Daddy: too damn bad, baby. don’t make me come and get you. i will toss you over my shoulder and walk you across campus like that.
Me: well now you’re just flirting with me
Daddy:come on up to Daddy’s office, sweetheart. I’ll flirt with you real good. If you’re a good boy and eat your lunch, I’ll bend you over my desk.
My knees went weak so suddenly I nearly missed a step on the uneven pavement.
Jesus Christ.
Even with my life actively collapsing into some sort of psychological thriller nightmare, Henry still somehow knew exactly how to get under my skin in under thirty seconds.
Me: is that a promise?
My mouth twitched before I could stop it, the expression feeling strange after the last few days of barely holding myself together. People passed around me in blurred streaks of umbrellas and backpacks while rain misted cold against my cheeks, but for one tiny second, the pressure inside my head loosened.
Because Henry hadn’t changed.
He still wanted me with this terrifying, overwhelming certainty that made the rest of the world feel thinner around the edges.
Loved me, too.
Enough that a man who survived monsters still touched me like I was the gentlest thing he’d ever found.
God.
I missed him already, which was ridiculous considering I’d seen him three hours ago.
I was smiling at my phone when someone stepped into my path.
“Easy there, kid.”
Every organ in my body seemed to stop functioning at once.
Otto smiled at me beneath the gray afternoon light, one hand curled around a coffee cup, rain catching lightly in the shoulders of his jacket like he’d just come from across campus.
My stomach hit the ground so fast it made me dizzy.
“Wh… what are you doing here?”
“Easy,” he repeated gently. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
You didn’t scare me, bitch.
You hollowed me out.
Rain gathered along the edge of his coat collar while he shifted the coffee cup to his other hand.
“The dean reached out to the precinct about security for that fundraising gala Wexley throws every spring. My old captain recommended me to help coordinate things.” A shrug lifted one shoulder. “Figured I’d volunteer. It gives me something to do besides yell at squirrels and bother your mother.”
My pulse slammed hard enough that I felt it in my teeth.
“You… you know Dean Randolph?”
“Just met him a few minutes ago. He runs a tight ship.”
Lies.
Otto Keller had not justaccidentallywandered onto the same campus where Henry worked while anonymous notes about Ashford started appearing in his office.
