◆◆◆ Chapter 18 ◆◆◆
~ Niklaus Henderson ~
I watched Kris climb the stairs to her apartment building, skirt swaying with each step, the streetlamp catching the soft waves of her hair and turning them copper-gold. She paused at the chipped green door, glanced back once—small smile, shy and real, the same smile she’d given me when I’d first kissed her in the library stacks after untying her wrists and feeling her pulse race under my thumb. Then she disappeared inside, the door clicking shut like a period at the end of a sentence I wasn’t ready to finish.
I stayed in the driver’s seat a moment longer, engine idling, hands still wrapped around the wheel. My chest felt strange—light, almost painful. Happy.
I hadn’t felt this kind of quiet joy in years. Not since before Martha, before the cras
