Chapter 16 #3
She dropped her head into her hands. This was getting her absolutely nowhere.
Her heart contracted hard. She clenched her jaw, squeezed her eyes closed on the prick of tears.
He will find you, Emily . She took a shuddering breath.
Yes, he would. She looked up at her desk.
The dissertation draft challenged her. Notes piled high.
Dani’s ghost whispering between the lines.
The pain of not knowing where he was, if he was thinking of her, if she would ever see him again, dragged at her. He will find me.
She rose, dropped into the chair, flicked on the lamp, and booted up her desktop. If she couldn’t sleep, she could work. She didn’t have her notes or her SD cards, but she had her mind and her memories.
Her fingers shook at first, every keystroke jagged, uneven.
She read, revised, rewrote. She stared at paragraphs until the words blurred.
She tried again. Whole sections were too thin; her advisor would tear them apart.
So, she filled them, sharpened them, stretched the data she had until it looked whole.
The knife of loss pressed in, but she refused to let it gut her.
Hours bled away. The sky outside her window lightened to gray, then pink. She rubbed her burning eyes, blinked at the final page. Exhaustion hollowed her out, but she’d done it. It wasn’t perfect and never would be, but it was finished.
With a breath that rattled in her chest, she hit Send.
Then she lay her head on her arms and slept like the dead.
Two days later, her phone buzzed.
Emily swiped it up, heart pounding. A text.
Emily. I got your field section, and your conclusions. Let’s talk.
Her stomach dropped. The world tilted. Was this just the beginning of the end?
“No,” Flash rasped. His voice broke like dry wood. “That wasn’t me. That’s not real. None of this is real.”
He yanked at his body like it was a parachute that refused to open. Wake the fuck up. Come on, wake up. Panic surged hot and helpless, the kind he hated most.
The forest bled away. Smoke, shouts, and muskets dissolved into black. He was back in the void, chest heaving, fists clenched.
“Fuck you!” His shout ricocheted into silence. “I’m not your pawn. I won’t play your games.”
The black pressed harder. No answer. No release.
Gradually, the silence shifted. Not gone, changed. He wasn’t drowning anymore. He was listening, whether he meant to or not.
A thought clawed its way in, unwanted but undeniable. The shadow behind the enemy… it was the same as the jungle. The same presence that had stalked him from Venezuela into Ecuador.
He shook his head violently. “No. No. I fight men, not unexplained woo-woo shit.” But the words rang hollow.
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, their toes 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 to survive long 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 from Lord of the Rings marathons and jabs at Brawler for falling for a pixie?
Nothing. Except…maybe not nothing. Myths weren’t born from nowhere.
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.
Those shadows, fuck, those shadows. Chaos. The word itself shivered through him like a blade on steel. Was it fighting his side of the Veil for centuries? Was it still fighting now?
He dragged in a breath, chest heaving. He’d always thought of the US as the linchpin.
A deterrent to the world. Peacekeepers, guardians, a bastion against tyranny and conquest. But the visions bled truth into him whether he wanted it or not.
The birth of his nation had been tumultuous, tested, nearly broken. Every war since had been a trial.
Maybe that was the point.
Maybe it wasn’t just about politics, borders, leaders. Maybe it was about spirit. The indomitable spirit of his kind, the men and women who stood up and said, I’ll fight. I’ll sacrifice. I’ll give my life for this idea, this concept, this conviction of freedom.
I’ll fight evil. I’ll strive for justice. I’ll protect the innocent.
I’ll carry my brothers.
I’ll carry them, honor them, bleed for them.
I’ll be what I am. Warrior. SEAL. Brother. Protector. Guardian until my dying breath. He floated, and threads started weaving together.
Three days.
Three days of waiting. Three days of silence. Three days while Emily sat alone somewhere, terrified, thinking no one was coming for her.
Tex had finally had enough.
Two black SUVs rolled up to the State Department like a storm front.
Seven SEALs spilled out, moving with precision and purpose, and the polished marble lobby warped around them.
Suits froze mid-step, aides stopped speaking, secretaries watched open-mouthed, their eyes climbing over all that show of muscle.