Chapter 2 #2
The name came unbidden, but he didn’t question it.
He didn’t have to understand the why. Operators didn’t stall on the unexplainable.
They worked with what was in front of them.
Lechuza was here for a reason, one she couldn’t tell him yet.
Beneath his shirt, the inked wings along his back seemed to ruffle, a faint prickle like the wind had found him from the inside out.
A call. Maybe to battle. Maybe to something else.
He didn’t flinch. He went where he was needed, no matter how strange the road in front of him looked.
Was she a harbinger? A figment? A loss he couldn’t accept?
“Killa.” The name was half a prayer, half a gasp.
He stepped toward her, but she blinked out, reappearing to his left, close enough that her warmth brushed his skin.
“I’ve been watching the sky for so long,” he said. “When are you coming back?”
Her lips parted, but instead of words, a deep, mournful hoot rolled out, vibrating in his bones. The world blurred, light smearing around her edges.
He reached for her?—
—and his hand hit nylon webbing. The roar in his ears became the steady hum of the transport’s engines. Red light washed the inside of the bird.
Brawler was watching him. “Man, you all right?”
Flash sat forward, elbows braced on his knees, head in his hands.
Sweat ran cold down his spine, his lungs still dragging for air like he’d been under too long.
His pulse pounded like he’d sprinted a mile.
Something soft brushed his palm, and when he looked down, a single white feather rested there. “Just one of those dreams.”
Brawler’s hand settled on the back of his neck, solid and grounding. “Maybe that’s her. Reaching out to you.”
Flash lifted his head, breath still uneven, his fist curling around the feather. “You a fortune teller now? Pretty sure you’d look terrible in a peasant skirt and scarves.”
He heard a sharp inhale from further down the bench.
“Wait. Brawler’s a fortune teller?” Easy’s delighted voice drifted over him.
Dagger leaned in with a grin. “Gonna read our palms after the jump?”
“Better yet,” Shark rumbled, “tell me if I’m winning my next poker hand.”
Twister didn’t even look up from his gear. “Tell me if my future involves this conversation ending.”
Brawler shoved Flash’s shoulder without breaking his glare at the others. “One of these days, that mouth’s gonna get you in trouble.”
Flash let the grin hold. He needed the noise, the ribbing, the ridiculousness.
Otherwise, he’d still be in that clearing reaching for a woman who dissolved every time he got close, and he didn’t like the meaning of it.
Was he chasing something he couldn’t have?
He could feel the jungle waiting below, heavy and endless.
If fate had anything to say about it, maybe the sky wouldn’t be empty this time.
Tex stood. “Jock up. We’re almost there.”
They rose quickly as the flight master cried, “Fifteen minutes out.” Reaching for his gear, Flash slipped on the thin black thermal suit, built for cold, designed for war, nonreflective.
He tested his oxygen. Satisfied with the flow, the oxygen mask sealed with a hiss, filling his lungs with cold air.
The bird bucked in turbulence, the air inside already frigid despite the layers. Thirty thousand feet above the Ecuadorian jungle, and the living green below felt ancient enough to know his name.
The Nightstalkers had gotten them this far, SOAR always did, but once they stepped out, they were ghosts in enemy airspace. No cavalry behind them. No safety net.
He pulled the Ops-Core helmet down over his head, seating it snug against his skull, the weight familiar. NVGs mounted and locked.
Gloves, Nomex, warm enough for this altitude, thin enough to feel the trigger.
He flexed his fingers, checked the grip on his MK18 before securing it across his chest. Sling tight.
IR laser mounted and ready. The compact carbine was perfect for jungle, but the grenade launcher locked beneath its barrel gave him the extra bite that made him the team’s heavy hitter.
Flash didn’t need to drag a machine gun through the bush.
He carried his firepower in thirty-round bursts and forty-millimeter grenades.
His vest was already on, lightweight SAPI plates, mag pouches loaded, tourniquet hooked where muscle memory could find it blindly. Sidearm holstered on his thigh, suppressor in its pouch, his tactical knife within easy reach.
He clipped in his ruck, seventy pounds of ammo, demo, food, water, and survival gear, secured in its jump bag and hanging between his legs. The lowering line ran up to the harness so he could drop the bag before hitting the ground. He gave the straps a hard yank to be sure they wouldn’t shift.
“Turn,” Easy said from behind him.
Flash pivoted so Easy could run the standard back check. Buckles, chute rigging, oxygen connection, reserve lines. Easy slapped his shoulder once it was clean. Flash returned the favor, giving Easy’s rig a sharp tug at the oxygen line just to make him swear.
Beside him, Brawler crouched to snap the last clips on Beast’s harness.
The sixty-five-pound Belgian Malinois looked almost bored, oxygen mask and doggles making him look like some sci-fi war dog from the future.
Flash knew better. At one word from Brawler, Beast went ballistic, no more Mister Nice Dog.
Brawler’s voice was low, all business. “Dog secure. Last check.”
Flash leaned in, tugged at the clips over Beast’s shoulders. Solid. “Good to go.” He grinned. “Brawler, don’t forget to tuck your peasant skirt between your legs. You don’t want anyone on the ground taking a dirty peek on the way down.”
Brawler glanced up, one brow cocked.“Say that again when we land, pretty boy.”
“Pretty’s all you got on me,” Flash said, stepping past him.
“Don’t be jealous, Flash,” Easy shot back. “Just because you don’t have the legs for a shorter skirt.”
Shark rumbled a laugh. “If you two are wearing skirts, I’m gonna need to reevaluate this whole team dynamic.”
“Hell,” Twister said, with a slow grin, “long as Flash shaves his legs first, I’m fine with it.”
That got an immediate groan from Bondo. “Wait. Does that mean mini skirts are optional?”
“Yeah,” Dagger deadpanned, “if you want to freeze your ass off.” He glanced at Bondo. “Though yours might be worth the frostbite.”
Tex’s voice cut through the drone of the engines, amused. “Locked and loaded, boys. Let’s ride this rodeo.”
“Hoo-yah,” rolled down the line.
Flash intoned, “Remember, guys…ripcord is still your friend.”
Chuckles rippled through the comms, including the flight staff.
“Thanks for the reminder, asshole,” Shark said with brotherly affection.
The jump light flickered yellow. Everyone shuffled toward the ramp as it groaned open, spilling gale-force winds into the belly of the bird. The howl wrapped around them, teeth in the cold, rattling every strap and buckle.
Flash tightened his chin strap, checked his O? line again, tapped his altimeter. Brawler rose behind him, Beast tucked in like they were welded together.
“Thirty seconds!” The crew chief’s shout cracked through comms.
Flash rolled his shoulders, trying to shake the static crawling up his spine. The presence pressed closer, close enough to feel.
The light snapped green.
Tex saluted the jumpmaster and vanished into the black. Bondo next, then Shark, Twister, Easy, and the rest of the guys.
Flash stepped forward into the maw, NVGs painting the world in eerie green. Vast, infinite sky. No horizon, just stars above and jungle shadow far, far below.
Air roared past his ears, a constant, rushing wall of sound that pressed against his helmet. The cold bit into the seams of his gloves, bled into his bones. The world was nothing but black sky and the faint silver smear of starlight over an endless canopy far below.
He leveled his body into stable freefall, the rhythm automatic, drilled a thousand times. Drew in a breath.
Thin.
Not nothing. Just…not enough. The oxygen felt shallow, like trying to drink through a clogged straw. His lungs pulled, but the air didn’t satisfy.
A faint, cotton-wool pressure began to fill his skull. His ears rang.
He tried another breath. Still thin.
The NVGs swam slightly, edges of the green blur softening. His limbs felt heavier, sluggish, his fingers clumsy on the toggles. A slow, syrupy warmth crept up the back of his neck, the kind that made his instincts bark wrong .
The roar in his ears began to fade, replaced by a distant hush, as if the whole sky was holding its breath.
A tunnel closed in at the edges of his vision, black creeping toward the center.
Hypoxic. The ominous word cut through his haze, but his brain lagged behind.
At this altitude, it meant his body was starving for air it couldn’t get.
Judgment went first, then motor control.
Blackout was next, and if that happened in freefall, he wouldn’t have the time, or the mind, to pull his chute.
His altimeter was already ticking toward his hard deck, the line where you either pulled your chute or died.
Below that altitude, there wasn’t enough air for the canopy to bloom before the ground punched back. Physics was a bitch.
Now, falling at thirty thousand feet, even those anchors slipped.
“ Jae! ”
Her voice. Clear. Not through comms, not in his head.
Her. A familiar ache sliced his heart,the same one that hit him in the quiet hours, when she wasn’t there.
The same one that clawed at him when the laughter died down and the training stopped, when there was nothing left but the echo of her absence.
He hadn’t slept right since Venezuela. Couldn’t eat without tasting the hole she’d left behind.
Only the job and the jokes kept him moving, kept him sane.
His eyes forced open.