She looks like a fever dream in scrubs.
And all I can think is?—
No.
She’s too soft for this. Too bright. Too whole. This place—me—we’ll rip her apart.
“Butterfly.”
The word tears out of me before I can stop it. Like my throat wants to remember what it feels like to say her name without saying her name.
She takes a step closer, tears already rising.
“I—I didn’t know you were?—”
“Get the fuck away from me.”
Her mouth parts.
Eyes go wide.
“What?”
“You heard me.” My voice is a rasp now. A growl that doesn’t sound like mine. “Get away, Cassandra. Now.”
“But you’re hurt. You’re—Dax, you’re bleeding.”
“So?”
“You need to be treated?—”
“I don’t want your fucking hands on me.”
Her jaw locks, and something in her eyes shifts.
Not the softness I remember. Not the girl with syrup on her thighs and stardust in her hair. No. This one’s steel wrapped in scrubs. This one’s been walking through fire since I left her.
“Then find someone else to clear you,” she snaps, chin tilted. “Because if I don’t sign you off, you don’t go back out there.”
“You think I give a shit about paperwork?”
She doesn’t flinch. She should. She doesn’t. She takes another step forward. Closer to the blood. Closer to the bastard I’ve become.
“I don’t care if you hate me, Dax. But I’m the only medic available right now. And I am not letting you bleed out in this tent because you’re too much of a stubborn asshole to let me do my job.”
I stare at her.
At the tiny freckle beneath her right eye.
At the way her hands shake just enough to betray the fire in her voice.
At the edge in her spine that says she doesn’t care, not really, but the storm in her eyes that tells me she does.
Fuck.
I feel it hit me like the blast from earlier.
She’s here.
