Page 121 of Creeping Lily

When the final strip comes free, he lets the mask fall. The dull thud it makes when it hits the floor feels final. Funereal.

Lincoln.

Lincoln Walker.

The name detonates in my head. My vision narrows, walls bending inward, the world swaying under my feet. A hundred truths flash and shatter before I can grasp even one. Linc is alive. Linc has been following me. Linc has been hiding right here in plain sight.

And Linc wears the ruin of fire across his face—a molten tide of scar tissue, thick and rubbery, crawling over his cheek, devouring his ear, disappearing into his hairline. It’s enough to make my stomach pitch, but it doesn’t erase him. Somehow, impossibly… he’s still beautiful. A beauty sharpened by tragedy.

My knees buckle, the floor surging up to swallow me whole—until Bentley’s arm snakes around my waist, locking me upright. His grip is hard, possessive, keeping me standing when all I want is to collapse into the dark. The gun in his other hand never strays from his brother.

Linc doesn’t move toward me. Doesn’t say my name.

He just watches—silent, unblinking, his stillness heavy enough to press the air from my lungs.

And somehow, in that deadly quiet, when I should be falling apart completely, I feel steadied. Not saved. Not safe. Just… tethered.

“What happened to you?” My voice is barely a thread, splitting under its own weight.

I want to go to him. I want to reach past the years, the lies, and touch something real. But Bentley’s hand is a shackle around my arm, his fingers digging deep enough to bruise, his grip a silent threat.

Pieces start falling into place in my mind—crooked, jagged things that don’t fit clean, slicing as they land—but the whole picture remains just out of reach. The picture they’re building is wrong, jagged, ugly. And still incomplete.

“The fire got him,” Bentley says, voice flat. “It got him, but itcouldn’t keep him. Brother dearest tried to play hero and got scorched for his trouble.”

The way he says it—casual, cruel—curdles something in my gut. These two were once a matched set, tighter than blood, thicker than loyalty. Now they look like they’d gut each other in the street and walk away without a backward glance.

“Faked his own death,” Bentley adds, like he’s tossing out weather. “Had us all fooled. Until the Somer suicide.”

My head jerks up. “So what—” my voice spikes, breaking, “you dug up his grave?”

Bentley’s laugh is a low, sharp snort, like I’m the idiot here. “There was never a body to bury. Just a service. Empty coffin. All for show. Witnesses swore they saw him go into that house before it collapsed. Swore they never saw him come out.” His gaze cuts sideways, razor-edged, toward Linc. “So tell me, brother… how’d you pull that one off?Teachme.”

Linc’s eyes never leave Bentley’s. They’re cold enough to burn through him. And those eyes—Christ—they were blue once.

“Are you wearing contacts?” I ask before I can stop myself.

He scoffs. “We’ve got guns pointed at each other, and that’s your question?”

“You’re brothers,” I snap back, desperation leaking into my tone, like saying it might tether them to something human.

Linc shakes his head slow, deliberate, the tiniest shadow of pity in it. He knows. And I know he knows. This was never just about me—it’s about debts, about blood spilled and names carved into ledgers no one can burn.

Because whatever connection they had before is dead and buried. If brotherhood can’t survive, then whatever’s between them is blacker and deeper than I can fathom.

“Brothers don’t fake their deaths,” Bentley spits. “Brothersdon’t try to kill each other. Our bond ended the moment you took a life.”

“Our bond ended the momentyoutook a life,” Linc fires back, voice razor-sharp, each word a slow bleed. “And taking a life doesn’t always mean death.”

His eyes slice to me, and I flinch before he turns back to Bentley. His voice drops to something honed and dangerous. “You killed her before she was even born.”

The air shifts, heavy, electric. Bentley’s face hardens into stone. Linc’s voice isn’t just angry—it’s the sound of a man who’s been living with a knife in his chest for years and just found the hand that put it there.

“That’s different,” Bentley growls, his gun steady but his fingers flexing. “You kill for the rush. To feed whatever sickness has been growing in you since birth. You kill for destruction.”

“I kill those who hurt others,” Linc says, deadly calm. “And you’re high on that list.”

“Don’t,” I whisper. The taste of salt hits my lips before I realize I’m crying. “Don’t do this to each other.”