Chapter Twenty Four
Cassandra
The moment his knees hit the dirt, my whole world collapses.
“Dax!”
His name tears out of me, high and raw and already breaking.
I’m on him before thought can catch up—hands on his blood-soaked vest, on sweat-slick skin, on the armour that feels far too heavy now it’s cradling a body that might already be slipping away.
His weight slams into me like a body bag, and for one horrible, endless heartbeat, I think he’s gone.
No breath.
No sound.
No him.
“Help me!” I scream, my voice jagged, my throat tearing open as I drag his dead weight towards the triage cot. “Now—fuck—now!”
Two medics converge—Torres half-delirious on the next stretcher, shouting something slurred and useless—but none of it breaks through the tunnel I’m in. All I see is blood blooming through Dax’s vest. All I hear is the faintest rattle in his chest.
Not gone.
Not yet.
I slam trauma scissors through the Kevlar, snapping and ripping until the torn vest peels back like skin. The smell hits instantly—iron and sweat and smoke, tangled with the sour heat of split flesh. My gloves are slick with him.
“Pressure—” I choke, slamming gauze against the wound under his ribs. “Clamp, I need a fucking clamp!”
One of the medics shoves it into my shaking hand. I almost drop it, fingers trembling so hard they barely listen to me, but I force my grip to tighten. Force training to rise above the terror clawing at my throat.
Airway.
Breathing.
Circulation.
Focus.
“Stay with me,” I whisper, voice breaking as I press harder, deeper. Blood pumps past the gauze—hot and steady and endless. Far too much. “Don’t you fucking do this, Dax. Don’t you dare.”
Someone shouts his vitals—pressure crashing, pulse thready. My stomach drops because I know exactly what that means. I know what shock looks like. Skin pale. Lips blue. Breath shallow.
I know the statistics.
The outcomes.
The odds but numbers don’t mean shit when it’s him.
“Intubate,” I snap. My hands don’t leave his chest. They press harder, as if I can shove the blood back inside by sheer force of will.
The tube slides between his teeth. His gag reflex barely stirs—weak, almost absent.
That’s bad.
That’s so fucking bad.
“Cass—” one of the medics starts, cautious, careful.
“Shut up.” My voice fractures into something sharp and desperate, tears spilling down my cheeks and streaking through the dust. “Don’t you dare tell me he’s gone. Don’t you fucking dare.”
I shove more gauze into the wound, pressing with every ounce of strength. My shoulders burn. My arms scream. My breath comes ragged.
If I stop—he’s gone.
The monitor screeches. Numbers nosedive. My stomach rips open with it.
“Epi!”
I grab the syringe before anyone else moves. Jam it into his thigh. Push.
“Come on, Dax. Come on.”
His chest jerks. Once. Twice. The monitor flickers.
My tears drip onto his throat, mixing with blood and dust. My voice slips out in a whisper I barely recognise.
“He was drunk,” I breathe, cracked and broken. “He didn’t mean anything he said. He doesn’t love me. He can’t. He left. He—”
But the medic next to me stares, startled. Not at my words—At his fingers.
They twitch.
Not gone.
I slam fresh gauze into the wound, my fingers slipping, my breath torn into pieces. “Don’t you quit on me. Not again. Not like this. Not when you—”
His chest rises. Barely.
The faintest whisper of breath.
A rhythm reappears.
Weak.
Fragile.
But there.
And I break—sobbing and shouting and still working, because if I stop, he dies. If I let go, he’s gone.
Not him.
Not my Dax.
Not the bastard who ruins me.
Not the bastard I still love so fucking much.
The blood won’t stop.
It pulses against my palm, warm and slick and relentless, soaking through the dressing, through my gloves, through the trembling bones in my wrists. I shove in more gauze, pressing harder, my arms shaking with the force.
“Chest tube!” I scream. “He’s drowning—”
The medic fumbles for the kit. I don’t wait. I grab the scalpel, tear through fatigues, through skin. Blood bubbles instantly.
“Tube,” I bark.
It slaps into my hand. I plunge it into the incision. A rush of hissing air escapes—pressure releasing. Foam and blood spill down his side, hot and wet. The monitor flickers upward, just a fraction.
“Got it—got it—”
“Suction,” I snap. “Now.”
The machine whirs to life. Blood fills the canister. My pulse rams against my throat. My hands don’t leave him.
“Pulse ox is shit!” someone shouts.
“Then keep bagging him!” I snarl. “He’s not done.”
My hands tremble violently as I clamp again. The suction gurgles beside me. His breath rattles faintly. My tears blur my vision until all I see is red and white and the shadow of his face breaking apart beneath my hands.
“IV’s blown!”
“Then get another! IO if you have to!”
“Cass—”
“Do it!” I scream so loud my voice tears. “Just do it!”
The medic drills into his tibia, bone cracking. Fluids push. Dax jerks weakly.
“Clamp!”
I dive deep into the wound. Find the pulsing vessel. Squeeze. Hard.
He gasps.
Barely.
But enough.
“That’s it, Dax,” I cry, my words shattering. “Stay with me. Come on, you stubborn bastard.”
“Crash cart!” someone yells.
Pads slap onto his chest. Gel smears. My fingers hover close.
“Clear!”
His body lifts and drops.
Monitor—flat.
“Again!”
Shock tears through him. My tears fall onto his skin, hissing under the pads.
A beat.
Another.
A flicker—A rhythm returns.
Weak.
Unstable.
But alive.
“I’ve got you,” I whisper, collapsing over him for a heartbeat before snapping back to the work. “Not leaving you. Not fucking leaving you.”
Fluids. Epi. Gauze. Clamps. I work until my arms are numb, until every breath is a sob, until the surgeon barrels through the flap shouting for OR prep.
“No,” I rasp when they try to move me. “He’s not going without me.”
“Cass—”
“I said no!”
My scream rips through the tent. “You want him alive? I stay.”
The surgeon hesitates—then nods. “Fine. Don’t move.”
We wheel him across the compound, floodlights blazing, men shouting for room, dust whipping around us in hot gusts. My hands don’t leave him. Not once.
Inside the OR, they cut around me. Work around me. Slice deeper, clamp harder, cauterise bleeding vessels while I hold the pressure keeping him alive.
Time disappears.
Seconds or hours—I can’t tell.
Until finally—
“Clamp’s on.”
“Flow slowing.”
“Pressure stabilising.”
The surgeon exhales. Looks at me.
“He’s holding.”
My body collapses inward, my arms trembling, my breath shaking so hard I nearly fall. The nurse gently pries my hands away and replaces them with hers.
“Go,” she whispers. “We’ve got him.”
But I can’t move. I hover over him, fingers still curled like I’m afraid he’ll vanish the moment I break contact.
“Cass.” The nurse’s voice is firmer. “He’s alive because of you. Let us take it from here.”
Alive.
The word destroys me.
I stumble back, ripping off my gloves, blood splattering tile. My knees hit the floor. My breath comes in shards.
Alive.
He’s alive.
But the terror in my chest is a living thing—because I know how close he was to the dark. How thin the line was. How one less breath, one less beat, one slip of my fingers—and he’d be gone.
I sink outside the OR door, blood drying on my arms, scrubs stiff with it. Machines hum behind steel. Voices rise and fall. Boots thunder past.
Someone gives me water.
Someone else a blanket.
I don’t move.
I don’t blink.
Because if I let go—he won’t come back.
Hours blur.
Minutes lie.
The clock on the wall mocks me.
When a surgeon finally steps out—mask down, gloves off, gown streaked red—my heart stops beating.
“Is he—”
“He’s still with us,” he says gently. “Critical, but holding.”
I fold forward, a sob tearing loose. My forehead touches my knees. My hands shake.
Still with us.
Still here.
Still alive.
“Can I see him?” I whisper, voice barely a breath.
“Not yet.”
It guts me but I nod.
So I wait.
Covered in his blood.
Hands trembling.
Heart cracked wide.
I wait and whisper the words I should have said long before tonight, the ones that might be the only light he can hear in the dark—“I love you, Dax. Come back to me.”
The OR hums on.
And I stay.
And I wait.
And I breathe for both of us.