Just ruin.
Just us.
When we finally tear apart, panting, bruised, his voice breaks the night like a vow and a curse all at once:
“You can hate me, you can blame me, but don’t you fucking let go, Butterfly. Because I’ll die before I ever let go of you.” And then he takes my mouth again, messy, brutal, endless, until I don’t know if I’m screaming or sobbing or praying.
Chapter Thirty Two
Dax
I don’t have to go back.
That’s the part that eats me alive.
I’m not cleared for the field anymore. Not with the limp. Not with the shrapnel scars carved deep in my ribs like the desert wanted to keep a piece of me. They told me I could stay here. Desk. Stateside. Minimal risk. Heal.
War doesn’t let you heal.
It crawls into your bones and whispers in your ear while you sleep and Cassandra—God, my Butterfly—she doesn’t understand. She looks at me with those eyes like I’m something worth saving. Like I’m a man who could wake up, stay here, build something that isn’t made of ghosts and gunfire.
But I’m not.
I’m the man who still wakes up choking on sand. Who smells diesel and blood in every crowd. Who sees kids on rooftops with cell phones and thinks: trigger. I’m the bastard who drags his brothers’ names around like dog tags, who hears Reese scream every time the world goes quiet.
The only way I know how to breathe is to go back into the fire.
She doesn’t deserve that truth.
So I give her another.
“I’m leaving.” The words scrape out of me like shrapnel pulled slow. Her face goes pale, her lips part, and I swear I see her chest collapse like I just shot her myself.
“You don’t have to.” Her voice cracks. “You don’t?—”
I cut her off, because if I let her speak, I’ll fold. “It’s not frontline. It’s logistics. Safer. Cleaner. Someone’s gotta keep the machine running.”
Her eyes burn. “So you’re choosing it.”
She’s right but I don’t let her have it. I twist the blade instead. “It’s who I am, Cass. You knew that when you loved me.”
Her tears spill. I hate myself for wanting to catch them on my tongue because here’s the truth I’ll never give her: I’d stay.
I’d stay if I thought I could be enough for her. If I thought I could hold her without bleeding on her every time. If I thought I could give her a life without nightmares in every corner.
I can’t.
So I break my own fucking heart when I break hers.
Her fists slam my chest. “You’ll leave me again. You’ll come back in a box. You’ll?—”
“I’ll come back.” My voice cracks, brutal, jagged. “Even if it kills me, I’ll come back.”
Even as I say it, I know it’s a lie.
The war doesn’t give back what it takes and when she finally turns away, shoulders shaking, I let her go because if I hold on, I’ll never leave and if I never leave, I’ll drown her right here in all the wreckage I am.
So I watch her break in front of me and I tell myself it’s mercy.
