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. Somethingwatching 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. Somethingturned their attention toward them, knew they were there.
Twin menaces, radiating malevolence, were already moving…toward them.
2
The desert nightpressed against the corrugated metal of the hangar like a physical weight. Inside, the only light came from three monitors arranged in a semicircle around a metal desk, their blue glow casting her reflection back at Lechuza, sweat beading on her temples as she compiled data she'd collected on the person impersonating her. A cold, crystalline anger settled deep in her bones, sharp and clean, unlike the hot fury of her early years. This was precision rage, honed by betrayal. Someone was systematically dismantling her life, besmirching her reputation with the agency, isolating her from the people she trusted, threatening the work she'd sworn her life to protect. Each new data point on the screen was another stone added to the foundation of her resolve. She would find out who was doing this, and she would end them.
She’d spent her life being prepared, autonomous. No one would ever control her, not the Shadowguard, not this phantom impersonator, not…her thoughts scattered whenever she thought of him…Flash. Not control, never that with him. Something else that made her heart skip and jump, and her breath catch. She closed her eyes, her fingers quiet for amoment, remembering his touch, his scent, the taste of him. She’d let him get under her guard, but it was a trap, her emotions working to control her and putting him in the crosshairs with her. The thought shivered along her nerve endings. He wasn’t for her, too much risk to her, to him, but the pull was magnetic.
Her father taught her that life was never stable. It could turn on a dime, and she found comfort inside uncertainty. Control was survival, connection always a risk. Six months. That's how long she'd been hunting and being hunted, how long it had taken to establish the Eyrie with her family’s help and loyalty and gather intel. She was safe for now, but nothing was ever guaranteed.
From the outside, the abandoned Bell 47 helicopter facility looked exactly as it had for decades, rusting, forgotten, reclaimed by the Arizona desert. Part of her father's holdings, lost in the vast fortune. But inside, the hangar had been transformed into her sanctuary and her command center. The original maintenance pit now housed a temperature-controlled server room with quantum encryption capabilities. Hydraulic lifts could raise customized workstations from the floor when needed, then lower them to maintain the abandoned appearance. Tool chests that once held wrenches and spare parts now contained weapons and surveillance equipment.
The assassinations, five in total now, each bearing her signature, had been executed with accuracy that even she found unnerving.
But it was the sixth file that made her blood freeze.
