Chapter 15 #2
Then, without a word, he spun and bolted in a different direction.
His grip on her waist was punishing, aggravating the bruises, 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 current was 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.
That helplessness was more terrifying than the gunfire still ripping the jungle apart around them.
“God, no…please—” she sobbed, trying to hold him, trying to still his thrashing body.
Then rough hands seized her, jerking her back. She shrieked, kicked, fought, but more came, shadows of men with rifles, yanking her arms behind her, dragging her away from him.
“Flash!” she screamed, reaching for him as the jungle tilted, her nails raking the dirt.
But he lay motionless now, chest heaving shallow, eyes rolled back, the sound of that scream still ringing in her ears as she was torn from him.
They dragged her through the jungle, boots skidding over roots and rocks, her lungs burning with sobs she couldn’t bite back.
Flash was hauled alongside, two men gripping him under the arms. His head lolled, mouth slack, every few steps she searched for life, but it was as if he was inert.
Whatever had happened back there had ripped something vital out of him, and Emily’s stomach twisted with helpless terror.
The trees broke into a clearing.
A busy camp sprawled before her, teeming with activity.
Men moved in sharp, purposeful lines, their rifles slung but ready, voices barking orders over the low growl of idling trucks.
Canvas tents hunkered under the weight of the humid air, their flaps stirring like restless mouths.
A cooking fire smoked acrid in the center, the scent of grease and sweat mingling until it turned her stomach.
Towering over it all, the prize. Hellfire missiles. Stacked in neat rows, their olive drab casings glinting dully beneath tarps. Loaded like cargo, ready for transport. The sight slammed into her chest like a physical blow.
This wasn’t chaos. This was commerce. Efficient. Calculated. Deadly.
Her mind painfully snapped back to the downed Marine chopper squatting in the dirt, its rotors shattered, tail sheared away. The cockpit was still intact, the windows cracked and clouded with soot.
Two men sat slumped in the seats, helmets tilted forward, uniforms stained dark with blood. No one had bothered to move them. No attempt to cover their bodies. Just left there like their lives had meant nothing.
Emily’s throat closed. She pressed a hand hard against her mouth, trying to keep the bile down. These weren’t warriors anymore, not even men. To the smugglers, they were nothing. Trash. Debris.
Her chest squeezed until it hurt. She thought of Brawler, of Flash now at their mercy, of the team still fighting somewhere in the trees. Any one of them could be left like that, stripped of humanity, forgotten in the dirt.
The cruelty of it carved a hollow ache in her gut,
They shoved her forward, and she stumbled hard. Her knees hit packed dirt, and she hated those men, understood evil. Then they forced her into a tent, the smell of sweat, blood, and damp canvas closing around her.
They callously let go of Flash. Emily lunged before she could think, arms wrapping around him, his weight dragging her down.
She broke his fall with her body, grunting at the pain, but worth every bruise.
“No, no, I’ve got you.” She cradled his head in her lap, brushing sweat-soaked hair from his clammy forehead.
His skin was burning one second, icy the next.
There was no movement, no life. She checked his pulse, her heart suspended until she felt the strong, steady beat.
Her throat tightened. “Please, God, hold on.” She didn’t even know if he could hear her.
When she tore her gaze up, she froze.
Six men lined the far side of the tent, their uniforms torn, faces bruised and bloody.
Marines. Their backs were against the canvas, shoulders squared, eyes sharp despite the swelling and exhaustion.
They were wounded, outnumbered, stripped of weapons, but the way they carried themselves told Emily one thing with bone-deep certainty: These were not men who gave up.
Their gazes locked on hers, steady. Measuring. As if she were an unexpected variable they now had to account for.
Relief hit so hard it left her dizzy. Marines. The men who rescued SEALs. Now she had allies.
Emily’s heart lurched. She pulled Flash closer, her arms tightening around him. Whatever nightmare had taken him, whatever danger they were in, she had every intention of getting them all out of this alive.
Somewhere out there, that savage wolf pack prowled, and they were coming for her and their teammate. No doubt about it.
Brawler wiped the blood from his knife, scanning the clearing for movement.
Flash’s voice broke the quiet with an inhuman scream in the distance. It sent birds exploding into flight, monkeys screaming, the very jungle shaking. All the hair on Brawler’s body bristled, his blood froze, a chill ripping down his spine.
Every man froze where he stood. They’d all heard death cries, pain-filled cries, the broken sounds of men bleeding out.
This wasn’t that. This was soul-deep, torn raw, a sonic human boom reverberating through the jungle, unnatural and shattering.
Visceral. Final. A warrior’s agony twisted into something none of them had words for.
Then it hit him. Emily. She was gone.
Brawler’s chest clenched until he couldn’t breathe. His ears rang with the echo of the anguished sound, his gut urging him to move, to run, to find his brother and Emily before that scream was the last thing they ever heard from him.
Tex didn’t speak. He didn’t need to.
The team moved as one, boots tearing through the brush, rifles up, their silence louder than any order.
Beast’s hackles bristled, his body shaking with fury as he surged ahead, nose down, pulling hard at the leash of command.
They ran toward the sound. Toward their brother. Toward the fight. Toward the woman they had all fallen for, Brawler the hardest.
They stopped at the churned-up earth. Someone had fought and fought hard.
Emily. Flash.
Brawler’s gut seized, dread twisting like barbed wire. He forced his voice steady. “They took them. Flash and Emily.”
Tex’s jaw locked, his breath hissing sharply through his nose. “Our brother and our Shortcake?” His voice was low, lethal. “No. Goddamn way.” He turned, eyes sweeping the team. “Lock and load, boys.”
Then he bent to Beast, voice dropping to a growl. “Track.”
The Malinois bristled, nose to the dirt. His teeth flashed once, sharp and feral, before he surged forward on the scent.
The SEALs followed, a wall of silent resolve moving through the trees until the camp came into view.
It was crawling with men.
“What’s the plan?” Dagger asked, his gaze focused on the compound as if he could kill every man there with just his eyes.
Brawler stripped off his pack, handed Easy his weapon, and met Tex’s eye. “I’m going to berserk-run to them, and you’re going to cover me.”
Tex looked at Twister.
“It’s a graze, minor,” Twister shrugged.
Tex looked at Bondo. The big man nodded without a word. Shark, too, already moving into the trees with his rifle. “Hoo-yah,” Tex said. “That’s my never quit man.”
“Damn straight. No fucking way anyone is going to save Emily but me.”
Tex’s voice came low, steady, unbreakable. “On my order.” Behind him, his brothers raised their rifles, blood in their eyes. “You get to Flash and our Shortcake,” Tex said, deadly and absolute, “and we’ll sling lead until no one is standing.”
Brawler glanced down at Beast. The dog’s amber gaze burned, hackles raised, as if promising in a language older than war that nothing would survive what was coming.