37. CJ
CJ
Deck’s voice cracks as he holds us.
The last time I heard that much emotion from Deck was when I was holding Charlie as he died in my arms.
Through his tears, Eli looks up at him.
“Hey, kid.” That’s all Deck manages.
Eli doesn’t answer at first. Then Deck reaches out, placing a careful hand on his shoulder. “You with us?”
Eli nods, barely. “Yeah.”
Deck swallows hard. “You sure?”
A broken little laugh slips from Eli. “Yeah, Deck. I’m sure.” The sound from him is thin, fragile. It carries more exhaustion than certainty, but he’s trying.
Deck holds him in silence for a long second, really looking at him: the bruises, the exhaustion, everything he’s been through. Then he nods. “Okay.”
One word, but it carries everything.
“Finn?” Eli asks, barely above a whisper.
“He’s okay.”
Eli’s eyes close. A breath leaves him like he’s been holding it for days.
“He is?”
“Yeah, kid,” Deck says softly. “He’s awake. Banged up, but awake. Concussion’s got him tired, but he’s here. We’ll get him to the hospital, get him checked over.”
A tear slips down Eli’s cheek. “He was so scared.”
Deck nods. “I know.”
“He kept trying to be brave.” Eli’s words hit me hard. Finn shouldn’t have had to be brave like that, not at his age, not in that place.
Something shifts in Deck’s face, pain flickering through it. “Yeah,” he whispers. “That sounds like him.”
Eli looks down at his shaking hands. “He knew you would find him, Deck.”
Deck clears his throat. “Yeah.”
Eli lets out a broken laugh that turns into a sob. “He kept telling me, Deck will find us.”
Deck reaches forward and pulls him in, careful of every injury, like he’s afraid Eli might shatter if held too tightly. For a moment, all three of us are holding on again.
“He’s waiting for you, Eli,” Deck says quietly. “He’s safe.”
Deck nods. “Yeah. He’s safe because you saved him.”
Eli shakes his head immediately. “No.”
Deck looks at him.
“You did, Deck.”
I step in and lift Eli into my arms, carrying him away from his monster. Deck carries Adrian away through a side door without a word, and we move back to the house. I sit with Eli on my lap in a deck chair outside.
Silence settles around us. It’s quiet in a way I almost don’t trust. For the first time in what feels like forever, I’m not waiting for something to go wrong.
Eli is here. His hand is in mine.
And I keep looking at him because I still can’t believe it: That I almost lost him. That thought twists in my chest, tight and painful, robbing my lungs of air. If he hadn’t held on, if we’d been seconds later… I can’t even let myself finish the thought.
I pull him closer, pressing a kiss to his hair. “I need you to know something, Baby Boy.”
My voice breaks, but I don’t stop. “I love you. I love you because you’re you. Because you survived everything they threw at you and still have the biggest heart I’ve ever known.”
I swallow hard against the knot in my throat. “You are my home, Eli. You always have been.”
He looks up at me, tears shining in his eyes. I wipe them away before they fall.
“We almost didn’t get this,” I whisper. “We almost didn’t get our chance.”
He squeezes my hand. And I smile because he’s here. My Baby Boy is here. Safe. Free. Mine.
“I don’t know what forever looks like yet,” I tell him quietly, “but I know who I want it with. I want every morning. Every bad day. Every laugh. Every stupid argument about what movie we’re watching. I want all of it with you.”
Eli smiles through his tears.
And I watch my boy with those honey-colored eyes, the boy who slept in his car, who fought every monster thrown at him, who survived.
He speaks, his voice soft and steady. “I love you too, CJ. I held on because I knew you’d find me. I was so scared. So scared I’d have to leave you. But, CJ…”
He takes my face in his hands and kisses me softly.
“I’m done fighting just to survive. I want to live. I want that life with you. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life just surviving. I want to stand beside you. Be with you.”
His voice cracks as he squeezes my hand. “I wished for you, CJ. You are my everything.”
Hearing him say it out loud feels like something inside me finally settles. He kisses me again, soft and slow, then pulls back and looks at me like he can see straight through everything I am.
Then he says, “Oh, and I want a dog.”
I stare at him for a second, then laugh.
“Okay, Baby Boy,” I whisper, pulling him closer and holding him a little tighter. “Always together.”
* * *
The house has to go.
For Eli.
It holds too much pain. Too many memories. Too many nights where he was made to feel small, like he didn’t matter.
Not anymore.
We make it back inside, where Mack and Silas have Finn settled on the couch. He’s lying there with his eyes closed, but his eyes fly open the moment he hears us.
“Eli!” he calls out, trying to push himself up.
Deck is on him instantly, guiding him back down. “Stay.”
I let Eli go, and I watch as he crosses the room and drops to his knees beside Finn. He goes straight into nurse mode: checking injuries, asking Mack and Silas questions, focused, precise. Finn just lets him, watching him like he needs to prove he’s real.
When Eli is satisfied, he sits back on the floor and takes Finn’s hand.
Then he stands, his gaze drifting across the coffee table. His eyes lock onto his fingers.
There’s a crack in the glass. I remember him telling me about it, the night Adrian slammed his head into it.
My jaw tightens.
I move to the shelf, pick up a heavy ornament, and carry it over, placing it into Eli’s hand. He takes it without a word. Deck moves Finn carefully away from the couch, and I step back as Eli faces the table, the place that holds too many of his worst memories.
He lifts the ornament and brings it down.
The crack is sharp, violent, raw. The sound punches through the quiet. It feels like the first real breath he’s taken since we found him.
He hits it again, and again, each strike breaking something deeper than glass. The table fractures beneath him, but this isn’t destruction; it’s reclamation. Every blow is a moment Adrian stole from him, given back. A goodbye to what was done to him here. A release.
Eli lets out a broken sound as the glass gives way, tears running down his face, breath uneven, arms shaking as he keeps going, until finally he stops.
Breathing hard, sweat on his skin, his tears still falling, he smiles. Wide.
It’s done.
* * *
Deck stands, and we move into the kitchen. It doesn’t feel like movement anymore; it feels like crossing a threshold we’ve all been carrying inside us for years.
Phones come out, and calls are made one after another, quiet but steady, voices tight with something that isn’t just anger anymore. It’s exhaustion. It’s grief. It’s the kind of fury that only exists after you’ve lived too long under someone else’s shadow. There are no shaking hands, no hesitation.
This is a shared understanding that this is the end of Adrian’s reach. The end of Adrian, completely and utterly eradicated.
We are going to erase everything he ever wanted to be remembered for. Not just his name, but the image he built around it. The control he wrapped himself in. The version of him that was allowed to exist because people were too afraid, too broken, or too trapped to speak.
He wanted a legacy. He wanted to be untouchable.
We give him nothing but truth.
We gather everything that proves who he really was: evidence, pain, survival. And through all of it, Eli’s name stays untouched, held like something we refuse to let the world taint. Adrian will not be remembered the way he wanted. Not as powerful. Not as in control.
He will be stripped down to what he was. And he will burn. Not just in the ground. Not just in memory. But everywhere.
I told him I would destroy him if he touched what was mine. He didn’t listen.
Walking through the house, I find a photo. It’s of Eli on his bike, hair curling around his face, eyes bright, alive in a way this place never deserved. I tuck it into my jacket.
Deck joins me downstairs. Mack and Silas have already helped Eli and Finn to the car; they’re waiting outside, standing guard.
We move through the house one last time, setting everything in place. Points of ignition. Weak spots. Clear lines through the structure so nothing is left untouched when it goes. Fire alarms disabled. Silence made permanent.
Eli helps with all of it, his hands steady despite everything he has been through, like this is something he needs as much as we do. There will be no interruptions.
Deck holds the lighter, and we stand together for a moment longer.
The house sits in front of us like a memory refusing to let go, heavy with everything it has taken, everything it has tried to keep hidden inside its walls.
I feel it all at once, the weight of it, the years, the damage, the fear it created.
I nod once.
Deck flicks the lighter.
Flame blooms, small at first, fragile against the night air, like it might disappear if you breathe too hard. Then it steadies. It strengthens. It catches properly, alive now, bright and sure. Strong. Beautiful. Like Eli.
Deck lets it fall.
The fire takes instantly, hungry and certain, as if it has been waiting for this moment longer than we have. We stand there long enough to watch it spread, climbing walls, swallowing curtains, moving through every room that held pain like it finally has permission to erase it.
And then we leave.
No one looks back.
Outside, I pull Eli into my side, my arm tight around him. Deck does the same with Finn. Silas and Mack stand next to us, and we watch the house disappear behind us.
This is the beginning.
The end of fear.
The end of Adrian.
The end of everything Eli survived alone.
Eli rests his head on my shoulder. “He’s really gone.”
I press a kiss to his hair. “Yeah, Baby Boy,” I whisper, my voice breaking. “He’s not coming back.”
The roof collapses, and sparks rise into the night sky.
Finn reaches for Eli’s hand, and Eli takes it immediately.
“No one says his name again,” Finn says quietly. A vow. A line drawn in ash.
We watch until nothing is left but embers and smoke.
Then we turn.
And we go home.