All the Little Raindrops

by Mia Sheridan

He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. —Friedrich Nietzsche

A year after he’d graduated, he opened his own private investigation firm and had not one regret.

You are the strongest person I’ve ever known. Find happiness.” “I have found happiness.” “Find more. Go after it with gusto in whatever way you are able. You did not crawl out of that cage to live a timid life.” CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE Evan saw them immediately—the feminine figure he’d know anywhere, still, even after all this time, holding the hand of the little girl. His little girl. The thought still made him dizzy. He’d spent the day attempting to organize his emotions, and he’d thought he had a handle on them, but one glance and the earthquake that had rolled under his feet when he’d first seen her was rumbling again, even if the magnitude was slightly less. It was dark on the beach, but the moon was high and bright, and starlight was scattered across the sky. Noelle turned as he approached, and though he couldn’t quite make out her expression, he thought by the way she held her shoulders she might be nervous. Once he’d read her so well. Now . . . “Hi,” he said. She gave him a small close-lipped smile. “Hi. How are you?” “I’m fine. How are you?”

“Fontane logged in and expected to see a stranger in a cage at the start of another game and instead saw his own son.

A game. It was all a game, and he was playing a different one, but he was playing one nonetheless.