Page 132 of Creeping Lily

TITAN

Istalk the length of the cabin like a caged predator, boots hammering the warped floorboards, each thud a countdown to someone’s death. My fists are locked so tight my knuckles ache, bones grinding against bone, blood flooding my temples until my vision pulses red. The walls feel too close, the air too thin. Every nerve in my body is screaming for me to break something—splinter wood, crush bone, spill blood.

The pain in my side bites deep, a white-hot pull that claws at my breath, forcing me to stop for half a second. But the rage… the rage doesn’t stop. It swells in my gut, filling every hollow space until there’s nothing left of me but fire and teeth and the need to kill.

She’s gone.

Taken.

Bentley has Lily.

And I will rip him apart for it.

A sound tears out of me—low, feral, not meant for human ears—and I drive my fist into the table. Wood groans and the whole cabin rattles. The noise echoes off the walls, not just a sound but a promise.

“I’ll kill him.” My voice is a rasp, thick with fury, shaking with the weight of it. “I’ll kill them both.”

Justin shifts at the door, his hands raised like he’s edging up to a wild animal that might bolt—or bite. “Easy, man. You’re bleeding through your bandages. Sit down before you tear yourself apart.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” I snarl, but my legs betray me anyway, shoving me back into the chair like they know I need to conserve the energy for the slaughter to come. My breathing is jagged, chest heaving.

My mask lies across the room where I threw it, a black husk on the floorboards. I don’t know if I’ll ever put it back on. What’s the point? Justin’s already seen what’s underneath. The truth doesn’t hide behind silicone anymore—it’s written on my skin.

The scar along the side of my face burns, an ugly, twisted canyon carved there by fire and betrayal. My own personal brand, proof of the hell I’ve lived through. I see Justin’s eyes flick to it, quick but not quick enough, like he’s trying to work out how deep the damage goes—not just in my flesh, but in the destruction underneath it.

He doesn’t comment; his silence is louder than anything he could say.

Instead, he moves in, grabbing a clean bandage from the kit. His hands are steady, almost clinical, but there’s a weight behind them, like he knows this isn’t just about patching up skin. “You need to stay alive if you’re going to bring her back,” he says, voice low, careful, like he’s speaking to something that might explode if pushed too far.

Alive.

I will stay alive. But only so I can end him.

My hands lock so tight around the armrests that the wood groans. My pulse thunders, a war drum in my ears, and it’scosting me everything not to explode. Finally, I speak—low, hoarse, cracked like it’s dragging itself out of my chest.

“Ask me,” I say.

Justin blinks, confused. “Ask you what?”

“What you want to know.” My voice is a rasp, a dare. I want him to spit it out, to drag the truth into the open and choke on it with me.

He lets out a scoff. “Do you have all day?”

“What do you want to know?” I push, my gaze fixed on him.

His hands stop moving. He lifts his eyes to mine, watching me like he’s not sure I can take the hit. “What is she to you?”

It’s not the question I expected. It’s worse.

There’s no word for what Lily is to me—no language that can hold it without breaking apart. She’s bone and breath. Hunger and water. My past, my only present, my only future. She’s the tether keeping me from dissolving into nothing. She’s the knife that cuts me open and the hand that stitches me back together.

So I give him the only truth I have.

“She’s my umbilical cord,” I say. My voice is wreckage. “She’s the one who transcends time and place and trauma.”

He doesn’t speak after that, just nods like maybe now he understands the lengths I’ll go to.

By the timewe leave the cabin, Justin’s jaw is set in stone. Even after I’ve ripped away any fantasy he had of ending up with Lily, he’s resolved—unyielding. He’ll help me find her. Protect her. Save her. Even if she’ll never be his. That kind of loyalty is rare. Dangerous. And I’ll owe him for it.