Page 67 of Brawler
Dust and fire swallowing steel towers, a sky torn open, the world shattering in a single morning.GUARDIAN.
Each image shredded his grip on reality, ripping him apart. He clawed for breath, for silence, for anything that was his. But the torrent only surged harder.
STOP FIGHTING US SO YOU CAN HEAR!
Beyond it all, deserts littered with wreckage, armored vehicles burning under a merciless sun. Patriots falling in battle after battle, and still the voices pressed in, desperate, unrelenting, echoing in every nerve.
Then it hit.
The force swallowed him whole, a breaker crashing down, tumbling him end over end. He was dragged under, twisting and spinning in a current so strong it stripped his bearings away. No up. No down. Only green fire, shadows, and the unrelenting push of something vast and merciless.
The monsters swarmed closer, not with teeth but with voices, an avalanche of whispers clawing into his skull. Too many. Too much. Words tangled into gibbering babble, pain lancing his brain like fire and glass.
He clutched his head, writhing. Lechuza bent over him,no, Emily, shouting, her mouth forming words he couldn’t grasp. Shadows reared behind her, stretching long and sharp, swallowing her whole.
Then…an anchor in the swirling glitter. Brawler. He felt him like the roots of a massive oak buried deep in the earth, arms locked in a bear hug, trying with all his might to hold him steady, to haul him back from the abyss.
Others flared in his vision, Tex, Bondo, Easy, Shark, Twister, Dagger, all of them bright threads of brotherhood spun like fragile spider’s silk across the ages. He saw them on ageless battlefields, Tex shouting orders over the crack of muskets, Bondo choking in mustard gas, Easy charging through jungle smoke, Shark braced against cannon fire, Twister dragging men from rubble, Dagger standing silent in shadows. They were his. They had always been his.
He loved them with a warrior’s soul that recognized them from eons of battles, from the beginning of time itself.
The power pressing around him seemed to love it too, seemed to drink in his devotion, then it severed it.
Flash convulsed as if cut open, the cords of connection snapping one by one. He couldn’t breathe. The loss of his team slammed into him, shattering his chest, cracking his spirit until anguish roared out of him. Tears froze on his cheeks, carved permanent lines into his skin.
Without a tether, he was hurled into a bottomless pit, slammed flat onto the ground. Stars detonated across his vision in a brilliant, shattering spray.
He screamed, the sound tearing out of him raw as a wrenching, ravaging force ripped out his very soul.
Hollowed out, helpless, seized and struggling, he howled for them, for his brothers, for her, alone, loss bright and crushing as darkness swallowed him, and the light in him went out, extinguished into the void.
Emily stumbled,half-carried, half-dragged by Flash’s frantic momentum. She could hear the team somewhere behind them, gunfire splitting the jungle, but Flash was pulling her farther and farther away. His breath rasped ragged, his eyes glassy, darting at things she couldn’t see.
“Flash, stop! You’re hurting me!” she cried, but he didn’t hear.
He skidded to a halt, chest heaving, sweat streaking down his face, a hunted look so fierce, she gasped. His eyes went wide, pupils blown, locked on nothing. Horror carved deep into his features, so raw it turned unspeakable.
Then, without a word, he spun and bolted in a different direction. His grip on her waist was punishing, aggravating thebruises, dragging her with him, his stride too fast, too frantic. Emily stumbled, vines raking her arms, branches tearing at her hair, but he only drove harder, as if he could outrun the nightmare chasing him.
For an instant, she thought his feet barely touched the ground. His body surged with a wild, unnatural momentum, shoulders heaving like wings were forcing the air apart. He was trying to take flight, to escape, but whatever hunted him was faster.
Then he faltered. His grip slipped, knees buckling as he staggered down, hauling her with him. His lips moved but no words formed, just gibberish, broken syllables spilling out, thick and incoherent. His face twisted from horror to terror and back again, contorting as if he were trapped in a nightmare he couldn’t wake from.
“Flash!” Emily dropped beside him, clutching at his shoulders.
He collapsed full length, writhing against the earth, his body convulsing with violent tremors.
He screamed.
It tore out of him primal and anguished, a sound like nothing Emily had ever heard before. It clawed straight through her chest, seared into her bones, a cry of both unbearable loss and a desperate call for help. The raw despair in it ripped her soul wide open.
For a heartbeat she froze, stunned by the sheer wrongness of it. This was Flash, reckless, cocky, unshakable Flash, reduced to a writhing, broken man convulsing in the dirt. Terror knifed through her. Operators didn’t unravel. Not like this. Not ever.
“Flash!” she gasped, falling to her knees beside him. She caught at his shoulders, trying to still him, but his body bucked under her hands, muscles jerking as if some invisible currentwas tearing him apart. His eyes rolled white, his lips spilling nonsense, words that weren’t words at all.
Her mind reeled. What the hell was happening to him? What force could reduce one of the strongest men she had ever seen into this?
“Please,please, stop,” she whispered, her own voice cracking. Her stomach lurched, cold dread spreading through every vein. She knew with brutal clarity that whatever was happening to Flash, she couldn’t fight it. She couldn’t stop it.
