Her voice again—closer now, fractured. “Dax, breathe. Please, just breathe.”
I drag air in, choking on it. Salt burns my eyes. My chest stutters.
She’s here.
She’s not.
Her face leans over me, tears falling hot on my skin. I swear I feel them.
“Don’t you dare leave me.”
I try to lift my hand. My fingers twitch against the restraint, desperate to touch her, to anchor her real. But all I feel is leather, straps biting deep, holding me down like the desert itself.
And all I can think—If she lets go now, I won’t find my way back. So I hold her name on my tongue, raw and ragged, until my lips split.
“Butterfly.”
Again.
“Butterfly.”
Like a prayer.
Like the only fucking thing keeping me alive.
The ceiling is melting. Dripping into my eyes. Into my mouth. Bitter. Metallic. I taste iron. I taste her. Her thighs around me, her lips swollen, her tears on my tongue but when I reach for her, my hand comes back red.
I blink—and it’s Mason’s blood again.
All over me.
All over her.
She’s there with gauze and trembling hands, pressing down, sobbing, “You’re losing him, Dax, you’re losing him?—”
My heart slams so hard I feel the monitors screaming, but I don’t hear them. I hear her. Always her.
“Promise me you’ll come back.”
“I can’t promise you that.”
I choke on it, the memory, the lie. My chest rattles like broken glass.
“Dax—”
Her voice again.
Soft. Fragile. Terrifying.
I turn my head—she’s kneeling on the chapel floor, shards of stained glass glittering in her hair. Moonlight paints her like a saint, but her eyes… Christ, her eyes are hell.
“You left me,” she whispers. Her mouth trembles, her throat works, and it guts me worse than any bullet. “You always leave me.”
I lunge forward—can’t, my wrists yank tight against the restraints. My throat tears raw. “No—no, Butterfly, I didn’t—I?—”
But she’s gone again.
Smoke swallows her.
