Red Reaper - Soldiers of Fortune [book one]

Chapter FIFTY NINE

Konstantin Ivanov

The bleak cold wraps me in a welcoming embrace, the darkness grows deeper and more dense as the water rises and a liquid ice enters my lungs.. Of all the deaths I could die, to drown is much more serene than I ever thought it would be..

There is no struggle.. No sorrow.. I am simply submerged in extinction.. Sinking to the bottom of the bay, I feel an eerily tranquil sense of calm quiet..

Peace at last..

A sepia stained filter colours my dimming vision and there in the dark I can see her.. A woman, pale ghostly white and surrounded by a soft saintly glow, her long brown locks wave in the currents as she calls to me, beckoning with an outstretched hand..

Arina..

I can't quite hear her but I can see her cold blue lips move to speak the words I have ached to hear for so long.. "Bud' svobodna, moya lyubov'.. Otpustit'.."

'Be free', she tells me, 'let go'...

Over and over again the faint whispering pleas of my dead wife's voice fills my head, as if she were floating right beside me, drowning along with me.. I feel everything she and my son had felt.. I share with them a death that binds and reunites us..

My limbs become heavier, suspended in the tide until my heartbeat ceases and a placid rest is mine..

There is no more fight.. No more suffering.. Only comfort..

But that brief harmony is short lived and as fast as it had come it is gone, replaced by a force of fire that blazes through my body like a fucking inferno and a desperate, grief-sticken cry reaches my waterlogged ears..

"WAKE UP! KONSTANTIN! PLEASE! WAKE UP! DON'T LEAVE ME!"

There is a strange beating sensation thumping at my chest and a prickly pain in the back of my throat..

Sick.. Bože Moy.. I feel so fucking sick and suddenly an entire ocean spews from my mouth as I begin to cough up a motlen deluge of liquid so painful that I can feel the pulmonary veins burn and my blood vessles bursting..

"ACK! ACK! ACK!" I gasp for breath, choking and hacking up a saliferous brine..

"Oh my god, Bear! Baby! Can you hear me? You're gonna be okay.. I promise, you're gonna be okay, just stay with me.." A heavenly golden angel floats over me, her eyes like shining gemstones and her soaking sunshine locks dripping salty-sweet seawater down to sprinkle my cheeks as she presses her hands over my heart..

Is this real?

How did I get here?

Where the fuck is here?

One second ago I was underwater.. I was so sure I would die.. I was dead.. And I had accepted it..

"Lucky?" I mumble in confusion, disoriented as if the whole world were upside down..

When I try to sit up with a grimace and a gasp of agony, she pushes me gently back down to lay on the damp sand.. "Bear, you were shot.. You gotta stay still.. They're coming.. The ambulance is coming.."

I glance around in a daze to see a crowd of faceless observers huddled around us but Lucky doesn't seem to notice them.. She is focused entirely on me and that is when her words begin to register in my slowly sparking memory..

I was shot..

Da..

I remember that much, but nothing else..

Where the fuck am I?

I manage to choke out the question, even though drawing each and every breath stabs like a hot knife piercing my chest.. "Gde ya?"

"My na plyazhe.." She soothes sweetly in return, reaching up to pet my cheek with cool fingertips and a feathery soft touch.. "We're on the beach, Bear.."

It hurts to move, it's painful to talk and even more so to breathe as a fit of watery coughs torments me.. "I- ACK! ACK!-- I saw her-"

"Who? Who did you see, Bear?" Lucky purrs, leaning down closer so that she can hear my straining voice and I can better see those enigmatic emeralds she possesses, reflecting the silver light of a midnight moon.. She is so beautiful it is almost a cruelty to my heart as I gaze up at her..

Perhaps I am dead.. Because Lucky is absolutely heaven..

"Arina.. I saw her.." I whisper with a punishingly painful rasp, realising I must sound insane but the vision had been so real.. I know what I have seen.. "She did forgive me.."

"It's a miracle.." Her eyes widen, though not in doubt and the sound of sirens wails somewhere far off in the distance.. "She must have been protecting you.."

"You- you forgive me?" I groan, reaching up to rest my hand over hers, so tired and so fucking cold, either from the water or the bloodloss, I can't tell which..

"Da.." Lucky smiles bravely, beginning to shiver so hard that her teeth chatter as her adrenaline subsides.. "O'course I do.. I love you, Konstantin.. Everything is going to be okay.."

"Nyet.. Malishka.. I- I am dying.." I reach up to touch her face and she leans harder onto my chest, causing me to realise that she is applying pressure to the bleeding wound that causes more coldness than the ice water she dragged me from.. "Let me go.. Otpustit'.."

"No never! Don't say that- you're going to be alright.." She sobs with a cracked voice as her fervent hands push harder and her eyes swim with a conflicted terror unlike any other.. She can see for herself that I am on death's door..

"Moye Solnyshko, ya tebya lyublyu- My love- I-- I-- Uhh.." I can't keep my eyes open a second longer, I can't keep breathing, it hurts too much.. I want to live.. Fuck.. I want to live for her.. But the fates are so far beyond my control and the black veil of the nevermore calls to me..