Page 330 of When We Fall: Part Two

She crashed into me, sobbing my name as I wrapped my arms around her.

She continued to weep, clinging to me.

“Hey,” I answered softly, removing my sunglasses. “How’s my girl?”

She stared up at me.

I winced and ducked my head. I didn’t like her seeing my scars. My left eye was milky white, as if a ghost were drowning in it. Glacial in color, it spoke of all my traumas. I always wore sunglasses to hide it, but she needed to see me. I wasn’t exactly pretty to look at, but she looked at me like I was the most beautiful thing in the world.

I fumbled with my sunglasses, desperate to put them on so she wouldn’t see the ugliness of my eyes.

With a shaky hand, she reached out and cradled my face, pushing the sunglasses away. Her palm slid against the rough scars along my jaw and cheek.

“Can you see me?” she whispered.

“Yes,” I answered softly. “You’re blurry in my left eye, but I can see you with my right.”

“Evan…”

“Rosalie,” I murmured. “Ro.”

“How are you here?”

“Matteo. I-I pushed the button on the coin Matteo gave me. I forgot I even had it. Alessio came. He injected me with something and said he never misses a shot. It would have been funny at the time had I not been dying.” My voice trailed off as she continued to stare in wonder at me. I was real. I was here. My heart beat steadily beneath her fingertips.

“I didn’t know if I was going to make it. Alessio said there was a chance I wouldn’t, but I had to take the chance. I-I wanted your freedom. I’d have died for it. So I did. I’m Evan now. Matteo made sure I got everything new. Fox died in the underground.”

She sobbed, her face buried in my chest as I held her. My heart had never been so damn full before.

She climbed me like a tree, and I held her tiny body as she pressed her lips against mine.

Fuck, I’d missed this.

I kissed her back, knowing I wasn’t quite myself yet. Trauma did that to a guy. Once I’d woken in a hospital bed in one of Matteo’s facilities, I begged to go to her and the guys, but Matteo said I was already gone, that I’d died. That this was the plan now. All I had to do was take the name Evan Beyers. That he’d ensure Rosalie made it to me.

It was hell. Pure hell as I tried to recover. I still had trouble walking. My arm was beyond fucked. My soul… well, it was shattered.

I’d shaved my head, pierced my ears, and had my body tatted over the last few months to mask the pain so I wouldn’t have to see so many of the scars on my skin. There wasn’t fuck all I coulddo about the scar down my face or the eye that was fucked, but I was here. It was the best I could get, and for that, I was grateful.

I was me, but I wasn’t.

Fox really had died that night.

The shot Alessio gave me was something he’d been working on with Matteo. A life after death jolt. It slowed the heart to nearly nothing. They used one of E’s strains to make it happen. So I’d lain there on the floor, unconscious, hoping I’d wake up.

Then Dante had the fire set.

Alessio took me through the tunnels with Sylar and freed me after Enzo had left. My body was replaced with another. Matteo said the body was burned beyond recognition. That my father identified me and confirmed it was me. When I asked my dad why he confirmed it was me, he gave me a sad smile and said he was grieving too much to even think. It had come to him much later, though, and it was why he reconnected with Matteo after Emilio found him and asked about the coin.

Matteo had many men in his pocket—even the damn coroner.

I’d vomited for a week upon hearing of my own death. I begged to go home. To my guys. To my girl. But Matteo reminded me that I’d made a deal, and I’d pressed the button. He reasoned that it freed Rosalie to grow, and it gave me what I wanted most.

The love of my life.

Guilt had been eating at me for months. I’d betrayed the guys. Rosie. But fuck, I wanted to save her. Knowing she’d survived another attack, it helped.

A lot.