Chapter 20
Chapter
Twenty
Cassandra
The night outside the medic tent hangs heavy and humid, the air thick with the scent of dried sweat, diesel fumes, iron, and sand that never seems to settle.
The distant thunder of artillery rumbles beneath the quiet like a second heartbeat, too faint to shake the ground but too constant to ignore.
A single lantern flickers near the entrance, the bulb barely clinging to life as moths dance around it, wings tapping the thin metal frame like soft, frantic warnings.
Inside, the world feels even smaller.
The canvas walls sag with heat, trapping the smell of antiseptic, iodine, and old blood beneath a layer of stale humidity. The hum of machinery vibrates in the air—steady, relentless, almost a rhythm. A generator outside coughs every few minutes, rattling the surgical trays stacked near the wall.
The monitors hum their tired lullaby.
One long beep for a heartbeat.
One soft hiss for the oxygen feed.
Mason’s chest rises shallow but steady, like a man trying to trick death into thinking he’s already gone. I adjust the line on his IV, check his pulse again, check it a third time just to make sure. Stable. For now.
The canvas walls sweat around me, heavy with heat and the smell of antiseptic that never quite masks the iron. It’s late. Too late. The tent is quiet except for Mason’s ragged breathing and my own.
And then—The flap rips open.
The air shifts instantly—dust rushing in on the back of a hot wind, lantern light bending, the soft clatter of hanging forceps chiming like startled bells.
Boots drag across the floor. Heavy. Uneven.
I look up—And there he is.
Dax Kingston.
Stumbling. Shoulders bent like the whole fucking desert is weighing him down. Eyes too bright, too wild, too lost. His mouth curved into something between a smirk and a scar.
God. He’s drunk.
“Dax,” I whisper, stepping forward, heart cracking open without permission. “You shouldn’t be here—”
“Fuck, Butterfly…” His voice is low, wrecked, raw.
His gaze pins me like he’s never seen me before, like I’m the only real thing left in a world made of dust. He drags a hand down his face, and when it drops, he’s smiling.
Not sweet. Not sane. Something broken and dangerous and desperate.
“Fuck, you’re the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen. ”
My breath hitches. “Dax—”
He sways closer, boots heavy, eyes locked on me like I’m the only target that matters.
“You don’t even try,” he slurs. “Just… stand there. Breathing. And you ruin me.”
The tent feels smaller. Hotter. The buzzing fluorescent flickers overhead, struggling to stay alive. My body freezes, every muscle strung so tight it hurts to breathe.
But all I can think is—He’s looking at me again.
Really looking.
Like he used to.
Like I’m still his.
He stumbles forward, boots scraping the canvas floor, and every nerve in me sparks like a live wire.
“Fuck, Butterfly…” His voice splinters, low and wrecked. His hand shoots out to steady himself on the edge of Mason’s cot, but his eyes never leave mine. Not once. “I’ve missed you.”
The words slam into me like a bullet I wasn’t ready for.
“Dax—”
He shakes his head, messy, reckless. His laugh is bitter, cracked wide open.
“Don’t say my name like that. Christ, I can’t—” He drags a palm down his face, leaving streaks of dirt across his jaw.
“You have no idea what you do to me. Every fucking day. Out there. In here. In my head. You’re everywhere. ”
My throat tightens. “You’re drunk.”
“I’m honest,” he snaps back, stepping closer. His shoulders sway, his boots heavy, but his voice is sharp, brutal. “I’ve missed you so much it fucking eats me alive. You hear me? Eats me.”
I grip Mason’s chart just to keep my hands from shaking. “Stop—”
“I can’t stop,” he growls, another step closer, another crack in my ribs. “I’ve tried. Whiskey. Smoke. Blood. War. Fucking war. Nothing works. I close my eyes and you’re still there. Syrup on your skin. Stars in your hair. My butterfly.”
God.
My whole body betrays me, leaning, aching, burning for him even as my brain screams don’t.
“Dax…” My voice trembles. “You don’t mean this. Not like this.”
He smirks, but it’s broken, jagged. His hand drags through his hair, tugging like he’s punishing himself.
“I mean every fucking word. You think I don’t?
You think I don’t replay that night under the stars until I can’t breathe?
You think I don’t wake up choking on your name because I thought I’d never see you again? ”
He takes another step.
Too close now.
Close enough I can smell the liquor on his breath, the smoke on his clothes, the desert baked into his skin.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he rasps, eyes dark, voice cracking. “Like you still want me. Like you still fucking care.”
My lips part, a soundless ache spilling out, because he’s right because I can’t hide it. I do still want him. Every broken, cruel, bastard part of him and he knows it.
His chest rises, falls. His jaw clenches. His voice drops to a whisper that cuts straight through me. “I’ve missed you, Butterfly. God, I’ve missed you.”
“You’re drunk,” I whisper, even though my voice doesn’t sound steady enough to convince anyone—not even me. “You’ll regret this in the morning, Dax. You’ll hate yourself. You’ll hate me.”
His laugh is sharp, jagged, carved out of glass. “Butterfly, I’ve hated myself since the day I first touched you. That hasn’t changed.”
I shake my head, desperate to hold ground. “Then stop this before you make it worse—”
He moves before I finish, his hand shooting out, iron around my wrist. The chart clatters to the floor. He yanks me forward until I’m chest to chest with him, his breath hot, soaked in whiskey, and his eyes—God, his eyes—icy and feverish at the same time.
“Worse?” His voice is a snarl, low and wrecked. “There’s nothing worse than this. Than knowing you’re here. Breathing the same air. Walking these halls. And not being mine.”
“Dax—”
“No.” His grip tightens, dragging me flush against him until I feel every hard, brutal inch of his body.
His heart hammers against mine, ragged, uneven.
“You think I’m scared of bullets? Of bombs?
Of not making it back?” His mouth crashes to my ear, voice a whisper that tears me in half.
“The only thing I’ve ever been fucking scared to lose is you. ”
My throat locks.
“You’re the one thing I can’t outrun,” he continues, breath hot against my skin. “You’re under my nails, in my blood, stitched into every nightmare and every dream, and it terrifies me more than this war ever could.”
“Stop—please—” My protest dies when his forehead presses against mine, his lips hovering too close, his eyes burning into me like he’s searching for something to keep him alive.
“You think I don’t know I’m a bastard?” he rasps. “You think I don’t know I’ve torn you apart? I have, Butterfly. I fucking have. But I can’t—” His voice cracks, breaks in a way I’ve never heard. “I can’t lose you. Not again.”
My body betrays me. Heat blooms low in my belly even as tears sting my eyes. “Dax,” I whisper, shaking. “You’ll regret this tomorrow.”
He shakes his head, slow and certain. His hand slides from my wrist to my waist, pulling me even closer, crushing me against him like he wants to fuse us together. “I’ll regret nothing but this—” his lips brush mine, not a kiss, just a promise, raw and jagged—“letting you go again.”
“No, Dax,” I choke, the words shaking as much as my hands against his chest. “I can’t. I can’t do this. That’s not why I’m here.”
My eyes burn, and I hate myself for it, but the tears slip free anyway.
“You left me,” I whisper, broken. “You left me to live without you, and do you have any idea what that feels like? To breathe every fucking day like your lungs are full of glass because the only person you wanted to come back never did?”
His jaw locks. The flicker in his eyes is violent—too violent.
“You think I wanted that?” His voice cuts, low and dangerous. “You think I walked away because I didn’t need you?”
I shake my head hard, tears running down my cheeks. “You left me, Dax. That’s all I know. You left me.”
Something in him snaps.
Before I can move, his arm bands around my waist, lifting me like I weigh nothing. My scream tears out, panicked, furious, desperate.
“Put me down!” I claw at his back, fists pounding against him. “Dax! Put me the fuck down!”
He doesn’t listen. Of course he doesn’t listen. His grip only tightens, my body thrown over his shoulder like I’m his fucking prize, like I belong to him whether I fight or not.
“You think I can’t hear you?” His voice rumbles through me, rough, ragged. “I hear every word. Every scream. Every sob. But you’re still mine.”
My fists slam harder against him, but my body shakes with something I don’t want to admit—fear tangled with the same ache that’s been clawing at me since the day he walked out of my life.
He pushes through the tent flap, boots pounding across the compound like the whole fucking world belongs to him. Soldiers glance up, smirk, look away fast. No one stops him. No one would dare.
“Dax—please!” My voice cracks into a sob. “Don’t do this—”
“Don’t what?” he growls, not slowing. “Don’t remind you who you belong to? Don’t make you look me in the eye and admit you never stopped wanting me? Don’t carry you somewhere you can’t fucking hide?”
And then he’s shoving through another door, the air inside cooler, darker, different. A place not meant for softness, but the moment he kicks it shut behind us, my breath catches like it’s been ripped from my lungs.
Because he’s right.
He’s taken me somewhere I can’t hide.
And for the first time since he left me, it feels like I’m standing on the edge of something I’ll never come back from.
The slam of the door echoes like a gunshot.