Just a night.
Just a moment I’d forget before morning.
But she’s in my blood now.
And I don’t know how to get her out.
Because I’m not just obsessed.
I’m starving.
And butterflies? They don’t survive men like me. They don’t get kissed in mirror rooms and walk away untouched. They don’t fly.
They fucking fall.
They don’t survive war zones either.
My jaw clenches as I stare out the window of this overpriced hotel suite like I’m still watching for movement, like someone’sabout to step out of the shadows and take the shot. It’s muscle memory. Bone-deep. Baked into the blood.
I don’t sleep unless I’ve cleared the exits.
I don’t trust smiles.
I don’t trust softness.
I don’t trust peace.
Because the last time I thought I was safe, I watched my best friend’s brains splatter against the side of a truck, and I didn’t even have time to blink.
“Don’t touch her,” I mutter under my breath.
But it’s not about Cassandra anymore.
It’s about her.
About the girl in Kabul who gave me that same soft fucking smile before she opened her jacket and blew herself into a thousand pieces right in front of me.
Her eyes were the same too — wide, innocent, too fucking trusting.
And I let my guard down.
Just for a second.
One second is all it takes to turn someone you love into ash.
I can still taste the dust on my tongue. Still hear my CO screaming through the comms. Still feel the heat, the blood, the goddamn thunder of it in my chest as I carried what was left of Jenkins back to the Humvee, knowing there was no point.
And now here I am.
Back in civilian life.
Except I’m not living.
I’m waiting.
For the next hit.
For the next goodbye.
