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
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
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