Leo's text was a poem. A stupid, fragile poem. "The rose encountered a sudden frost. I provided shelter." Ezra read it in the garage, the smell of motor oil and metal shavings thick in the air. He snorted, tossing the phone onto a workbench.
Shelter. Leo was building a greenhouse and calling it a sanctuary. He didn't understand that roots grew strongest when they were fighting through concrete, when they were desperate for just a taste of light.
But the second part of the text Growth is imminent that got his attention. It meant Avery was cracking. The perfect, terrified pressure Leo had applied was working. The boy was becoming pliable.
It was time to visit the garden.
Ezra didn't go to Avery's apartment. That was Leo's territory now, a place for quiet, creeping influence. He went to the edges. He went to the source of the last bit of resistance.
Mila Voss's house after dark.
He didn't hide. He stood under the streetlight in front of her tidy, suburban home, his face a pale moon in the gloom. He knew which window was hers. He watched until the light went off. He gave it twenty minutes. Then he moved.
He didn't pick the lock. He took a small, rubber mallet from his pocket and tapped the corner of the pane in her basement window, just hard enough. A clean, almost silent crack. He peeled the glass away like a piece of hard candy, reached in, and undid the latch.
The basement smelled of laundry detergent and old carpet. He moved through it like smoke, up the stairs, into the kitchen. The house was silent, breathing the slow, trusting breath of people who believed in alarm systems and neighborhood watches.
He found her room. The door was slightly ajar. He pushed it open.
Mila was asleep, one arm flung over her head, the fading bruises on her wrist just visible in the moonlight. She looked younger. Softer. The loud, brash armor she wore in daylight was gone.
Ezra stood over her bed, watching the steady rise and fall of her chest. He could smell her shampoo. Strawberry. Cloying.
He didn't touch her. He didn't need to. The threat was in the presence, the violation of the space. He was a ghost in her bedroom, a living nightmare made flesh.
He leaned down, close enough that his shadow fell across her face. Her eyelids fluttered.
"Mila," he whispered.
Her eyes flew open. For a second, there was only confusion in the dark. Then they focused. They saw him.
The scream started in her throat, a raw, silent inhalation of pure terror. Her body locked, frozen between sleep and nightmare.
"Shhh," Ezra said, his voice a soft, intimate rasp. He put a single finger to his lips. "You'll wake your parents."
She didn't scream. A choked whimper escaped her. She scrambled back against the headboard, pulling the comforter to her chin like a shield. "W-what... how did you..."
"I wanted to check on you," he said, straightening up. He made a show of looking around her room the band posters, the messy desk, the pile of clothes. "See how my brother's one exception was doing."
Tears welled in her eyes, but they were tears of fury as much as fear. "Get out."
"In a minute." He walked to her desk, picked up a framed photo of her and Avery from last summer. They were at a fair, faces painted, laughing. He traced Avery's smile with his thumb. "He's having a rough time. Library accident today. Locked in, all alone. Scared."
He saw the information hit her. Her protective instincts warred with her own paralyzing fear. "What did you do?"
"Me? Nothing. Old pipes. Bad luck." He placed the photo back down, perfectly aligned. "But Leo was there. Leo helped him." He turned to look at her, his head tilted. "You see how that works? The world gets scary. Leo makes it safe. Over and over. Until safe... and Leo... are the same thing in that pretty little head of his."
"You're monsters," she breathed.
"We're inevitable," he corrected. He took a step toward the bed. She shrank back. "And you, Mila, are a loose end. A talking, feeling, loyal loose end. My brother has a soft spot for you. Thinks your sadness would hurt Avery. I think..." He leaned in, close enough to see the pulse hammering in her throat. "...you're a risk. A friend who might whisper the wrong thing. A memory of a life before us."
"I won't say anything," she whispered, the words trembling. "I swear."
"I believe you," Ezra said, smiling. It was not a nice smile. "Right now, you mean it. But fear fades. Loyalty returns. You'll want to protect him. You'll think you can save him." He reached out, slowly, and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She recoiled as if burned. "So here's the new rule. You don't talk to him about us. You don't talk to him about the fire. You don't talk to him about anything scarier than the weather. In fact..." He paused, letting the idea sink in. "...you start pulling away. Gently. You're busy. You're stressed. You got a new job, a new friend. You drift."
Her face crumpled. "You want me to abandon him?"
"I want you to save him," Ezra hissed, his calm fracturing for a second. "Because the next time I'm in this room, it won't be for a chat. And your parents' room is just down the hall. And they sleep so soundly."
The unspoken threat hung in the air, more potent than any shouted violence.
Mila stared at him, the last of her defiance crumbling into ash. She was a fighter, but she wasn't stupid. She was trapped. She nodded, a tiny, broken movement.
"Good girl," Ezra purred. He turned and walked to the door. He paused at the threshold, looking back at her huddled form. "Oh, and Mila? Smile when you do it. He needs to think you're happy without him. It'll make him lonelier."
He slipped out the way he came, leaving the cold night air to seep in through the broken basement window.
In her bed, Mila pressed her face into her pillow, her body shaking with silent, hopeless sobs. The last anchor in Avery's life had just been cut, not with a scream, but with a whisper.
POV: Avery Knox
The knock on his apartment door the next evening made him jump. He wasn't expecting anyone. He peered through the peephole.
Mila.
A wave of relief, so profound it felt like pain, washed over him. He fumbled with the chain and deadbolt and pulled the door open. "Mila, thank god, I-"
The words died in his throat.
She stood there, but she was different. She was holding a cardboard box. Her face was set in a determined, brittle smile that didn't reach her eyes.
"Hey," she said, her voice too bright.
"Hey... what's going on?" Avery asked, his relief curdling into confusion.
"I'm just... here to grab my stuff," she said, brushing past him into the apartment. She went straight to the shelf where she kept a spare hoodie, a few books, a toothbrush. She started putting them in the box.
"Your stuff? Mila, what are you talking about?" He followed her, a cold knot forming in his stomach.
"I just... I need some space, Avery," she said, not looking at him. She folded the hoodie with brisk, efficient movements. "Everything's been so intense. With the... the attack, and you being so stressed, and the library thing... I just need to focus on me for a bit."
It was a rehearsed speech. He could hear the hollow echo in the words.
"Focus on you?" he repeated, disbelief turning to a sharp hurt. "Mila, I've been scared out of my mind. I need you."
She flinched, her hands pausing on the books. For a second, the mask slipped, and he saw the raw, terrified girl underneath. Then she slammed it back into place. "And I need to not be scared anymore!" she snapped, the false brightness gone, replaced by a frayed desperation. "Don't you get it? Being near you is... it's dangerous. It's like I'm a lightning rod for bad shit!"
The words were a physical blow. He stumbled back a step. "So... you're leaving? Because I'm dangerous?"
"I'm leaving because I have to!" she cried, tears finally spilling over. They weren't sad tears; they were tears of fury and terror. She shoved the last book in the box and hugged it to her chest, a pathetic shield. "I'm sorry, Avery. I really am. But I can't do this anymore."
She pushed past him again, heading for the door.
"Mila, wait!" He grabbed her arm. She froze, her whole body going rigid. Her eyes, wide and terrified, flew to his hand, then to his face. In that look, he didn't see his best friend pushing him away. He saw someone who was terrified of him.
He let go, his own hand dropping as if burned.
"Just... be careful, okay?" she whispered, the fight gone, only a hollow plea remaining. Then she was out the door, leaving it swinging open behind her.
Avery stood in the silence of his apartment, the space where she had just been feeling colder than the water from the sprinklers. The last person who knew him, the last person he trusted, was gone. She had looked at him like he was the monster.
He was completely alone.
He walked to the window, numb, and looked down at the street. He saw Mila hurrying to her car, shoulders hunched. And he saw something else. Parked a little way down the street, a dark sedan. A familiar one.
As Mila drove away, the sedan's lights came on. It didn't follow her. It lingered for a moment, then pulled a smooth U-turn and drove off in the opposite direction.
Avery slid down the wall until he was sitting on the floor, his head in his hands. The isolation wasn't an accident. It was a strategy. Someone was systematically removing every pillar of his world.
And the only person left standing in the ruins, the only one who offered any semblance of safety, of concern, was the one person he was most afraid of.
Leo.