The Treeline

The woods were a terrifying, disorienting maze. The rain masked their footsteps, but it also masked the approach of the hunter.

Elias moved with practiced, lethal grace, keeping his body positioned between Roman and the likely points of approach. They were making their way up a steep, muddy incline toward a rocky outcropping that offered a tactical vantage point.

Roman clung to the back of Elias’s jacket, slipping in the mud, his lungs burning from the freezing air. The playboy who had sipped champagne in VIP lounges was gone. He was stripped down to raw, primal survival.

A sharp, artificial *crack* echoed through the trees, completely distinct from the thunder.

Wood splintered violently on the trunk of the pine tree inches from Roman’s head.

"Down!" Elias roared, tackling Roman into the thick, freezing mud behind a rotting deadfall.

Another shot rang out. This one didn't hit wood.

Elias let out a sharp, breathless grunt, his body jerking hard. He collapsed heavily against Roman in the mud, his shotgun slipping from his grip.

"Elias!" Roman screamed, the sound tearing from his throat. He scrambled in the dark, his hands frantically searching Elias’s body until he felt the warm, terrifying stickiness of blood on Elias’s left shoulder.

"I'm fine," Elias ground out through gritted teeth, though his breathing was shallow and ragged. He fumbled in the dark, pulling a heavy, metallic device from his tactical vest. "Suppressor. Thermal scope. They're up on the ridge."

Elias tried to push himself up to retrieve the shotgun, but his left arm gave out, sending him sliding back into the mud with a hiss of pain.

Roman stared at the man he loved, bleeding in the freezing mud because of a nightmare Roman had dragged to his doorstep. The crushing guilt that had been weighing Roman down for weeks suddenly crystallized into something else entirely. It wasn't panic. It was a cold, absolute fury.

He was done running. He was done being the helpless, chaotic playboy waiting to be rescued.

"What is that?" Roman asked, his voice eerily calm, pointing to the metallic device Elias had pulled from his vest.

"Flashbang," Elias hissed, his hand pressing hard against his bleeding shoulder. "Roman, stay down. I can still shoot one-handed."

"No," Roman said. He reached over and took the flashbang from Elias’s unresisting hand. "He has thermals. He knows exactly where we are behind this log. If we stay here, he'll flank us and execute us."

"Roman, what the hell are you doing?" Elias demanded, panic bleeding into his pain.

"Being the distraction," Roman said.

Before Elias could grab him, Roman vaulted over the rotting deadfall.

He ran completely out into the open, a moving, screaming target in the freezing rain. "Hey! You want the icon? Here I am! Look at me!"

A bullet tore through the sleeve of Roman’s thermal shirt, the kinetic force spinning him around, but he didn't stop. He scrambled up the muddy embankment, drawing the stalker's fire, pulling the sniper's thermal focus entirely onto himself.

Roman saw a shift in the shadows near the ridge—a figure standing up to track his erratic movement.

Roman pulled the pin on the flashbang, counted to two, and hurled it with every ounce of strength he had toward the shifting shadow.

The explosion was catastrophic. A blinding, magnesium-white flash eradicated the darkness, accompanied by a deafening, concussive boom that shook the very earth.

The stalker shrieked, their thermal optics instantly blinding them as the device detonated feet away. The figure stumbled blindly backward, dropping their rifle.

The flash provided Elias exactly what he needed: a three-second window of perfect illumination and a distracted target.

Despite the agonizing pain in his shoulder, Elias lunged over the log, bringing the shotgun up with his good arm. He didn't use lethal force; he didn't need to. He racked the slide and fired a beanbag slug directly into the center of the stalker's chest.

The impact lifted the figure off their feet, throwing them backward into the trunk of a massive pine. They crumpled to the forest floor, completely incapacitated.

The darkness rushed back in, but the silence that followed was absolute.

Roman slid down the muddy bank, his hands tearing on the rocks, and practically threw himself over Elias. "Elias! Elias, look at me."

Elias dropped the shotgun, his head falling back against the mud, a weak, exhausted smile ghosting across his lips as Roman’s frantic hands checked his wound. "Your stance... was terrible on that throw," Elias whispered.

Roman let out a broken, hysterical sob, burying his face in Elias’s uninjured neck, the freezing rain washing the blood and mud from their skin. "I got him," Roman cried. "We got him."