Evan Arden 04 Isolated
Read Evan Arden 04 Isolated Online
Authors: Shay Savage
Copyright
©
2015 Shay Savage
All rights reserved
Cover art design by
LJ Anderson of
Mayhem Cover Creations
Formatting by LJ Anderson of
Mayhem Cover Creations
Editing by Chayasara
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems-except in the case of brief excerpts or quotations embodied in review or critical writings without the expressed permission of the author, Shay Savage.
The characters and events in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author
.
For the fans of Surviving Raine/Bastian’s Storm and the Evan Arden original trilogy. You all wanted to know just what happened to Evan afterward, so this story is for you!
Huge thanks to my team for pushing me along and keeping me on track! I’d never get anything done without all of you!
Though I try to make each and every one of my stories a stand-alone, sometimes you just need to read the other books first. This is intended to be read AFTER Bastian’s Storm, and it’s definitely a plus if you have read the entire Evan Arden trilogy first. That said, I’ve tried to incorporate enough information that you shouldn’t be lost if you haven’t read the other books first, but it’s highly suggested. Enjoy!
CHAPTER ONE
Unexpected Truce
It’s fucking cold.
My head is spinning, and I can’t focus on anything around me. Just a few moments ago, I’d fired my assault rifle into rock and snow with the intent of triggering an avalanche. It was either that or be strangled by Sebastian Stark, the reigning champion of illegal tournament battles to the death.
The trick had worked, but I’m not so sure I’m in better shape now.
The avalanche itself has run its course. Somehow, I’d ended up on top of the snow, painfully pressed against some rocks but not buried. I can’t explain why, but I’ll take this over being covered in ice. Stark is presumably buried somewhere underneath the snow. I find it somewhat ironic that he’ll likely die of suffocation, considering he had been trying to strangle me.
I breathe frigid air into my lungs and shake my head to clear it. The movement causes me to scrape my temple on a rock, and I glance down to get my bearings.
There is rock and ice wrapped around the left half of my body. My leg and arm are totally buried, and as I try to shift around, I find out very quickly that I’m stuck. When I try to move my arm at all, shooting pain runs from my neck to my fingertips. It’s the only way I know my arm is still attached to my body.
Random thoughts about phantom pains reported by amputees enter my brain, but I choose to ignore them. When I tense the muscles in my fingers, I can feel the movement. I’m pretty sure my arm is still attached.
I can move my leg a little but not enough to get it out from under the rock. I try to push some of the ice away with my free hand, but I accomplish nothing. The wind whips around my exposed face, and I realize my facemask is somewhere down below, buried in the snow along with the GPS locator and the camera that might have told someone where I am.
Maybe I will be found lying here and maybe I won’t. It’s not a large island, and a helicopter might spot me. It’s the only chance I have at this point; I can’t free myself.
Maybe that’s best.
I close my eyes and rest my head on the rock. It is far from comfortable, but at least it isn’t sand. I’d spent months in a hot, sandy hole as a POW, and I prefer anything to that.
The cold is seeping into me, and I realize hypothermia is going to set in quickly. I try to recall if that’s considered a good way to go or not, but I can’t remember.
A good way to go.
Have I given up? Am I going to just lie here and let myself die?
There are no answers to my internal questions. I’m as cold inside as I am outside. I can’t deny that it would be easy to just let go. I’m tired, hungry, and freezing to death. My Barrett M82 sniper rifle, my pride and joy, was damaged in the fighting, and I was forced to leave it behind so I could move faster. Without it in my possession, letting myself slip away does have a certain appeal. At another time in my life, I probably would have done just that. It’s different now. Now I have a reason to return home.
Lia.
Before she came into my life, I’d only gone through the motions. I killed because it was my job, but I never felt anything about it. Not good, not bad. I like shooting, so there has always been that level of enjoyment about what I did. The bodies that stacked up in my wake are just a part of that. Lia gave me a reason to kill—to protect her.
She also gave me a reason to live.
It’s so easy for me to picture her face. Maybe that isn’t unusual for other people, but I never thought about women’s faces. Even when I was intimate with them, I preferred them face down. I would give them what they wanted, but I didn’t really care who they were. There were a couple of exceptions during my life but not many.
I love to look at Lia’s face when I fuck her. Or make love. The term matters more to her than it does to me. I know how I feel when I’m inside of her. The sensations are beyond orgasms and the act more than just physical. It’s peaceful and calming. It’s centering and relaxing. I sleep without ominous dreams when she’s with me.
A slight scraping sound in front of my face brings me out of my thoughts. At first I think it’s just snow and rock settling, but a moment later, a hand pops out of the snow beside me. With wide eyes, I stare in disbelief as Sebastian Stark’s gloved hand begins to push the snow around, making a hole.
The fact that he has survived is surprising enough. Landing literally two feet from me is simply fantastic. I watch him push snow around to give himself a wider opening, listen to him take some deep breaths, and then go back to digging himself a hole. When a handful of snow hits me in the face, I realize I’m still staring at him.
Slowly and quietly, I reach down my side and grip the butt of the Beretta at my waist. I unclip it with my thumb and then pull it up close to my chest. Stark has his head uncovered at this point and is trying to look around a bit, but I’m pretty sure he can’t see me from this angle. As I extend my arm, I can just reach him.
An unaccustomed hesitation hits me.
I pause to try to get as good a look at him as I can. I’d done this the night before during the pre-tournament festivities, but I wasn’t nearly as close as I am now. I do see similarities though they are subtle. There’s something about the curve of his jaw that reminds me of my own, and our eyes are the same shape though different colors.
I’d done minimal research on the other competitors, but when I realized Stark was my main threat, I’d looked up everything I could find on him. Jonathan, my cohort in crime and only friend, had done some digging as well. With his cyber-sleuthing genius, he always seemed to be able to find something on anyone. Finding Stark’s organized crime history, his reasons for secluding himself on a sailboat in the Caribbean, and his subsequent status as a rescued castaway were easy enough to find.
There was something else in all the information Jonathan dug up—something I found far more personally interesting.
Sebastian had taken the name Stark after he began fighting under the tutelage of Landon Stark, but that wasn’t his actual surname. He wasn’t even from the Seattle area like Landon Stark and his boss Joseph Franks were. Sebastian had been born in Chicago and abandoned by a young woman trying to escape her abusive husband. She’d ended up dead shortly afterward, most likely at the hands of her estranged spouse. Her name meant nothing to me, but the man listed as her husband was a name I recognized—Alexander Janez. The same name appeared as the biological father on my own adoption certificate.
Sebastian Stark was once called Sebastian Janez. And he is my half-brother.
I’d stared at the papers for hours, trying to make sense of it all. I suppose I should have realized before then that I might have a sibling out in the world somewhere; it’s every orphaned kid’s fantasy that there is a family out there to be found. It was never anything I gave enough consideration to warrant a search.
Maybe I should have. Maybe if I’d taken the information Jonathan had discovered about my own parents and looked for any remaining ties, I would have found out about Stark sooner. By the time I knew, I was already locked and loaded for this tournament.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. I have a job to do, and I am going to do it. Guilt never plays into my motives, and our vague blood relationship is irrelevant. Stark doesn’t seem to have any idea of his own lineage, and there isn’t any reason for me to change that now.
I release the safety and press the end of the gun to Stark’s temple. His neck stiffens as the rest of his body goes motionless.
“
Aren’t you supposed to give me some kind of ‘ha-ha-I-knew-I-was-going-to-win-the whole-time’ kind of speech first?” Stark asks.
I stifle a laugh and shake my head. “Not really my style.”
I have nothing else to say to him. As a veteran hit man for the largest crime organization in Chicago, I never hesitate or play games with those I intend to kill. In my mind, he’s already dead. I pull the trigger.
Nothing happens.
“
Fuck.” I pull the weapon back to my chest and check to make sure there’s a bullet in the chamber. There is, but there’s also a lot of ice and rock around the barrel. I knock it against my chest a couple of times to dislodge whatever is causing the malfunction. Some of the ice falls away, but it still won’t fire.