Chapter Thirty Three
Cassandra
It’s been six months since he left.
Six months since my heart shattered.
Two months since the last letter.
I count the time like scars on a wall.
Every morning I wake to silence.
Every night I fall asleep with nothing but his ghost in my bed.
And in between—I read this.
Over and over until the paper is soft as cloth, until the ink has bled from my tears.
I unfold it now, hands trembling like the first time I saw his handwriting after he left. The words are jagged, rushed, stained in the corner with something I pretend isn’t blood.
Butterfly,
I don’t know if this one will make it to you.
They lose things out here. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes because the world is cruel.
If it doesn’t, I guess I’m talking to ghosts.
If it does, then you’re holding a piece of me in your hands right now, and maybe that’s enough to get me through the next day.
I dream about you every time I close my eyes.
Doesn’t matter where I am, doesn’t matter what’s happening outside, you’re always there.
Sometimes it’s the chapel. Sometimes it’s the bridge.
Sometimes it’s just you, syrup on your lips and laughter in your throat, looking at me like I’m something worth keeping alive.
You should know something. War has teeth, Butterfly. It chews and chews, and most men don’t come back whole. Maybe I won’t either. Maybe I already didn’t. But even broken—I’m still yours. I always was.
I keep the necklace around my neck like a chain. It burns sometimes. Reminds me that if I don’t crawl back, I die knowing I was loved by you, even if I never deserved it.
I don’t know when I’ll get to send another letter. Don’t wait by the door for me. Live. Breathe. Laugh. But if you ever feel like the world is empty, look up at the night sky and find me there. I’ll be the shadow that refuses to leave you alone.
I love you. More than war. More than life. More than the man I used to be.
—Dax
The paper shakes in my hands. My breath stutters.
I’ve read it a hundred times and it still rips me open like the first.
Six months gone.
Two months since those words and the only thing keeping me upright is the way his last three still echo like gunfire in my head.
I love you.
Six months.
Six months since he left.
Two months since his words last touched me and tonight, they taste like ash in my mouth.
I read his letter again until the ink blurs, until his voice turns to static in my head—I’ll come back. Always. Even if I have to crawl.
My fingers shake so hard I tear the edge of the paper. I can’t breathe without pressing it to my chest like maybe his heart’s still in there, maybe if I hold it hard enough it will beat but silence answers.
It always fucking answers.
I don’t realise I’m crying until the paper stains darker, until my throat burns raw from whispering his name over and over like prayer, like curse.
A knock.
Sharp. Too sharp.
Like gunfire dressed up as manners.
I freeze.
No.
No.
The knock comes again. Louder. Commanding.
My body moves before my brain does. I stumble to the door, letter still crushed in my fist, feet dragging like I already know.
When I open it—Two men in uniform.
Neat. Pressed. Faces carved from stone.
The world tilts sideways.
I stare at them, my heartbeat cracking ribs. My mouth moves but nothing comes out.
The taller one clears his throat. His eyes don’t lift to mine. Coward. “Miss Cassandra—”
No.
My lips shape the word but no sound comes.
He swallows. “We regret to inform you—”
The ground is already falling away.
“Staff Sergeant Kingston is listed as MIA. No confirmed body, but—”
MIA.
MIA.
MIA.
The letters slice me open. A wound no medic can stitch.
The world caves in. My knees hit the floor, bone on wood, the sound echoing like a gunshot through the hollow of this house.
“No—” My scream rips out, raw, feral, splitting me in half. “No, no, no—”
The letter falls from my fist. His words scatter across the floor. My hands claw at the wood, my nails splitting, my body convulsing as if grief itself is tearing me limb from limb.
The soldiers don’t move. They just stand there, shadows in pressed uniforms, until my scream shatters into sobs that don’t even sound human.
“Bring him back!” My voice breaks, throat shredded. “Bring him the fuck back—don’t you dare leave him out there—”
But they don’t answer.
They can’t.
They’re already ghosts, just like him.
My body curls into itself on the floor, my forehead pressed to his letter, my sobs shaking the walls until it feels like the whole house is bleeding with me.
And for the first time since he left—I believe he’s not coming back.
Not whole.
Not breathing.
Maybe not at all.
The sound that tears out of me then—
isn’t just grief. It’s the sound of my heart breaking into something I’ll never put back together again.
The world doesn’t move.
It can’t.
It won’t.
I’m still on the floor, cheek pressed against the hardwood, chest caving in like someone’s knee is there, crushing, crushing.
The air won’t come. My throat is raw, ripped open with screams I don’t remember letting out.
My nails claw at the floor like if I dig deep enough, I’ll find him buried under it, alive, waiting.
MIA.
Missing.
Not dead. Not alive.
Just gone.
The words echo, jagged, ricocheting around my skull until I can’t tell if it’s them or me whispering it over and over.
I can taste blood. My lip split against the floor when I went down. My teeth still ache. My whole body trembles, not with cold but with the kind of heat that burns from the inside out—rage and grief and terror so tangled I can’t separate them.
The soldiers’ boots scrape once, twice. They don’t come closer. They don’t touch me. Maybe they know if they try, I’ll break them with my bare hands.
Or maybe they’ve already walked out. I don’t know. I can’t look. I can’t move.
All I can do is whisper his name into the floorboards, again and again, until it doesn’t sound like a name anymore. Until it sounds like begging. Until it sounds like nothing.
“Dax…”
The sobs rip through me, violent, convulsing, like my body is trying to tear itself apart from the inside. My chest hits the floor with every shudder. My fists slam until bruises bloom. I can’t stop.
Six months.
Two months.
Now this.
My mind claws for his voice, his letters, the feel of his necklace in my palm when I couldn’t sleep. But even those slip like smoke, and I choke harder, scream louder, as if I can drag him back with noise, with pain, with my own ruin.
He promised.
He fucking promised.
The floor creaks under me with every tremor of my body, but it holds. I don’t. I collapse smaller, tighter, curling in on myself until my ribs stab sharp into my stomach. I want to vanish into the cracks, disappear with him.
The silence after my sobs die out is worse than the screaming. Worse than the knock. Worse than the words.
It’s empty and I’m empty in it.
The monitors in my head beep phantom rhythms. The sand still burns in my lungs. The chapel glass still crunches underfoot. My body relives every place he almost didn’t come back from and this time, he hasn’t.
My nails split. My breath tears. My voice breaks and I stay on the floor, pressed flat into the ruin, until the night swallows me whole.