Chapter 20 #2
Dust shakes free from the rafters. The sound reverberates through the hollowed-out chapel, a structure swallowed by war—its beams blackened, its roof half-missing, its walls cracked wide enough for moonlight to pour in like fractured silver.
He drops me onto my feet so suddenly my knees buckle, my palms smacking against his chest just to stay upright. My heart’s a riot, my throat raw from screaming, but when I finally see where he’s dragged me—
I freeze.
The old chapel.
What’s left of it anyway.
Half the roof blown out, dust swirling down in weak shafts of moonlight. The pews are broken, splintered. Shards of stained glass litter the floor like confetti for a funeral no one attended.
It smells like earth and ash and old prayers.
“Why here?” My voice trembles, cracking in the middle.
“Because it’s empty,” he snaps, pacing like a caged animal, his fists curling and uncurling. “Because no one can hear you tell me to let you go.”
The moonlight catches his face—hollow cheeks, the haunted blue of his eyes, the sweat slicking his neck. He looks like a soldier, like a sinner, like a man who’s been living with ghosts too long.
“Dax—”
“Don’t say my name like that.” He whirls on me, eyes wild, voice sharp. “Like you’re breaking. Like I’m the one who put the cracks there.”
“You did.” My voice shatters, raw. “You fucking did.”
He flinches. Just slightly.
Then he’s moving closer, boots crunching over glass, every step deliberate. He looks terrifying like this, drunk and desperate, but it’s the way his voice cracks that undoes me.
“I told myself I could forget you,” he rasps. “That if I drank enough, fucked enough, bled enough—I’d burn you out of my system. But you’re still here. You’re in every fucking breath, Butterfly.”
His words slice me open, cruel and beautiful all at once.
“You left me,” I whisper again, tears spilling down my cheeks.
He closes the distance in one breath, one heartbeat, one impossible second, his hand gripping my wrist and pulling me flush against his chest. His voice is a broken growl against my ear. “You’re the only thing I’ve ever been scared to lose.”
I gasp, my knees weakening, my body betraying me as much as my heart.
The ruined chapel groans around us, wind sneaking through the cracks, carrying the scent of dust and blood and something holy turned unholy.
And all I can think—is that he’s right.
There’s no hiding here.
Not from him.
Not from me.
Not from the war we made of each other.
His breath is hot against my ear, his chest solid against mine, and it’s everything I wanted, everything I swore I wouldn’t beg for again—And it terrifies me.
“Don’t,” I choke out, trying to shove him back, but my hands won’t push hard enough. They’re traitors, clutching his shirt like they still remember the way he felt when he kissed me under the stars.
“Don’t what?” His voice is hoarse, dangerous. “Don’t tell you the truth? Don’t fucking touch you when you’re looking at me like you’re drowning?”
“You’ll leave.” The words tear out before I can stop them, small and sharp like glass in my throat. “You’ll break me all over again, Dax. You’ll rip me open and then you’ll walk away, and I can’t—”
He grabs my jaw, forces me to meet the storm in his eyes.
“You think I haven’t already left a trail of bodies behind me?” His voice shakes, raw. “You think I don’t know what I did to you?”
“Then why are you doing it again?” I whisper, tears hot on my cheeks.
His thumb brushes across my skin, and for a second—just a second—he’s soft. His lips tremble like he’s about to kiss me, and I almost lean in, I almost fall.
But then the fear rips me back.
“I’ll fall,” I cry, shoving his chest now, harder this time, though he doesn’t move an inch. “And you won’t catch me, Dax. You never fucking do.”
His jaw clenches, his body taut with something like pain, something like rage, and his grip on me doesn’t loosen.
“Goddamn it, Butterfly,” he growls, voice cracking. “What if I’m the one who’s scared you won’t catch me?”
My heart stutters.
The ruined chapel breathes with us—walls creaking, glass crunching under our boots, the night pressing in heavy like it wants to witness every fractured word.
And I don’t know if I want to kiss him or claw him apart.
The air feels heavier in here, like the walls are closing in, like even the dust knows what’s happening between us. His hand is still on my jaw, his thumb rough against my skin, and I hate that my body leans into it when my heart is screaming no.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I whisper, voice splintered.
“Like what?” His eyes burn into mine, blue ice flickering with something that should scare me but instead makes me ache.
“Like you still want me.”
His laugh is jagged, broken glass cutting both of us. “Still? Butterfly, I never stopped.”
My stomach twists. My pulse betrays me, pounding against his fingers like it wants to jump straight into his palm. “Then why did you leave me?”
His nostrils flare, his grip tightening like he’s holding himself together by keeping me still. “Because I thought it would save you.”
“You don’t get to say that.” My voice cracks, but the anger pushes it forward. “You don’t get to dress up abandonment as sacrifice. You left me, Dax. You left me to rot with the ghost of you.”
Something flashes across his face—guilt, fury, grief all colliding until his jaw trembles. He presses closer, so close I can taste the whiskey still clinging to his breath.
“I left because I break everything I touch.” His words scrape out like confession. “And you’re the only thing I can’t survive breaking.”
Tears spill hot down my cheeks, but I don’t move, don’t wipe them away. “Then don’t touch me.”
His lips part, a tremor running through his chest. “I can’t.”
“Dax—”
“I fucking can’t, Cassandra. You’re in my veins, you’re under my skin, you’re in every goddamn breath I take. I wake up choking on your name and I still tell myself to stay away, but then I see you—” His forehead presses to mine, desperate, shaking. “And I forget how.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, sob catching in my throat. “You’ll leave again.”
His hand slides to the back of my neck, fingers threading into my hair, rough, anchoring. “And you’ll still haunt me if I do. So tell me what the fuck you want me to do.”
I break. The sob finally rips free, tearing me open. “I want you to stop letting me fall alone.”
The silence after feels like a battlefield—raw, scorched, waiting for the next shot.
His breathing is ragged, his body trembling against mine, and I know he’s about to either kiss me or destroy me.
And I don’t know which one I’m begging for.
“Tell me what the fuck you want me to do,” he growls, forehead pressed so hard to mine it feels like he’s trying to climb inside my skull and burn every thought but him.
The words rip out of me before I can stop them. “I want you to stop fucking leaving me!”
His whole body jolts, like I just aimed a weapon at his chest and fired point blank. His hands fist in my hair, pulling my head back until I’m looking straight up at him, throat exposed, tears slicking down my cheeks like surrender.
His eyes are wild.
Blue flames.
Danger and desperation tangled so tight it hurts to breathe.
“You think I want to leave you?” His voice is hoarse, guttural, torn straight from the battlefield.
“I’ve been running from you since the second I touched you and it’s still not fucking enough.
I can’t out-drink you, can’t out-bleed you, can’t out-fight you.
You’re still there every time I close my eyes, Butterfly.
Still on my tongue. Still in my fucking bones. ”
“Then why—”
“Because if I stay, I ruin you!” he roars. His voice shakes the walls. My body. My heart. “I’ll fucking ruin you, Cassandra.”
I shove at his chest, not out of strength but because the rage and the ache won’t fit inside me anymore. “You already did!” My fists beat against him, pathetic and small against all that muscle, all that fury. “You already ruined me, Dax, and I let you!”
The silence after feels like an earthquake before the buildings collapse and then he snaps.
His mouth crashes to mine so hard my teeth click against his. His hands drag me closer like he’s starving, like he’s drowning and I’m air, like he’s decided if he’s going to destroy me, he’s taking himself down with me.
I gasp into him, but he swallows it, swallows me, devours me like this is the last kiss he’ll ever take and he wants to leave nothing left behind.
It’s not sweet.
It’s not gentle.
It’s war.
His lips bruise mine, his tongue claims me, his breath is whiskey and want and fucking need. His hands grip my waist so tight I’ll wear his fingerprints tomorrow, and my legs betray me, parting, pulling him closer, giving him everything I swore I wouldn’t.
I taste blood. His or mine—I don’t know.
All I know is this kiss is killing me and I’d die a thousand times to feel it again.
When he finally tears his mouth from mine, it’s only to whisper against my lips, ragged and broken—“You’re mine, Butterfly. Always fucking mine.”
And then his mouth is back on me, hungrier, darker, hotter—like the whole world could burn around us and he’d still kiss me into ash.