Chapter Thirty Two
Dax
I don’t have to go back.
That’s the part that eats me alive.
I’m not cleared for the field anymore. Not with the limp. Not with the shrapnel scars carved deep in my ribs like the desert wanted to keep a piece of me. They told me I could stay here. Desk. Stateside. Minimal risk. Heal.
War doesn’t let you heal.
It crawls into your bones and whispers in your ear while you sleep and Cassandra—God, my Butterfly—she doesn’t understand. She looks at me with those eyes like I’m something worth saving. Like I’m a man who could wake up, stay here, build something that isn’t made of ghosts and gunfire.
But I’m not.
I’m the man who still wakes up choking on sand. Who smells diesel and blood in every crowd. Who sees kids on rooftops with cell phones and thinks: trigger. I’m the bastard who drags his brothers’ names around like dog tags, who hears Reese scream every time the world goes quiet.
The only way I know how to breathe is to go back into the fire.
She doesn’t deserve that truth.
So I give her another.
“I’m leaving.” The words scrape out of me like shrapnel pulled slow. Her face goes pale, her lips part, and I swear I see her chest collapse like I just shot her myself.
“You don’t have to.” Her voice cracks. “You don’t—”
I cut her off, because if I let her speak, I’ll fold. “It’s not frontline. It’s logistics. Safer. Cleaner. Someone’s gotta keep the machine running.”
Her eyes burn. “So you’re choosing it.”
She’s right but I don’t let her have it. I twist the blade instead. “It’s who I am, Cass. You knew that when you loved me.”
Her tears spill. I hate myself for wanting to catch them on my tongue because here’s the truth I’ll never give her: I’d stay.
I’d stay if I thought I could be enough for her. If I thought I could hold her without bleeding on her every time. If I thought I could give her a life without nightmares in every corner.
I can’t.
So I break my own fucking heart when I break hers.
Her fists slam my chest. “You’ll leave me again. You’ll come back in a box. You’ll—”
“I’ll come back.” My voice cracks, brutal, jagged. “Even if it kills me, I’ll come back.”
Even as I say it, I know it’s a lie.
The war doesn’t give back what it takes and when she finally turns away, shoulders shaking, I let her go because if I hold on, I’ll never leave and if I never leave, I’ll drown her right here in all the wreckage I am.
So I watch her break in front of me and I tell myself it’s mercy.
Even as it feels like I just stepped on the last mine in my chest.
The necklace is cold against my skin.
Always cold.
Always hers.
It hangs just under my collar, a piece of her I can touch when the desert tries to eat me alive. A talisman. A noose. A fucking lifeline.
Every time it slides against my chest, I see her face. Her eyes in the chapel. Her tears at the wedding. Her voice whispering you broke us, not me—you. And Christ, she was right.
I broke us.
I can’t stay broken here. Not while she’s still out there breathing, waiting—or maybe not waiting because that’s the worst part.
Not the blast scars. Not the limp. Not even the ghosts that stalk me when the lights go out.
It’s the not knowing if she’ll still be there when I crawl back.
I tell myself she will. That Butterfly’s stubborn enough to hold on, angry enough to hate me, soft enough to still love me. That she’ll hear the hum of trucks on the street one night and know I’m inside one, coming back like I promised.
I tell myself I’ll come back because there’s no other ending that makes sense. Not for me. Not for her.
I’ll come back to her.
To her hands on my face.
To her lips saying my name like it’s a prayer.
To her tears soaking my shirt when she realises I didn’t die out there.
I’ll come back.
I’ll crawl if I have to.
I’ll bleed the whole desert dry if I have to because what’s the point of surviving if I don’t get to press her against a wall one more time, kiss her until she screams at me, whisper mine until she breaks?
The necklace digs into my chest when I breathe too hard. I press my palm against it, fingers curled tight, like if I hold it long enough she’ll feel it too. Like she’ll know I’m still hers even when I’m half a world away.
I close my eyes. The convoy’s hum rocks through my bones. The air stinks of dust and diesel. But in my head—it’s her. Always her.
I see her standing on that bridge, moonlight catching her hair, mouth swollen from my kiss, eyes shining like I’d just given her the whole goddamn universe.
I see her in my bed, curled against my chest, muttering my name like she hates me for how much she needs me.
I see her at the wedding, shaking, furious, whispering you’ll leave me again and I whisper back now, to the necklace, to the dark, to myself—“Even if I leave, Butterfly, I’ll always come back.”
I will.
I swear it.
I’ll come back to her.
Or I won’t come back at all.
And God, I hope she’s still waiting when I do.