The Ascent(84)

I screamed and shuddered, though my hand was too numb to feel the full brunt of the pain.

He ground his foot into my hand, then kicked me on the side of the head with his other boot. Fireworks exploded before my eyes as I rolled over. His boot withdrew from my hand, and I pulled it against my chest and clambered up the snowy embankment.

Andrew pried the pickax from the frozen ground. Swinging it, he raced after me. “Overleigh, you son of a bitch!”

I gripped a handhold and hauled myself up. A second later, Andrew brought the pickax down where my leg had been, splintering the ice and causing a plume of powdery snow to rise from the ground. Ice broke away between my fingers, and I slid down the incline on my side.

Andrew swiped the pickax through the air. I felt it whiz by my faceas it planted its nose into the stone. I rushed him, driving my head into his solar plexus and wrapping my arms around his shoulders. He made an oof sound as we collided. I shoved him backward, and he dropped the pickax. He yanked my shirt out of my pants and tried to pull it over my head, but I crushed him against a pillar of stone.

“Bastard!” I shouted and punched him square across the jaw. My fists were frozen clubs of ice. “Goddamn bastard!” I split his lip and knocked blood from his nose.

“Tim! Tim!” He waved his hands in front of his face, gagging on blood.

A loud creak resounded from the top of the pillar. A lightning bolt fracture appeared near its top, snaking toward us, dusting us with snow. Andrew’s head rebounded off the pillar, and I stumbled backward out of breath just as a deep rumbling echoed somewhere above.

We both looked up to see an avalanche of snow barreling toward us. Andrew pushed off the pillar, which collapsed to a jumble of blocks behind him, and dashed forward. I grabbed him around the neck and dragged him to the ground as the avalanche buried us.

The force knocked me down on top of him. The weight on my back grew heavier and heavier, and it was like being crushed in a giant fist. I took a deep breath and swallowed snow. Still, I refused to release my stranglehold on Andrew. I pressed my cheek hard against his chest while the snow packed on top of my head, adding more pressure. His heartbeat vibrated up through his body.

A sharp, stinging pressure spread along my abdomen, its intensity increasing with the weight of the snow. It blossomed to an agonizing boil until I shrieked and released Andrew from the headlock. My head burst up through the snow. Andrew bucked me off him. He crawled out of the snowbank and rolled down the incline.

I followed him out and staggered a few feet before realizing I was trailing an oil slick of blood from my stomach. Glancing down, I could see ribbons of blood in the snow. My pants were soaked clean through.

I clutched my stomach and doubled over, rolling down the opposite side of the snow mound.

—bloodbloodbloodbloodblood—

Crawling in the snow, heavy with sleet, I hid behind a group of rocks. I struggled into a sitting position and leaned my head against the rocks. My breath seared my throat.

I examined my palms. They were covered in blood—black blood. I coughed and sent a spray of blood into the snow between my feet.

Andrew’s voice boomed through the night. “Overleigh! The f*ck are you, Overleigh?”

I lifted my shirt and grimaced. My belly was smeared with blood, and at first, I couldn’t find the wound. I ran my fingers along the length of my gut and—

“Fuck!” I groaned, squeezing my eyes shut.

In mimicry of my belly button, there was a coin-sized puncture just below my navel. As I exhaled, it squirted a stream of blood down into my crotch. Goddamn it, I thought, it must have been the pickax, caught up in the avalanche. I must have landed on the f*cking pickax.

“Overleigh!” He was closer now.

My throat rattled. I placed both hands over my mouth to silence my breathing.

Movement farther down the ridge caught my attention: it was Andrew, standing like George Washington crossing the Delaware, one foot on a crag. He’d recovered the pickax from the avalanche and held it over one shoulder.

I pressed myself flat against the rocks and held my breath. My mind raced—

—bloodbloodblood—

—and my heart felt like it had crept into my throat. To my right, a narrow ledge wound around the side of the cliff and dipped to a series of climbable rock formations. In the dark it was hard to tell just how steep of a climb it was, but if I could get—

A hand dropped in front of me and balled the front of my shirt in its fist. A moment later, I was heaved over the rocks and slammed down on the other side.

Andrew stood above me, eyes gleaming, blood drooling from his mouth. He said something incomprehensible and raised the pickax above his head.

Without thinking, I lifted one leg and drove my spike-soled boot into Andrew’s left knee.

He issued a strangled gah sound, and the pickax fell from his hands and clattered down the slope behind him. Eyes widening, he locked me in his stare. Then he keeled backward, tumbling down the incline. At the bottom, he slid clear across the frozen earth. One of his legs got tangled in the straps of his backpack, preventing him from pitching straight off the cliff.

I leaned against the rocks and stood, wincing at the pain in my gut. It felt like someone holding a hot iron against the lining of my stomach. Trailing one hand along the stone wall for support, I inched my way down the incline. The sleet had started to let up, but what had already fallen had frozen on the embankment. It was a tedious trek to the bottom.