"They clearly haven't checked the weather report," I mutter under my breath. "Or looked at my boots."
Santi does not smile, but the corner of his eye tightens. He presses himself flat against the wall beside the front window. He raises his weapon, aiming it at the wooden door.
"Do not engage them verbally," Santi says. His voice is low. "They want us to reveal our positions inside the room."
I nod. I sink lower into my crouch and shuffle backward until I have a clear, unobstructed view of the rear door. I raise the Glock with both hands. The metal is freezing against my palms. I line up the sights as my father taught me at the range when I was sixteen. Center mass.
Wood splinters with a deafening crack.
Gunfire erupts. Automatic weapons tear into the front of the cabin. Bullets chew through the log walls, sending chunks of pine and lethal splinters flying across the room.
The front window shatters. A tidal wave of sub-zero wind and blinding snow blasts into the cabin, scattering ash from the stove and plunging the room into chaos. The room plunges intodarkness, illuminated only by the frantic, strobe-light flashes of muzzle fire from outside.
I hit the floor. The wooden planks are painfully icy against my stomach. I keep my weapon trained on the back door.
Santi returns fire.
His shots are not frantic. They are not sprayed wildly into the dark. He fires three times.
Crack. Crack. Crack.
A thud echoes from the front porch. A man screams, a wet, gurgling sound that is instantly swallowed by the wind.
Santi reloads in the dark. He does not speak.
The automatic fire from the tree line intensifies. They are suppressing the front of the cabin, pouring lead through the shattered window to keep Santi pinned down.
My eyes dart to the back door. The iron handle is rattling.
Someone is trying to flank us.
Blood thunders in my ears. The survival instinct that kept me alive during the helicopter crash flares to life. I do not panic. I do not freeze. I align the glowing green sights of the Glock directly with the center of the wooden door.
The lock gives way with a metallic snap. The door kicks inward, swinging open on groaning hinges. A figure dressed in white winter camouflage fills the doorframe, an assault rifle raised to his shoulder.
I pull the trigger.
The recoil bites fiercely into the web of my hand. The deafening roar of the gunshot in the enclosed space rings in my skull.
I pull it again. And again.
Three rounds. Just like Santi ordered.
The hollow-point rounds catch the man center mass, punching him backward. He collapses backward into thesnowbank, his weapon clattering uselessly onto the wooden porch.
The back half of the cabin goes quiet.
The bitter scent of cordite fills my nose, thick and choking. My hands are steady. I stare at the empty doorway, the swirling snow blowing over the dead man's boots.
I just killed a man.
The thought should paralyze me. It should send me into shock. Instead, a strange, terrifying calm washes over my brain. He was going to kill Santi. He was going to kill me. I simply removed the threat. I am surviving.
"Reese."
Santi's voice slices through the darkness. He is moving toward me, staying low beneath the window line. The front of the cabin is quiet. The suppressive fire has stopped.
"I'm clear," I say. My voice sounds normal. It surprises me. "Back door is secure."
