Chapter 6
As dusk fell, things moved inside the shadows. Flash’s operator senses stayed on point, every nerve wired tight. He tried not to overreact. His effectiveness would be shit if he couldn’t tell the difference between ghosts and real threats.
The jungle tested that line. Branches swayed with no wind. Leaves whispered where nothing passed. Eyes, or maybe fireflies, flickered in the dark. His head knew it was nothing. His gut said otherwise.
Flash shifted his grip on his weapon, jaw tight. Not today, man. Don’t be the guy who ghosts at shadows.
Still, the feeling crawled along his spine. The absence he couldn’t name. The presence he couldn’t shake. Like the jungle itself was watching, waiting.
He forced out a breath, pasted a grin across his face, and let the words roll easily, casual, just loud enough for Bondo to hear. “Goddamn, this place is cozy. Like a five-star spa with malaria.”
The other man shot him a look, half warning, half amused. That was fine. Let them think he was joking. Better that than admit the dark was pressing too close, and something with wings and whispers was still riding him from the sky.
Emily stopped dead. Flash held his unease tight, the sound of her sweet voice grounding him. It was like Lechuza’s, but softer. Less grit, soothing.
“Paw prints. Fresh…small ones, too. Sombra. The cubs.” She glanced ahead, her breath catching. “I have another camera up there. Can I check it? That card might be full.”
Tex leaned in to look, but Flash felt it at the same time the others did, every operator reading the shift like a change in the wind. In an instant, the team closed in around Emily, a phalanx of threat, a wall of muscle.
Tex’s voice was a low growl. “Brawler.”
Beast had stiffened several beats earlier, nose and body locked toward the disturbance. Without a word, man and dog melted into the brush.
Seconds dragged. Sweat itched under Flash’s plate carrier. The jungle held its breath.
Then Brawler’s voice rumbled over comms, steady and deep. “Group of tangos. Unaware of us, LT. They’re moving away.”
Tex depressed his comm. “Follow until we’re clear.” He looked down at Emily, voice low but firm. “Sorry. We need to move out of this area. Your camera will have to wait.”
She opened her mouth to argue, but the sudden shout cut her short.
In an instant the team reacted, hands on her shoulders and arms, hustling her off the path into the deep shadows. Shark shoved her down, her palms hitting the damp earth just as the first crack of gunfire split the night.
Rounds chewed through foliage overhead. The jungle lit in strobing flashes, fireflies of death sparking in the trees.
Brawler’s tense voice snapped in Flash’s ear. “Rival tangos engaging. It’s ugly.”
Tex’s gaze cut sharply to Shark. “Back up, Brawler.”
Shark peeled off without hesitation, melting into the brush with the kind of speed and silence that always left civilians blinking in disbelief.
Flash’s pulse hammered. The jungle had fangs, and they were bared now. Lechuza might whisper from the sky, but the real monsters tonight carried rifles.
“LT, there’s a family in the crossfire. Two kids. Permission to engage,” Brawler’s tense voice came through as a whisper. Danger must be close.
Tex stood, eyes narrowing. “Sending Flash.” Then, keeping his comm live, he pierced him with a look. “Draw them off. Discreetly. Act like one of the tangos.”
Flash was already moving before the order finished, NVGs glowing green as he slid into the shadows. The jungle became angles and obstacles, trees, brush, roots clawing the ground. Gunfire cracked, bullets whizzing past, splintering trunks, leaves spinning down in shredded confetti.
He skirted the firefight, heart steady, senses alive. Then he saw them, a father crouched low, shielding his wife and two terrified kids.
Flash slipped into position, sliding between them and the two tango bands.
He raised his rifle and started firing on the move, his path cutting sharp and sideways across the line of fire.
Bullets stitched the ground, drawing enemy eyes.
“Come on, you fuckers,” he muttered, lips curling. “Follow the bouncing bullets.”
The tactic worked like a charm. The dad snatched his family and bolted, vanishing into cover.
Flash disengaged, a self-satisfied smirk tugging his mouth, then froze. Out of the corner of his eye, a flicker of movement.
A woman. Long, straight hair, features achingly beautiful, so sharp she cut the air. She looked right at him, expression taut, almost urgent.
His gut clenched.
Then she turned and ran.
Something inside him snapped. Too close, too real. Without thinking, he chased her into the shadows.
Emily watched Flash dash off, a streak of shadow and green-glow from the goggles swallowed almost instantly by the jungle.
Her gaze darted to her cleverly concealed camera, the small, camouflaged box blending into moss and bark.
It would take seconds to change it out. Rationally, she knew the men around her could keep her alive, knew her life was in good hands.
But even with danger pressing in from every shadow, she couldn’t stop herself from wanting what she had worked so hard for.
These cameras weren’t just data. They were proof.
Of survival. Of persistence. Of meaning. To her…they were worth the risk.
She crawled forward on hands and knees, damp earth seeping into her palms, the reek of loam and old leaves thick in her nose.
The humid air pressed against her like a second skin, heavy with smoke and cordite bleeding from the firefight downrange.
She slid the full SD card free, tucking it safely into her pouch.
Then her breath hitched. The moon broke through the canopy in a pale shaft, illuminating the faint depressions in the soil, a jaguar track, claw marks blurred in a scramble. Fresh. Something had happened here.
Her chest clenched. What if it was Sombra?
What if something had hurt her or the cubs?
The thought carved a hollow ache in her gut, a wild panic rising sharp and fast. She couldn’t bear the idea of their small bodies broken, of the fierce mother silenced.
Not them. Not after all the odds they’d already fought to survive.
Suddenly, the team bugged out, movement behind her, the sweep of shadows as every operator shifted in unison. Emily turned her head in confusion just in time to see Brawler and Beast barreling toward her, massive and silent as a landslide.
“Don’t move!” His voice cracked like a shot.
She meant to comply, but the earth betrayed her. The ground shuddered, then collapsed. Her stomach dropped as soil and roots gave way beneath her.
Something heavy and fast launched over her shoulder, followed by a sharp yelp.
Emily scrabbled, nails raking dirt, boots sliding for purchase, but the slope carried her down. Branches snapped across her arms and face. Breath burst from her lungs. The world flipped end over end.
Brawler hit high on the slope, the earth giving way under him.
His body tumbled, rolling hard, dirt and rock battering his ribs, shoulders slamming into roots, his teeth clacking with every jolt.
The jungle blurred, sky and ground trading places until the slope finally spat him out at the bottom.
The ground slammed his shoulder, jarred down to his teeth.
His helmet askew, he righted it, pushing up the NVGs.
Beast yelped, rolling to his side, scrabbling upright with dirt caked in his fur. Brawler’s heart clenched hard. Christ. Sorry, buddy. Beast was more than a dog. He was his other half in the field, his lifeline. If the fall had broken something, if he’d failed his partner?—
Relief cut sharp when the Malinois shook himself, braced, and came up steady, eyes already scanning the dark like nothing could put him down.
Fuck. What an idiot. Beast froze at the edge of the slope for a reason, muscles bunched, ears pricked. A silent warning. Brawler should’ve read it, but his focus was locked on Emily being where she had no business. He tripped over his partner’s flank, momentum already carrying them forward.
Then…impact.
Emily landed full length on top of him, knocking the wind from his chest for the second time but in a completely different way. For a heartbeat, everything stopped. The crack of gunfire above. The stink of churned earth. The jungle pressing close.
They lay in a bruising tangle, dirt grinding into skin, the world still spinning from the fall. Sharp, ragged breaths tore from them both, the kind you couldn’t hold back after being knocked around by the earth itself.
She shifted with a pained sound, her body pressed to his, ribs rising and falling against his chest. Brawler gritted his teeth, forcing air into lungs that didn’t want to expand, every muscle jarred and throbbing.
Beneath it all, the adrenaline spike that had already surged through him slammed lower, swelling hard as her small, fiery body lay against his.
Fuck. Third impact. Harder than the fall, harder than the bruises. Too close. Too goddamn close.
It wasn’t just color. It was Emily etched in color and vibrancy like she already knew him, reaching for the parts he’d buried deepest. Recognition slammed through him, raw and unyielding, as if she could see every scar and secret he’d ever tried to hide, and the ache he had to share them.
They weren’t still, but sparking with life, throwing back the moonlight like flame catching and flaring in the dark. There was nothing he could do to stop himself from staring.
A storm of green seas, flecked with gold, copper lightning striking at the edges. Too much. Too wild. Fairy magic.
He was lost.
He sucked in air, sharp and jagged, every nerve in his body fired raw. More of that chemical rush roared through him, molten and uncontainable, and before he could leash it, his body betrayed him.
His hips surged, hard and urgent, pressing against her belly.