Page 38

ETHAN'S POV

I shut my laptop, my fingers hovering over the keyboard longer than they should have.

The file was still there—untouched, unchanged.

I had made it for Clark. Thought he would like it.

Thought maybe, just maybe, he would look at me differently if I gave him something that mattered.

But Clark didn’t like me back, did he? No matter how often I caught him sneaking glances when he thought I wasn’t looking, it didn’t change the fact that, at the core of it all, he still saw me as just another cocky jock.

The cursor blinked. Delete it. Keep it. Delete it. Keep it.

My jaw clenched, and I pulled away before making a decision I would regret. Not like it mattered. He wouldn’t have cared either way.

Then, suddenly, a presence shifted in the room, and every muscle in my body locked.

I didn’t need to turn around. I knew who it was. The air in the room changed when he was near—thicker, heavier, something in it crawling under my skin like it was trying to dig its way into my bones.

I pretended not to see him.

Maybe if I didn’t acknowledge him, he would disappear.

Silence stretched between us, taut as a wire. I heard him breathe, slow and measured like he was giving me a chance to acknowledge him first. I didn’t.

Then, finally, his voice cut through the quiet. Low. Amused.

"Ignoring me won’t make me leave, son."

I still didn’t look at him. My fingers tapped against the laptop lid, restless energy begging for an outlet. "Wasn’t expecting you."

"Of course not." A soft chuckle. He moved, footsteps careful, calculated. Like a predator sizing up its prey. "But you knew I’d come eventually."

My teeth ground together. He was right. He always was.

"What do you want?" I asked, voice flat.

"Is that any way to greet your father?"

The word curdled in my throat. Father. That’s what he called himself, but he was not anything like one. He was a presence. A force. A shadow that loomed over my life, whispering things I didn’t want to hear, making me an offer I didn’t want to take.

And yet, here he was.

"I don’t have time for this," I muttered, reaching for my laptop again, just for something to do. Something to focus on that wasn’t him.

"Oh, but you do." He was closer now. I still didn’t look at him, but I could feel him watching me. "You have all the time in the world, Ethan. And you’re wasting it."

A chill crawled up my spine. My fingers tightened around the laptop’s edges.

"Is that what you came here to tell me?" I asked, feigning boredom. "Because I’m really not in the mood for another attempt to indoctrinate me."

He laughed. It was a smooth, knowing sound like he was amused by how much I tried to fight him.

The air got colder, but I couldn't say if it was the cold air or the thickening silence that followed, hung over me, heavy and unforgiving. I sat, hands clinging to the rim of my laptop, trying to drown myself in the illumination of the screen, but it was not enough. Not today.

He stood across from me, rigid as stone.

His smile was there, however, curling at the edge of his mouth.

Like he was looking for some type of response from me, some break in tension that had piled up between us since weeks before turning seventeen.

I didn't grant him that pleasure. Not now. Not after everything.

He shifted just enough for me to feel the slight movement in the room, the gentle hum of something shifting, something stirring. It was nothing, really, but I felt it. My hands tightened around the laptop, the cold metal offering no solace, no relief.

Moments ticked by—more than normal. The type of moments that were like stretched elastic, elongating the air between us farther and farther until it was almost painful to breathe.

At last, his voice cut through the silence, low and heavy, the type of voice that bore a load, a weight. I had not expected it.

“You see,” he began, his tone calm—too calm—each word carefully measured, like a confession wrapped in silk. “When I was young, I knew exactly what I wanted. Power. Money. Control. I understood the price. The sacrifices. The blood. The silence. I knew what I’d have to give up to get it.”

He paused, eyes distant, not with regret, but with clarity. “And I did it anyway.”

I knew about the cult. I had clawed through obscure books, whispered forums, and forgotten corners of the internet—searching, desperate, starved for anything that could bring my father back.

Grief wasn’t just a shadow I walked with; it was the air I breathed.

It sank into my bones, howled in my chest, and made even the silence scream.

He was gone. Stolen. And the hole he left behind was not poetic—it was brutal. It was the kind that made mornings unbearable and nights feel like drowning with your eyes wide open.

But there was no way, was there?

The cult... they promised impossible things.

They traded souls for solid wealth. Monsters draped in velvet. They surfaced only beneath red moons, those nights when the sky looked like it, too, had lost someone and wept crimson. When the moon wasn’t bleeding, they disappeared—unless they had a mission.

And I was sure my father’s mission was me.

Because seventeen-year-old demons? That’s what the cult salivated over. And I was ripe for the taking—lonely, angry, broken. Just the kind of soul they liked to chew on.

I didn't respond, not right away. His words hung in the air, heavy and foreboding.

He moved again, just enough to remind me that he wasn't as far away as he once was.

That, if anything, this was different. His words had always been laced with a bitterness I couldn't help but notice, but there was something in them now—a resignation, perhaps—that compelled me to look at him. Finally. I didn't want to, but I did.

A smile, faint and unapologetic, tugged at his lips. “Because some things are worth the cost. Even if they burn you alive.”

I looked at him then, really looked at him, beyond the mask he'd been wearing all those years.

There was something in his eyes, something hollow that he'd never allowed me to see before. And in that moment, something shifted inside of me, but I didn't know what.

"Is that supposed to be making me sorry for you?" The words tumbled out before I could catch them. The anger that had been seething beneath, rolling and twisting in my chest, slid up my throat. "You bartered your soul for power. For what? So you could turn me into something like you?"

The words rested on my lips like rough glass, gritty.

My hands trembled on the rim of the laptop, their pressure tightening with anticipation as I waited for his response.

The heat of his eyes rested on me, and for a fleeting fraction of a second, I considered whether he'd respond, would fight back and protest, but then his shoulders eased a fraction.

A breath escaped his lips, one that was so soft it hardly counted as real. It was almost. Resigned.

“No. I thought about what you said, and…” His voice softened, almost pleading.

"I want you to have a choice. To be something other than I was.

That's why I'm not forcing you to do it anymore.

I won't ask you to go with them. I want you to be you. And who knows, you could be greater than I ever was.”

The words weighed heavily, a burden I couldn't move.

I looked at him, attempting to comprehend, but all of me denied it.

The silence hung once more, heavy and heavy with foreboding.

My brain spun, unsure of what to utter. I wanted to yell.

I wanted to cry out that it was too late, that I didn't need his sympathy, that I didn't care about his regrets.

But I didn't.

“You’re leaving,” I said, my voice barely more than a whisper, as though saying it aloud would make it too real.

He nodded. There was no defiance in his movement. No anger. Just. Resignation. “The cult is taking me. I’ve served them for so long. I’ve been a puppet, just like they wanted. But it’s over now. They want all of me. And they’ll take me, whether I’m ready or not.”

For a moment, the words didn't compute. They didn't belong. But then they did. They took hold, the gravity of them settling in me like a cold rock.

"I never wanted you to be like this," I growled, my throat closing as I tried to get the lump that had formed there to go down. "I never wanted to be anything like you."

He laughed, but the laugh was melancholy. It wasn't funny at all, but full of a silence that spoke more of sadness. "I know. But perhaps you'll be different. Perhaps you'll be great.”

I gazed at him, and something within me stirred, something I could not put my finger on.

Maybe it was regret. Maybe it was sadness.

Maybe it was something between the two. But I couldn't find words to say it, so I didn't. I just stood there, fighting the urge to scream or run or do anything that would break the fragile silence.

And then, out of the blue, he stepped forward and embraced me.

It was awkward. Unnatural. His arms were stiff around me, like he didn't know how to hold me, or if he should. We weren't close, not in the way that counted. Not at all.

For a moment, I was frozen. Did not know what to do. Did not know what I was supposed to be feeling. But something shifted between us, something raw and broken. And I could not stop myself from hugging him, though I did not want to. Though I was not sure I should.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, his voice breaking. "I never wanted to hurt you, son. Never."

I didn’t respond. The words tangled, heavy, caught in the web of everything that had gone unspoken. But I didn’t retreat. I couldn’t.

And in that moment, everything I thought I knew about him—about us—shifted. It felt fragile, like glass on the verge of shattering. But it was there. A moment that should never have existed, but one I knew I could never erase.

When he turned to leave, there was a finality in his eyes.

"I'm going. I won't come back."

I nodded, my throat aching. "I know."

He said nothing else. Just turned for the door. But before crossing that final threshold, he glanced back. His eyes—dark, hollow, cupped with something nearly forgotten—held the last flicker of what might have been affection. Almost.

"You're gonna be okay, Ethan," he said. "Maybe better than I ever was."

And with that, he vanished into the shadows, leaving me alone with the weight of all that had passed.

The door closed behind him.

And just like that, he was gone.

I didn’t know how to process it. Couldn’t. But somehow, I felt the shift. Things were different now. Maybe better. Maybe worse. I couldn’t tell.

But as the silence filled the room, I knew only this: something had changed.

And for the first time in my life, I had no idea what came next.