Page 145 of Creeping Lily

He doesn’t look at me when he says, “I don’t understand you. Him. Any of this.”

I lean my head back against the seat, eyes tracing the cracks in the ceiling fabric. “You’re not supposed to.”

His laugh is sharp, humorless. “That’s your excuse? That I couldn’t understand? I watched you go through hell and tear yourself apart for months, Lily. For a ghost. And when he finally crawls out of the dark, you just—” He breaks off, his hand curling into a fist. “You let him in like he never left.”

I turn toward him, my voice low, trembling but firm. “Because he never did.”

Justin finally meets my eyes. There’s hurt there, sharp and deep, but also something softer—resignation. He needs the truth, and for once, I give it without hesitation.

“When I was sixteen, Bentley Walker and his friends hurt me. It killed Lincoln that he didn’t save me, because he was supposed to be there that night. He stood between me and a nightmare, and then… he was gone. But even in silence, it felt like like every breath I took, some part of him was there, hidden in the shadows.”

I swallow hard, pushing the words past the ache in my throat. “You can’t compete with that. No one could. Because it wasn’t about choice. It was… inevitability.”

Justin’s shoulders sag, and he stares out into the dark lot, lips pressed tight. “So where does that leave you, Lily? If he doesn’t walk out of that house? If the rage finally eats him alive?”

The question guts me. Because I don’t have an answer.

My chest aches with memories, years of silence, nights I swore I hated him for leaving, for haunting me like unfinished music. But even through all of that, I knew. If he ever came back, I’d burn for him all over again.

“He’ll come back,” I say finally, my voice more prayer than conviction. “Because he has to. Because I’m still here, waiting.”

Justin’s jaw flexes, his profile carved in shadow. He doesn’t argue, doesn’t push. He just nods, slow and heavy, like a man who’s finally lost a war he’s been fighting alone.

The car fills with quiet again, but it feels different now—less like pressure, more like grief. Justin grieving what we never really had. Me grieving what I might lose if Titan doesn’t return.

I wrap my arms around myself, shivering though the night isn’t cold, and whisper the truth into the silence.

“Titan isn’t a choice, Justin. He’s the scar I learned to live with. And you can’t just erase scars.”

Justin doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to.

Because we both know what I mean.

74

TITAN

The silence after killing is never clean.

It’s thick, clotted, suffocating. Like the air itself has learned how to keep its silence.

Bentley’s body twitches once before it goes still, the last shudder of a brother I should have loved. Tom’s head lolls forward, his blood pooling, soaking the floorboards. The stink of iron, piss, and fear fills the room, seeping into my skin, my lungs, my bones.

I stand there for a long time, knife dangling from my hand, dripping. My knuckles are split, my chest heaving, and all I feel is the furnace still raging inside me. Fury doesn’t leave easy—it clings like smoke, choking, demanding more.

They’re gone. Finally. Erased from Lily’s world.

But the truth carves into me with every heartbeat:I killed my father. I killed my brother.And I don’t feel regret. Not one shred. Only the ache in my chest where something human should be.

I wipe the blade on Tom’s shirt, slow and deliberate, watching the red smear across the fabric. My hands are stained, my clothes soaked, and when I catch sight of myself in the dark window, I almost don’t recognize the man staring back. Hollow-eyed. Blood-slick. Not Titan, not Lincoln. Just the monster they made.

The monster Lily still chose.

A rasping laugh tears from my throat—broken, joyless. If she could see me now, she’d never look at me the same again. She begged me to let the mask go, but maybe this—this bloodied ruin—is all I am without it.

The house groans around me, settling like it knows it’s holding ghosts now. My boots drag through blood as I move toward the door, every step heavy, echoing with the weight of what I’ve done.

Outside, the night air slams into me, cold and sharp, trying to cleanse what can’t be cleansed. I tilt my head back, suck it in, but the taste of copper clings to my tongue.