Page 15 of Creeping Lily

TITAN

A fter I’ve carved Walt Barnaby into something less than a man and set his decrepit house ablaze, I slide behind the wheel of the Pontiac.

The cabin smells like burnt wood and copper, the smoke clinging to my clothes, seeping into my skin.

I turn the key, and the engine wakes with a low growl, like it knows we’re leaving a corpse behind.

I don’t look back. Not because I’m scared—hell, fear doesn’t live here—but because the past is ash now, curling into the night sky.

I did this place a favor. They might not say it out loud, but the relief will be there in the way they unlock their doors tomorrow, in the way mothers let their children walk to school on their own again.

The cops? They’ll pretend they don’t know. They’ve been trying to gut Barnaby for years. Now that someone else has done the cutting, they’ll bury the file in a desk drawer and never touch it again.

That’s the gamble I’m taking as I guide the Pontiac out of that nowhere town, the flames in the distance shrinking until they’re just another star swallowed by the dark.

Assignments like this are different. Off the grid.

No chain of command. No one breathing down my neck.

Just me, the target, and the knowledge that before sunrise, I’ll have fed the earth another piece of decay.

It’s intoxicating. But right now, I’m craving the quiet—my college town, my camouflage.

A life where I can walk into a coffee shop and order like a man who’s never slit a throat.

I’ll go back to that life. Sit in classrooms, pass strangers on the street, keep my head down. I’ll wait until the next assignment, and when it does, Goliath will call. Because the next name is always a heartbeat away.

Goliath isn’t just a secret society. It’s the secret society.

Born in shadow more than twenty years ago, out of the anger of people who’d seen justice fail too many times.

They didn’t just want change—they wanted retribution.

They didn’t petition. They didn’t protest. They built an empire in the dark and crowned themselves kings.

We don’t take oaths to governments. We don’t bow to laws written by men who’ve never bled for anything real.

We are judge, jury, executioner—because no one else will be.

Jurisdiction doesn’t matter. Morality is a shifting thing, bent into shape by necessity.

If the front door’s locked, we burn the house down.

If the system’s tangled in red tape, we strangle with it.

Goliath doesn’t just recruit. It consumes. It remakes you until there’s nothing left but the part of you that knows how to hunt.

It is my altar, my confessional, my war drum.

It’s the reason I’m still alive. The reason monsters like Barnaby aren’t. And it’s why I’ll never leave.

Because out there in the daylight, I’m just another face.

But under Goliath’s banner?

I am the shadow at the edge of the room, the last thing a sinner sees before the lights go out.

I swing the Pontiac into the parking lot of the old cathedral, its stone walls blackened by years of soot and neglect. The place looks abandoned—just another relic in a city full of forgotten history. Perfect cover.

I kill the engine, step out, and let the cold bite through my jacket. From the outside, there’s nothing but stillness. No cars. No voices. Just the hum of streetlights and the faint tang of rain in the air.

But the cathedral is a lie.

Inside, I slip past the two dummy levels—dusty pews, chipped statues, rows of hymnals no one’s touched in years—until the elevator hidden behind the confessional swallows me whole. The doors close, the hum drops an octave, and when they open again, I’m in another world.

Our world.

Underground, the headquarters is alive. Screens flash, printers spit out sheets of intel, people move like they’re part of one giant, disciplined organism.

It’s all efficiency here, but with an edge—everyone knows if this place is ever compromised, it won’t go quietly.

We can wipe it clean in minutes, leave nothing but rubble for anyone foolish enough to come looking.

“Heard you had a lot of fun with your latest acquisition without me, boss,” Clara croons as she glides past, her perfume a soft contrast to the hard, electric air down here.

Clara’s my PA, but she’s been circling the idea of field work for months, hungry for the kill.

She doesn’t see the danger in it yet. I do.

That thought—losing her—pricks at something deep inside me.

I wouldn’t call it a heart; whatever was left of that burned out years ago.

But I know she’s not made for this. She’s too bright, too soft.

The kind of softness predators smell like blood in the water.

I’ve seen what this world does to people like her, and I’m not willing to let it happen .

“Believe me, you don’t want any part of this world,” I tell her, my voice low. I already know she won’t listen.

She scoffs, flipping her hair. “You’ve got a meeting with Justin Collins in forty,” she says, sliding a tablet across the table to me.

I frown, scanning the name. “Remind me why I’m meeting with him?”

Her lips curl, sly. “Because his sister is Lily Snow’s roommate.”

The name stops me cold.

Lily Snow.

It hits like a wire pulled taut in my chest. The sterile hum of the HQ fades, replaced by a pulse in my ears. I haven’t heard her name in months—not since I swore I was done looking, done tracking shadows I couldn’t catch. And yet… here it is, dropped in my lap like bait on a hook.

Clara is still talking, rattling off updates on other cases, but I’m not hearing it. My mind’s already shifting, recalibrating. If Justin is the way in, then Lily is on the other side of that door. The only question now is whether I open it gently… or kick it clean off its hinges.

I let the corner of my mouth twitch up, a slow, deliberate smirk. “Then I guess we’d better make a good first impression.”

Justin Collins stands in front of me like he owns the space—shoulders squared, jaw locked, eyes holding that perfect blend of curiosity and defiance. He’s green, untouched by the kind of dirt this world grinds into a man’s bones. An anomaly.

I don’t rush. I cross the room with slow, deliberate steps, the echo of my boots striking the concrete bouncing off the cathedral’s stone walls.

The mask covers my face completely, its leathery surface catching what little light filters through the overhead bulbs.

His gaze flickers to it, a momentary tell, a sliver of uncertainty.

He hides it quick, forcing his features back into something steady.

I can respect that. Fearlessness is rare. Dangerous, too.

“Security measure,” I say, my fingers brushing the edge of the mask. My voice is low and even, the kind that carries weight without volume. “In this business, trust is currency. And I don’t know you well enough to spend what little I have of it.”

Justin’s mouth quirks into a dry, almost amused smile. “Nor can I trust you.”

The corner of my lip lifts beneath the mask. I expected that. “The difference is,” I tell him, my tone dropping to something darker, “I have far more to lose than you ever will. And I will protect this institution at all costs.”

He laughs under his breath. Not a nervous sound. Bold. Too bold. Most men either drop their eyes or try to talk their way out of my focus. He stands his ground. That could be strength. Or it could be stupidity.

I fold my arms, tilt my head just slightly—studying him the way you study a blade, weighing if it will cut clean or break in your hand. “Word is, you’re having trouble with your latest assignment,” I say, letting the accusation land heavy.

He doesn’t blink. “What’s Goliath’s interest in Lily Snow?”

That earns him a step forward. I close the space between us until the air feels tighter. “That’s none of your damn business, Collins. You have a job—do it. Do it well. And don’t ask questions.”

His jaw tenses. “She’s living with my sister,” he says, calm but unwilling to back down. “If Bethany’s in danger, I have a right to know.”

“She’s not,” I answer flatly, cutting him off before the thought can grow teeth .

“You can’t promise me that,” he fires back.

My patience thins like stretched wire, but I keep it out of my voice.

Instead, I take another step forward so I’m casting him in shadow, reminding him without words who carries the weight here.

“You were handed this assignment because your position makes you useful. You’re close enough to Lily Snow to keep tabs without raising suspicion.

That’s your role. You either take it, or I give it to someone who will. ”

Justin doesn’t answer. He just holds my stare, the quiet between us thick with things neither of us will say out loud. I see the shift in his eyes, the slow recognition of where the line is—and that he’s standing on it.

I step back, breaking the tension but not the control. “This isn’t a discussion. Keep your focus on Lily. Keep your sister out of this. And don’t make me regret giving you this assignment.”

Then I turn on my heel and leave him there, bathed in the cathedral’s dim, echoing light. He’s a puzzle I haven’t decided if I want to solve yet—but until I do, I’ll be watching every move he makes.