Scene Seven The Distance He Keeps
Wren walked until the houses grew familiar, until the streetlamps were steady instead of flickering, until the night felt like night again instead of something watching.
She didn’t look back. Kade told her not to. And she didn’t know why she listened — only that she did.
Her footsteps slowed when she reached the corner near her building. She exhaled, trying to steady the adrenaline still humming under her skin. The danger felt distant now, like something she’d imagined.
But she hadn’t imagined him.
She turned the corner, finally letting herself breathe.
Then she froze.
Kade was still there.
Far back on the road.
Not close enough to be intrusive.
Not far enough to be gone.
He stood beside the bike, one hand on the seat, his posture still tight, still controlled, still watching the stretch of road she’d walked alone.
He wasn’t watching her. He wasn’t waiting for her. He wasn’t following.
He was making sure the dark didn’t follow her.
Wren’s breath caught in her throat.
He didn’t move when she saw him. He didn’t acknowledge her. He didn’t break the distance he’d kept since the moment he said her name.
He just stayed there — a shadow in the amber light, a quiet warning to whatever lived in the dark, a presence that didn’t belong to her but still felt like protection.
Wren lifted her hand slightly, not a wave, not a signal — just a small, instinctive gesture she didn’t understand.
Kade didn’t react.
He didn’t soften.
He didn’t nod.
He didn’t break.
He simply turned, slow and deliberate, and walked the bike back toward the road, the engine still off, the night closing around him like it knew him.
He didn’t look back.
Not at her. Not at the light. Not at the safety he’d made sure she reached.
He disappeared into the dark the same way he’d come out of it — quietly, dangerously, without asking for anything.
Wren stood there, pulse still uneven, watching the place where he’d vanished.
And she realized something she shouldn’t have:
He kept his distance not because he didn’t care — but because he cared in ways he didn’t trust.