through water.
I try to respond, try to ask what's happening, but before I can form the words, there's a sound, loud and sharp, cracking through the night like thunder. A gunshot. I know it's a gunshot even though I can't remember how I know.
Pain explodes in my shoulder, white-hot and immediate, spinning me around.
I stumble, my feet sliding in the snow, and there's another sound, another crack, and then my head erupts in agony.
The world tilts sideways, and I'm falling, falling through the snow and the darkness, and I can't stop, can't catch myself, can't do anything but fall.
The person who was standing beside me is gone. Or maybe they were never there. Maybe I imagined them. But the betrayal burns in my chest almost as hot as the bullet wound, and I know, somehow I know, that whoever fired those shots was someone I trusted.
I try to hold onto the memory, try to force it into focus, but it's like trying to grab smoke. The harder I reach for it, the faster it dissipates until I'm left with nothing but the echo of gunshots and the taste of betrayal on my tongue.
My eyes snap open, and I'm back in the cabin, back on the soft surface with the woman leaning over me.
My heart pounds against my ribs, and sweat beads on my forehead despite the cold.
The woman's face swims into focus, her dark blue eyes wide with concern, and she's saying something, her voice urgent and worried.
I try to tell her about the memory, about the gunshot and the betrayal, but the words won't come. My mouth opens and closes uselessly, and frustration builds in my chest like a living thing. Who am I? Why can't I remember? Why does everything feel like it's wrapped in cotton, just out of reach?
The woman's hands are on my face now, cool and gentle, and she's looking into my eyes like she's searching for something. I want to ask her what she sees, if she can tell me who I am, but the darkness is pulling at me again, dragging me down into its depths.
I fight it this time, clawing my way back to consciousness, because I need answers. I need to know what happened, who I am, and why someone shot me and left me to die in the snow. But my body has other ideas, and exhaustion crashes over me like a wave.
The last thing I see before the darkness takes me is the woman's face, her expression a mixture of determination and fear, and I wonder if she's my salvation or my doom.
Each time I surface, I try to grasp at memories, try to pull something, anything, from the void where my identity should be. But there's nothing. Just emptiness and the echo of gunshots and the certainty that someone I trusted put bullets in me and left me to freeze.
But then the dreams come. Or are they memories?
Snow crunching under boots. Not mine. Someone else's weight, their stride deliberate and measured.
I'm on my back, the cold seeping through my coat, and I can hear them walking away from me.
The sound of their footsteps is clear, unhurried, like they have nowhere to be.
Like I'm already forgotten. My chest heaves, trying to pull air into lungs that don't want to work.
The sky above me is white and endless. I try to move my arm, but it won't obey.
All I can do is listen to those footsteps fade into nothing and know that whoever they were, they made a choice to leave me here.
My eyes shoot open and I see a shadow standing over me. My reaction is pure instinct, survival. I grab an arm and growl out, "Predatel!" Traitor.