“EAST. Flash’s.”
"No." The word came out sharp, panicked. She turned away, pressing her hands against the workstation, fighting the wave of emotions crashing through her. "Not him. Anyone but him."
“What, your lover boy will be too distracting? Make your heart go pitty-pat.” Bagh's voice carried a knowing amusement, but there was just a hint of bitterness underneath.
Her hands tightened on the workstation's edge.
Her shoulders tensed. The mention of him hit at her in places she couldn’t control, reminding her of strong hands and gray eyes and the way he'd looked at her like she was something precious instead of dangerous.
"Put a sock in it, Bagh," O-voo growled.
"I can't have him involved," she said, her voice strained. "He doesn't understand what he's walking into. Komodo will use him as bait, and Krait will tear apart anyone who gets between her and her target. Flash and his team are walking into a psychological minefield."
"Maybe that's not your choice to make," O-voo said quietly. "Maybe he's already made his."
She spun to face them, fear and anger mingling. "He's being sent to hunt me down. To capture me. Do you understand what that means?"
Bagh studied her with those sharp, dark eyes. "Means you're going to have to decide what matters more. The mission or the man."
The words hung in the air between them, heavy with implication. Something cracked in her chest, the careful control she'd built around her heart starting to fracture.
"The mission," she said finally, but the words felt like ash in her mouth. "It has to be the mission."
O-voo and Bagh exchanged a look that said they didn't believe her for a second.
When they were gone, she left the command center after settling it for the night, retiring to her repurposed traffic control tower. Inside, she left the lights off, needing the darkness.
Could she hide from herself?
She pressed her palm flat against the window, taking in the desert’s beauty, the star-studded sky, longing flowing hard and liquid through her.
Her breath caught just from the memory of how Jae "Flash" Shaw moved with the economy of a predator, all coiled energy and controlled power. His was a lean, sinewy strength, the kind forged through relentless conditioning rather than bulk, suggesting stamina that could outlast the storm. A sharp, angular face was framed by hair the color of midnight, but it was the silvery scar that cut a clean path through his eyebrow and down his cheekbone that drew the eye, a permanent reminder of violence narrowly survived. What truly rattled her, though, were his arresting gray eyes. The color of a squall line gathering on the horizon, holding an unnerving stillness that seemed to catalog every micro-expression, every flicker of doubt. Yet, when he chose to deploy it, his wit was a weapon, a dry, unexpected humor that could slice through tension with the same lethal efficiency he applied to everything else.
That craving that never went away washed over her, and her head dropped to the glass. “Hunting me will kill you. Pleasestayaway.Please, Jae.” Her breath wisped out. “Please.”
4
Once the teamwas all assembled back at Tex’s, Fly looked at them. “I see what’s at stake here, and that terrorist isn’t going to destroy a goddamn thing. What do we have to do?”
“I need to confer with the Guardian,” Flash said, relieved down to his toes.
Fly flashed a wry grin. “You have a comm right to the cosmic boss, huh?”
“Something like that.”
“Was it as painful as what we experienced at the hotel?”
Flash closed his eyes, the whole ordeal rushing through him. His refusal to see what the Guardian was trying to articulate, all those wars, that transformation at the hotel not nearly as devastating as the one in the Ecuadorian jungle a world away, and Lechuza, so close he could almost touch her skin, feel the downy softness of her feathers. “More. But I endured. We all did. Let’s open a channel and get our questions answered.”
“Intel gathering. I’m in.”
“You’re going to be able to hear his voice. Some of the guys catch glimpses of him. So be prepared.”
Fly dragged a hand through his hair, leaving it standing in spikes. "This just gets better and better. What the fuck?" He paced, ticking each one off on his fingers like he was logging evidence. "I've gotten caught in some supernatural hell, twice where physics took a shit, saw space folded in front of me, saw SEALs travel some corridor that belongs in the Marvel Universe, and almost dissolved and died today." He stopped, his face stilling, his voice dropping into the register he used for orders. "I rewired my fucking brain for this. Open the channel."
Several of the guys chuckled. “Is that an order, Lieutenant Gallagher, sir? Should I salute first?”
Fly gave him the finger, and Flash grinned.
