I came to in the northern woods.
Min’s old clearing, above town. A lucky break—this was the closest reset point to the ski chalet. Maybe I could salvage something. Then my eyes popped as I remembered to check the weapons in my jacket.
The gun was there! Tack’s trick had worked. I removed it with a prayer of thanks, then chose the least likely way to exit the glade and took off into the woods.
The storm was over, but the temperature remained shockingly cold. After a few hundred feet of skulking I passed through the invisible barrier. A second later something sharp bit into my legs. I cursed in surprise, pulling out my flashlight. Flicking it on, I discovered a double line of barbed wire blocking my path.
I retreated a step, puzzled, and bumped into the invisible barrier. I’d crossed out of the reset zone and couldn’t go back.
Cold horror crept through me as I put the pieces together. The snare was ingenious. I was trapped inside a narrow corridor between the barrier and the wire. If they’d done this at all the reset points, everyone exiting was a sitting duck.
And I was holding a lit flashlight, announcing my presence.
I clicked it off. Too late.
Crack. Crack.
The first shot took me in the shin. The second struck my side. I dropped, howling in pain for the second time that evening. Heard footsteps. I felt the instinctual fear of a hunted animal. They could keep doing this to me until I ran out of lives.
The gun!
It was in my hand. But I was wounded in the frozen woods, with no place to hide and no chance of getting medical attention. Hands shaking, I stuffed the gun back into my jacket liner and zipped it up, just as a deeper shadow appeared outside the wire.
I rose. Snarled. Charged.
Crack. Crack.
The lights went out again.
I was in the cave. My old reset point.
Later that same night, though I didn’t know how much.
I sat on the stone floor in the darkness, hugging my legs to my chest, completely drained. I needed to regroup. Recover. A quiet moment where I wouldn’t be shot the instant I raised my head.
I stayed like that for a long time, huddled in a ball, but eventually the cold crept in and forced me to move. Removing the pistol from my jacket liner again, I crept outside. The little pond was frozen solid, covered in a white blanket. The snow had stopped completely.
There were only two ways down from this location, and both would be guarded.
But I had a surprise for them.
Just get away. Get away and you can hide.
I walked straight down the main path, boots clomping in the snow. I knew exactly where the barrier was and felt the electric charge of passing through it. A few yards beyond I found the wire. Two silent forms emerged from the woods. One ignited a lantern. The other held a gun loosely in his hand. When the light bloomed, both had big smiles on their faces.
Tucker Brincefield. Chris Nolan. They looked smug to see me.
Chris nodded to the wire. “Noah! My man! I bet you didn’t expe—”
I shot him twice, pivoted and blasted Tucker before he knew what was happening. Then I took the time to make sure of them both. As their bodies disappeared, I stripped off my jacket and carefully crossed the wire. If there was another team lurking out there, they didn’t appear. I was almost disappointed.
I walked downhill in a daze. Everything I’d planned, every hope I’d carried, had been reduced to ashes. I’d let myself be outsmarted and outplayed. Now I had no base, no team, not even a place to sleep.
My feet slowed, then stopped. My shoulders sagged. The sobs came, and they didn’t stop for a while. When I finally got ahold of myself again, I recognized I was in trouble. Freezing. Starving. Mentally destroyed. I had to get in from the cold, in more ways than one.
I needed a familiar place to get my head together.
Only one came to mind.
With the gait of a condemned man, I turned my feet toward home.