useless weight, and my ribs were their own vicious weapon, keeping my breaths
shallow. My vision wavered, but not enough to miss Ortega’s sightless eyes orthe spreading pool of blood glistening like an oil slick around his head.
Frantic, I forced my hands under my chest and shoved. My right wristcrumpled, and fire lanced across my chest as I landed on damaged ribs. Searing
agony triggered a choked scream. Panting, I forced myself to dig deep and keep
going. Gravel bit into my damaged hands, but I managed to drag my body closer
to Ortega.
“Ortega?” My voice shook, so did the crippled hand I pressed to his neck.
Nothing.
Cracks of gunfire punctuated the night. I lifted my head, hoping to locate the
rest of the team. My vision wavered and twisted, but somebody lay at the head ofthe alley, motionless. My heart clenched.
Tag.
I couldn’t tell if he was breathing or not. It didn’t look good. Fear overrode
my damaged body, and I dug my hands into the hard-packed dirt, prepared todrag myself toward him. Behind me a hoarse scream ripped through the night.
“God, no!”
I knew that voice. It raked against my panic and pain like razor blades.
Petrified, but unable to stop, I rolled over, half-propped by Ortega to watch thehorror unfolding behind me.
Part way down the alley, two men had someone pinned against the wall. My
vision wavered, and then cleared. Flash was still being held in place while athird man moved to stand in front of him. Flickering light came from somewhere,
illuminating the terror etching cruel lines across Flash’s face.
The third man, dressed in black, with wide shoulders, removed his gloves,revealing pale skin that seemed to glow against the night. Flash continued to
struggle against the other two. My mind tried to grasp the fact that a thin line ofblue-white flames outlined Flash’s arms without seeming to burn him.
“Go ahead and fight, Captain, I don’t mind.” The perverse enjoyment in the
voice chilled my soul. He raised his bare hands to cup Flash’s face, breaking theline of the blue-white flames.
There was no way to see what changed, but those horrific flames surged,turning solid white, then changing bit by bit to yellow. Yet neither Flash nor hisassailant burned. Not yet. Those flames weren’t normal. What was he using?
Why couldn’t I see his weapon?
I shoved my questions away, knowing if I didn’t do something now, theywould kill my friend, my mentor, in front of me. I searched Ortega’s body for a
weapon and came up empty as my heart raced. With no gun readily available, I
reached down my damaged leg and found my knife. With my vision swimming,my hand broken, and terror screaming through my veins, throwing it wasn’tsmart, but I was out of options. I aimed for the one holding Flash’s face. I musthave made some noise because the man closest to me looked up.
Then my knife did the impossible. It stopped in mid-air as if running into an
invisible barrier and dropped to the ground.
My mind stumbled.
A dark chuckle cut through the night.
The flames went from yellow to a hellish, reddish orange and Flash began to
scream.
The sound. Dear God, as if he was being ripped apart from the inside out.
The flames cast Flash’s face in an unearthly nimbus of fire. His screamsincreased, driving me forward.
Harsh sobs wracked my body. Then the smell drifted toward me. I began to
gag as the sickening odor of burning flesh replaced the dust-dried air. Horrorengulfed me even as Flash became the wick in a grisly pyre, the fire paintingmacabre shadows on the surrounding mud walls.
The two holding him stepped away, but the third still held his face, his hands
untouched by the flames.
