If we were so much alike, why wasn’t I thinking the same thing? I wasn’t dead yet, dammit. I was just in a totally fucking hopeless situation with no conceivable way out. I’d been in similar situations before.
“Fuck that,” I muttered.
“What?”
I didn’t answer him.
Reaching down with my hand, I dug at the space near my hip. It was nearly frozen solid, and I couldn’t get much of the ice away from my body. I placed both hands against the frozen ground and tried to push myself out of the hole, but I couldn’t get enough leverage, and my legs wouldn’t budge.
Pain rippled through my left calf as I tried harder. As I attempted to move, it became clear that my leg was not only broken but also turned backward at a nasty angle, further securing itself inside the bank of ice and rock below.
Exhausted, I dropped my head back in the snow and tried to breathe through my nose. I could hear Arden behind me, shuffling against the ice, but he wasn’t trying anymore either.
He kept thinking about giving up; I could see it in his eyes.
Normally, that would have been good news for me, but I didn’t feel particularly happy about his predicament. Maybe I was just too tired to give a shit anymore, but the idea of beating his head in wasn’t as attractive as it had been an hour ago.
“I want a fucking cigarette,” Arden said suddenly.
I laughed. I paused for a moment and then dug through my pockets. I had three smokes wrapped up in a plastic baggie—my usual emergency supply—and I pulled two of them out. Moving my torn facemask to the side, I stuck both Marlboros in my mouth. I grabbed one of the matches from the bag and leaned down into the hole and away from the wind to strike it against the rock. I ran the flame across the ends of each cigarette until they blazed.
Reaching out over my shoulder, I handed one to Evan.
“Damn,” he said, genuinely surprised. “Thanks.”
I inhaled deeply and watched the smoke flow out around my face.
“If I get out of this, I’m going to end up running that whole organization when Rinaldo retires,” Evan said. “I don’t want it, but the war has made it clear that his daughter can’t handle the pressure. Lia wants nothing to do with it. I’m going to lose her over the whole thing, and there’s no other path before me. I think I’d rather die on the edge of a mountain than lose her over that. I’d rather she just wonder why I never came home.”
“That’s fucked up,” I replied. “Raine would go bat-shit if I just didn’t come home one night. She’d drive herself to an early grave wondering what happened to me. I may be a dick, but I wouldn’t do that to her.”
“I don’t know what Lia will do,” Evan said softly. “She’ll be upset, but she’ll get over it eventually, right?”
I looked over my shoulder at him and raised my eyebrows. I didn’t know this chick, but she did sound a lot like Raine. Raine wouldn’t just get over it. I knew that much. I figured Evan’s girl wouldn’t either.
“Fuck,” Evan muttered. He took a long drag off the cigarette and stared out over the ledge. “I can’t leave her like that.”
“Well, why don’t you help me get out, and then I’ll make sure to let her know you’re dead when I’m done with you.”
“Thanks a lot,” he said as he glared over the burning tip of the smoke. “I’m sure having the dude who killed me tell her all about it would be a great comfort to her.”
“Just tryin’ to help,” I snickered.
“Yeah, I can do without that type of assistance.”
“Wouldn’t Moretti tell her what happened?” I asked.
“He doesn’t know where she is.”
“He knew how to find you, though,” I said after a moment’s consideration. “Are you saying he can’t find her?”
“Rinaldo has people who could locate her,” Evan said with a deep breath. “She’d be able to move on then, I guess.”
He didn’t seem convinced as I watched him drop his eyes to the ground. He blinked his frozen eyelashes a couple of times, and with a shiver, took another long drag off the smoke. I might not have been as perceptive as Evan was, but I could see it in his face—he didn’t have any hope left. He was done. I wasn’t even sure he wanted to survive.
The knowledge should have spurred me on. It should have encouraged me to listen to Landon’s voice in my head and get my ass moving, but it didn’t. For some reason, I didn’t want Evan to give up though I wasn’t sure at what point he became Evan in my head instead of just Arden.
“Landon’s always told me that victory is in your head first,” I said. “If you decide that’s how it’s going to be, then that’s how it will be.”
Evan took another hit on the smoke and tried to shift himself into a more comfortable position. He looked straight at me.
“Let’ go over the possibilities, shall we?” he suggested.
“Okay.”
“Most likely—we freeze to death right here,” he said. “No winner. I don’t know how this shit works when there’s a tie, but it won’t matter to us because we’ll both be dead.”
I didn’t agree with him—what happened to Raine and Alex mattered a fucking hell of a lot regardless of how things turned out for me, but I didn’t feel like arguing the point.
“Next option—one of us manages to get free, and the other one is still trapped,” he continued. “Easy enough kill for either of us.”
I had to concur with that one.
“They don’t know where we are at this point,” Evan said. “Neither of us has our cameras anymore, and they’d have to come looking for us. My guess is they’ve already decided to do that but are probably waiting until the wind dies down. I don’t know what the protocol is. Rinaldo only filled me in on standard procedure, not exceptions.”
“There aren’t usually any exceptions,” I said. “The tournament goes until there’s only one player left. I’ve never been in the situation where the investors don’t know what’s happening, but I can guess. There was a tournament once—not one I was in—where the last two people were fighting with knives. They both cut each other fatally. The investors waited to see which one died first and declared the other guy the winner even though he died a few minutes later.”
“What if they find us both dead at the same time,” Evan asked, “or if they find us both alive?”
“As far as I know, that’s never happened.” I thought about it for a minute. “They might decide to start the whole thing over again.”
My stomach churned a bit. The idea of having to do it all again actually sounded worse than losing. It would mean breaking one more promise to Raine. She’d never trust me again.
“How about we make a deal?” Evan said quietly.
I turned a little farther to get a better look at him. He was watching the cigarette burn as opposed to looking back at me, but his expression was quite serious.
“A deal?”
“Yeah,” he said. “A deal where we both end up retired for real with the women we fight for.”
“The only way that happens is when one of us dies,” I reminded him. “There isn’t a prize for second place.”
“Yeah, I get that.” Arden rolled his head to the side and stared into my eyes. “You can have the trophy—I don’t give a shit about that. I just want to walk away with people thinking I’m dead.”
I knew exactly what he was suggesting. Normally, it wouldn’t be an option because the audience would be aware of any allegiances formed between tournament players and would put a stop to it. This time, they had no idea what we were doing. I still didn’t see how it would work—they’d have to have a body to prove I’d won.