Chapter Thirty Four
Cassandra
The house is too quiet.
Not the kind of quiet you slip into after a long day, not the soft hush of peace. This is a hollow quiet, the kind that presses against your ears until you swear it’s screaming.
Every clock tick is a hammer.
Every creak of the pipes is a gunshot.
Every time the fridge hums, I flinch like it’s the knock again.
I haven’t eaten. I can’t. There’s food in the fridge, untouched. A casserole someone dropped off sits on the counter, sweating through its foil. The smell curdles in my stomach. I sip water and it tastes like sand, like blood.
Sleep doesn’t come. When it does, it tricks me—I hear his boots on the porch, his voice calling me Butterfly, the scrape of his hand on the back of his neck when he’s pretending not to be nervous. And then I wake up and the house is still empty, my chest splitting open all over again.
His letters are everywhere. Some tucked into drawers, some still under my pillow, one folded small enough I keep it in my pocket even when I don’t leave the house.
I read them until the paper starts to wear thin, until the ink smudges with tears.
I whisper the words out loud, trying to make them sound like his voice.
Two days after the knock, Lola shows up. She doesn’t knock—she just comes in, arms full of bags, her perfume clinging to the air like she’s trying to smother the stench of grief.
She hugs me too tight. I don’t hug back at first. My arms hang loose at my sides because if I let myself hold her, I’ll fall apart. She whispers, It’s going to be okay, but her voice breaks halfway through, and I know she doesn’t believe it either.
She moves through the kitchen like she can fix this by cleaning, by reheating, by pretending. I sit at the table, staring at the wood grain until it blurs, while she places a plate in front of me. Mashed potatoes, chicken, peas. Ordinary food for an extraordinary kind of loss.
“Eat,” she says softly. “Please, Cass.”
I shake my head. My throat is too tight. The smell makes bile burn at the back of my mouth.
She pushes the fork closer. “Just a bite.”
My voice cracks when I whisper, “I can’t.”
Her hand covers mine, warm, trembling. “Then I’ll sit here with you until you can.”
At night, she curls up on the couch, refusing to leave me alone in this house that doesn’t feel like mine anymore. I hear her cry when she thinks I’m asleep. I want to tell her to stop, that I can’t carry her grief on top of my own—but the words won’t come.
So I just lie there in the dark, listening to the silence, waiting for a sound that will never come.
Waiting for him.
The house is a coffin.
Every breath echoes like it doesn’t belong. Every tick of the clock drills into me like it’s counting down, not forward.
I’m stuck on the floor, back against the wall, knees pulled to my chest. My body hasn’t figured out how to move since the soldiers left. My chest still aches from screaming, throat raw, head pounding like it’s trying to split open.
Lola’s here. She came as soon as she heard. I didn’t call her—couldn’t—but somehow she knew. Maybe sisters always know.
She kneels in front of me, her hands on my shoulders, her face blotched with tears, mascara carved down her cheeks. “Cass…” Her voice cracks, splintered. “You’ve got to eat something. Please. Just—just sip water.”
I shake my head. I can’t. My stomach is glass, my throat is ash, my body is already breaking without him.
Her hands squeeze harder. “He’s my brother,” she sobs, finally snapping, the words tearing out like a wound. “My brother, Cass. And I don’t even know if he’s alive—”
I flinch, my nails digging into my own skin, because hearing her say it makes it too real. MIA. Missing. Not dead. Not alive. Just gone.
She drops her forehead to mine, trembling, both of us holding on like we’re the only thing keeping each other from falling straight through the floor.
“I can’t lose him,” she whispers, her voice shattering. “Cass, I can’t—I won’t—”
My chest caves. “We already did,” I choke, tears pouring fresh, sharp. “He’s gone, Lola. He’s gone and I never—” My words break into a scream I don’t mean to make. “I never told him enough, I never told him to stay—”
“Don’t you dare,” she snaps through her sobs, grabbing my face in her hands. “Don’t you dare blame yourself. He left because that’s who he is. Stupid, stubborn, addicted to war, but he loves you, Cass. He does. And if anyone can crawl back from the grave, it’s Dax Kingston.”
Her words slice through me, jagged, hot, but there’s no comfort. Just fire and ache.
I crumble into her arms, both of us shaking, both of us crying so hard the sound doesn’t even sound human anymore. Just grief. Just love. Just the unbearable weight of not knowing.
We stay like that on the floor, tangled in tears and broken promises, the silence between sobs heavier than any scream because neither of us can admit the truth out loud—We don’t know if he’s ever coming back.
The silence settles again once Lola’s sobs taper, but it’s not peace.
It’s suffocation.
She’s fallen asleep curled against me on the floor, her fingers still twisted in my shirt like she’s afraid if she lets go I’ll vanish too but my eyes won’t close. My body won’t rest because I can’t stop hearing it.
The last thing I ever said to him.
Not I love you.
Not I’ll wait for you.
Not come back to me.
Just: you broke us, not me—you.
The words won’t stop echoing, a loop that claws down my throat until I can’t breathe.
I taste them in my mouth like blood, like poison, like the reason he’ll never come home.
If he’s gone—If he’s really gone—That’s what I left him with.
Not love.
Not hope.
Just blame.
My nails dig into my knees, skin breaking, but I don’t let go. I want the pain. I want it because at least it’s mine, at least it’s here, at least I can bleed instead of just… drowning.
Lola shifts in her sleep, muttering his name. My chest caves.
“Dax,” I whisper into the dark, my voice shredded. “I didn’t mean it.”
The walls don’t answer. The house doesn’t echo his footsteps. The universe doesn’t give me back the man I love.
I press my fist against my mouth and bite down until I taste iron, muffling the sound of another sob because the truth is, if he never comes back, I’ll have to live knowing the last thing I gave him wasn’t love—It was another wound.
God, I don’t know how to survive that.