Rainy Night
The torrential rain threatened to engulf the entire Amazon rainforest. Dense raindrops pounded against the massive broad leaves, creating a deafening roar, plunging the world into a chaotic grayness. The Ghost Squad, pursued relentlessly by the mud and floodwaters, struggled to reach an abandoned tin mine at higher elevation.
"Hurry! The floodwaters are still rising!" Ghost's voice came through the torrential rain, calm yet urgent. The team was in a single file, with Konig at the front, Ghost close behind, Keegan next, Hesh bringing up the rear, and Elaine protected in the middle of the team.
Everyone was soaked to the bone, mud up to their knees, making every step incredibly difficult. Ahead lay a canyon washed away by a flash flood, the only passage being a dilapidated suspension bridge, swaying violently in the gale, with a turbid, roaring torrent flowing below.
"Konig, go first, establish a perimeter! Everyone else, cross quickly!" Ghost ordered. Konig moved with the agility of a monkey, using the remaining rope to quickly slide to the other side.
Ghost, Keegan, and Hesh arrived safely in turn. When it was Elaine's turn, Keegan carefully checked the buckle on her safety rope again, his gaze calmly fixed on her from behind his goggles: "Don't look down, go through at a steady pace, we'll be here to meet you."
Elaine nodded, took a deep breath, and grabbed the zipline. Just as she reached the center of the canyon, a deafening roar like muffled thunder came from upstream—an even larger torrent, carrying broken trees and boulders, crashed down with destructive force!
"Elaine! Hold on tight!" Keegan's scream from the opposite bank tore through the rain. The floodwaters slammed violently against the bridge piers! The rock spikes securing Elaine's rope snapped with a teeth-grinding sound! Elaine felt her waist loosen, and she instantly lost her balance, plummeting downwards!
In a dizzying daze, she luckily landed on a steep but gentle slope covered with shrubs and mud, which slowed her momentum. She tumbled and rolled until she finally came to a stop, crashing heavily between several large rocks. Her bones felt like they were falling apart, and the icy mud and water almost suffocated her.
On the opposite bank, Keegan witnessed everything, his body instantly tensing like steel. He lunged forward, but his steps abruptly halted at the edge of the surging torrent. His fists clenched so tightly they cracked, and his gaze behind his goggles was so sharp it seemed to pierce the rain, locking onto the figure huddled behind the rocks on the other side.
Without the slightest hesitation, he instantly knelt on one knee, rifle resting steadily on his arm, the muzzle scanning warily for any potential threats on the opposite bank. Simultaneously, he growled into the communicator, his voice unusually cold due to intense restraint, like steel being tempered: "Elaine! Report the situation! Can you move? Find cover! Ghost, the nearest shallows downstream are over three kilometers away, the current is too strong to swim across! We need air support or an upstream detour, it will take at least two hours! Hesh, high ground coverage, prevent pursuit! Konig, expand reconnaissance area, find alternative routes!" His commands were precise and swift, the most rational and ruthless choice in a desperate situation. But the rising tone at the end betrayed his inner anxiety.
A loud static interference came through the communicator, along with Elaine's intermittent, painful gasps: "I...I'm okay...I can't move...The flood...is too big..." Then, the signal completely disappeared, leaving only crackling static.
Keegan's figure quickly disappeared into the rain.
Elaine huddled in a crevice in the cold rocks, the rain blurring her vision. Each breath carried the metallic smell of mud and the sharp pain in her ribs. The figures on the opposite bank blurred, the deafening roar of the floodwaters cutting her off from everything. An unprecedented fear and sense of isolation gripped her heart like cold vines.
Elaine was driven by the instinct to survive. Enduring the excruciating pain, she surveyed her surroundings and spotted a dark opening to her side and above, like the entrance to an abandoned mine. Gritting her teeth, she inching closer to the opening, each movement aggravating her injuries.
Finally, she crawled into the cave entrance, collapsed onto the relatively dry ground, and gasped for breath. The cave was pitch black, filled with a strong musty smell, dampness, and a faint, almost imperceptible odor of corroded metal. She tried to repair the communicator, but there was no signal. Despair washed over her once more.
Suddenly, a strangely magnetic, slow, and seemingly echoing male voice rang out from the depths of the cave: "Tsk tsk tsk... Look whose lost little bird is this? When did the Ghost Squad start acting as... babysitters?"
Elaine's heart stopped beating instantly, her blood seemed to freeze. She rolled over abruptly, and by the dim light, pulled out the dagger Ghost had thrown to her before she left, pointing it tremblingly into the darkness where the sound was coming from.
In the darkness, a bright red cigarette butt suddenly lit up, like the eye of a demon. The faint light vaguely illuminated half of a face with strong features, a defined jawline, and a hideous scar. Most unsettling were the eyes, which gleamed with a cold green light in the dimness, like a wild beast hunting in the night, full of the predator's keen interest in sizing up its new prey.
A figure slowly emerged from the shadows, his footsteps silent. He wore combat trousers stained with mud and a dark, sweat-soaked vest, his muscles sculpted with powerful, explosive lines, a playful, almost cruel smile playing on his lips.
He completely ignored Elaine's dagger, his eyes scanning her body like searchlights, from her pale face to her trembling, mud-covered hands, and her ill-fitting combat uniform.
“Let me guess…” he began slowly, his voice carrying a cat-and-mouse smirk, “The Ghost Squad’s mission? External reinforcements? Hmm… doesn’t seem like it.” He stared intently into Elaine’s eyes, which shone with an unusual brightness born of fear and determination. “Your eyes… are more like… those of a little rabbit that hasn’t yet seen the real hell.”
Elaine suppressed a scream that threatened to burst from her throat, gripping the dagger firmly with both hands. Her voice trembled violently from the cold, pain, and tension: "Who...who are you?"
The man chuckled softly, exhaling a smoke ring. A glint of pleasure flashed in his green eyes, as if he relished her fear. "You could say he's..." He deliberately drew out the words, "an old friend of the Ghost Squad... um... or you could say he's Keegan's 'sworn brother'." He pronounced "Keegan" slowly and clearly, his green pupils like those of a venomous snake, fixed on Elaine, not missing a single subtle change in her expression.
He seemed in no hurry to act, and began to slowly pace around Elaine, his steps unpredictable, sometimes appearing on her left, sometimes circling to her right, his voice echoing eerily in the cave. “You know what?” he said casually, his tone tinged with a twisted nostalgia, “Back in the ‘Golden Eagle’ international competition, the jungle sniping event, in the end it was just him and me… two days and one night, lying in the mud, mosquitoes sucking you dry, neither of us able to lock onto the other. That feeling… hey, I really miss it.” Then he paused, his tone suddenly turning cold, his green eyes swirling with jealousy, “Unfortunately, I had bad luck later, I got framed, became a pariah. But our Mr. Keegan… he was so lucky, he met Price, got cleaned up, and became a hero in the open.” His words were filled with bitter envy and resentment.
Suddenly, he stopped, his eyes locking onto Elaine, his malice almost tangible: "He was on the other side just now, practically jumping down in a panic, right? He was so worried about you... I'm curious, what kind of expression would he have if you broke that little rib?" Before he finished speaking, he abruptly raised his hand!
Elaine instinctively swung the dagger, but didn't touch her opponent at all!
A small tranquilizer dart grazed Elaine's cheek, creating a cool breeze, and landed precisely on a decaying wooden crate behind her, its tail trembling slightly. It was blatant mockery and contempt; his green eyes gleamed with pleasure and cruelty.
Just then, amidst the torrential rain outside the mine, came the extremely faint but swift sound of footsteps on the slippery stones. A voice, icy cold and filled with suppressed rage, pierced the cave like a sharp, icy blade: "Kruger. Come out."
Kruger's eyes suddenly lit up, like a hunter who had been waiting for a long time finally seeing his desired prey step into the trap. A triumphant smile appeared on his lips, and with lightning speed, he grabbed Elaine by the neck, dragged her in front of him as a hostage, and turned to face the cave entrance.
Keegan stood like a rock in the dim light of the cave entrance, soaked to the bone, rain streaming down his sharply defined face. His goggles were off, revealing grey-blue eyes that seemed to hold an icy depth, devoid of any emotion, fixed intently and precisely on Kruger, his sniper rifle held steadily in his hand. Instead of rushing forward, he took up a favorable firing position on one side of the entrance, blocking most of the angles.
“Long time no see, old friend.” Kruger grinned smugly, his green eyes gleaming with excitement and provocation. “Looks like this little rabbit is quite important to you?” He tightened his grip on her arm, and Elaine let out a painful groan as she suffocated.
Keegan's voice was completely still, cold as iron, each word like a bullet: "Release her. Our feud has nothing to do with her."
"Unrelated?" Kruger scoffed, his green pupils suddenly contracting, his tone turning sharp. "Anything related to you, Keegan, is the most damn relevant thing!" He tightened his grip again, and Elaine's face began to turn pale.
Keegan's stance with the gun remained unchanged, but the air inside the cave seemed to have been sucked out, filled with a suffocating murderous intent.
However, at this critical moment, Kruger's ears twitched almost imperceptibly, and his green eyes glanced in a certain direction outside the cave—he heard faint sounds from afar, almost drowned out by the rain, as Ghost and Hesh flanked him.
The playfulness on his face faded somewhat. He quickly glanced between Keegan's cold, statue-like face and Elaine, who was trembling slightly from lack of oxygen in his arms. An extremely complex emotion flashed across his eyes.
He suddenly leaned close to Elaine's ear and whispered in a voice only the two of them could hear, a voice thick with the smell of tobacco and blood. His green eyes, fixed on her closely, were like two bottomless, malevolent pools: "Little bunny, tell Keegan... he owes me one." With that, he shoved Elaine forward and fired a shot into the cave ceiling without looking back!
"Bang!" The gunshot rang out in the cave, deafening and kicking up a cloud of gravel and dust! Taking advantage of the chaos, Kruger's figure leaped backward like a ghost, merging into the dark side passage deeper into the mine, disappearing without a trace in an instant, leaving only an afterimage and a malicious sentence imprinted in Elaine's mind.
The moment the gun fired, Keegan dodged to the side. Almost as soon as Kruger disappeared, he moved forward with the swiftness of a cheetah, shielding the stumbling Elaine behind him. His gun remained fixed on the dark direction where Kruger had vanished, his eyes sharp as an eagle, until Ghost and Hesh appeared at the cave entrance, quickly sealing off all directions.
"Clear!" Hesh quickly checked the fork in the road and reported back. The crisis was temporarily averted.
Keegan quickly, but still vigilantly, crouched down to check on Elaine. His cold fingers brushed the bloodstains on her cheek from the tranquilizer dart, and he quickly examined her neck and ribs, confirming that it was just a superficial wound, mild suffocation, and extreme shock.
He silently took off his relatively dry coat and wrapped it around Elaine, who was soaked and trembling. His gaze met her still-shaken eyes briefly before he looked away and whispered, "It's alright now." Those three words felt as heavy as if they were weighing down by a thousand pounds.
Elaine wrapped her coat tighter around herself, still warm from his body heat and the smell of gunpowder, and her icy body gradually regained some warmth. Looking at Keegan's still tense profile, she whispered, "He...he asked me to tell you...you owe him one."
Keegan, who was about to get up and arrange the evacuation, suddenly stopped, his body stiffening for a moment. He didn't turn around, but Elaine saw his Adam's apple bob, and his gaze towards the torrential rain outside the cave became even more profound and unfathomable, as if piercing through the rain curtain to see that nemesis with eerie green eyes, a nightmare that haunted him relentlessly.
The rain continued to fall.
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