Chapter Twenty Two
Cassandra
The chapel is still in my bones.
Stone against my spine.
Glass crunching under my boots.
His mouth like a curse, like a prayer, like a bullet I couldn’t dodge.
I feel it every time I blink.
Every time I breathe.
Every time my thighs press together and I swear I can still feel him there, inside me, claiming what he left behind.
And God help me—
I wanted it.
I let him.
But he was drunk.
The monitors hum beside me, pulling me back.
One beep.
One hiss.
Mason’s chest rises, shallow, steady.
I check his vitals for the tenth time tonight, maybe more. My hands know what to do, but my head—my head is stuck in that chapel, stuck in the taste of whiskey on Dax’s tongue, stuck in the way he said you’ll never breathe without me like it was gospel.
My lips part, the words slipping out before I can stop them, a whisper cracked and cruel against myself.
“He was drunk.”
Mason doesn’t move. Doesn’t flinch. Just lies there with tubes and bandages and a machine pretending to be his heart.
I press the stethoscope to his chest, swallow hard.
“He didn’t mean it,” I whisper again, quieter this time. “He doesn’t love me. He can’t. He left. He—”
The sound breaks off when fingers curl weakly around my wrist.
I jolt, nearly dropping the scope.
“Mason?”
His throat works, scratchy, raw, but his grip tightens, his eyes cracked open just enough to pin me there.
“No,” he rasps.
I freeze. “No what?”
His voice is sandpaper, jagged, but it cuts clean through me.
“No… he wasn’t lying.”
My chest caves, breath catching like barbed wire. “Mason—”
“He’s been broken,” Mason whispers, each word dragged out like it costs him blood.
“Since the second he let you go. I’ve seen it.
Every night. He doesn’t sleep. Doesn’t eat.
Drinks like the bottle’s the only thing keeping him upright.
And when it’s not enough—” His throat catches.
“It’s your name, Cass. Always your name. ”
Tears prick hot at the back of my eyes.
“You don’t understand,” I choke out. “He said goodbye—”
“He didn’t,” Mason snaps, sharp even with his ruined voice. His grip burns into my wrist, weak but desperate. “That man would rather die than admit he loves someone. But he does. He fucking does. He doesn’t know how to survive it, but he can’t breathe without you.”
My vision blurs. My free hand curls into the sheets like maybe I can anchor myself to the steady beep of the monitor.
“He hates me,” I whisper. “Every time he looks at me—”
“Every time he looks at you, he’s fighting not to fall on his knees.” Mason’s breath rattles, his eyes heavy but unflinching. “He thinks you’ll break him. He doesn’t realise you’re the only thing keeping him alive.”
The sob tears out of me before I can stop it.
Mason squeezes my wrist again, weak but steady, his gaze locked on mine like he’s willing me to believe it.
“He doesn’t love you?” His voice shakes, sharp, final. “Cass, he can’t even fucking live without you.”
And that’s what ruins me.
Not the chapel.
Not the kiss.
Not the bruises he left blooming under my skin.
It’s this—Hearing the truth from the mouth of the one man lying between life and death and knowing deep down—I already believed it.
My tears drip down onto the back of his hand, sliding over skin that feels too fragile, too thin. His pulse is weak beneath my fingertips, but still—he holds on.
“Mason, stop—” My voice cracks. “You need to save your strength.”
His mouth twists, dry, bitter. “Strength’s not what’s keeping me here.”
I shake my head, pressing the gauze tighter to the line in his arm, focusing on the numbers on the monitor because I can’t focus on the words leaving his mouth.
“Mason—”
“It’s him.” His throat scrapes the words out like broken glass. “It’s always been him. Even before he left, even before you walked into this desert. He’s been bleeding for years, Cass. And you’re the only tourniquet that’s ever worked.”
The sob that tears through me almost bends me in half.
“No—”
“Yes.” His grip squeezes again, weak but fierce, dragging me back down to him.
His breath smells like metal, like antiseptic, like war.
“He doesn’t hate you. He hates himself for wanting you.
For touching something he thinks he doesn’t deserve.
” His lips twitch, a shadow of a smile. “But fuck—he never stopped. You should see him when he says your name in his sleep.”
“Mason—” My body shakes so violently I almost drop my hands.
“I thought…” He coughs, a wet sound that makes my stomach twist. “I thought maybe he’d break and finally tell you. But he won’t. Not sober. Not unless you force it out of him. He’ll drown first. He always drowns first.”
I press my forehead to the edge of his cot, my hand still caught in his. “Why are you telling me this?”
His voice is so faint I almost miss it.
“Because he’ll never forgive himself if you walk away believing he doesn’t love you.” His eyes blink, heavy, fighting to stay open. “And because if I don’t make it out of this, someone has to tell you the truth before it’s too late.”
The machines beep steady behind me. My tears hit his wrist like rain.
“Mason—don’t you dare say that. Don’t you fucking dare.”
His lips part, another rasp slipping free, fragile and final.
“Then don’t let him go again. Don’t let him bury himself alive when you’re the only one who knows how to dig him out.”
And just like that—his eyes slide shut but his hand doesn’t let go.
The room tilts around me when his eyes slide shut.
“Mason—” I whisper, shaking his arm, panicked.
But the monitor doesn’t change. Still steady. Still alive.
Alive.
Barely.
I sit there for hours. Maybe more. Time isn’t real anymore. Just the hiss of oxygen. Just the beep of machines. Just the heat pressing down and the weight of his words lodged in my chest like shrapnel.
He’ll drown first.
He doesn’t hate you.
He never stopped.
I repeat them over and over, like if I stop, Mason’s hand will slip out of mine. Like if I stop, the truth will vanish too, swallowed up by the same silence Dax left me in.
The tent gets darker. Then brighter. Then darker again. I don’t move. My ass goes numb on the stool. My neck aches from bowing over him, from listening for every rasp of his breath.
I don’t even notice when the other medics filter through. They glance at me, some with pity, some with curiosity, but none of them tell me to leave. Maybe because they know. Maybe because they’ve seen this kind of waiting before.
When I finally stand to stretch my legs, it’s only to pace two steps, then sink right back down and clutch Mason’s hand tighter.
“Don’t you fucking die,” I whisper, voice splintered. “Don’t you leave me with his ghosts.”
The words echo too loud, bouncing back at me. His ghosts. His ghosts.
I close my eyes and I see Dax again.
The chapel.
His mouth.
The way his hands shook when he grabbed me, like he was begging and punishing all at once.
“Fuck, you’re the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“You’re mine, Butterfly. Always fucking mine.”
But he was drunk.
He was drunk and drunk men lie.
I press Mason’s hand harder to my chest, trying to silence the war inside me.
“Tell me I’m wrong,” I beg the unconscious man beside me. “Tell me he doesn’t mean it. Tell me he’s not still in here—” I slam my fist against my sternum, the pain blooming sharp. “—in every fucking beat.”
Mason doesn’t answer.
Of course he doesn’t.
But his hand twitches in mine, the smallest, weakest squeeze and I break all over again because maybe he doesn’t have to.
Maybe I already know.
So I stay.
Through the night.
Through the long hours of nothing but machines and shadows.
Through the quiet that feels louder than any bomb I’ve ever heard.
I stay and when the first light of dawn filters through the canvas, I’m still holding his hand, whispering the truth I’m too fucking scared to tell Dax myself:
“I love him.”
The words hang in the air, raw and fragile, like they don’t belong to me but Mason’s fingers twitch again and I know he heard.