“What the fuck is going on here?” James exclaimed, eyes wide as he scanned the room, noticing there were only four guys in the living room, one of them standing, apparently headed towards the front door.

Without saying another word, James rose his gun and aimed it in AJ’s direction. Kevin immediately rose from where he sat and lunged himself at James, able to get a hold of James’ arms and redirect the aim of the gun.

“GO!” Kevin shouted, straining to obtain the gun.

Rooted to where he stood in shock, AJ broke himself out of his phase and was about to resume his way towards the door, but instead turned and started to sprint up the flight of stairs instead. Meanwhile, Adrianna walked back into the living room, her eyes widening upon the sight she was greeted with.

James was able to regain the upper hand of the situation, and maneuvered the gun so it was now aiming towards Kevin’s shoulder. A shot rang out, rendering them all speechless and motionless, except for Kevin, who’s body jerked back from the power of the gun. He glanced down to see a sea of red spread across his right shoulder. Legs weak, it buckled, causing him to crumble to his knees. Both Howie and Brian immediately shot out for Kevin, catching him before his whole body made contact with the ground.

Brian, who was near tears to have just witnessed what happened to his cousin, tried his best to blink away the tears that welled within his eyes and contain the emotion that threatened to overtake him. “Kev?” he called out softly, scared to hear his cousin’s painful reply.

Eyes squeezed shut, Kevin fluttered them open briefly to make eye contact with his two younger brothers, “What happened?” he asked through gritted teeth, the unbearable pain and shock from what just happened rendering him clueless as to what just happened a few moments ago. He tried to glance down at the area where he felt the most discomfort, but the pain prevented him from doing just that.

“Easy there Kev.” Howie said as he gently placed his hand on his left arm, “Try not to move, you were shot.”

James turned to face Adrianna, “Stay down here with them, I’m going after that other motherfucker.” and with that he took off upstairs, gun in hand.

AJ ran into his room, closing the door and locking it. He leaned against the closed door for a bit, trying to ease his racing heart, his shaky hands, and stop the world from spinning. All of a sudden, the door began to shake violently as loud pounding sounded out from the other side of the closed door. AJ immediately jerked back.

“Open this fucking door.” he heard James growl from the other side.

Eyes wide, AJ quickly glanced around the room, looking for the things he would need to take and how he would be able to get out of the room. The first thing he went for was his cell phone, which was still hidden underneath the pillow. Next, he grabbed the sweatshirt he had borrowed from Nick, as well as his leather jacket from his suitcase. Once he had everything, he ran over towards the window, opening it and looking down.

“Fuck me.” he breathed out.

He snapped into action when he heard the door rattle again, and he quickly climbed out of the open window. He began walking slowly across the sloped rooftop, being careful as to not lose his footing and fall. The sound of gunshots rang out, which startled him and caused him to slip and fall on the sloped rooftop. He allowed his cell phone and the two jackets to fall from his grasp and roll down as he clung to the rooftop, hanging on for dear life.

He looked up to see James staring at him through the open window, gun aimed and ready to fire. Closing his eyes, he let go and allowed himself to slide down the roof, as James began to shoot at him. Luckily, the bullets had missed, but he landed rather painfully hard on his back on the snow covered ground.

“AJ!” he heard a voice call out, and looked off to the side to see Nick approaching him.

With the help of his friend, he pushed himself up from the ground, looking down to see the snow painted with his own blood. “Shit,” Nick gasped, “he shot you.”

AJ shook his head, “No, must’ve reopened the cut when I fell.” he said as he placed his hand to the back of his head. He held it out in front of them, his palm drenched with fresh blood.

“What the fuck happened in there? Where’s the other guys?” Nick asked as he grabbed the two jackets on the ground.

AJ bent over to pick up his cell phone and slipped it into his pocket, “I’ll tell you later, but we have to get the fuck outta here.”

“Wait, we’re just gonna leave them here?! We can’t do that!”

“We have to Nick! It’s either we stay here only for him to catch us again and kill us this time, or we go out and get help for them.”

Regretfully, Nick nodded and turned to begin walking down the road path, but was pulled back by AJ. “What the hell?”

“We can go down that way.” AJ said as he tugged Nick along, “You heard him say there’s other guys that’ll be coming up, and the last thing we need is to run into them.”

Nick nodded as they began to jog off towards the back way of the lodge, going god knows where.

~*~*~*~

“FUCKING SHIT.” James growled as he marched downstairs and back into the living room. He rose his gun, prepared to shoot and kill Kevin for preventing him from shooting AJ, but Adrianna quickly acted out and stopped him from doing just that.

“What the hell are you doing?” Adrianna exclaimed, pulling down James’ hand that held the gun.

“He fucking got away… TWO of them got away, and I could’ve stopped one and got the other one if it wasn’t for this fucking asshole!” James shouted as he rose his gun again, approaching Kevin.

Both Brian and Howie immediately leaned forward, protecting Kevin. Again, Adrianna brought James’ hand down. “Yeah, but killing them isn’t going to get us anywhere James, you know that.”

James continued to glare at Kevin, who only stared weakly back at him. Sighing heavily, he ripped away from Adrianna’s grasp, “I’m beginning to think that these boys would be worth so much more dead than alive.”

“Yeah, continue to think that, and you can kiss our money and plan goodbye! Look, Bobby already said that he and the others will be here soon… we’ll just send some of them out there to look for those two, that’s all baby. Lets not make this worse than it really is… those two are the ones with head injuries, and they’re out there, wandering in the fucking cold, with no way to contact anybody for help. They can only get so far before we eventually catch them again.”

James walked over towards the three that were still situated on the ground and knelt down before them, “You guys better hope that we find those two… because if we don’t, I will not hesitate to kill you all, and then kill those two once we find them.”

~*~*~*~

“So… what happened?”

AJ sighed heavily, walking uphill on snow was truly becoming a task for him, “Just as I was making my way towards the door, James came back into the living room. He was prepared to shoot me, but Kevin stopped him.”

“I had almost ran back into the house when I heard the gunshot. What happened with that?”

AJ shrugged, “I don’t know,” he replied softly, his voice pained with the thought of leaving his three brothers behind. “I hadn’t hung around to find out. I just booked it upstairs and right into my room. Next thing I knew, James was trying to get in. I was able to get out through the window, and here I am now.”

“You don’t think one of them was shot, do you?” Nick asked hesitantly, as if scared to know the answer, but knew he had to inquire.

“I can only hope and pray that it was a stray bullet.” AJ replied with a slight quiver in his voice; his shaking being caused by the cold. “Can I get my jacket, please?”

Nick handed him his leather jacket. “I brought you your sweatshirt.” AJ said with a nod as he placed his jacket on.

Stopping momentarily, Nick pulled his sweatshirt over his tall form before he resumed following AJ, “So, do you know where we’re going?”

“No idea.” AJ replied as they continued to trudge through the snow. He fished out his cell phone from his pants, “Fuck me, no reception. And my battery life is down to two bars.”

“So, what are you thinking?” Nick asked.

AJ sighed heavily, slipping his cell phone back into his pocket. He now knew how Kevin felt, when they all turned to him for answers. Seeing as how it was only the two of them, and he was the oldest, it was only right for Nick to ask him what they should do; he only wishes it were questions about their job and not how to save their lives. “Honestly, I don’t know man. The closer we are to the lodge, the more likely we’ll get reception and be able to call for help…”

“But…” Nick continued for him.

“But the more likely we’ll also get caught again.”

“Well, we’re headed to nowhere if we continue to go up this way, when we know the only way to help is to head down.”

“I know, and we’ll only run into those guys that are supposed to be coming up to our lodge.”

“We gotta think of something, we’ll fucking freeze and die out here if we don’t.”

“I’m trying to think of something here Nick, and thank you so much for your vote of confidence.”

Nick suddenly stopped in his trek, “We need a car.”

AJ stopped as well, turning to look at his younger friend, “Yes, we do need a car, having a car in this situation would be nice, but my car keys are in the lodge.”

“Then we’ll need to get a car.” Nick replied as he turned around and began walking back down towards the lodge.

“Hold up!” AJ exclaimed as he walked in front of Nick to stop him from proceeding any further. “What the hell do you mean we’ll need to get a car?!”

“Look, I have an idea, I’m gonna go CSI on you for a moment, but given what we know about these bad guys, it’s only a male and female.”

“An armed male and female for now.” AJ corrected.

“Right… we also know that they called up ‘company’ to join us, right?”

“Yes, and we don’t know how much is in their company.”

“And we left behind three of our own. So, what I’m thinking is that… they’ll keep some of their guys back in the lodge with them while they send out some guys, maybe two, four at the most, to come and look for us.”

“Okay, and where the hell are you going with this Nick?”

“I’m thinking we take them out.”

AJ’s eyes widened upon hearing Nick’s plan. “You think we what? Oh hell to the fucking no Nick, we are jeopardizing way to much if we follow through with that plan! We don’t know how to fight or take down anybody, let alone armed robbers, that’s fucking suicide!”

“I know way more than you think.” Nick insisted, talking about the physical training and programs he followed years prior to lose weight. “And given the situation we’re in, I seriously doubt you won’t resort to physical fighting if need be. But after we take those guys down, we’ll sneak back, take a car and go off to get help. I’ve seen it done before in movies.”

“That’s just it Nick! Those were fucking movies, we’re not in a goddamn movie, this is our LIVES we’re talking about. Plans don’t always go the way we want it to, anything can happen, there’s no fucking retakes, no mistakes can be made.”

“Sounds like someone is slowly starting to like my plan.” Nick said as he gave AJ a pointed look.

AJ mentally kicked himself for the way he ended his statement. Deep inside, he knew it was all or nothing, and they couldn’t think of any other plan. Looking up to the darkened sky, he watched as the snow fell for a bit, accumulating rather quickly around them. Kevin would seriously whack Nick upside the head for even suggesting this as a plan, being the one to not have anyone take risks or chances. But there comes a time in everyone’s life where it’s no longer about you, but rather those you love and others around you.

“He really must’ve knocked you up good, huh?” AJ asked with a small smirk, not being able to believe how crazy Nick was at the moment.

Nick gave a small smirk as well, gently touching the lump on his forehead, “Maybe?”

This wasn’t about him, his safety, his wellbeing anymore… this was about his life, and his life was his brothers. “Alright Nick.” he was hit in the head, twice, just as hard.