“—get Cass?—”
“—she’s the only one trained for?—”
Her name. My chest seizes at it because they’re right.
She’s the only one.
Her eyes flick to the door. Then to me. Torn in half.
“Dax—”
I shake my head, small, jerking. My throat burns. “Don’t.”
She bends low, her forehead brushing mine. I can feel her breath, hot and frantic. “They need me.”
“I need you.”
The words scrape raw out of me. Fragile. Pathetic. True.
For a second, she breaks. Her shoulders shake, her lips press to my temple like she’s trying to fuse me together with the shape of her mouth and then the tent erupts again. A body dragged past, blood smearing the floor. A man coughing up pieces of his lungs two cots away. A medic barking her name again.
“Cass!”
The war has already reached in here and it won’t let her stay.
I can feel it.
The desert. The blast. The ghosts. They’re coming for me all over again and this time, they want her too.
I can’t move.
That’s the worst part.
I’m strapped to the cot by tubes, lines, pain. I’ve dragged men through fire with less blood left in me than I’ve got now, but I can’t even sit up. Can’t grab her wrist. Can’t pull her back down into me where she belongs.
So I watch.
Her hand slips from mine. Slow. Like she’s scared I’ll shatter if she lets go too fast. And maybe I will. My fingers twitch uselessly at empty air, trying to catch what’s already gone.
The flap opens, and she’s swallowed. Boots, noise, blood. Her name ripped out of the chaos like a command.
Cass.
The sound echoes in my skull until it’s not her name anymore, it’s mine.
Dax, Dax, Dax—but no one’s calling me. No one’s keeping me here.
The war creeps in fast.
Cots groan. Men howl. The smell of iron and diesel eats the air. I blink, and I swear I’m back on the road, dust in my teeth, bodies twisted in the crater.
No. No.
I dig my nails into the thin mattress. The monitor ticks too loud beside me, matching my heartbeat, frantic, screaming. My chest feels split open. Every beep is a countdown.
“Cass…”
It slips out of me, hoarse, small. A plea, not a call.
