Chapter Thirty-Two
Zayn
Dean wastes no time once Ayla disappears upstairs.
He doesn’t hesitate—just grips his knife and drags it slow and deep across Nathan’s chest, blood pouring in dark ribbons before he buries the blade in Nathan’s throat.
The slash is merciless, final, and Nathan’s body goes limp, pooling blood beneath him.
For a moment, the world is quiet. I look at Dean, grim pride and sorrow mixing in my chest. “Damn, look at you,” I say softly.
Dean’s face is pale, jaw clenched so tight I hear his teeth grind.
His eyes are shining, wet with tears he refuses to let fall.
“They deserved worse,” he mutters, voice so ragged it barely sounds like him—hollow, broken, like he’s been emptied out and scraped raw.
He won’t meet my eyes. I want to reach for him, to give comfort, but my hands are stained and shaking, and I don’t know how.
“Yeah, they really did. But it’s over now.
They’re dead, and we’ve got her.” Alex’s voice tries for gentle, for certain, but it trembles, thin as glass.
The words hang between us—final, yes, but there’s no relief, just exhaustion and the echo of everything we’ve done to survive.
We turn from the carnage, climbing the stairs together, not speaking.
It feels like we’re carrying ghosts with us, a silent pact sealing what’s left of us together.
Ayla is waiting in the kitchen when we reach the top, standing perfectly still, her eyes searching each of our faces for the truth. “Is he dead?” she asks, and her voice is so small, so fragile, it almost breaks me.
“Yes. Both of them,” I say, and cup her face in my bloody hands.
She lets out a shallow, trembling breath—then suddenly, she screams. The sound rips through me, raw and primal, echoing through every room, every memory.
She’s breaking in my arms, and I feel it in my bones: the cost of survival, the weight of everything we’ve lost. I hold her as she shakes, her screams unraveling into broken sobs, smoothing her hair, whispering, “It’s done.
It’s over. It’s over,” over and over, but the words feel empty, fragile as glass.
Terror lets go, but in its place is a hollow ache.
All that’s left is us—alive, yes, but shattered, on the other side.
I hold her until her breathing steadies, her body trembling in my arms, then we get to work in grim, silent coordination.
We drench the curtains and every flammable scrap we can find with gasoline, the sharp chemical burn stinging our eyes and throats.
The four of us move with purpose, making sure the house will be gone—every memory, every nightmare, erased in fire.
I share a look with Dean, Alex, and Ayla—a shared spark of triumph and pain—before I head to open the front door.
But as I swing it open, I freeze: right there on the porch stands one of the guards who used to patrol this place when Nathan and Charles were keeping girls captive.
Recognition flashes in his eyes. Charles must have texted for backup.
I realize too late that I never put my vest back on—Dean and I thought the danger had finally passed.
The guard’s hand is steady, gun already drawn, and before I can even shout a warning, everything goes to hell.
A gunshot explodes through the night, slamming into my chest. The pain is immediate, absolute—like the world has come undone inside me.
I can’t even scream. Air deserts me. My knees buckle, and I hit the floor, the world spinning, blood gushing hot and thick through my fingers as I clutch a wound I don’t know if I can survive.
Each inhale is a drowning, wet gasp, agony and panic clawing at my insides.
I taste the metallic tang of my own blood, thick in my mouth, the cold creeping into my limbs.
Dean reacts almost before I’ve even hit the ground—his gun up, firing, rage and fear in every motion.
The guard drops in the porch light, but I barely see it.
All I can hear is my own heartbeat, wild and stuttering, each beat weaker than the last. Each breath is a battle I’m losing.
My vision blurs and my eyes grow heavy, the world shrinking to the frantic chaos around me—Dean’s voice, wild with terror, cutting through the fog: “No, Zayn. No, stay awake. Stay with me!” I try to answer, but blood fills my mouth, the metallic taste sharp on my tongue.
Dean and Alex haul me up, my body limp, and toss me in the back of the Jeep.
I’m fading fast, every breath shallower than the last. Through the haze, I hear Ayla’s voice—sharp, desperate—shouting, but I can’t hear her as she lights a single match, tossing it into the open doorway.
Flames roar up instantly, swallowing the house in a wave of heat, erasing every secret, every scar, every piece of evidence.
The house goes up fast, an inferno against the night sky.
Dean climbs into the back with me, pulling my head into his lap, his hands shaking, slick with my blood.
He cradles me, voice shattering with grief and fury.
“Don’t you fucking dare leave me, Zayn. Don’t you dare.
” His tears fall hot onto my face, blurring the world at the edges.
I try to hold on, but everything is slipping.
I reach for him, desperate, my blood staining his skin. “Dean,” I gasp, pain tearing through my chest, “I love you. I love you so much.” My words crumble into a sob—the last of my strength pooling out of me. All I can do is look at him, memorize every line of his face as everything starts to fade.
Ayla is in the front seat, twisting around so far she’s nearly climbing between the seats, her hand clutching mine with desperate strength—her nails digging into my skin as if she can anchor me to the world.
Her face is streaked with tears, eyes wide and frantic, every line of her body straining to reach me, to keep me with her.
“Stay with us, Zayn—please, god, just fucking stay,” she chokes out, her voice ragged, breaking on every word.
Alex drives like a madman, blowing through red lights, his jaw clenched so hard it might crack, knuckles bone-white on the wheel.
His eyes flick up to the mirror again and again, wild with terror, the weight of my life heavy in his gaze.
“Come on, Zayn,” he growls, voice cracking, thick with fear and pleading.
“We’re almost there. Just fucking hold on, please.
” The Jeep is filled with broken sobs, frantic prayers, the pounding of my own uneven heartbeat—a storm of panic and love and the gut-wrenching fear that I’m running out of time.
I squeeze Ayla’s hand, or try to—my grip is weak, useless, my fingers slipping helplessly in our mingled blood.
Every breath is a drowning, every word a mountain.
“All of you…” My voice is barely there, raw and broken, a gasp more than a sound.
“Thank you. F-for everything.” Blood bubbles at my lips, thick and suffocating.
I fight for air, desperate to say what matters before the dark takes me.
“Ayla…” My throat closes. “If—if I had to—die… so you could be happy… and… free—then it… it was worth it.” I look at her, vision swimming, tears mixing with blood, and I want to hold on, but I can’t.
“Take… care of… each other.” My voice shatters, the words unraveling into silence.
Darkness is swallowing me, piece by piece, and I’m terrified to let go, but I hope—God, I hope—they’ll remember I loved them until the end.
I try to smile for her, for all of them, but blood spills from the corner of my mouth.
My chest tightens, burning and empty, the world shrinking to the sound of their voices—Dean’s broken pleas, Ayla’s sobs, Alex’s frantic shouting.
Everything hurts. It’s getting so hard to breathe.
My body is failing, slipping away, and fear presses down on me: I don’t want to die.
I close my eyes, clutching the memory of their faces, the feel of Dean’s hand in mine, Ayla’s desperate grip, Alex’s voice.
I hold on to love, to the hope that maybe I was enough.
That maybe I mattered. And maybe, just maybe, I did something right in the end.
Dean
The hospital waiting room is freezing, the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead like the inside of a migraine.
There’s blood on my clothes—Zayn’s blood, and Nathan’s, and Charles’s.
It’s dry and tacky, clinging to my skin, proof that everything is real and nothing, nothing can ever be undone.
I can smell it every time I breathe in. Alex made a call to get the bikes moved to the loft, but I couldn’t care less.
My whole world has collapsed into this hard plastic chair, the ache in my chest, and the slow, suffocating crawl of time.
Every second hurts. Minutes drip by; hours pile up.
When we brought Zayn in, the nurses rushed him straight to the back.
They didn’t even question our story—just nodded when I said he’d been cleaning his gun and it went off.
No one looked too close. No one wanted to.
It was the kind of lie that everyone recognizes and lets slide.
It’s easier that way. But nothing is easy tonight.
Not when I can still feel his pulse fading beneath my hands.