Page 76 of Brawler
The pressure didn’t ease. It waited.
The silence swelled. This time it came with the rattle of drums, the crack of muskets on open ground.
Lines of ragged men faced the greatest empire that had conquered lands and people, unprecedented explorers, warriors, and sailors, masters at sailing the seven seas. The British were coming.
Snow. Cold bit into his skin, sharper than any jungle night. His breath came out in white clouds, the wind cutting like knives. He stood among men in ragged coats and bare feet, theirtoes wrapped in rags, faces hollow with hunger. The smell wasn’t smoke this time. It was desperation, thin and bitter as frost.
Valley Forge. He knew it instantly. The crucible of endurance. Not victory in battle, but the fight tosurvivelong enough to fight at all.
His gut tightened.This is where America should have broken. This is where it stood.
Movement ahead caught his eye. A white horse emerged through the snow, breath steaming, hooves crunching on frozen ground. Atop it sat a figure cloaked against the cold, shoulders broad, white wig stark against the gray sky. George Washington.
The men lifted their eyes to him, every thread of hope they had left stitched to his presence.
Then the shadows came. Sliding between the soldiers, whispering in their ears, sinking into hollow bellies and frozen bones. Chaos feeding on despair.
But Washington turned his head and light flared.
It blazed from his eyes, from the set of his jaw, from the mantle of command wrapped around him like armor. He burned like the sun, searing through the smoke, pushing the shadows back. They hissed and writhed, clawing for purchase, but the light held them at bay.
His voice cracked across the frozen camp, thunder against the winter sky. “Chaos, you will not prevail here! You and your minions shall not take my men. They are meant for the fight for freedom, not the mindless taking of lives. We will defeat the British, and we will defeat you. You cannot cross the Veil. Not while I breathe breath. Not while my nation is forming. No goddamned way.”
The words struck like cannon fire. The shadows recoiled, shredded back into the dark. Around him, men who had been slumping to their knees straightened, hope igniting like fire in snow.
Flash’s pulse hammered, pride surging hot in his chest. Then Washington turned, and Flash’s chest clenched. It wasn’t Washington’s face. It was Tex. The same steel-cut jaw, that sharp, assessing gaze. Impeccable. Indomitable. The man who never gave up, even when the outcome wasn’t yet known. Washington, Tex…it was the same spirit.
His LT, eyes shining like stars, voice a rumble of conviction. “Every war is more than men against men. But every one will be fought by us.”
Flash’s throat closed. Pride nearly choked him.Of course it’s him. Of course.
Tex/Washington spoke again, and the dark shadows cowered. “Freedom isn’t won in victory. It is born in endurance, in leaders who refuse despair, in warriors who follow without falter.”
The shadows shrieked, recoiling, clawing for ground they couldn’t hold.
Tendrils flared, threads of light and shadow that bound soldier to soldier, stretching back through centuries, through muskets and rifles, through cutlasses and carbines. Flash felt them tugging at his chest, his soul. Warriors. Always the first and last line of defense. Always them.
All the shit that had been happening to him screamed sentient. Supernatural. Desperate. What the actual fuck?
Flash’s mind clawed back to that pale green wall in Ecuador. The static. The hum. He’d chalked it up to madness, but madness didn’t hold him now.
The jungle was alive. He’d been taught that lesson. He’d always known that. But this? Was it real? Was something actually reaching for him?
What did he know about that shit aside fromLord of the Ringsmarathons and jabs at Brawler for falling for a pixie? Nothing. Except…maybe not nothing. Myths weren’t born fromnowhere. Every culture whispered the same thing. There’s a world behind the world. Maybe those stories weren’t stories at all.
The Veil. He knew the word. Everyone did. Irish thin places. Cherokee shadows. Drunken spooks muttering in back alleys. He’d dismissed it. But now? Musket in his hands, shadows writhing between men’s eyes, history bleeding around him like it was alive? Fuck. Maybe the Veil was real. Maybe it needed him.
Flash clutched his head, swearing under his breath. “No. No, no, no. Shit like that doesn’t happen. Not to me. Not to anyone.”
But the shadow sliding through Valley Forge wasn’t a fairy tale. It was an enemy he couldn’t put two in the chest, and that chilled him worse than any firefight ever had.
He gasped into black silence again, heart hammering. His hands clawed at his head, as if pressure might ease if he just dug his fingers in.
Christ. He was losing it. That had to be it. He was placing his brothers into these…visions, these life-snatches, these hallucinations. Brawler in buckskin. Tex in a powdered wig on a white horse. His bond to them was so goddamned strong it felt carved into his DNA. Was he reaching for them in his delirium, begging for anchors while his mind cracked? Or was it something else?
That pale green wall pressed against him again. The jungle entity. The static. The madness. Was it all trying to teach him something vital?
He’d felt it. The desperation. The summons thrumming in his bones, vibrating through his warrior soul.
