She doesn’t look at me when she says it?—
“At least if I die here, I’ll die fighting for something.”
I don’t say what I’m thinking. That if she dies here, I’ll burn this place to the fucking ground.
“Anything else, Sergeant Kingston?” she asks, voice detached. Controlled.
I grit my teeth.
The war’s still roaring in my ears.
The blood hasn’t stopped pumping.
The ghosts haven’t shut up.
But her?
She’s already walking away.
So I say the only thing I can.
“You should’ve stayed gone, Butterfly.”
I watch her flinch.
I hate myself more than I ever have before.
The second she’s gone, the air changes.
Like the tent itself knows something sacred just snapped in half.
The flap of the tent swings closed behind her, and I just stand there.
Breathing.
Bleeding.
Choking on all the things I didn’t say.
“You should’ve stayed gone, Butterfly.”
God, I’m such a fucking bastard.
I drop down beside Mason’s cot, boots slipping in blood that’s not mine this time. His face is pale. Grey under the bruising and he hasn’t opened his eyes since the roadside ambush ripped our convoy apart and turned his thigh into something unrecognisable.
He saved me.
Stupid bastard. Always pushing too far forward, always laughing too loud, always standing between me and the bullet even when I didn’t ask.
Especially when I didn’t ask.
“Hey, man,” I mutter, fingers curling around the metal frame of the cot like I might crush it. “Still breathing?”
Nothing.
Not even a twitch.
Only the faint sound of machines beeping behind me.
