The drive home was a symphony of pain and clarity. Every bump in the road sent a bright, singing jolt through the wound in his side. It was a good pain. An honest pain. It was proof that the ghost Sasha had been real, had been a fighter. It was better than the vague, restless ache that usually lived under his skin.
He kept her laptop on the passenger seat. A trophy I won well more than a trophy... a key. Her entire world, her obsession, her plans, were in this machine. It was warm, almost alive, against the leather.
He didn't go to his house. He went to Leo's. The one their uncle had bought for him, all clean lines and silent rooms. The shrine-house.
He didn't knock. He used the key he'd copied years ago and let himself in. The air was still and smelled of lemon polish and loneliness.
He found Leo in the shrine room, of course. He wasn't looking at the wall. He was staring at a single photo in his hands Avery, asleep in the library, sunlight on his cheek. Leo's thumb was tracing the line of his jaw, a gesture so tender it made Ezra's teeth hurt.
"You're bleeding,' Leo said without looking up. His voice was flat, emptied out. He could smell blood from afar
"I found the stalker," Ezra said, dropping the laptop onto Leo's pristine glass desk with a heavy thud.
That got his attention. Leo's head snapped up. His eyes, usually so controlled, were red-rimmed and haunted. He looked from the laptop to the dark, blooming stain on Ezra's shirt. "You killed them."
"No." Ezra leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms, enjoying the fresh flare of pain. "She's alive. For now."
"She?" A flicker of something disgust, curiosity in Leo's eyes.
"Sasha Reid, Tech lab, Art history. Sits behind him." Ezra watched the information register, saw Leo's mind rifling through his own mental files, slotting a face to the threat. "She's not like the others. She's not scared. She's… hungry. Like us."
"Don't you dare compare yourself to me," Leo hissed, placing the photo down with exaggerated care. "What did you do?"
Ezra pushed off the doorframe and walked slowly into the room, circling Leo like a shark. "I had a conversation. She tried to end it with a pen." He tapped his side. "I showed her how we end conversations."
He saw Leo's jaw clench. Saw the revulsion. The fear. Good. Let him be afraid. Let him remember what his love was built upon.
"She had a whole operation," Ezra continued, gesturing to the laptop. "Cameras. Mics. She was in his room, Leo. In his phone. She was ahead of you. She knew about Elias. She was going to tell Avery everything."
The color drained completely from Leo's face. The foundation of his carefully constructed world trembled. "Where is she?"
"Where she can't dig anymore." Ezra's smile was thin. "But she's a problem that's still breathing. And she's seen my face. She knows our secret."
Leo finally stood, his composure cracking. "You idiot! You monumental fool! You've made us vulnerable! If she talks-"
"She won't talk," Ezra said, his voice dropping to a deadly calm. "Who would she tell? The police? And say what? That she was stalking a boy and got attacked by one of his other stalkers? She's a criminal. She's in the game. She knows the rules now."
He stepped closer, invading Leo's space. "The question, brother, isn't about her. It's about you. Your little fantasy is crumbling. Avery's scared. He's digging. And now there's a wounded, furious girl out there who knows exactly how to burn your pretty life to the ground." He leaned in, his voice a venomous whisper. "You can't protect him with photos and daydreams anymore. The wolves are at the door. And I'm the only one with teeth."
Leo's hand shot out, fast, grabbing the front of Ezra's torn jacket. "I told you to stay out of it! This was supposed to be clean! He was supposed to come to me!"
Ezra didn't fight the grip. He laughed, a low, rasping sound. "Clean? Clean? Nothing about us is clean, Leo. It never was. It's blood and fire and secrets. That's what we are. That's what love is." He shoved Leo back, breaking his hold. "You want him? Then you have to be willing to get dirty. You have to be willing to be the monster he needs."
He turned and walked to the desk, flipping open Sasha's laptop. It booted up, password-protected. He didn't hesitate. He pulled a small device from his pocket a piece of tech he'd taken from one of Sasha's own shelves and plugged it in. In moments, the lock screen dissolved.
He started clicking, opening files. "Look. She has his class schedule, his grocery receipts, his internet history. She has a sound file of him crying last week. She has a log of every time you've texted him." He glanced over at Leo, who was staring, pale and horrified, at the screen. "She was better at this than you. And she was going to use it all to take him from you. To make him hers."
He opened a final folder. It was labeled CONVERGENCE. Inside were files on Leo. On Ezra. On their uncle. On Breckenville. And a detailed, step-by-step plan titled: "Isolation of Subject A. Knox via Discrediting/Elimination of Rival Parties (Maddox)."
Leo sank into his desk chair, the fight gone out of him, replaced by a cold, sick dread. "She was going to destroy us to get to him."
"Yes," Ezra said simply. He felt a strange, possessive pride over Sasha's work. It was elegant in its malice. "She understood the assignment. She just wasn't strong enough to finish it."
He closed the laptop. "So. Here we are. You have a choice, brother. You can sit here in your shrine, polishing your perfect love while it's stolen out from under you by a girl with a pen and a hacker's spite. Or…" He walked over and placed both hands on the armrests of Leo's chair, caging him in. "You can let me finish what she started. Let me clean up. Let me be the fire that burns away the competition. You can be the safe harbor he runs to when the smoke clears."
Leo looked up at him, and for the first time, Ezra didn't see his brother the perfectionist, the control freak. He saw the little boy hiding in the hydrangeas. Terrified. Needing him.
"What… what would that mean?" Leo asked, his voice hollow.
"It means Sasha Reid has an accident. A tragic, random, violent accident. It means we use her own data to find any other little ghosts in the machine and… unplug them. It means we accelerate the timeline." Ezra's eyes glinted. "It means we make Avery's world so terrifying, so unstable, that the only solid ground left is right here. With you."
He saw the conflict warring in Leo's eyes the desperate, twisted love warring with his last shreds of a moral compass. The compass had never pointed true anyway.
"You can have your happy ending, Leo," Ezra whispered, a serpent's promise. "I'll build it for you. Out of the bones of everyone who stands in your way. All you have to do is say yes."
The silence in the shrine room was absolute, broken only by the faint hum of the laptop's cooling fan and the ragged sound of Leo's breathing.
Finally, Leo closed his eyes. A single, resigned tear traced a path down his cheek, cutting through the pristine image he presented to the world.
When he opened them, they were different. Colder. Clearer.
"Just… keep it quiet," Leo said, his voice a dry leaf on stone. "And don't let him see you. He can't ever know it was us."
Ezra straightened up, a victorious, vicious smile spreading across his face. He patted Leo's cheek, a gesture both fond and demeaning.
"Welcome back, brother," he said. "Now let's go build your paradise."