Page 135 of Creeping Lily

My pulse hammers in my ears, drowning out everything else. I could shove him back, drive my knee into his gut, claw that key from his suit, and end this here.

I hold his stare, my fingers curling into fists so tight my nails bite into my palms. The weight of the decision presses against my ribs. One move. One chance.

The decision hits me like a jolt of electricity. One second I’m pressed against the wall, the next I’m lunging forward—fingers snatching at his pocket like a starving animal going for meat.

For a fraction of a second, I actually feel the cool metal of the key beneath my fingertips.

Then Tom’s hand is on my throat.

It’s not a grip—it’s a vise. My feet leave the ground before I can suck in another breath. He slams me back against the wall, the back of my skull cracking so hard against the concrete that white bursts of light explode behind my eyes. Pain ricochets through my head, stealing my sense of up and down.

“You stupid little—” His words cut off as I dig my nails into the back of his hand, desperate to make him let go. But he’s not letting go. Not until I see black.

Air shreds out of my lungs in ragged gasps as he finally hurls me away from him. My body slams into the floor with a sickening thud, my shoulder taking the brunt of it. Pain burns down my arm like wildfire, my breath coming in wet, choking gulps.

I try to push myself up—fight my way to my knees—but the room tilts violently.

Tom’s already on me again, his shoes crunching on the damp floor. He grabs my wrist this time, twisting it hard enough to send a scream tearing out of me.

“You’ll regret this,” he says, voice a cold, oily snarl.

I spit blood at his shoes. It earns me another savage yank that nearly wrenches my arm from its socket. My head snaps to the side, vision blurring. My shoulder screams, my throat burns, and somewhere deep inside I know—if I don’t find a way out other soon, I’m going to die right here in this basement.

Tom drops me like I’m nothing, but only so he can stand over me and watch. He wants me broken. Wants me small. Wants me to know he can crush me whenever he feels like it.

And I hate him for it. Hate him enough that if I survive this, I’ll make sure he chokes on that smug grin before he takes his last breath.

68

LILY

The stone is merciless. It scrapes at the soles of my feet, its cold climbing my bones like frost clawing up a windowpane. Every step I take is soundless but weighted, the scuff of skin against rock syncing with the dark drumbeat in my skull. The air tastes stale—mildew clinging to damp walls, rust souring the back of my tongue, metallic and suffocating, like a tomb sealed shut for a hundred years.

Even the rats are gone. No skittering in the corners, no flash of beady eyes to remind me I’m not the only thing alive down here. Just silence. Just me.

And the walls.

They aren’t kind, but they’re all I have. Jagged stone, sharp enough to bite, unyielding enough to remind me what cages are meant to do. My fingers trail over the grooves I’ve carved into them: a rough circle, a crooked arrow, a broken line. To anyone else, they’re nothing. To me, they’re proof I still exist. Proof I’m leaving a mark, however small. These scratches are my oxygen when hope feels like a dead language.

So I keep moving. I don’t sit. I don’t stop. Stillness is surrender,and I’ve already learned the cost of surrender. I’ll die before I let Bentley mistake my silence for submission again.

His voice slithers into my head like smoke, uninvited and poisonous.You’re mine now, Lily. Always will be.

The memory coils around my ribs, barbed and suffocating.

The scrape of leather against stone snaps me out of my thoughts. My pulse spikes, my body tensing like a bow pulled too tight.

Then—he’s there.

Bentley fills the doorway like a shadow, tall and composed, framed by the iron bars and the faint light behind him. The dim glow catches on the edges of his tailored suit, cruelly immaculate against the filth of my cell. His presence is enough to make the air heavier. His fingers twirl the cell door key between them, slow, deliberate, like it’s a game he’ll never lose.

“Father tells me my little jailbird tried to make a break for it.” His voice drips condescension, every word stretched thin and sharp, like he’s savoring the taste of my failure.

I don’t let myself look at his smirk, at that perfect, hollow mask of a face he wears like armor. No. My gaze locks on the key.

The key is the only truth here. The only power that matters.

One day—if I can survive long enough—I’ll take it. Tear it from his hand. Rip it from his corpse. I don’t care how. And when I do, I won’t just walk out of this cell.