A/N: Hi, hi! First off, Happy Mothers Day to all of the amazing women who were crazy brave enough to take on parenting. I am having a great day, because I heard back from bite-me-i'm-irish and she has given me her blessing to finish her awesome story, Little Sparks. It is the sequel to her story Old Flame, so I am telling you, you need to read that first. I am so excited because I loved both of the stories so much that I stayed up all night reading them. I also encourage everyone to review Old Flame and the first part of Little Sparks. Bite-me-i'm-irish is one of the most talented writers of Ezria stories on this site and she deserves to hear from other readers who agree with me. This chapter takes place the same night as Chapter 17. I hope fans of the first part of the story like the direction I take it.

The storms are raging
On the rolling sea
And on the highway of regret
Though winds of change
Are throwing wild and free
You ain't seen nothing
Like me yet

Adele – Make You Feel My Love

"Son of a bitch!" Byron punctuated his words by slamming his hand into the steering wheel, again. "That vile, lecherous, repugnant monster!" And the rant was starting over, again. I had to tune him out.

I leaned my forehead against the cold glass of the passenger side window and watched the black night slide by. Not for the first time I wondered if I should have insisted on driving. I could tell that Byron's anger had caused some sort of short-circuit in his brain. He was going round and round in circles about Ezra, Aria, the boarding school and our own failures as parents. But my head was pounding and my chest was tight against my thudding heart. My mind was swirling with images and thoughts that I had hoped were in the past. I saw Aria in hysterics and Aria freezing me out. I saw the pictures again for the first time and remembered the burning anger and numbing shock I felt looking at my baby passionately kissing her teacher. I remembered the nights that I had cried, imagining what my little girl was going through. I remembered the nagging whisper saying that we had stolen her life. I never decided if that whisper spoke with Aria's voice or my own. I wanted to get to Aria as fast as we could, but I dreaded what we would face when we got there.

"You know what we should have done, Ella." Oh fun, my line was coming up. "We should have gone straight to the police with those pictures as soon as we got them. We never should have let that creep walk around free."

"I know, Byron." I exhaled the words more than said them. If Byron were calmer he would recognize that I was placating him, and ask me what I thought of the situation. But his mind was so clouded by rage, and fear I suspected, that he just wanted me to agree with his pronouncements. If I were less upset, and less afraid, I would have forced my opinions into the diatribe. But the truth was, I didn't really know what my opinion was. Was Ezra a monster? The highlight reel in my head made me less certain than I was a year ago. I saw Ezra trying to appear only mildly interested when he asked me where Aria had gone. My mind created a time-lapse of watching as Ezra changed. He seemed to shrink into himself. By the end of the school year he almost wasn't there anymore. The passion and excitement for English and helping his students connect to the novels he taught were simply gone. At one time I had really admired the way he put so much of himself into teaching, his enthusiasm for becoming an integral part of the English department and the whole school. But then he left, months before he resigned. He became quiet, distracted, and uninterested. Everything that I recognized as Ezra Fitz disappeared. I watched him far more closely than before. At first, I was pleased that he appeared to be struggling. After the way he tore my family apart I wanted him to pay, to suffer. But witnessing that suffering, as quiet and subtle as it was, created uncomfortable questions in my mind. Why did he change so much? Why wasn't he bouncing back? He seemed to have lost his anchor mooring him to Rosewood. I couldn't say for certain that he hadn't moved on to another student, but I knew in my heart that he hadn't. I never discussed any of that with Byron. Even an allusion to Ezra would have Byron through the roof. He wouldn't even tolerate Aria's name for the first few months. So, when school started for a new year and Ezra Fitz's body had followed his spirit away from Rosewood High, I decided not to tell Byron. I knew that knowing for certain that Ezra was gone would please my husband, and I didn't really want to please him.

I was just happy that the whole thing was behind us. I looked forward to rebuilding my relationship with my daughter once her affair was a distant and fading memory and I was still right there to be there for her. But God, the joke was on me. I couldn't have known that Ezra's departure sent him straight back to Aria. Did Aria send for him as soon as she got to West Virginia? But if she had, then hers and Ezra's performances of separation and grief were award caliber. But did I believe that Ezra could end up at a girls' boarding school in West Virginia with Aria by chance? It had to be impossible, right? I had been so sure that Aria was too young and naïve to understand or see her relationship for what it truly was. I was horrified thinking about the kind of criticism her relationship would cause for her. But did I ever really try to understand what the relationship meant to her? I was absolutely certain about the situation then, and Byron still was. But now I felt like I didn't really know anything about what had happened between them.

I knew that we were speeding across state lines at 2 in the morning. I knew that Aria was in the middle of a real-life nightmare, the headmistress had explained what they found when they were searching for Aria after she disappeared from her own prom. She had phoned again minutes later to say that Aria had collapsed and was being taken to the hospital. Mrs. Curran seemed to think Aria's collapse was because of the attack on her. But I knew my baby, and it sounded to me like she'd had a panic attack. And I didn't really believe she was that scared about her own safety. Seeing Ezra dragged off in hand-cuffs might have done it, though.

Byron didn't understand. He wasn't there when I pulled up to the police station with Aria more than a year ago. I could still remember her screams when I tried to take her in to give a statement about Ezra. They had been primal, petrified, like a wounded animal fighting for its very survival. I had wanted to punish Ezra Fitz for what he had done. I wanted him to disappear forever. I was physically ill thinking about the damage he might have done to my precious little girl. I needed to save her, protect her, get her life back on track. But in that moment, listening to those screams, I knew that turning him in would break her. If I was going to help Aria, then I couldn't put her through that.

Byron argued with me vehemently, even after Aria was away at school. He said we were risking other teenage girls having to go through the same thing. But I knew he was really worried that Ezra and Aria would find a way to be together again. I pointed out that he had promised Aria not to turn Ezra in as long as she didn't contact him. But someone must have told him where she was. My jaw hit the floor when the headmistress told me that Ezra Fitz was Aria's former English teacher at the boarding school. It wasn't possible that he had ended up there by chance, was it? Aria had been lying to us for almost a year, or maybe she had never stopped. And now here we were, driving to a hospital in West Virginia in the middle of the night. Byron had been right about the police, I supposed.

"Look, I'm going to drop you off at the hospital and go straight to the police station. I want them to know how much of a danger that bastard is." Uh-oh, that's new, I thought. I turned to Byron and put my hand on his arm. He was slumped in his seat, his hands limply hanging on to the steering wheel. He'd worn himself out with his incredibly long tirade. I leaned across the armrest and kissed him gently on the cheek. I knew how much he loved Aria. But I worried that, sometimes, he might hate Ezra more.

"Byron," I began carefully, not wanting to reignite his anger. "I know that you're concerned about Ezra staying in jail. But Aria needs both of us, right now. We need to get to her and make sure that she's ok…"

Byron cut me off, "Of course she's not ok. That pig snatched her away from her prom and violated her!"

"And if that's what happened, then Aria will tell us. We need to listen to her, Byron. We can't just decide what's going to happen this time." Byron opened his mouth to argue with me again, but I moved my hand up and pushed it against his lips. "She's 18 and about to graduate. If we force anything else on her she can leave. She can cut us out of her life, disappear, and never come home again. Is that what you want?"

I removed my hand from his mouth so that he could answer. He worked his jaw and moved his lips as if I had squashed his face. So, I was pretty sure his response was not going to be a mature one. "It might be worth it, if he's in jail and can't stalk her anymore. Even if she isn't with us, I would feel like she was safer," he muttered petulantly. I threw my hands up and sighed. This drive could not be over soon enough to suit me.

O.K., I will do my best to stick to a schedule of uploading a new chapter each week. And I am working on other stories, as well. Please, please review and let me know if I'm doing all right with this story. I'm trying to do it justice. Bite-me-i'm-irish ends chapters with threats and I am totally on board with that approach. Review or I will let Alison decide on a new nickname for you.