Chapter Nine: Ashes and Scars
It started with a nightmare.
Leo hadn't meant to fall asleep on the couch, but the long week and late classes caught up to him. Alina had fallen asleep too, curled up with a book beside him, the soft glow of the lamp painting her features in gold.
Then it happened.
A scream—raw, broken, terrified.
Alina jolted awake. Ethan ran from his room.
"Leo!"
He was thrashing, eyes squeezed shut, sweat pouring down his face. "No—stop—don't—please—"
Ethan shook him. "Leo, wake up! It's just a dream, wake up!"
Leo gasped and sat upright, wide-eyed and trembling, like he'd just clawed his way out of a burning building.
Alina knelt in front of him. "You're okay. You're safe. It's us."
He looked at her. Then Ethan. And broke.
His shoulders collapsed inward as sobs tore through his chest. The confident, carefree Leo they knew vanished—left in his place was a broken boy who had been holding the weight of hell for far too long.
"I never told you," he whispered, voice shaking. "What happened before I met you."
Ethan sat beside him, quiet, waiting.
"My dad killed my mom," Leo said. "I was eight. He just… snapped. Then he went to prison, and I got dumped with my stepmother."
Alina's hand found his, gently holding it.
"She hated me," he continued, staring down. "Said I reminded her of him. She'd burn me with cigarettes. Lock me in closets. Once, she pushed me down the stairs. Said I was just another mistake she got stuck with."
He rolled up his sleeve, revealing a faded scar near his shoulder—circular, pale, and unmistakably cruel.
Alina's breath caught. Ethan looked like he was going to be sick.
"I learned to laugh early," Leo said, eyes glassy. "People love the funny guy. No one looks too close. No one asks questions."
He tried to smile, but it cracked.
Alina threw her arms around him, holding him tight. "You didn't deserve any of that."
Ethan, silent for a long moment, wrapped a hand around Leo's back. "You're not alone anymore. You never were. And you never will be again."
Leo let himself cry, really cry—for the first time in years.
And for once, it wasn't in silence or in secret. It was in the arms of the only people who had ever felt like home.