Page 10 of Brawler
A beat of silence. Then Twister’s voice, lower, urgent. “Fuck. Hypoxia.”
Easy snapped back in agony, “I checked his rig myself.Goddammit. Did I miss something?”
Then Twister again, tighter now. “Flash, are you having a hard time breathing?”
Tex’s voice broke in, rough and concerned. “We’re at pull threshold. Point of no return.”
Flash glanced at his altimeter. Tex was right, one more second and he was done.
“Let him go!” she cried, fierce and desperate.
Suddenly, air rushed in. Oxygen flooded his lungs, burning and sweet. The haze cleared, but the altimeter screamed and it was too late. He didn’t have the time to pull his chute. Either he was going to hit hard and die, or he’d wake up broken, if he woke up at all.
Then she was beneath him. Her scream of defiance echoed in every nerve ending, tearing at his heart, savage and anguished.He felt the solid curve of her body even through the rush of wind, the powerful muscles shifting under downy softness. Feathers brushed against his legs and chest, their heat radiating through his suit. Her wings moved in a silence so deep it roared in his chest, each downstroke heavy and primal, lifting him against the fall. The hush was fierce, alive, filled with a single purpose—to keep him breathing. Her determination wrapped around him as surely as her body did, holding him in that cold void just long enough to live.
“Flash! Chute!Now, brother!” Brawler’s voice slammed into his headset, threaded with fear and dark grief.
“Open your chute!” Her voice, urgent, cutting through everything.
Then she was gone.
His hand yanked the ripcord. The chute snapped open with a whip-crack and a deep, blessedwhoompthat punched into his chest and stole what was left of his breath. Lines went taut, pulling hard on his shoulders, then cradling him, holding him like the arms of someone who refused to let him fall. Relief surged through him, sharp and aching, so fierce it almost felt like love. Sound rushed back, the humidity of the jungle was like a wall of moisture. His plummet slowed as air filled his canopy.
He landed rough, breath ragged, pulse hammering in his throat. Voices filled comms. Brawler demanding a status check, Tex swearing about his LZ but none of it mattered.
She had been here. She had saved him. Not in a dream. Not in a memory.Here.
The massive presence that haunted every jungle he’d ever stepped into? Tonight, it hadn’t just been watching. It was using him against her, and she was fighting. Christ, she was so goddamned beautiful.
Boots pounded through the brush toward him before his canopy had even settled.
Brawler was on him first, snapping buckles and yanking the harness free with quick, brutal efficiency. “Jesus, you’re not dead,” he muttered, voice low but threaded with a sharp edge of relief. “Good thing, because I was going to kill you.”
Twister shouldered in, half-shoving Brawler aside to get a hand on Flash’s mask and check his O2 feed. “Hold still, I need to… Dammit, you’re pale as hell. What the fuck happened up there?”
“I’d give you a ten,” Easy called over from where he was dragging in the chute, “but I’m so goddamned ragged out, I feel like my soul left my body.”
“Adrenaline spike’s gonna kill me before the mission does,” Tex said, his tone threaded with concern. “I need your firepower, Flash. Checking out is not an option.”
Flash sat there in the dirt, catching what breath he could, letting their voices wash over him. It was noise, it was life, and it was the only thing keeping him from thinking too hard about what had really just happened.
3
“I’ll take point,”Brawler growled, already moving. He needed space, the kind of space that was away from his sometimes overwhelming team, space from the image of Flash tumbling through the void.
Flash was still off. Pale under his mask, jaw set too tight, the tremor in his hands not quite hidden. The guys couldn’t seem to stop touching him, rough and practical, brushing off his chute lines, checking his clips again, steadying him with a slap to the shoulder or a tug at his harness. SEALs weren’t big on tenderness, but nobody was ready to stop reassuring themselves he was still here, still solid.
He gave a weak grin, voice raspy. “You were all divvying up my gear, weren’t you? Sorry to disappoint you bastards.”
That broke the tension, a ripple of chuckles going down the line. Easy muttered, “Dibs on your NVGs.”
Shark rumbled, “Hell no, I called those weeks ago.”
Even Tex’s curse carried a note of relief.
When Flash finally lifted his gaze, Brawler caught it. Just a second, but enough. That look carried the echo of what Flash had confessed on the trip back from their previous deployment,and the hollow space behind his usual humor. Something had happened up there. Something that rattled him.
Beast shifted at Brawler’s side, muscles tight, eyes fixed on Flash too. When the dog’s gaze came up to meet his, Brawler felt that same unspoken weight settle in his gut. It hadn’t just been a bad oxygen feed. Something else had touched Flash in that fall.
