I laugh—sharp, hysterical. “You know what happiness is, Dax? You alive. You breathing. That’s it. That’s all I fucking want. But you can’t even give me that—you’d rather run back into the fire and let it burn whatever’s left of you!”
He drags a hand through his hair, pacing. “You don’t get it.”
“No—you don’t get it!” I jab his chest again. “I watched you almost die. Do you have any idea what that did to me? Do you care?”
“Of course I fucking care!” His shout cracks the night, birds scattering. “But if I stay, if I sit here and play house while they fight without me—what am I? Tell me what the fuck I am.”
My voice shreds. “Mine.” The word rips straight out of my ribs. “You’re mine, Dax. That’s who you are.”
The night holds its breath.
His voice drops. “Cass…”
“Don’t say my name like you still get to keep it.”
He steps closer, only to stop—his hand hovering, shaking. “I don’t know how to stay… but I swear to God, I don’t know how to leave you either.”
My vision blurs. My heart splits.
“Then kiss me like you’ll never get another chance,” I whisper. “Kiss me like the world ends tonight.”
He slams into me like a man starved, like a man drowning, like a man who’s been choking on silence his whole life and finally remembers how to breathe. His hands fist in my hair, drag me up into him until my feet barely touch the ground. His mouth is bruising, breaking, begging.
I gasp but he swallows it, devours it, turns it into something desperate and holy. Whiskey, war, salt from my tears—all of it fuses into a kiss that feels like fire licking through my bones.
The world falls away.
The stars.
The music.
The pain.
All that’s left is him.
He pulls back only enough to breathe against my mouth, voice trembling like it’s killing him.
“Butterfly… if I die tomorrow, at least you’ll know the last thing I loved was you.”
It destroys me and then he kisses me again, harder, deeper, until the word love is burned into my bones, until the ache in my chest is the only proof I’m still alive.
His mouth is on mine again—too hard, too much, too late. My fists slam against his chest once, twice, but he doesn’t let go, and the worst part is I don’t want him to. My lips are raw, wet with his, my tears streaking down between us until I don’t know where I end and he begins.
I wrench back just enough to gasp, my voice ragged, breaking against his mouth.
“You broke us. Not me—you. You!”
The words hit him like shrapnel. His jaw jerks, his grip falters—but only for a second. Then he drags me closer, his forehead crashing against mine, our noses scraping, teeth clashing in another kiss that tastes like blood and fury.
“I know,” he growls into my mouth, swallowing my sob. “I fucking know. And I’ll spend the rest of my life stitching us back together if I have to?—”
“You can’t—” I cry, biting his lip hard enough to draw copper. “You can’t fix what you shattered?—”
His hands cage my face, rough, shaking, desperate. “Then let me bleed for it. Let me bleed for you.”
The kiss that follows isn’t beautiful. It’s violent, wet, unhinged—like two people clawing at each other’s throats just to keep from drowning. My nails rake his neck, his tongue punishes mine, and when his breath tears out of him it feels like it’s ripping straight through my lungs too.
There’s no grace here. No poetry.
