Chapter 19
Chapter
Nineteen
Dax
The night bleeds into the base like smoke—slow, creeping, relentless.
Heat still clings to the sand even though the sun’s been gone for hours, radiating upward in shimmering waves that blur the outlines of the tents.
The whole outpost hums with distant noise—generators groaning, radios crackling, boots trudging through dirt, men barking orders over the static of their comms.
Out here, darkness isn’t quiet.
It’s loud.
Heavy.
Always moving.
And I shouldn’t be here.
Not near the medic tents.
Not near her.
Not fucking watching her smile at someone else like it didn’t cost me everything to let her go but I am because I’m weak. I’m an idiot. Even after all this time, even after all the blood, the bone, the goddamn body count—She’s still mine. Even if she doesn’t know it anymore.
I stand just beyond the canvas, shoulder pressed to the rusted pole, dirt in my teeth, sand in my boots, a storm in my chest.
The canvas wall flaps lightly in the evening breeze, lifting just enough for the warm med tent light to spill out in broken strips across the sand. I can hear soft voices inside, metal clinking, someone groaning through sedation.
And over it—
Her.
Laughing.
I watch her laugh.
Soft. Sweet.
The kind of laugh that’s supposed to mean something. The kind that used to be mine but it’s not for me anymore.
It’s for him.
Torres.
Golden boy. Clean cut. Smooth voice and puppy dog eyes like he’s never had to beg the world for mercy.
He doesn’t know her the way I do.
He doesn’t know what she sounds like when she breaks. What she smells like under my shirt, curled into my chest like she could sleep through a war if I was holding her. What her breath tastes like when she moans my name through syrup-sticky lips.
He doesn’t fucking know that her skin glows under kitchen light.
Or that she cries when she cums. Or that I still dream about the way she said please—not because she was scared, but because she fucking trusted me.
And now?
Now she’s giving him that smile?
That laugh?
That soft voice?
I clench my fists so tight my nails cut skin. She’s playing medic and I’m playing ghost because that’s what I am now.
The bastard who left.
The coward who watched her fall and didn’t reach out in time and now she’s standing there, brushing a loose curl behind her ear, laughing at something he said, while every part of me burns from the inside out.
Outside the tent, sand shifts under my boots. The scent of diesel mixes with sweat and heat. A spotlight above flickers, buzzing like it’s annoyed I’m still breathing.
Jealousy doesn’t just bite—it guts.
It rips through bone and reason and whatever self-control I’ve got left and fuck, I want to storm in there and drag her out by the wrist. I want to grab her, slam her up against the side of the truck, and remind her.
Who made her melt. Who made her scream. Who made her fucking his but I don’t move because I’ve already ruined her once and I know if I touch her now, I won’t stop.
Torres is leaning closer.
His hand brushes her arm and I see red.
He’s touching what I bled to protect.
My vision tunnels. My mouth tastes like iron.
I shift my stance, thumb tapping the side of my thigh like a trigger. One second away from walking in there. One breath away from losing the war I’ve been fighting inside my chest since the day I saw her name on the deployment list.
But then she steps back.
Not far.
Not enough.
But enough for me to breathe.
Barely.
She’s still smiling. That soft, flickering thing that used to be mine at 3am in my bed and I wonder if she’s pretending. Or if he’s already winning.
A voice behind me snaps me back.
“Yo, Kingston—briefing at 1800.”
I nod, eyes still locked on the shape of her in the tent light.
“I’ll be there.”
But I don’t move.
I’m rooted.
Raging.
Ruined.
Watching the girl I still fucking love flirt with a man who hasn’t earned her scars.
“What the fuck are you doing, Butterfly,” I whisper under my breath, jaw tight. “He doesn’t know you. Not like I do.”
And God help me if he ever finds out.
I walk. Fast. Like I can outrun the ache crawling up my throat.
Like I can outpace the heat in my chest, the phantom echo of her laugh, the way her body angled toward him like he was gravity.
The base stretches out around me in a maze of tents and corrugated metal huts.
Lanterns swing from poles, casting long shadows across the dirt.
The smell of gun oil lingers in the warm night air.
Somewhere, someone is singing off-key—some old country song the boys use to keep the fear from settling too deep.
Fucking Torres.
Golden-boy bastard with that easy grin and those clean hands like he’s never had to earn anything.
He doesn’t deserve her.
He doesn’t even fucking know her.
He thinks she’s pretty and soft but I’ve tasted her when she was shaking. I’ve felt her come apart in my hands. I’ve watched her beg for me with her lips trembling and syrup in her hair and nothing but my name on her tongue and now she’s smiling at him?
No.
No fucking way.
The fire’s already lit when I hit the edge of the camp.
Boys are sitting on crates and upturned helmets, passing around a bottle like it means something. Smoke. Laughter. The faint thrum of a Bluetooth speaker someone rigged up to play country shit that none of us really like.
“Kingston!” Burke grins, raising a metal cup. “Didn’t think you’d crawl out of that ghost cave of yours tonight.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Shit, someone’s cranky.”
Torres’ voice.
My blood fucking spikes.
I don’t look at him. I don’t fucking blink.
Burke tosses me the bottle.
I catch it, unscrew the cap, and drink like it owes me an apology.
It burns.
Good.
“Yo,” Jordan pipes up, “you see that girl from med? The one with the eyes?”
He whistles low. “Fuck, I’d fake a shrapnel wound for her.”
“Which one?”
“You know which one. The blonde. Tight mouth, looks like she’d punch you for bleeding on her floor.”
“That’s all of ‘em,” someone mutters.
“Nah,” I say, voice low. “He means Monroe.”
A few of them pause.
Torres smirks, like the name tastes sweet in his mouth.
“Monroe’s got moves,” he says, leaning back, hands behind his head. “Cute little smile. Even laughed at my jokes.”
I see red.
I take another swig.
“Probably just felt bad for you,” I mutter.
“What was that?” he grins.
I shrug. “Said it must’ve been pity. You’re not exactly funny.”
A few guys snort.
Burke raises a brow. “Shit, Dax. You drunk already?”
“No.”
Lie.
Another swallow.
My throat is on fire.
Good.
Let it burn me clean.
Torres keeps grinning. He’s too fucking relaxed. “So what’s the deal, Kingston?” he asks, eyes flicking to mine. “You and Monroe got a thing?”
“Do I look like I have a thing?”
He shrugs. “Didn’t say you did. Just saw the way you look at her.”
I stare at him. Long enough for him to shift slightly. Just a flicker.
I smile slow. Mean. “You don’t want to know how I look at her.”
Silence.
Then laughter, scattered and half-uneasy.
Burke tries to cut in. “Damn, boys. Can we not go full testosterone contest tonight?”
“Tell that to lover boy,” I mutter.
“I’m just saying—” Torres starts.
“Don’t.” I cut him off. My voice is steel.
He lifts his hands in mock surrender. “Easy, Kingston. Didn’t realise she was off-limits.”
“She’s not mine,” I say.
Lie.
“She can do whatever the fuck she wants,” I add.
Lie.
“She just doesn’t like boys.”
Truth.
The bottle makes another round. The fire crackles. My head’s spinning. Everything’s louder now—the laughter, the static, the thud of boots on gravel but it’s still not loud enough to drown her out.
That smile. That laugh. That soft look she gave him like it was nothing. Like I was nothing.
I close my eyes.
I see her in my shirt, syrup dripping down her thighs, whispering my name like it meant something.
I open them again and all I see is fire.
Jordan throws something at Torres. A joke about getting laid. Someone laughs. Someone else makes a bet.
I don’t hear it because the only thing I’m hearing is the memory of her voice in my ear when she said: “Promise me you’ll come back.”
And mine: “I can’t promise you that.”
Because I knew.
I fucking knew even then—
I’d never survive her falling for someone else.
Not when I already gave her my war-wrecked, bleeding soul.
“You good, man?”
Burke again.
I look at him.
Say nothing.
Take the bottle and drink ‘til the stars blur.
The bottle’s half gone and I still don’t feel it.
Not enough.
Not fucking enough.
It’s just numbing the edges. Smoothing out the jagged parts without killing the blade inside my chest.
She’s still there—behind my eyes, under my skin. That soft fucking laugh. That quiet little tilt of her head when he spoke to her.
Torres.
Torres.
Torres.
I taste the name like rust. Like blood off the back of my teeth.
And I hate that he made her smile.
Burke’s saying something about some girl back home. Jordan’s making blowjob jokes that would’ve been funny an hour ago.
I don’t fucking care.
I’m nursing this bottle like it’s medicine. Sitting in the dirt like a fucking ghost, letting their laughter echo around me while mine dies in my throat.
Smoke curls up from the fire. Ash lands on my sleeve. I watch it burn a tiny hole into the fabric. Still not as scorched as I feel inside.
Someone throws a rock.
It hits the side of the tent and gets a round of hollers.
“Shit, Dax, you hear that one?”
“Yo, he’s fucked up.”
“Drunk Kingston’s a dangerous Kingston.”
I take another swig. Don’t even bother responding.
I am dangerous and not because of what I’ve done out there in the sand.
Not because of what I’ve seen but because of what I feel.
For her.
That reckless, choking, all-consuming thing that curdles in my gut when I see her with someone else.
That thing that makes me want to put my fist through a wall and then tear my own fucking heart out because it’s hers.
She doesn’t know.
She doesn’t fucking know what she does to me.
“Yo, Torres!” someone calls. He’s laughing across the fire, leaned back with his arms behind his head like he hasn’t ruined my entire fucking night. “Monroe gonna patch you up next time, huh?”
“Shit, better hope she kisses it better!” More laughter and he just grins. Like a smug son of a bitch.
Like he’s already tasted her mouth and claimed her laugh and made her forget me entirely.
My hand clenches around the bottle neck.
I swear to God, if he touches her—if he even tries—I’ll bury him in the sand and blame the fucking war.
“Dax, you alright?”
Burke again.
Worried now.
I nod once.
Another lie.
Another sip.
The world tilts slightly.
Stars ripple.
Good.
“She looked good today,” Torres mutters, maybe to himself, maybe loud enough to twist the knife. “Wouldn’t mind getting a taste of that Monroe attitude,” he adds.
My chest cracks.
I stand. Too fast.
The bottle slips from my fingers and hits the dirt with a dull thud.
Everyone quiets.
Torres looks up and I see red.
Not the kind you bleed. The kind that burns. “Watch your fucking mouth,” I mutter.
He blinks.
“Oh shit,” someone whispers. “Here we go.”
“I didn’t mean anything by it—”
“Yes, you did.”
My voice is low. Unshaken. Stone.
“Just talking, man.”
“Don’t.”
“Dax—”
“Don’t fucking talk about her.”
Silence.
Everyone’s watching me and I know what I look like. Sweat-slick. Wild-eyed. Rage boiling up my throat like acid. Hands curled into fists and jaw grinding like I want to hurt someone because I do.
I want to hit something. Scream. Throw the fire into the sky and watch the world burn because she was mine. I was hers. I walked away and now I have no right to be this fucked up—but I am.
Burke grabs my arm. “Cool it, man. This isn’t the place.”
I shake him off. Breathe hard through my nose and turn away before I do something I’ll regret more than I already regret everything.
The bottle’s still in the dirt behind me. So is the last shred of my fucking sanity. I walk toward the tents but I don’t go back to mine.
I head straight for the medical outpost because I need to see her. Even if she looks through me like I’m a ghost. Even if she already gave my place to someone else. Even if all I can do is stand in the shadows and remember how she looked with syrup on her thighs and my name on her lips.