Chapter 1 #3
Bondo’s face contorted in the sheer agony of knowing that his brothers were going into combat without him. That look was reflected in Tex’s eyes. “Mike, I need—”
Tex interrupted him, sharp, unyielding. “We need them under command. That’s cover, that’s access, that’s everything we need long-term. You’re staying. We all know what’s at stake here.”
Bondo held his gaze. Measured him. Then gave a single, sharp nod. He turned to Flash. “You bring those boys back.”
“Count on it.”
Tex stepped forward, already shifting gears, already in command. “I got a gut feeling you’re not flying commercial.”
Flash exhaled once, barked out a laugh to release the tension in his chest. “No, no frequent flyer miles here. We’re going in blind.
Hoo-yah. This time we’re going to be way outside the wire, sir.
” Steadying himself, he reached for that gold-thread connection, and this time, instead of disorder, he felt a clean, stable pull that was more present than anything had been in his life.
He jolted when he felt them, saw their energy failing. He gritted his teeth. “They’re acting like an anchor,” he said. “Aurelion’s going to open something called a slip corridor. It’s not the Veil. It’s…a shortcut. We’ve got fifteen minutes before we’re pulled in.”
Tex’s jaw tightened. “Risks?”
Flash met his eyes and didn’t sugarcoat it. “If I don’t hold them all together, we don’t make it through.”
Tex nodded once. “Then you get them the hell through, Flash.”
Flash turned to the team. “On me. Remember surf torture like your life depends on it, because it does. Whatever happens, don’t let go. Physical contact the entire time. No exceptions.”
Easy stepped in first, linked arms with Flash. Shark moved in beside him, solid, immovable. Twister slid into position at his side, his touch light but deliberate. Dagger was next in the chain, his arm entwining, gripping Shark, the other sliding through Brawler’s loop.
Brawler hesitated half a second, his biceps flexing as he tightened his resolve. “Beast is already tracking,” he muttered. “Wherever the hell we’re going…he knows.”
As Brawler linked arms with Flash to form a circle, he nodded. Good. That would matter. Suddenly, he felt it, weight building in the air around them, like the moment before lightning strikes. The walls of Easy's bedroom began to shimmer.
The air warped, wrong, as if his logical reality-centered mind couldn’t comprehend the possibility of what was essentially magic.
SEALs didn’t believe in magic. They believed in weapons they could wield, gear that only enhanced who they were beneath it, teammates at their sixes, and a bond that carried them through fucking hell.
Sound dulled, and density built like the take-off of a C-17, as if the room itself was being compressed inward.
Twister sucked in a breath. “Flash…”
“I feel it,” he said, voice tight. “This chain is titanium. It’s our fucking link. Nothing can break it. Don’t let go of that picture in your head.”
The space in front of them folded as if reality forgot how to stay straight. Light bent inward, collapsing into a narrow, distorted seam that shimmered with something that wasn’t color, with movement within. Something watching from the other side of the distance.
Shark leaned forward slightly. “That’s our ride?”
Flash didn’t answer right away, because Aurelion’s voice, faint, strained, whispered through the fracture, Hold…together…
Flash clenched his jaw. “Yeah,” he said finally. “That’s us.”
“Buckle up, buttercups!” Twister said.
A great sucking sensation drew on him, the sense that this space was alive and whispering, Enter at your own peril.
Flash took a breath and, like stepping from a plane at thirty-K, he moved them forward, the energy carrying into what felt like fractured space, then into a tunnel of light that flashed like a kaleidoscope of color, not one pulse but so many, color he swore couldn’t be real.
The moment he committed, and that was the only thought in his head, Aurelion whispered, yes! Flash. That is the way.
The second he crossed the threshold, everything broke. No up or down. No air.
Power slammed into him from every direction, like being dragged through something too tight to exist.
The gold threads in his chest flared instinctively, sparkling like tiny bits of stars trapped in fluid streams of amber radiance, gleaming, burnished, dazzling.
He grabbed onto them, forced them outward, curling them around each of his teammates like an extension of himself, tangible light.
Easy. Steady. Locked in. Shark. Driving forward.
Twister. Fluid. Holding cohesion. Dagger.
Burning hot at the edges. Brawler…different.
Wild. Then, Beast. There. Running the same current.
The dog's essence hit him like a shock of pure loyalty, unquestioning and absolute.
Flash had always known Beast was brave, had seen him leap into gunfire without hesitation, but feeling it, the complete absence of doubt, the way love and duty burned in him like an unbreakable flame, stole his breath.
This was what it meant to be loved unconditionally.
To follow without question because the bond itself was sacred.
Flash gritted his teeth. “Stay with me!” he roared, not sure if the words even existed here.
The corridor shuddered. Something pulled at them, trying to peel them apart.
Thread by thread. Bond by bond. Flash poured everything he had into the connection.
Gold surged, his will tightened, locked, held.
“Nice try,” he growled. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with. ”
Reality rebounded with a force he was sure no human could endure. They hit hard. Marble. Cold. Solid. Real. Flash sucked in a brutal breath, lungs burning as air rushed back in. The smell hit next. Salt. Blood.
Screams of agony, mixed with sounds echoing from deeper in the suite. Retching. Choking. Unbearable pain.
They were built for pain. They knew pain, and had endured it all together, had come out the other side even more whole than they had been when they went in. The trident flared, showing the vow might be cracked, but the brotherhood wasn’t a piece of metal they pinned to their uniform.
Flash stiffened. The sound of someone being rent apart howled through the room.
“Fly!” Flash was already moving before the others got their footing.
The clock was already gone. Something else…The hair on the back of his neck lifted. Something turned their attention toward them, knew they were there.
Twin menaces, radiating malevolence, were already moving…toward them.