Here's the next bit! Thank you guys again so much for reviewing.
I don't own the Mission Impossible franchise or its characters. I never have. I didn't when I published the last chapter, or the chapter before that, or ever actually. Sigh...
Chapter Three– Ascent
Ethan was really sick of England. He'd hoped not to have to return for a while after this week's mission. Now he never wanted to lay eyes on the damn foggy rock ever again.
But as he pulled himself onto the shoreline after dark, bloody, waterlogged and chilled to the bone, he didn't remotely care where he was. He was grateful beyond words just to be on dry land.
After the helicopter had circled towards him, he'd swum deep into the water column and held his breath until the thudding of the rotors faded back towards land. It was almost beyond him–five minutes was a long time to go without oxygen, even for him, and all the while fighting to stay down with a strained shoulder– but he'd breached the surface and found his cushion again.
The rest of the swim had been a blur. It took several slow, cold hours of kicking through rolling swell to reach the shore, and by the time he got there the winter sun had hidden under the horizon again, taking what feeble warmth it had previously provided with it. Ethan had been in the water so long he'd forgotten what it felt like to move his fingers. The only reason he hadn't frozen to death was his constant movement. Finally, finally, he'd heard the breakers crashing on shore and let the waves carry him in.
Ethan dragged himself further past the tideline, not daring to stand up yet. He tasted sand and rock and salt, felt it rubbing against his face. Land. It was heavenly. For a moment he just laid there, enjoying the feeling of stillness in his legs.
Within thirty seconds he was shaking with cold again. He could linger no longer.
With a groan, Ethan pulled himself into a kneel, grasping his injured arm to his chest. He looked around.
The moon had risen, casting everything with a pallid glow. He was on a long, narrow strip of sand dotted with boulders, run up against a tall craggy cliff. He saw no lights down the beach or beyond the waves, nor an obvious trail up the cliff face. In other words, he was totally screwed. At least he was still in field clothes, the basic black T-shirt and lightweight pants that would let him blend into the darkness. He wished for his jacket, but he'd shucked it, along his shoes and socks, after the crash to give him more mobility in the water.
Ethan pinched his own arm, struggling to focus. His frigid mind was sluggish, but he knew what he had to do: get shelter and fire. Without the warmth of movement he would not last long if he didn't dry off.
He rose carefully, his legs wobbly but viable. He started making his way toward the boulders at the edge of the cliff. After several minutes of seeking, he found not even a shallow cave or hollow. He couldn't light a fire without some way of concealing it, lest the people in the helicopter were still looking for him. He couldn't stay here, either.
He eyed the cliff again. It had looked sheer in the moonlight before, but closer to it he saw it was not as steep as he'd feared. He ran his hands along the base, testing the rock. The material felt trustworthy, climbable. He looked up to where the moon-washed stars were blocked by the lip of the crag. Eighty feet or so, by his reckoning.
Ethan groaned again. It was going to be a long night.
He gently stretched out his right arm. Ethan used to rock climb in his free time; he tried to still when he got the chance. But it had been a while, and though he was confident in his strength, he'd never had to scale an unfamiliar rock face in the near dark, half-frozen with his shoulder badly relocated. Well, guess there's a first time for everything.
The long, shallow cut on his forearm had stopped bleeding a while back. Ethan pulled out his knife, cut a narrow strip of cloth from the bottom of his pants leg and bound the wound in case it started seeping again as he ascended.
He peered critically at the cliff face, looking for a way up. Something that looked like a route wound its way up. Really, it was all he had to go on. Ethan took a breath, gripped the stone, and started climbing.
Immediately his shoulder protested the movement . Ripples of pain spread down along his right side. Ethan gritted his teeth and tried to shift more of his weight to his left leg and arm. He climbed on.
There was a powerful breeze coming off the ocean, chilling his still-wet skin and clothes even more and whipping his hair into his face. Waves shattered noisily on the rocks below him, an ominous reminder of what he had to look forward to should he fall.
But he felt relatively okay. Despite his condition, he was making good time. The cliff was pitted and sound, and handholds and footholds were far apart but definitely there. As he rose, his fingers and toes warmed. Slowly but steadily, he made his way up.
Ten feet…twenty feet. His fingers ached, and his breath came in short bursts.
After about ten minutes it was clear the ascension would not continue to go so well. The cliff started smoothing inexplicably, and Ethan's arms and legs were shaking with exertion. He paused at one point, catching his breath, pressing his forehead against the rock. Tears of pain leaked out the corner of his eyes, his shoulder feeling like molten lead had replaced his muscles. He looked down at the beach and saw with a surge of despair he was barely a quarter of the way up. He was already running on empty.
He was stranded on the coast of England in winter, injured, freezing, with no way of contacting the IMF or his friends, and some new assailants looking for him and shooting to kill. Even for Ethan, who was used to difficult, even impossible situations–hell, it was in the job description– this was bad. He shuddered against the cliff, exhausted.
For some reason, it was only at that moment that he realized his team probably thought he was dead.
The revelation was enough to almost knock him off the cliff face. He clung on, feeling sick.
They had no way of knowing he was alive. The explosion had obliterated everyone inside the plane. He'd gotten lucky, nothing more. But water holds no tracks, and when the wreckage was found, and any bodies left merely charred, unrecognizable bones, Brandt, Jane and Benji would assume the worst. Ethan knew what would happen. They'd hold out hope for a while, confident that no matter the circumstances, Ethan would pull a solution out of his ass just like he'd always done. But after a while, when it looked like this time he really was gone, that hope would decay, and calcify in their hearts, and sit there like a broken bone that healed wrong, constantly stabbing, constantly reminding them of who hadn't come home until time eventually wore it away. After Prague in '96, when almost his entire team was murdered by his turncoat mentor, Ethan knew that pain. It had been years until the rotten, hollow grief from it had scarred over.
Ethan snarled. He would get home, he swore to himself, suddenly angry. He wouldn't let them grieve, wouldn't let their hope die. He would get home.
He peeled himself away and kept climbing.
By the time Ethan reached the last quarter of the climb his whole body was shaking, his fingers scraped and slippery with blood, and his right shoulder was almost numb with pain. He paused again, swallowing a moan. His head swam. The waves were faint on the rocks below; he was near the top. He risked a glance up and saw the end of this hellish ascent barely twenty feet up. He pressed his face to the cool rock again, panting.
Come on, Ethan. You're an IMF agent. You love heights. You've done far worse than this. You geckoed your way up the Burj Khalifa, for God's sake!
He pushed off and kept going. Twenty feet. Fifteen. Ten. Five.
Ethan felt turf under his fingers. He kicked off the cliff and hauled himself up, his shoulder screaming. With a final gasp of agony he clambered over the edge and collapsed onto horizontal ground.
His vision went dark.
()()()()()
Duh-duh. Duh-duh. Duh-duh.
There was a pounding in his ears, pulling him from the warmth of sleep. Ethan muttered in protest. Had he fallen asleep in the locker room again, and Benji had brought in another basketball and was hurling it against the wall like last time to wake him up?
"Screw off, Benji…" he mumbled.
Wait…what was that taste in his mouth? Was that…grass?
And as reality slowly simpered back to him Ethan found it wasn't a basketball that was making that noise. It was his own heartbeat, thudding inside his head.
Wind tugged at his hair and iced the exposed parts of his skin, and all of a sudden the pain of his injuries rushed back to him. He gasped and arched up, blinking.
England. He was somewhere in England. His plane had blown up, and there were people coming after him.
The adrenaline of this realization was enough to wake him up fully. Ethan coughed and rose to all fours, tenderly minding his right shoulder and arm. He was at the top of the cliff. Far below the ocean murmured over the beach, and the moon was now nearing the horizon. Ethan wagered he only had a few hours of darkness left. He had to use them.
He hadn't been unconscious long. Any longer and he wouldn't have woken up. In fact, he wasn't sure why he had. He slowly leaned back onto his knees and lifted his head.
Ethan froze. He was not alone.
Reflecting the cold light of the moon, two eyes gleamed in the darkness before him.
Only his IMF training, burned into his bones from years of experience, kept him from reeling back with a yelp of surprise. He stayed completely still. Two round eyes glowed not five feet away from him. In the strong light of the full moon, they were an eerie red.
Ethan's arms and neck prickled with goosebumps. He'd seen far scarier, but there was some animal fear in him that automatically flared upon beholding red eyes at night. He suddenly thought of the Hound of the Baskervilles, that Sherlock Holmes story about the monstrous hound that roamed the moors at night. He was somewhere on the west coast of England, alone, and here was something with red eyes crouching in the darkness, looking at him, and holyshitI'mgonnadierighthere–
Knock it off, Ethan. His brain kicked in and the fear kicked out. The eyes were small and not far apart, about a foot and a half off the ground, not nearly tall enough for a mythical hound. What real animals had red eyeshine? He racked his brain. Rabbits, many owls, and–
He couldn't help it. He barked a laugh. The eyes wavered in surprise.
He knew it was risky, but Ethan pulled out the tiny Maglite he kept in his pants pocket and twisted it on. A yellow glow erupted from his hands, making his eyes throb and illuminating the fox sitting on the turf in front of him.
The fox narrowed its eyes in response to the light, but did not run away. It was sitting on its haunches, bushy tail pulled around its left leg, triangular ears sticking straight up. Its entire pelt was a fine reddish silver, edged with black. Ethan stayed still, not wanting to scare it.
The fox did not look away from him. Its eyes still flicked red in his flashlight, but there was no glaze over them or foam at the mouth of rabies. Ethan sat back. What was wrong with this fox? Wild animals don't just walk up to people.
For a moment the two just sat still, not taking their eyes off one another. So this was what had woken him up; the presence of another creature nearby.
Suddenly, the fox snarled, its teeth gleaming. Ethan started, shutting off his light. His eyes ached as they adjusted to the darkness again.
The fox's red eyes lowered to the ground and Ethan knew it was standing up now, head to the ground. A low growl came from it.
Ethan put his hands in front of him, waiting for the animal to pounce.
The fox suddenly silenced, but there was a new sound coming over the moor, a sound that made Ethan's stomach turn to ice. He dropped to the turf as headlights cut through the darkness in front of him.
Shit. Just…shit. Could this night get any worse? Ethan scowled. He'd forgotten: it could always get worse.
A black SUV came into view and stopped about half a mile distant. He couldn't make out any distinguishing marks, but he could see all to clearly the dozen black figures that poured out of the car. Even from here, he could see the moonlight catch on the barrels of their guns. No flashlights were needed; they could see all they needed in the moonlight. They spread out in a wide phalanx, advancing toward the cliff and toward Ethan. If he stood, if he ran, they would see him.
He was trapped.