Page 130 of Creeping Lily

He tries to swing his legs off the bed, but the movement drains the color from his face and he collapses back into the mattress.

“We need to get you out of here first,” I tell him firmly. “It’s not safe.”

He nods once, but his voice is ragged. “Don’t have… time.”

His head starts to loll, and I catch it, shaking him lightly. “Stay with me. Don’t pass out.”

I still don’t know his name.

He swallows hard, breath hitching. “Find Lily.”

And then he’s gone again, unconscious, leaving me with nothing but the echo of his words—and the ticking clock that’s about to run out.

65

LILY

Idon’t know how long I’ve been down here.

Days blur into nights, nights blur into something worse. The air is heavy with damp, the kind that creeps into your marrow until you forget what warmth feels like. My back presses against the rough stone wall, its cold bite a constant reminder that this place isn’t meant to be survived—just endured.

I refuse to fold. I won’t shiver, won’t beg, won’t give them the satisfaction of seeing me broken.

At certain intervals—hours, maybe half-days, I can’t tell anymore—Bentley comes. He always comes alone. A sandwich. A bottle of water. Enough to keep me breathing, not enough to keep me strong. At first, I wouldn’t touch either, suspicion clawing at my throat. Poison seemed like the simplest explanation. But the more I thought about it, the more I realised: if they wanted me dead, I’d be lying in the dirt beside Linc already. Bentley had a clean shot back at the cabin. He could have ended me right then—my blood soaking into the same ground as Linc’s. But he didn’t. Which means he’s keeping me alive for something worse.

Something I haven’t seen coming yet.

The sound of footsteps tears through the silence, sharp and deliberate. They echo off the stone like a countdown, each step a nail driven into the coffin he’s building around me. My heart tries to pound its way out of my chest, but I force my breathing into something slow, even.

Bentley appears at the far end of the corridor, the dim light catching on the perfect lines of his tailored suit. He shouldn’t look this clean down here. It’s wrong. Like a vulture wearing silk.

He stops just outside the bars. The smile on his face is thin, carved from something cruel. It doesn’t reach his eyes—nothing ever does.

“You’re looking pale,” he says, voice dripping with fake concern. His gaze sweeps over me like he’s appraising damage on a piece of property, and my stomach twists, hard enough to make me nauseous.

I meet his stare head-on, my glare sharpened to a fine point. I want him to feel it. I want it to cut.

Because if this is the game we’re playing, I’m not going to lose by dying quietly.

“Let me out of here, Bentley. This is madness.” My voice scrapes against my throat, the words more plea than demand, but I refuse to lower my gaze.

“I gave you a choice, Lily.”

He says it like a saint recalling his charity, like I should drop to my knees in gratitude. That so-called choice—his generous alternative to leaving me down here with the rats—was to marry him. I’d rather suffer with vermin gnawing at my bones than tie myself to him for life.

Foolishly, I’d thought that after a few days, he might regain some sliver of humanity and let me go. Clearly, I was wrong. Bentley doesn’t do kindness. He only acts when there’ssomething in it for him. And his father? The thought of him is bile in my mouth; that pathetic, spineless excuse for a man is no better than his son.

“Choosing between you and the rats is not much of a choice,” I snap, every word edged like broken glass.

Bentley freezes. Just for a heartbeat. The tiny pause is enough to show that my words hit him where it hurts most. Then his face shifts, composure shattering like glass under a hammer. Fury rolls across his features, dark and sudden as a storm.

“You ungrateful little—” His voice cuts through the cold air like a whip as he steps closer to the bars. The polish in his posture cracks, exposing something raw and predatory beneath the tailored suit. “Do you have any idea what I’ve done for you? What I’ve sacrificed? And you dare compare me to vermin?”

I push forward until I’m so close I can see the faint tremor in his jaw. “What you’ve done for me?” My laugh is sharp, humorless. “You mean locking me in a cell and throwing me scraps of food like I’m an animal? You mean dangling some twisted offer like I should be grateful for the privilege of your ring on my finger? Or perhapsraping meis your idea of a sacrifice? Spare me the martyr act, Bentley. You’ve never done anything that didn’t serve you first.”

His jaw flexes. A vein ticks at his temple. “You think you’re clever, don’t you? That you’re above me. I’ve given you a way out, and you spit it back in my face.”

“A way out?” I let the scorn drip from my voice. “Marrying you isn’t an escape—it’s a death sentence. And I’d rather dig my own grave than live in yours.”