The connection severed like a split cable, leaving Flash gasping on the floor, his nose bleeding freely now, ears ringing from the sudden silence.
"Flash!" Easy hauled him upright. "What did he say?"
Twister pressed a warm, damp washcloth to his face. “Tip your head back.”
Flash wiped blood from his face with the terry, his voice hoarse. "We've got fifteen minutes. Fly and North…they're dying, helpless, and there are assassins coming for them."
Flash dragged in a breath, forcing air into lungs that didn’t want to work. Fifteen minutes. That wasn’t time. That was a countdown to body bags.
“They’re not just dying,” he said, pushing to his feet, wiping the last of the blood from his face. “They’re being torn apart, and Aurelion—” The name was unfamiliar, musical and ancient all at once. “—he said assassins are already moving on them. We can’t lose him, or we’re really done.”
No one questioned the name. No one asked what the hell an assassin meant in this context because they all felt it. That sense of something already in motion.
He looked at Easy, speculation in his eyes. “You contacted them. Names?”
“Lieutenant Flynn Gallagher and Lieutenant Nathaniel Locklear. He’s Bear’s brother. Joker’s team trained them when they were wet-behind-the-ears teenagers. Graduated with honors from Annapolis.” He swallowed. “I was their BUD/S instructor.”
“Everything is connected,” Tex murmured.
“What do we have to do?” Bondo asked.
Tex didn’t hesitate. “You’re not going?”
Bondo’s head swiveled toward him, eyes narrowing. “The hell I’m?—”
“We need to get to base. I have the paperwork on my desk to choose two junior officers for the mentoring program. Those two are on my list. No coincidence. We have to get that order paperwork going, and I’m not the one who pushes the paper. It’ll move faster if you’re with me, Angelo.”
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 needthemunder command. That’s cover, that’s access, that’s everythingwe 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.
