Snowblood

The skin of his palm caught and slit open on the jagged knot of barbed wire strung between the fenceposts. Foggy breath billowed sharply from his instinctive gasp at the sight of his injury, but not the feeling, for the biting cold had numbed his hands too much for the pain to hit. A faint dribble of crimson droplets trickled down from the thorny metal onto the snow-smothered earth, this trace of him left to coagulate and swiftly freeze, while he limped ahead through the barren farmland, dragging his hobbled right leg with its distended swollen knee, throbbing like a wailing siren of agony only he could hear, through the seemingly endless onslaught of snow.

A distant pop like a firework echoed like a ghost through the vast night's emptiness. A warning shot meant for him. The only warning he'd get.

He marched on, teeth gritted, nostrils stung by freezing air, eyes bleary with sleeplessness and bloodshot with waning adrenaline.

The only things that mattered now were the tree ahead of him, the closing distance of death's spectre behind him, and the briefcase clutched like a vow in his one good hand.

He found the spot he'd earlier dug at the tree's roots.

The case fit snug, but well enough.

He tucked the tracker underneath, firmly thumbing it deep into the soil, and buried the case. Praying they'd follow his instructions. Praying they'd find it. Praying that his imminent death would do more good than his erstwhile life ever had.