Chapter Thirty-Three
Alexander
We’re heading to West Virgina—finally doing what Zayn always talked about every time we stayed at the cabin.
Each visit, he’d talk about leaving the city behind for the mountains and the wild, open sky, searching for a place that felt like real freedom.
Now, it’s the only future that makes sense.
It’s the dream he had for us, and the only way forward that feels right.
The loft is stripped bare—every box taped and stacked, every trace of our old life in New York packed away or left behind.
The U-Haul is loaded, and Ayla, Dean, and I move through the motions in a daze, haunted but determined.
The space feels hollow, echoing with memories and grief, but for the first time, there’s a fragile sense of hope braided through the pain.
“Ready to go?” I ask Ayla as we load the last box into the Jeep. She pauses in the doorway, looks around the empty room, and her smile is the most devastatingly broken, hopeful thing I’ve ever seen.
“Yeah… I’m ready to live,” she says softly. There’s something in her voice—wounded, brave, and alive. I squeeze her hand, a silent promise that we’ll find something better on the other side.
As we pull away, I watch the loft disappear in the rearview mirror, New York shrinking behind us, the city that held so much pain and so many secrets.
The fire made national headlines, the so-called house of horrors exposed for the world to see—Charles and Nathan’s faces plastered everywhere, the city vibrating with scandal for days.
But just as quickly, everything started to fade.
The news cycle churned, reporters moved on, and beneath the surface, the truth was quietly buried.
After Ayla spoke to the detectives, telling them everything, something shifted.
The police barely pushed for more details.
There were no endless interrogations, no threats or disbelief—just a few quiet, almost perfunctory questions before they let her go.
It should have felt like relief, but it was more complicated than that.
The word around the station was that too many men had been under Charles’s thumb for too long—cops, detectives, even higher-ups who’d turned a blind eye, some knowingly, most not.
When the truth came out about what he’d really been doing, the force realized the kind of monster they’d been protecting.
No one wanted to dig too deep into who’d looked the other way, or why.
The department closed ranks, quietly sweeping the mess under the rug to keep their own names out of the headlines and to keep from exposing just how dirty things had gotten.
The city wanted the story to go away, and so did the cops.
The case changed course—less about the murders, more about finding other victims, and even that was handled behind closed doors. There’s no going back, only forward.
The official cover story was simple, brutal, and convenient: the guard who killed Zayn lost his mind.
Paul Hamlin, I now know, was his name. According to the police report, he murdered Derek, Charles, and Nathan, set the house on fire to cover his tracks, then turned the gun on himself.
Dean’s role—what really happened that night—was left out, erased.
The city accepted the story, grateful for a scapegoat, eager to move on and forget the ugliness beneath the surface.
But we all know it’s bullshit. We know the truth, and we know who really paid the price.
At the counter, Dean clears his throat. “Hey, Ryan. We’re here for Zayn.” His voice is thin, barely holding together. That’s the first time I hear the man’s name—Ryan, someone Dean must trust for something this hard. Ryan nods, checks something on the computer, and disappears into a back room.
When he returns, he sets the urn—deep green, Zayn’s favorite—on the counter. Dean’s breath hitches. Ryan hesitates, watching Dean’s shaking hands as he reaches out. “He was a good guy,” Ryan says softly, and I can tell he means it.
Dean nods, staring down at the urn. A beat passes before he manages, “He was everything.” His voice cracks, but he doesn’t look away.
Ryan’s eyes flick between us, and I see the moment he understands—maybe for the first time.
He doesn’t ask questions. Just nods again, more gently this time, and steps back to give us space.
Dean cradles the urn like it’s the only thing keeping him upright, shoulders hunched, grief etched into every line of his face. Ayla moves to his side, laying a hand on his back, silent comfort. I do the same, anchoring us all together.
We leave without another word, stepping back out into the gray afternoon.
Dean sits in the back, holding the urn tight, head bowed.
There’s no need for speeches or explanations.
The reality of Zayn’s absence fills every quiet moment, every mile as we drive away, carrying what’s left of him with us—heavy, precious, unbearably real.
The drive is quiet for a long time, just the steady hum of the highway and the open road stretching ahead. We're each lost in our own thoughts, the weight of everything we've survived pressing down, Zayn's absence a heavy ache that fills every silence.
Ayla finally breaks it, her voice so small I almost miss it. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, head bowed, hands twisting in her lap.
Dean and I both look over at her, the question heavy in the air. “For what?” I ask gently, glancing between her and the road.
Before she can even answer, Dean jumps in, his voice raw but certain.
“No. Absolutely not. This is not your fault, Ayla. You didn’t ask for any of this.
And Zayn—Zayn would be proud that you’re here, that you’re alive, and you get to keep living.
You can’t blame yourself. Please, don’t.
” His eyes are wet, but his smile is real—soft, full of memories, pain, and fierce love.
“You can’t do that to yourself, Ayla. He’d hate it.
You know he would. He’d be pissed if you spent one more minute blaming yourself for what those monsters did. ”
Ayla looks at Dean, her eyes shining, and manages a trembling smile.
“Thank you,” she breathes, and for a moment, the heaviness in the car lifts just a bit.
I reach across the console and squeeze her thigh, grounding her, grounding us all.
She’s here—alive, breathing, strong, ours, and free.
Dean and Ayla both drift off to sleep, their breathing soft and even in the quiet of the car.
I keep my eyes on the road, hands tight around the wheel, the hum of the tires and the gentle weight of Zayn’s urn in the backseat the only company I have.
The silence is almost sacred—heavy, aching, but also peaceful in a way that makes me want to cry.
Every stretch of highway feels like memory: Zayn’s laughter echoing in my mind, his wild plans, the way he always made the world feel lighter, even when it was falling apart.
I miss him. More than I can say. There’s a hole in my chest that nothing will ever fill, a sharp, persistent ache that claws at me with every mile.
I know I’ll always miss him—some part of my heart will always be his, always looking for him in the rearview, in the laughter of my friends, in the wild blue of the sky.
But we’re doing what he would have wanted.
We’re following his dream, chasing freedom, promising ourselves that we’ll live a life he’d be proud of.
That we’ll keep going, keep loving each other, keep fighting for happiness even when the world tries to take it away.
The sun is dipping low, painting the whole world in gold and fire, the sky blazing with the kind of beauty Zayn would have pulled over just to stare at.
For a long moment, I let the grief have me—I let it burn, let it wash through me, let myself feel every ounce of what I’ve lost. Then I roll down the window, the wind cool on my face, and whisper into the fading light, “Hello, Zayn. I love you, man. I miss you.” A tear slides down my cheek, warm and silent, and I let it fall.
He’s not gone, not really. He’s right here: in the sunset, in the laughter we’ll find again, in the space between each heartbeat.
With us, always. No matter where the road leads next.
Ayla
When we finally reach the cabin, dusk has melted into darkness, and the air is heavy—so heavy—with exhaustion and the raw ache of everything we’ve lost. Alex drove the whole way without stopping, his knuckles white on the wheel, clinging to the road like it was the only thing keeping us from falling apart.
Dean is the one who carries Zayn’s urn inside.
His hands are trembling so badly I worry he’ll drop it, but he doesn’t—he holds it like it’s the most precious thing in the world, like it’s the last piece of his heart he has left.
He sets it on the mantel, right under the TV, and the green glass catches the faintest bit of light.
For a second, it glows, almost alive. I think back to that night I told Alex my favorite color was green—the color of money.
But this, the green of Zayn’s urn, is different.
It’s soft and deep and full of memory. Now, it’s my favorite color in the world.
No one says a word as we unload our things, each of us drifting through the motions in a daze, hollowed out by grief and the long road behind us.
I watch Dean run his fingers over the urn, his face crumpling under the weight of everything he’s carrying—love, loss, guilt, all tangled together.
For a moment, it’s as if Zayn is still with us, his spirit woven into the fabric of this new life, his memory a silent promise: we’ll keep going, even when it hurts, because he would have wanted us to try.