Page 351 of When We Fall: Part Two

ONE HUNDRED ELEVEN

ETHAN

Iheld my son in my arms a month after Celeste attacked him. The ghosts, or watchers, whatever you wanted to call them, burned the house down. It was nothing but ash by the time the fire department came.

Enzo fed the police a story about how Celeste had set the house on fire after trying to kill him and the baby. He couldn’t save her, but I’d taken the baby to the hospital while he tried.

They bought it.

He was Lorenzo De Luca. No one would question him. And if they did, the ghosts were so damn good at what they did in their white masks and black clothing that there wouldn’t be fuck all to find of Celeste’s body.

She was ash in the wind.

“Hey,” Cole said, coming into the living room to sit next to me.

“Hey,” I replied.

“How is he today?” he asked as Enzo entered the room.

“He’s good,” I murmured, staring down at the tiny version of myself. It’s all I saw in him. He looked nothing like Celeste. His eyes were even turning green, just like mine.

“Have you thought of a name yet?” Enzo asked, sitting on my other side.

Something in Enzo snapped that night. He’d gone dark. Far darker than he was before. It was terrifying, but I suppose we all had to change or get buried beneath the world. He had to meet the ghosts after killing Celeste. Their job was to punish for the sins of the underground, but the guys had killed her. They never told me what the punishment was, or if there was one. I didn’t want to know. As long as they weren’t dead, it was all that mattered.

I hadn’t been high since the night Celeste died. It was a good thing.

My focus was on my son. On being a good dad. On getting my shit together so he could look up to me someday.

“Lazarus,” I said. “Lazarus Constantino Masters.”

“It’s a good name,” Enzo said. “Laz. And after Fox. I like it.”

“Riot,” Cole added. “That’s his nickname because you know he’s strong as fuck and going to tear some shit up.”

I smiled at that and stared down at the sleeping infant in my arms. He was going to have ugly scars on his neck and chest. I hated that for him, but was so grateful he was in my arms.

“I love you,” I whispered, kissing his forehead gently. “I’m going to give you the world or die trying.”

Cole clapped me on the back, and Enzo squeezed my thigh.

I stared down at the baby in my arms, the proof of everything I’d tried to escape in my life. The world would never understand what Celeste took from me, or how much I’d lost when my silence cost me my sweetheart. But this baby, my son, this small, blinking, innocent soul that shouldn’t have existed… felt like grace carved from ruin.

Laz’s tiny finger wrapped around mine as he cooed softly. Something inside me, that jagged, haunted part of my soul, cracked open. I spent years hating what dragged me through theunderground, and then I cursed my life after I was freed. Now I knew: not all things born from pain are cursed.

Some are born to heal what pain destroyed.

And I was ready for the journey.

The End… For Now.