4 Years Later

Hey, Guys. I know at this point it would just be repetitive to apologize again but I really am sorry for not posting in so long. I've had a lot of school things going on and when I wasn't in school I was finding it very hard to get the writing juices flowing. So, I decided to reveal quite a lot in this chapter, like I said in last chapter it's not going follow the real PLL story quite as much but I hope you like the twists that I've add and hope you enjoy the chapter .

Ezra

All Ezra ever wanted was a normal life with a normal family. No trust fund, no expensive boarding school, no rich parent's to bail him or his brother out whenever they would screw up. Growing up neither Ezra nor his younger brother Wesley ever had to take responsibility for anything they did, they always knew it was going to be "taken care of." When Ezra was a teenager he used to abuse this sense of security but when he found out his high school girlfriend was pregnant everything changed. Sure, at the time Ezra thought Maggie had gotten an abortion, but still it changed how he looked at his life. Because he never had to take responsibility for his actions, he had no control or free will over what happened to him or his future. For the longest time his mother was pushing him into a life that he never wanted and until Maggie got pregnant, he was letting her. Not too long after that Ezra left home and decided he wanted to be a teacher. In his families eye's teaching was not a "noble profession" and was looked down on. He was constantly told by his mother and his uncles "Those who can't do, teach, Ezra." But Ezra wanted more than anything to prove them wrong, to show them that he could be both a great writer and a great teacher.

When Ezra arrived in Rosewood his whole world and everything he believed life was and even his perception of people changed. He knew that people could be cruel, his whole family was made up of master manipulators and liars but as soon as you met them you knew exactly who they were and what their intentions were, you knew they were not good people. In Rosewood it was so very different; the devil could wear the face of a teenage girl and a murderer could be the face that you trust the most. When Ezra was just a boy his father, who was dying from cancer told him from his death bed, with sadness in his eye and disappointment on his face "You have a big heart, son. You care about people more than you care about yourself. I never thought my first born son would turn out the way you did, you're…..emotional. Some people see these as good qualities, mostly women." He scoffed and struggled to take a few deep breathes before he continued on. "But you will never be the man I wished would be and you will never do the things I wished you would do, because having a big heart just makes you a bigger target and stronger people will always control you and the ones you love will either disappoint you or take advantage of you ." He said in his weak voice, gasping for air after almost every word. His father was always a strong and domineering man whose face was always stoic and the only time he ever really talked when it had to do with "business." Ezra hated the words his father was saying to him, and yet a part of him loved the fact that his father was talking to him at all. Ezra didn't cry at his father's funeral, partly because of what he said to him only a week before he died, he didn't want to be "emotional," and partly because the only time he felt a connection to his father was when his father told him that he will never be the man he wished his son would be.

The only thing Ezra ever wanted was a normal life and now he has that normal life that he always wished for. He had Aria who made him feel so loved that most of the time he was sure he didn't deserve it and he had his son who carried the second piece of his heart and without his son or Aria he knew he would not be whole. Ezra had gone through so much to get the life that he has now and the threat of having it taken away was more than he was willing to accept. It was a gloomy night with the trees gently swaying and a mist of rain falling lightly. Ezra wore a light jacket and a pair of loose fitted, faded blue jeans. With his hand in his jacket pocket he gripped the cold metal handle of a gun that he had bought just a couple of weeks ago. As he neared a run down old house that he had passed a million times but never paid much attention to, a shiver ran down his spine and he took a deep breath as he stood just in front of the stoop of the old house. This was it, Ezra thought to himself, this moment is the moment that he takes control of his life again. He walked up the four steps that creaked underneath him, he walked to the faded wood colored door with the old rusted nob, and then he opened the door that squeaked as he entered A's new layer.

It was not as it was before; the pictures on the walls were now replaced by numerous newspaper clippings, some were even written on in red marker with odd symbols and random words. Ezra didn't understand any of it of course, he never did understand, he knew that it had nothing to do with him and at the same time everything to do with him. He was told many times by people he did not like or trust, that he was the catalyst, the beginning of everything. Ezra knew his sin was boundless, that his awful mistake caused so much hurt and pain and death but he also knew that he was anything but the catalyst. He may not understand the secret codes or symbol that they held so closely to themselves but so far away from him, but he does know that this whole tragedy did not begin with him, but on this dark and gloomy night he had decided it was going to end with him. He looked at the text on the phone, he was on time for the meeting and yet the house seemed to be abandoned until he heard the clanking heals of women's shoes coming down the somewhat unstable staircase.

She stood there at the bottom of the staircase with her red coat tightly wrapped around herself, her face was smug and so full of confidence while Ezra's face was consumed by fear but he was determined, she was not going to take away the one he loved, not again. As he squeezed the handle of the gun that was still in his pocket, she began to chuckle. Ezra had never see eyes like hers, everything else about her appearance was so very familiar, and yet the first time Ezra ever saw her eyes he felt like he was staring into an infinite emptiness. From behind Ezra suddenly felt a strong and firm hand on his shoulder and then a large, metal, object against the middle of his back, fear once again charge through him like a bolt of lightning.

"Slowly take the gun out of your jacket and place it on the ground, now Ezra." Said the man behind him with the familiar British accent. Ezra did as he was told, angry that he had been so stupid, of course she was not alone, she was never alone. Ezra did as he was told just as he always did as he was told. Tears started to wail up in his eyes, he could not go through this again, all the deception and all the lies, they were too much.

She walked toward him, her heels tapping the old wooden floors with every slow step. The grin on her face infuriated Ezra, it was as if she had won the game without even having to play. She got so close to him that he could feel her warm breath on his cold skin. She raised her hand to his cheek, gently gliding her long finger nails across his face as if she were trying to locate where all his fears were. Ezra quickly pulled his face away from her hand as if it were poison that was draining the life out of him.

"Ezra, Ezra, Ezra, the one who ruins all the fun. Did you really think that were we just going to quit? That we were just going to let everyone live happily ever after? Here the thing, Ezra, fairy tale endings don't happen in horror stories."

"I can't—I can't do this again. I have a family, please just let this go!" Ezra cried out wanting this to be over.

"Let this go?! Let this go!" She yelled losing the calm voice that she was previously using. She jabbed one of her bony fingers into Ezra's chest. "You! You took away the one thing that I was looking forward to! She was my sister!" She then regained her composer and lowered her voice to almost a whisper, but more of a hiss. "And if anyone was going to kill her it was going to be me."

"Im—im sorry, I've told you before I didn't mean to, I was just so angry, I saw red and- and- I-Tears were now streaming down Ezra face, unable to hold them back any longer. "I LOVED HER! And I thought….I saw her…but it was you. I THOUGHT SHE BETRAYED ME!" Ezra fell to the floor unable to stand, or think, or talk, or do anything other than cry.

"You, the silly little man child that you are, fell in love with a girl named Vivian Darkbloom." She said with a slight chuckle in her voice but also with a hint of disgust. "and then you went to visit the small town of Rosewood to visit her and you saw her with another man, a man named Ian Thomas. And being the heart broken bag of emotions that you were, you sat in the woods crying…..oh poor Ezra." She said now laughing at the mess that was Ezra, sitting on the floor hold his face in his hands.

"STOP, PLEASE." Ezra didn't want to hear any more of the story, he lived it every night in his dreams and hearing it from her face, it was too much. Ezra wanted to leave but Wren was still behind him with a gun pointed down at his back.

"Oh, no the stories has just begun. See Ezra, if you would have paid a little more attention to the hair you would have known it was me who was with Ian that night. But I guess not because you didn't know I existed, now did you? Luckily for me the night that you decided to confront "Vivian" on her indiscretions was also that night that I sent the very handsome Doctor I met in that God for saken hell hole of a mental institution, to do some checking up on my sis and he saw everything." At this she walked over to Wren and kissed him, as if it were a reward for seeing what he saw that night.

"You see Ezra, torturing my sister was a favorite pass time I had, I spent all that time in Radley thinking of ways I could make her life as miserable as she made mine. She was always the favorite, Mommy and Daddy loved her, tolerated Jason, and hated me. I was the one who they could never find time for, so they sent me away. And she always played the perfect daughter role, too but she was anything but perfect, she was just an evil bitch! When I broke out of Radley I was finally able to make her life hell and no one was going to stop me. That is until you killed her, you idiot!" She shout at Ezra. "But, what kind of person would I have been if that stopped me from having fun? And you know the rest don't you Ezra, you "randomly" bump into Aria, one of my sister's insufferable friends, at a bar, fall in love, happy, happy, happy. More people I could have done without get involved then stage a coup and once again everything is ruined! God, I hate when that happens!" She said angrily now staring out a nearby window. "But like I said before horror stories don't get fairy tale endings and I promise this one won't either." She hissed malevolently to no one in particular.

"I love Aria; I know I wasn't supposed to, I know it wasn't the plan but we have a life together now and real life and I can't hurt her again." Ezra said now standing up and drying the tears from his eyes.

She laughed as if someone had just told her the funniest joke. "Well, I think your love for Aria will fade away very soon."

"What?! What do you mean? I will always love her." Ezra said outraged at the thought of his love for Aria ever fading away.

She shook her head "Just go Ezra, go home to your perfect little life, in your perfect little world and shut out all the evil that lurks around the corner, while you still can anyway." She said with a sense of annoyance in her voice.

Once again Ezra did as he was told and walked towards the door.

"Wait." She said to him before he left looking down at the black gun still lying on the wooden floors. "Aren't you forgetting something?" She said nodding toward the gun.

Ezra looked at her questioning her intentions.

Wren still held his gun to Ezra's back as he walked over and bent down to retrieve the gun and put it back in his jacket pocket.

Ezra walked home knowing that this was not over, that he had went there to stop this and failed. It was a long walk home.