Page 76 of Collateral Damage
The dry, rhythmic crunch of snow compressing. Not in front of me.
Behind.
I shift my weight, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. The snow under my heel gives a treacherous, high-pitched squeak. I don’t turn—not yet. I brace my left wrist against the tree, the iron sights blurring as a snowflake lands on the slide. I blink it away, but my peripheral vision is already swimming, a slow, dark pulsing at the edges of the frame.
He didn't take the bait. He circled the ridgeline.
I’m not the one holding the funnel anymore; I’m the target sitting in the center of it. I slowly begin to pivot, the movement sending a white spike of pain down my ruined arm, my breath hitching in my throat. I keep the Glock leveled at the empty air, waiting for the gray shape to step out of the timber and finish what he started.
I don’t turn my head. I don’t give away my position with a panicked jerk. I move by inches, letting my center of gravity shift while the Glock stays leveled at the empty funnel—a decoy for whoever is watching my back.
The crunch happens again. Closer. Ten o'clock. He’s circling my blind side, staying just outside the periphery of the tree trunk.
My arm is a useless, throbbing anchor, but I let it hang limp, intentionally projecting the image of a broken man. I slump my shoulders, letting my chin drop toward my chest. I need him to think I’m fading. I need him to see a corpse-in-waiting so he stops being careful.
The shadow breaks the white static.
He’s tall, a jagged silhouette against the snow, moving with a predatory, high-stepping grace that doesn't disturb the drifts. He doesn't have a rifle out; he’s got a combat blade reversed in his grip, silvered by the firelight from the gully. He thinks he’s here for a finishing move.
My heart is a frantic, wet thud against my ribs, but I force my breathing to go shallow. I count his steps.
One. The snow squeaks. Two. He’s five feet away, the copper tang of my own blood thick in my nose. Three.
I don't aim. I don't have the strength for a tactical stance. I just fall.
I drop my weight backward, using the tree trunk as a pivot point. As I hit the snow, I snap the Glock up with my left hand, firing through the gap between my own knees.
The muzzle flash is a blinding white strobe in the gray woods. Crack. Crack.
The recoil jars through my spine, sending a fresh wave of nausea rolling over me. Through the smoke, I see the gray shape jerk. One round catches him in the thigh; the second skips off the ceramic of his vest with a spark.
He lunges, the knife coming down in a silver arc. I roll, my ruined arm screaming as it's pinned beneath me, and I scramble for the frozen mud, trying to find enough traction to stand before he recovers. My vision swims—darker now, the edges of the frame closing in like a shutter.
The gray shape lunges, the knife a silver streak in his hand, but my legs are gone. I don't try to catch my balance. I stop fighting the vertigo and let the darkness take me, collapsing backward into the drifts. I’m a dead weight, a heap of meat and wool sinking into the powder.
He buys it. He follows me down, dropping his guard to pin my chest for the kill.
As he reaches for me, I hook my good hand behind his heel and yank.
The horizon flips. It’s a blind, vertical rush of gray sky and choking white as the shelf collapses into a river of scree. I haul him into the tumble; if I’m going down, he’s going down under me.
We slam into the bottom. The Glock is gone, stripped from my hand.
I scramble to my feet, fueled by pure adrenaline. And swing my good arm, a blind arc through the falling flakes. My knuckles crack against his tactical helmet, a solid, jarring connection that snaps his head back. He staggers, but dives low, tackling my waist to negate my reach.
His hands lock onto my injured arm. He twists the limb, trying to use the slope to pin me, but I don't let him have the leverage. I bridge my hips, slamming my skull into his.
The pain isn't a flash anymore—it’s a solid, vibrating wall that steals my breath. He transitions his weight, a shin crushing down on my windpipe. His full body weight channeled into the lever he’s made of my arm.
Breath locked in my lungs, I don't waste energy clawing at his vest; I find the gap in his armor near the armpit. I dig my fingers in, pulling him down into my space, making it impossible for him to get the clean break he wants. Every time he tries to solidify the choke, I wrench his head toward the snow, forcing him to choose between the kill and his own balance.
My lungs burn. The sky is a dimming gray circle, narrowing, but my fingers are buried in his throat gaiter, twisting, robbing him of as much air as he’s taking of mine.
A sudden concussive pop shears through the muffled hiss of the snowfall.
The pressure on my throat vanishes. Reagan’s weight shifts as he rolls off my chest. He doesn't retreat; he resets, snapping into a low crouch, his head whipping toward the sound.
I gasp, an uneven intake of freezing air that scrapes my throat like broken glass, already reaching into the snow with my good hand, searching for a rock, a branch—anything to keep the fight going.
