I was lying in bed staring up at the ceiling, listening to the quiet sounds of the house settling around me as the night stretched deeper.
The dishwasher had long since finished downstairs. Somewhere in the hallway, I could hear Sarah moving around in her room, probably pretending she wasn’t still awake. Dad’s voice had drifted faintly through the vents earlier, followed by Mom telling him to stop reorganizing things at ten at night like a psychopath. Even the house had its own kind of breathing—small noises in the walls, the quiet hum of the air conditioner, the familiar rhythm of a place that had become home.
Cosmo was stretched against my side, heavy and warm, already deep asleep.
His breathing had settled into that unmistakable rhythm of someone completely lost in the land of dreams, and every so often one of his paws twitched like he was chasing something important in his sleep. I smiled despite myself and reached down, running my fingers slowly through the soft fur on the back of his neck.
“Busy day, huh?”
One ear twitched.
That was the only response I got.
I leaned down and kissed the top of his furry head, and Cosmo let out a sleepy sigh like he approved of the gesture but would not be participating further.
He had stayed by my side through the entire story. The whole thing.
From the first words to the last, he had sat there with his head resting on my knee like he understood every single piece of it, grounding me every time my voice shook too hard or my hands started to tremble. Every time I thought I might stop talking, I would feel the weight of him there and remember I didn’t have to do it alone.
Mom had cried.
Not loudly, not dramatically—just quietly, the way people cried when the hurt was too old and too deep for anything else. Sarah had cried too, though she would absolutely deny it if anyone brought it up tomorrow. Dad had gone silent in that terrifying way he did when he was trying very hard not to break something with his bare hands.
And Kyan…
Kyan and Dad had both openly sworn vengeance on Cara and Kevin Brody and Harold Stubbs like they were planning a family-sponsored crime spree.
Honestly, it had been a little touching.
By the time I got to the part where I had found them again—where I learned my real name, where I stopped being Zachary Brody and started becoming Zyan Montgomery—I had been shaking so hard I could barely get the words out.
That was where I stopped.
I didn’t see the point in telling them about the past week in detail when they had been there for most of it anyway. They had lived it with me. They knew the hospital visits, the nightmares, the panic attacks, the letters, the collapse, the dog, all of it.
But there was still more coming.
There always was.
Mom and Dad had mentioned at one point that I might have to testify when the separate trials finally happened. Cara. Kevin. Harold. All of it still had to be faced in a courtroom eventually.
The thought should have terrified me.
Maybe it still did.
But it didn’t feel impossible anymore.
Because now I had Cosmo.
I had Mom and Dad.
I had Sarah.
I had Natalie and Greg.
I had Toby and Geoff and Gavin.
And most importantly, I had Kyan.
I had my family.
And somewhere along the way, I had started to believe that maybe that meant I could survive anything.
Maybe I already had.
“Hey.”
I turned my head toward the doorway where a familiar shadow was leaning against the frame like he had been standing there long enough to debate whether or not he was going to annoy me.
“Are you okay with me sleeping in here,” Kyan asked, “or are you still being Mr. Independent?”
Even though I couldn’t fully see his face in the dim light, I could hear the smile in his voice.
I thought about messing with him. I thought about making him beg a little just on principle.
But the truth was, after everything today, I didn’t think either of us really wanted to pretend.
Maybe he needed me as much as I needed him.
He was my twin.
There were still things about that connection I didn’t understand—things I had felt in dreams and memories that didn’t make sense yet—but whatever it was, it mattered.
And honestly, I just wanted my brother close.
“Yeah,” I said, smiling into the dark. “Of course you can. Just don’t squish Cosmo.”
“I won’t,” he said, and there was something like relief in it.
Then he was climbing over both me and the dog with all the grace of a falling bookshelf, muttering apologies as Cosmo lifted his head in immediate betrayal.
“Seriously?” I muttered.
“I’m being delicate.”
“You are many things. Delicate is not one of them.”
“Rude.”
He finally settled into his usual position against the wall, like some part of him had already decided that was where he belonged, and slipped his arms around me, pulling me tightly against his chest.
The hug was immediate.
Instinctive.
Too tight to be casual.
Kyan had obviously not enjoyed sleeping without me the night before.
He was quiet for a second before he said, very seriously, “You are not allowed to do that again.”
I already knew what he meant.
Still, I asked anyway.
“Do what?”
“Leave me behind,” he said flatly.
Then, because emotional vulnerability could only be tolerated for so long before he needed to commit a crime, he immediately attacked me.
His fingers dug into my sides, and I gasped so hard I nearly launched Cosmo off the bed.
“Kyan—!”
“You think this is funny?” he demanded while absolutely making it worse. “Promise me. Wherever you go, I go. That’s the deal.”
I was trapped.
Pinned between him and the wall, being viciously tickled while trying not to wake the entire house.
I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe.
“Okay! Okay—stop—”
“Nope.”
“I’m serious!”
“Legally binding promises only!”
“Fine! Fine—I promise!”
He finally relented, and I collapsed against him like a man who had survived war.
I was still trying to recover my dignity when Cosmo turned around and gave both of us the most deeply disappointed look I had ever seen on a dog.
Apparently, the violence had disturbed his beauty sleep.
Kyan reached forward immediately and rubbed his belly.
“Sorry, Cosmo,” he said solemnly. “Your father is dramatic.”
Cosmo accepted the apology with the quiet dignity of a king allowing peasants to continue existing. After a moment, he sighed heavily and settled back down.
Kyan laughed softly.
“Easy to keep him happy.”
“He’s a pooping machine,” I said. “It’s a full-time job.”
“Good thing it’s you and not me.”
I laughed quietly, but there was still one thing sitting in my chest that I needed to ask before sleep made him useless.
“Hey,” I said after a minute. “Can I ask you something?”
I felt him shift slightly behind me.
“Yeah, of course.”
I hesitated.
It sounded ridiculous out loud.
But I needed to know.
“About one of my dreams.”
He was quiet for a second.
“Okay…”
“Do you remember coming to me in them?”
Kyan laughed softly—not mocking, just surprised.
“You were coming to me, baby brother.”
I frowned.
“What?”
“I don’t really understand it either,” he admitted. “All I know is it has something to do with our family. You and me being twins. Something weird and dramatic and probably very annoying.”
“That is not helpful.”
“I never claimed to be helpful.”
I was quiet for a second.
It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him. I did. More than almost anyone. But there was something in the way he said it, something just underneath the words, that made it feel like there was more there. Something he either wasn’t saying or maybe didn’t know how to explain yet. It felt too big to just be a strange dream. Too specific. Too familiar. Like there was some missing piece sitting just out of reach, and both of us could feel it without fully understanding it.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
The room stayed quiet longer this time.
I could feel him thinking behind me, feel the hesitation in the way his arm shifted slightly around my waist. Kyan was rarely quiet unless something actually mattered, and that silence told me more than an immediate answer would have.
Then he sighed.
“For now,” he said. “I didn’t tell Dad about it before, so technically he only knows because of your story tonight. But when you mentioned it… he didn’t look surprised.”
That made me turn a little.
“He didn’t?”
Kyan shook his head.
“No. It was like he was expecting it.”
I frowned into the darkness.
“Oh.”
That somehow felt bigger than I had energy for tonight.
“We’re definitely asking him about that later.”
“Absolutely,” Kyan agreed. “Preferably when he can’t escape.”
That sounded right.
The room went quiet again.
Comfortable this time.
Cosmo snored softly between us.
The house breathed around us.
And then Kyan said, quietly enough that it almost disappeared into the dark—
“I love you, Zyan.”
That one hit straight through me.
There were so many years we had lost. So much time where neither of us even knew the other existed, where we were living separate lives and carrying separate pain without knowing we were supposed to be carrying it together. We had missed birthdays and ordinary days and all the little things brothers were supposed to have.
And somehow, none of that changed this.
None of it changed the way he held onto me like he had been waiting his whole life to make sure I was real. None of it changed the fact that from the moment we found each other, it had felt like something in both of us clicked back into place.
“I love you too, Kyan,” I said.
His arms tightened around me slightly.
“Thank you for telling your story. I know that was hard for you.”
I swallowed hard.
Kyan’s voice dropped even softer.
“I’m complete now that you’re back in my life.”
That nearly broke me.
Because I understood exactly what he meant.
There was no better way to explain it. The emptiness before and the strange, impossible rightness after. Like some part of me had been reaching for him my entire life without knowing what I was missing. Finding him hadn’t fixed everything, but it had filled in something I thought was permanently broken.
I reached back and found his hand where it rested against me, lacing my fingers through his without even thinking about it.
“I’ll never leave you again.”