Chapter Twenty-Two
Six Weeks Later
Zayn
The doctor walks in, clipboard in hand, exhaustion etched into his face.
Six weeks of sitting in this hospital, useless, just watching Dean breathe, feeling every hour stretch into eternity.
Winter pressed in while we waited—snow falling outside the windows, blanketing the city in white, each day colder than the last. We spent nights watching the flakes drift past the glass, the world outside frozen and still, while inside, we could do nothing but hope Dean would wake.
Now, the snow is beginning to melt away, dirty piles shrinking along the curb, the first hints of gray slush and wet pavement showing through.
We’ve been stuck here on our thumbs, completely helpless without him—no leads on Ayla, no way to help her, just endless waiting and the terror of what Charles and Nathan could be doing to her.
But today, finally, there’s movement. “We’re going to start weaning Dean off the sedation,” the doctor says, his voice careful but clear.
“His intracranial swelling spiked in that first week, but we managed to control it with mannitol, hypertonic saline, and strict blood pressure regulation.
He's been stable on the ventilator, but now the swelling has finally gone down enough for us to try reducing the sedatives.”
He moves to the IV pump, tapping in a new protocol—cutting the dose of propofol and fentanyl, slowing the drip, watching Dean’s vital signs on the monitor.
"We’ll decrease the sedation in stages over the next twelve to twenty-four hours.
If he tolerates it, we’ll keep stepping down until he’s off.
He may start to breathe more on his own, or show movement. "
The doctor glances up, the gravity of it all written in his eyes.
“We don’t know what the long-term effects from his injury could be—coma, cognitive changes, weakness, or even seizures.
But this is the best chance for recovery.
We’ll monitor him closely for agitation, pain, or signs of increased pressure. "
He presses a final set of buttons, double-checks the lines, and steps back. All we can do now is wait and hope—watching the slow, uncertain process unfold and praying that Dean will come back to us.
Alex and I sit for hours, barely breathing, watching Dean for any sign of life—hoping, praying, begging him to come back to us.
I miss him so much it feels like a physical ache, like a piece of me is missing.
The ICU is a blur of beeping monitors, the hiss of oxygen, and the faint antiseptic sting that clings to everything.
Dean’s face is pale, his body still, but every so often, his fingers twitch—small, fragile signals that keep hope alive.
Alex, half-dozing in the chair beside me, jerks awake when his phone vibrates.
He fumbles it from his pocket, blinking blearily at the screen.
“It’s from Ayla’s number,” he says, voice flat.
“It’s a link.” His hand shakes as he stares at the screen, dread written across his face.
“I don’t want to open this,” he admits, and for a second, I see the fear in him—the terror of what might be waiting at the other end.
I reach over, squeezing his arm, but before we can decide what to do, Dean starts fighting the ventilator, his hands clawing at the tube down his throat.
Alarms blare. I run to the door, flinging it open.
“Doctor! He’s waking up!” I shout down the hall, heart pounding.
The ICU team rushes in, a blur of blue scrubs and calm urgency.
They silence the alarms, check his vital signs, and quickly begin the protocol for extubation: they disconnect the ventilator, suction his airway, carefully deflate the cuff, and slide the tube out in one smooth motion.
Dean gags, coughing, eyes wild and confused.
A nurse stabilizes his head, and another slips an oxygen mask over his face.
“Easy, Dean, easy,” I murmur, my voice shaking.
He blinks up at me, dazed, his hand trembling in mine.
One nurse quickly checks his neuro exam—asking him to squeeze her fingers, wiggle his toes, and follow the light with his eyes.
Another nurse hands him a cup with ice chips, and he swallows painfully.
“Try not to talk much yet; your throat will be sore,” she warns, her tone gentle but firm.
But Dean croaks out, voice raw and barely audible, “Ayla…”
For a moment, I almost don’t understand him. But then he’s asleep again, exhaustion overwhelming him, eyelids fluttering shut. The nurse reassures us: “That’s normal. He’ll be in and out for a while. Just let him rest.”
He’s here. He’s alive. But even as relief floods me, my mind races back to Alex’s phone, to that text from Ayla’s number—the threat still hanging over us, waiting.
“Let’s step outside,” Alex says, holding up his phone, his expression tight with dread.
We step out into the cold night and walk toward the edge of the parking lot, covered in snow, the hospital lights harsh behind us.
My nerves are shot—six weeks of waiting helplessly have left me raw, and I fumble a joint from my pocket, lighting up with shaking hands. I’m going to need it.
Alex opens the text, his finger hovering over the link, knuckles white. I pass him the joint, glancing around, making sure nobody’s watching us. “Open it,” I say, my voice sharper than I mean, anxiety coiling in my gut.
His finger keeps hovering, hesitating. “I can’t,” he admits, voice barely above a whisper, eyes glassy with fear.
I take the phone from Alex, not trusting myself to speak, and tap the link.
The screen loads slowly, its glow painting us both in a sickly blue that turns my stomach.
At first, it looks like just another cam site—subscribe, follow, watch women perform.
But then the details sharpen, and the truth hits me like a sledgehammer.
My stomach turns to ice. There’s a menu of faces—girls who look terrified, hollow-eyed, dressed up to look so much younger than they are.
Every thumbnail is misery, each one a stolen life. My hands start to shake.
Then I see her. Ayla. Her face is everywhere—clear as day, staring out from a dozen different thumbnails, her eyes too wide, her smile forced and broken.
She looks so lost, so far away, like someone who’s forgotten what hope even feels like.
The site is worse than any nightmare I ever let myself have.
Every girl is listed with a stage name, their real selves erased and replaced by something cheap and artificial.
Ayla’s videos are all tagged with hers—Princess— her pain commodified for strangers to consume.
I click through, numb, barely breathing, as dozens more videos expand—every single one with Ayla front and center, her anguish on display for the world.
The darkness is absolute, suffocating, the horror crawling up my throat like bile.
My hands are frozen, my heart pounding so hard it hurts.
I want to scream, to smash the phone, to go back in time and protect her from all of this, but all I can do is stare, paralyzed, as the truth sinks in.
I can’t look away. Guilt, rage, love, and grief crash through me in relentless waves.
“Alex,” I manage, my voice fractured and raw, barely holding it together.
“It’s Ayla. It’s really her.” He snatches the phone from my hand, his face turning ashen as the true depth of the nightmare sinks in.
The world tilts, the bottom drops out, and all at once, the nightmare is real—and we’re already too late.
The weight of it crushes me, and I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from breaking down completely.
I will never forgive myself for not getting to her in time.
Alexander
I grab my phone back and shove it into my pocket, my voice leaving no room for argument.
“We need to go inside.” We retreat to the same damn room we’ve haunted for six fucking weeks, the walls closing in tighter with every passing day.
Dean is still sleeping when we enter. I’m so exhausted I can barely see straight, but I know I can’t avoid this.
I pull my phone out, dread clawing up my spine, and force myself to open the first video.
Ayla appears on the screen, dressed in a child’s pink dress that makes my stomach lurch, and I feel like I’m going to be sick.
Charles and Nathan wear masks, but their voices—God, their voices are unmistakable.
Haunting. Predatory. Charles addresses the camera directly, his tone almost gleeful as he lays out the sick auction rules: how to bid, how to request private shows, how to tip for more.
Every syllable is pure poison. Rage and grief war inside me—I want to tear him apart with my bare hands, to claw through the glass and drag Ayla into the light.
I try to fast-forward, but every frame is another circle of hell.
I force myself to watch, even as tears blur my vision.
My hands shake so hard I nearly drop the phone as I see them press a red-hot hanger to her skin; her scream is high and raw, and it shreds what’s left of my composure.
One of them lifts her dress while the other shoves his fingers inside her—again, and again, and again—her sobs growing weaker, her eyes going glassy, until I feel bile rising in my throat.
Charles and Nathan are the only ones in the room, their voices poisoning every second.
I scroll through the carousel of thumbnails, each image promising something more monstrous than the last. My whole body is shaking, cold sweat running down my spine.
I can’t do it anymore. I throw the phone across the room, breathing hard, feeling like I might vomit.
“Zayn,” I choke, my voice broken and shaking.
“You can see it. You can literally see the moment she leaves her body. We’ve got to do something.
We have to get her back before there’s nothing left.
” My voice cracks, and tears spill down my cheeks—hot, shameful, helpless.
Zayn is pale, his jaw clenched, his eyes red-rimmed and wild. “I know we do,” he says, his voice heavy and raw. “I just… I don’t know where to start. We need Dean.” He reaches for Dean’s hand, pressing a kiss to his forehead, his own eyes shining with barely concealed panic.
Suddenly, Dean’s eyes flutter open. He squints at the harsh light, and Zayn quickly dims the lamp, giving him time to adjust. For a long moment, Dean just blinks, taking in the hospital room, the wires, the monitors, our wrecked faces.
Then his gaze sharpens—the exact moment reality comes rushing back.
His eyes lock on mine, pleading, demanding: Where’s Ayla?
I answer quietly, my voice barely steady.
“We don’t know. But we do know that Charles and Nathan took her.
” Dean flinches at their names, the memory flashing across his face.
“We know she’s alive,” I add, desperate for something to hold on to, and his brows furrow, desperate for more.
The room is thick with fear, guilt, and the agony of hope.
All I can think is: We are not too late.
We are not too late. We cannot be too late.
“We got a link today…” I say, retrieving my now cracked phone and handing it to him.
This might be too much, too soon, but we can’t wait anymore.
Dean’s hands are trembling as he takes the phone, his jaw clenched tight.
He scrolls through the videos, his expression shifting from confusion to horror to pure, unrestrained fury with every passing second.
I watch his eyes—so green, so alive—go flat and wild as he sees what they’ve done to her.
His breathing gets rougher, his jaw grinds, his knuckles go white as his grip tightens.
He scrolls faster, his thumb stabbing at the screen, and I can see the moment rage swallows him whole.
A guttural sound escapes his throat, half-growl, half-sob, as if watching the horror is tearing him open from the inside out.
He shakes so hard I’m afraid he’ll shatter the phone in his fist. “M-my… comm…” he tries to form the words, frustration and urgency making his voice crack.
He types frantically, before shoving my phone into my hand, a single burning message typed out:
Get me my fucking laptop. now.
It’s the first spark of hope in weeks. For the first time since Ayla was taken, we have a direction. And for the first time in six weeks, I feel the old fire burning again. We’re not done. Not by a long shot.
Without a second thought, Zayn and I are out the door, adrenaline burning away any hesitation. We tear through the night toward the cabin, headlights slicing through the dark, hope and rage coiling in my chest. The only sound is the buzz of my phone—Dean texting instructions from his hospital bed:
Get me my laptop. Make sure to grab the blue USB from the drawer. Don’t forget the charger.
When we reach the cabin, we move fast. I grab Dean’s battered laptop, the little blue USB, his charger, and a notebook, tossing them all into a backpack.
Zayn double-checks the drawers, making sure nothing is missed.
I gulp down a glass of water, nerves jangling, and force myself to breathe.
“We’re going to find her,” I say, voice hoarse, the words a vow.
Zayn meets my gaze, fierce and steady. “Yes. We will.”
Before we leave, I pause. “I love you, man. I hope you know that.”
He grips my shoulder, eyes full of fire. “I know. I do.”
We rush back to the hospital, hearts pounding the whole way.
Dean is asleep when we get there, worn out from pain and sedatives.
We try to wake him, but he just shoves at us, too exhausted to speak.
So we let him rest. Hours pass—I doze off in the chair, nerves frayed and mind racing.
When I wake, the room is dark except for the soft blue glow of Dean’s laptop.
He’s propped up in bed, hunched over the keyboard, typing with furious intensity, eyes wild and alive.
He’s hacking—hunting—pouring every ounce of himself into finding Ayla.
For the first time in weeks, I believe maybe we have a fucking shot.