Page 63 of Brawler
Pressure built in his temples, a savage, pounding migraine. His tattoos burned. The wings across his back itched as if they were trying to lift off his skin. The cross on his ribs seared like a brand. He clenched his teeth until his jaw ached, trying to shove it all back down, but the jungle pressed in closer, tighter, stripping away certainty.
Emily’s voice pierced through it. “Let me go!”
He glanced down. For a moment it wasn’t her face.
It was Lechuza.
Amber eyes, fierce and mournful, stared back at him like he was the only tether holding her in this world. The scent of jungle smoke and wild feathers seemed to cling to her skin.
His heart jolted. A gasp broke loose before he could stop it.
“Jesus Christ,” he whispered, hand shaking as it tightened on her arm. He bent closer, his breath catching, dizzy with the need to anchor himself in her presence. For a wild, impossible second, the urge to press his mouth to hers surged so sharp it stole his air.
Her green eyes blinked back into focus. Not Lechuza. Emily. Fighting him, teeth bared, fury and desperation in every line of her. Somewhere between Neanderthal and fucking hero, his teammate had gotten to her.
Something touched him, his mind went elastic, wonky. He squeezed his eyes shut, swore under his breath. The battle noiseblurred, folding in on itself, his body trembling like he was straddling two worlds at once.
Voices shouted in his comm. Tex’s bark. Easy’s curse. The firefight breaking. But Flash barely heard it. All he could smell was the echo of her scent, feel her eyes, the unbearable pressure in his chest.
Something was coming for him. Not bullets. Not men. Something older, darker, pulling at his bones.
Was he on the lunatic fringe again, his brain buckling under too many deployments, too many ghosts? But this didn’t feel like a break. He battled against it as if it were a hostile force. Around him was a shimmer in the air that felt like a curtain pulled thin. Whispers not of memory, but of something—what the fuck?—calling him. A pressure that wasn’t just crushing him. It was trying toreachhim. Was this communication not collapse? If he was slipping into madness, would he know the difference?
He braced his rifle, teeth gritted, body on instinct as rounds chewed inches from his head. Every cell in him knew what to do here, aim, fire, breathe. He’d been forged in the crucible of discipline, grit, and survival, shaped by endless drills, by the roar of surf in BUD/S, by the merciless hammer of combat. He was a Navy SEAL, trained to act with precision when others faltered, to keep moving when the world came apart.
But beneath all of that, the steel and saltwater, the scars and laughter, something older stirred. Quieter. Deeper. Not learned, not earned. Innate.
The weight pressing on him wasn’t chaos at all. It was deliberate. Desperate. Unrelenting.
His body knew how to endure waves, how to choke down fear and wait out silence. But if this wasn’t endurance…was it recognition? A hand on the inside of his soul, shaking him awake. The kind of insistence that whispered not destruction but destiny.
For one heartbeat he almost lost the fight, but quitting wasn’t in his vocabulary or in his DNA. His tattoos seared, his chest locked tight, and, still fighting it, he realized with a shuddering inhale: Was this about breaking him, or was it about reshaping him?
The question hollowed through him as the world tilted. Gunfire thudded from far away, muffled and strange. Emily struggled, but he held her down with his superior strength almost as an afterthought. Sweat stung his eyes. His vision tunneled, black edging in, threatening to swallow everything.
He braced, teeth grinding, every muscle screaming. Then…he pushed back. A detonation of will so massive he’d never known he possessed such strength ripped through him, blasting against the coercion. The weight eased, not gone, but held at bay, leaving him shaking, raw, his breath sawing in his chest like he’d been through three Hell Weeks.
In the echo of that effort came something he hadn’t expected. Surprise. Awe. A flicker of grim wonder, and beneath it, a surge of fight so fierce it rattled him to his core.
This wasn’t over.
Whatever had reached for him, whatever had clawed at his bones, wasn’t finished. He could feel it. The battle for his mind, his body, his very soul…had only just begun.
Through the hazeof pain and dirt in his mouth, Brawler came to. Forcing his eyes open, he saw the ridge above flash with muzzle fire, his brothers carving a path. Relief should have steadied him, but all he felt was the iron weight pressing his gut, hot beneath his vest. His thigh stung and burned.
He tried to push up. His body didn’t obey.
“All clear,” came through the comms. Bondo’s gravelly voice.
A blur broke free of the tree line. Emily.
She tore across the clearing, hair wild, voice breaking on his name. Twister reached for her, tried to hold her back, but she evaded like a cat, shoved him off, and threw herself down beside him.
Her hands were everywhere, his shoulders, his chest, cupping his face as if to make sure he was breathing, still alive. Words tumbled from her, broken, desperate, choking on sobs. “Are you hurt? God, tell me you’re all right. I thought…I thought…”
He wanted to reassure her, wanted to gather her up and take away that terror in her eyes. His brothers were watching, but he didn’t care. Not with the way her voice cracked, not with the way she was shaking against him. It was like a shot of morphine right into his veins.
He reached, fisted his hand in the back of her shirt, and pulled her down to him. His mouth found hers, rough and clumsy, but it didn’t matter. She kissed him back, all fire and salt and need, like she’d been waiting her whole life for this single breath.
